NEW 54 Golf Podcast: Patrick Reed Contract, LIV Golf Changes, Return to NY

On this week's 54 Golf podcast episode, Aaron and Jay discuss Patrick Reed's DP World Tour victory in Dubai, his unanticipated answer to a question about his LIV Golf contract, changes to the League's broadcast for 2026, and the return to Trump Bedminster.

Click here to watch the full episode.

A full transcript of the episode is below.

All right, welcome to 54 Golf. This week we are going to cover Patrick Reed's Hero Desert Dubai Classic Victory and his random answer to a random question right afterwards.

Jason (00:13.679)

Where? Something fall off today.

54 Golf (00:40.396)

the Live Golf broadcast changes, including a new studio taking control of the reins and already making some significant switches. And then touch in on the announcement that Live Golf is returning to New York slash New Jersey at Bedminster, home of our first 54 Golf events.

Let's go. All right. So, um, let's start with Patty Reed. Put on a big performance in Dubai guy loves playing everywhere in the world. So no surprise that he took down this event, uh, led pretty much the entire way, uh, outside of the first round went going away in the final round. Just needed to shoot a 72 to win by four strokes. Field was pretty stacked.

Rory, Tommy, Victor, Shane, T-Rell Hatton, Waco and DJ, missed the cut, Pooj and McKibbin, Thomas Detry, all finished inside the top 20.

Let me just throw this out there is the biggest mistake Keegan made at Bethpage, not putting Patrick Reed on the team.

Jason (01:58.766)

Obviously We all we all say it all the time that Patty Reed at any moment in boom and I think the whole Captain America thing I mean, it's just stupid not to have him on any type of team event He thrives in the Ryder Cup. That's just his mentality and Yeah, it was a huge mistake not saying we the one not saying you know, whatever but I think it's Huge mistake on his part and again winning this he can do it at any moment. It's Patty Reed

54 Golf (02:26.574)

Super interesting. He said right before the event, he kind of called his shot. He's like, I'd like to win this event so that I can pay off my DP world tour fines for the year. And his fines were, his fines were roughly about 1.5 million and he won $1.53 million this week.

Jason (02:37.56)

Yeah

Jason (02:42.85)

That's hilarious. That's hilarious. Good for him. Great call.

54 Golf (02:47.896)

great call by him. he had.

Jason (02:49.985)

I wish I could do that in life, right? Right today, I'm gonna pay off that credit card bill. That's awesome, for him.

54 Golf (02:55.694)

Must be nice. Must be nice to be Patrick Reed. he did interesting. He had a really actually crazy time in his four rounds, nine bogeys, but he played 21 of the 72 holes on their par. So two Eagles and 19 birdies. If I'm doing the math right to get them to 14 under. So 14 under through four days with nine bogeys. That's, that is some impressive golf. Um, so many, so many more cool stats.

Jason (03:19.949)

Amazing. That's awesome.

54 Golf (03:25.23)

he just, what you know about Patrick Reed is that he doesn't really have a weakness to his game. You know, like when he goes out there, he's going to drive the ball. Well, he was 14th and shots gained drive it, strokes, gain driving, excuse me. He was 17th in strokes, gain approach. He was 21st in strokes, gained putting, which put him first overall strokes, gained Tita green first overall strokes gained around the green.

His game is just, I mean, he, I'm going to say it like when he gets to Augusta this year, there's just, he's got to be one of the favorites to win another green jacket for sure.

Jason (04:05.405)

They won't say it is televised won't say it is but he definitely is he's a well-rounded player He's got everything as long as he puts it together, which is It's the common thread of our of our arguments back and forth on this pod But like if he puts it all together like a lot of the other guys, there's no weaknesses in that game As long as he stays okay between the ears Which he's pretty level head he's pretty level

54 Golf (04:29.346)

Which for him, I was going to say, which, which for him is actually one of his strengths. Like I've, if anyone, if anyone has gotten the absolute acts from the golf media, I mean, it's Patrick Reed, right? Like he's. Anytime he tees it up, he hears nothing but negativity coming from everywhere, including, you know, golf quote fans who, you know, still haunt him about everything. He gets taunted on the course.

Jason (04:34.443)

Yeah, not much rattle, Tim.

Jason (04:42.701)

Sure.

54 Golf (04:57.55)

He gets cat calls. He gets, you know, all the negative publicity and he just goes out there, travels the world. Yeah. He travels the world. He plays, you know, 30. He It's incredible. I can't think of her name, Dottie, uh, whatever her name is, uh, the LPGA, um, you know, not Dottie Pepper. don't know what happened. Uh, she, she goes out there right after the event, like right after he wins and she's like,

Jason (05:01.965)

Sure, it's flattering.

Jason (05:18.528)

Daddy's pepper.

54 Golf (05:26.392)

Patrick Reed winning this week. Isn't that so great? He hasn't played. We haven't seen him play much golf in the last year. The guys played 33 events in the last 12 months. Like it's just such a stupid comment.

Jason (05:35.369)

Yeah, goes out, plays, he plays great. And he doesn't get recognized enough for it.

54 Golf (05:42.134)

He plays on three, he plays on three tours, three league slash tours all year round. He's out there grinding, making birdies everywhere around the world. And, know, and he just gets all this negativity speaking of questions that they asked him. One of the reporters afterwards. He just kind of threw this out there because of the Brooks stuff, because of the Bryce and stuff about his contract. And Patrick Reed had a really interesting answer. He said, I'm a free agent right now, as far as I know.

I think haven't talked to my team in a while, but my contract was up at the end of this past season. And as far as I know, I have not resigned with the live golf league. And then he kind of went on to say, you know, things don't work out. I'll play on the DP world tour. I'll try to get into the top 10 so I can get my PGA card back. Golf's an interesting place with this. Those were his words. Yeah. Yeah. And, like,

Jason (06:34.879)

Don't do his words? Interesting, interesting.

54 Golf (06:40.618)

In the same breath, he said he would be shocked or surprised if he wasn't in Riyadh in two weeks, teeing it up with the four aces. So, you know, he expects the contract to get.

Jason (06:49.321)

Is it fluffery? think he's doing it on purpose for the media? Like just to get them all riled up and then just be like, you guys are idiots. Of course I'm pointing for Lou.

54 Golf (06:53.587)

There's two.

54 Golf (06:58.222)

I think there's two sides to it. There's certainly Patrick Reed versus the media. Definitely. You know, there's definitely something there. The second side of it, think is with free agency, you know, Brooks kind of opened this door, like live, letting Brooks go back to the PGA tour, kind of opened up this door. Like these guys are kind of free agents. Now Patrick Reed does not fit into the player return program or whatever the PGA tour calls it. He hasn't won a major in that timeframe. But, you know, obviously these guys.

Jason (07:19.497)

Yep. Yep.

54 Golf (07:27.104)

are negotiating contracts and in every sport you see this happen in the media, like they use headlines to try to get the most out of their contract. sure.

Jason (07:37.396)

Definitely definitely He says there's a chance I might go back live boom there we go next 100 million

54 Golf (07:40.458)

54 Golf (07:45.07)

I mean, yeah, a couple, a couple extra zeros on the end of the check. It's like, so easy. Um, I'll put you on the spot. I know one of our, one of the friends of the show, T times pub, who is great guy, see him at every event. Uh, he's always, he's always watching. He said he will eat a four ACEs hat on a live stream. If Patrick Reed is not on the team because he already appeared at media week. He's already appeared in the under armor stuff, you know,

Jason (07:48.807)

Exactly.

54 Golf (08:14.68)

Four Aces and Under Armour signed a deal this year. I'll put you on the spot. Chances that Patrick Reed does not play on the Libgolf League in 2026.

Jason (08:29.419)

I'm gonna go less than a 10 % chance. Less than a 10 % chance. I think there's always that, like you said, that transition now between, hey, you wanna come back, you wanna be on the tour, pay this, pay that. He doesn't have that option to go right back, but you never know what other ways he may be able to pay back. I think Liv is the perfect place for him. I think he'd be crazy to leave. I think when I think of Liv and I think of the party, I think of the...

54 Golf (08:32.61)

course.

Jason (08:56.446)

Golf but louder, think of all those kind of things. Patrick Reed fits right into that bill and I think he's perfect for it. I think the Liv fans appreciate him so much that I think he is home for him.

54 Golf (09:09.44)

agreed, especially traveling the world. loves to be out on the road. loves the life of, you know, he's just proved it. He loves the life of living out of a suitcase and just playing good golf at good courses around the world. And that's not going to change for sure. but live golf has changed a little bit, heading into this season. And part of that is in the broadcast booth, Pat Perez exiting.

attempting to get into the PGA Champions Tour. We saw that he got reinstated, not quite sure if he's going to play this season or not. Those details have not come out yet. Liv added Henny Zuhl, LPGA star, of course, well known for her broadcasting on the course. So she's already covered it for Sky Sports and

done plenty of events where she's an expert in this and gonna definitely add something to it. Rumors about Nicholas Kosartz, long time, very good golfer, pretty good in the broadcast booth as well. Being added to the team, of course, they still have Arlo White, Jerry Foltz, shout out Jerry, David Faraday, Sue Ann Hang. The booth.

Jason (10:32.521)

18.

54 Golf (10:34.016)

I mean, yeah, the booth, but it feels like kind of crowded now, you know? Like we got Rachel Drummond, we got Annabelle, we've got, you know, we got all these, you know, all these on course kind of, you know, side story types of people. It'll be interesting to see how they actually put it together. Live Heading Towards 72 Holes. Looking more like your traditional broadcast.

where they may have three or four people walking the course versus just Sue Ann and Dom. We haven't heard anything about Dom yet.

Jason (11:12.156)

MOKE!

Jason (11:16.01)

Hope Dom, I hope Dom is still there. Great guy. Loved running into him, meeting him. I think it live is different than the other tour because you can have a ton of people on the course because the shotgun starts, right? So you're all out there. Action is now. Action is not, okay, the big guys come later or we're gonna follow this guy, this guy, guy. The action is now. So having five, six people spread across the course at the same time on the ground level, I think would be a benefit.

I don't think anybody would complain about that.

54 Golf (11:47.694)

Yeah, definitely not. Especially people as talented as they have. They did get, they did give away or sell, we don't have the details, but the broadcast team, which was traditionally all people hired by Liv, Everwonder Studio is going to be doing all of the Liv Golf broadcasts this year. And who is Everwonder Studio? They're the people who put on the Jake Paul fights.

the NFL broadcast on Netflix. They did the showdown where Brooks and Bryson took on Rory and Scotty. They are doing the Iverson series on Prime. Like these are guys who are, they're in the sports space. They're in the sports storytelling space. Like a very up and coming independent studio who has, you know, a vision of course for Liv. Like we know what

Jason (12:31.242)

nice.

54 Golf (12:47.224)

Greg Norman and the Live Golf Team's vision was before Scott O'Neill. Let's be as different as we possibly can. Let's disrupt golf. Let's make it teams. Put this big pylon down the side of the screen. Make it look like F1. know, do all the things that are very different from the PGA Tour. But we hadn't sort of had a live event already. We had the promotions event. And one thing people noticed right away, and I'm going to share my screen right here so you can see it.

54 Golf (13:42.606)

So one thing that got leaked, and people were really talking about it, was the new pylon. And I want to get your initial thoughts on this. It certainly looks nothing like the old one.

Jason (13:54.12)

Mm-mm. No.

54 Golf (13:58.392)

First take.

Jason (13:58.471)

So we're looking at team logo on the left, 16 to play, all similar stuff that was on the last one. On the bottom, lead group.

What hole they're on?

Jason (14:14.289)

wait let me move my thing here okay so lead group and it'll show who the lead group is and then it shows who's in the lead so you're two winners you don't like it? you do what's your thought?

54 Golf (14:25.218)

Right. yeah, mean, okay. So first, the first take, I certainly like.

Jason (14:30.088)

I like having the pictures too. You know, people who may be just getting into 54 Golf have or if it's just getting into live golf, you know, that may not know some of the players that aren't huge names can put a faith to the name, you know.

54 Golf (14:42.974)

Definitely like that. Definitely love the graphic look. You know, it looks like maybe John Rahm's hitting the ball because he's in green or maybe the leader will always be in green or something like that. The smaller version up top there, like between 16 to play in the lead group, that smaller kind of scoreboard that we're looking at here. It's interesting. Last year, the pylon, or forever, the pylon has been long.

Jason (14:52.262)

Right.

54 Golf (15:12.536)

takes up the whole screen. You know, you'd have 20 names on the side that you could see in the top, you know, three, four teams would be there on the. Right. And then off to the side there, I think it's interesting that they've made the team competition much smaller, which is something that Liv has, you know, made part of their brand.

Jason (15:19.876)

And you'd watch them move up and you kind of see where they play.

54 Golf (15:41.696)

are the teams. And now we see it in a much smaller portion of the screen. And I'm wondering if this has something to do with appeasing the casual fan, one who really probably isn't interested as much in team golf, and more focusing on the individual competition. Yeah, they want to know who's in the lead. They want to know who. They want to know the guy. You know, they don't...

Jason (15:43.27)

Yeah.

Jason (16:02.662)

who just wants to see a number and a leader.

Jason (16:10.35)

Yeah, right. That's what they've been ingrained in their. Yeah.

54 Golf (16:11.414)

necessarily are, they're not really.

54 Golf (16:16.736)

Right. And if you're scrolling through the channels and you land on the live golf event, like, and you see all that's that clutter on the screen. I, know, I'm on social media a lot. And one of the biggest complaints is how that pylon takes up so much space on the screen. And now it looks like, you know, that bottom section there with the lead group, like that can disappear. And all you'll see in the top corner is kind of that those, those top two boxes.

Jason (16:44.443)

Right, you always know who's in the lead in the top 5 and what lead group.

54 Golf (16:48.68)

And, and what, and what, yeah. And I think, you know, they can always change what group tell you what hold they're on. Like, I really think that is, I think it's a positive. do. think reaching out towards, you know, I think they've gotten all the people who wanted to, to disrupt golf. You know what I mean? I think those types.

Jason (17:06.372)

Yeah. It's cleaner looking.

54 Golf (17:11.404)

Yeah, those types of people who wanted a very disruptive version of the game, this louder, this, you know, totally different than the PGA tour. think those people are already here. And so if you're going to go after new people or different group of people, give them something that they are familiar with. if it's just a scoreboard, like that does not impact in any way my viewing experience.

Jason (17:31.365)

Mm-hmm.

54 Golf (17:38.624)

You know, like as somebody who was, who's interested in shotgun starts, team golf, those types of things. really is it negative? Isn't not a negative for me in any way as somebody who really enjoys the non PGA aspect to it. And if you want to take some fans from the tour, you want to take some fans from the DP world tour and make them live fans as well. You know, give them the things that they're asking for 72 holes.

a leaderboard that looks familiar to them. I think it's great. mean, I think doing the right thing for sure.

Jason (18:12.687)

Haters are the fan, not the tour, you know?

54 Golf (18:17.294)

All right. And before we get out of here, we got to talk about Bedminster. Liv coming back to New York. Your boys will be there. Of course, the Liv golf league has a history with Trump courses and Trump Bedminster. 100%. Uh, so glad to see it back on the schedule. They were there in 2022 and 2023. We were there to watch cam and the ripper win. Uh,

Jason (18:44.419)

We know the lay of land of that course.

54 Golf (18:44.526)

Such a fun time. Great course for it. Yeah. Easy, you know, easy course to see a lot of golf at the same time. lot of, you know, greens and tee boxes right near each other. It's not a big, huge spread out property. A nice venue, not that close to New York City, but close enough where they can claim New York right across the river. Certainly get, you know, the casual and coming off the Ryder Cup.

People want to see, you know, Bryson play golf again, of course. And so the guys who didn't get in the Ryder Cup, Patrick Reed, you know, those types of golfers, they can come see them. This is an obvious slam dunk of a win. it's going to fit in in a very strange time in the schedule, very late in the year, first week of August, your prediction for the weather in New York as you're dealing with ridiculous amount of snow today.

Jason (19:17.869)

yeah.

54 Golf (19:44.172)

Prediction for weather in New York slash New Jersey, August 6th through 9th.

Jason (19:50.425)

We still might have the two fetus and we're getting dumped right now. It still might not be melted by then. know, August is hot pretty much anywhere. It could be 95 and humid. It could be 82 and beautiful, low humidity. So it really depends, but I think August is an awesome month. Probably gonna be hot and humid. Also, one note, side note, anybody that doesn't go to Bedminster for this event, you should probably book your Uber well in advance.

54 Golf (19:53.176)

Thank

Jason (20:19.684)

Cause you won't get out of there. You won't get out of there. But yeah man I'm looking forward to that. That'll be a great event again. Always is.

54 Golf (20:20.035)

today.

54 Golf (20:24.098)

Yeah.

54 Golf (20:30.31)

I mentioned the schedule, 14 events, course, for Liv starting in Riyadh in February and also hitting Adelaide in February. So give us a good time to run down the schedule from February 4th until March 22nd, which is a very short window of time. Five events are going to be played. Riyadh at night, Adelaide, Hong Kong, which is an awesome course, great venue for Liv, Singapore, staple.

Jason (20:57.049)

Okay.

54 Golf (21:00.13)

Beautiful venue, the new course in South Africa. That's the five to start the year for live golf, which is going to be absolutely sick in like a seven week span.

Jason (21:12.6)

Yeah.

54 Golf (21:15.276)

They still have one more.

Jason (21:15.427)

It's going to be awesome. I'm looking forward to the South African course. I'm sure a lot of those guys are too.

54 Golf (21:18.85)

For sure. For sure. Obviously former Stinger GC and now Southern guards. That event is, I mean, the amount of tickets that are going to be sold will definitely rival Adelaide. They already have a rivalry, Australia and South Africa. This golf rivalry is just as big as, you know, rugby and soccer and those types of things, from South Africa, you know, now we get into kind of like major season where.

The Masters, the PGA, the US Open and the Open are played. So, LiveGolf goes Mexico City in April, Virginia in May, back across the pond to Andalusia, which is again another staple in the LiveGolf League in the beginning of June, come back to the United States for Louisiana at the end of June. Then UK.

Jason (22:15.427)

Mm-hmm.

54 Golf (22:19.242)

late July, Indy and Michigan, just like last year to finish up. There's still one event left to be determined. imagine it's going to be somewhere in the United States. have five events. They have five in the United States already. I'm sure that they're working on that sixth U S event. So schedule is going to be sick. we're already there. I mean, we're basically at the start of the lived golf season.

Jason (22:25.336)

Hmm.

Jason (22:31.747)

I'm fucking driving.

54 Golf (22:47.498)

Next week we will get into, yeah, two weeks. mean, two weeks from, from right now, we'll be talking about Riyadh under the lights, which is going to be sick. was sick last year. If you've not seen night golf, night professional golf is so good. but next week on our show, we'll do our predictions for the year. We'll give you who is going to be, you know, the individual champion, which team is going to surprise some, some people. And then.

Jason (22:48.055)

I wanted a couple of weeks.

Thanks.

54 Golf (23:16.044)

I'm thinking maybe we dive into the new signings because we had so many this year, so many young guys coming into the league, even some proven guys coming into the league. So maybe we'll do like a live golf rookie of the year prediction. We'll do our prediction show next week. It's going to be sick. So, that's, that's all we got this week. Thank you guys so much for tuning in, listening, make sure you follow us. Jerome's not here, but I'll do his part.

Jason (23:29.347)

Thanks.

54 Golf (23:43.574)

Make sure you follow us on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. We've got a new social media guy. Shout out Nick Rush. So you'll see some changes kind of to our format, kind of to our formats for our posts, things like that. There's something that you guys are interested in that we don't do yet, which I cannot imagine there's something that we don't do yet. But if there's something that you're interested in that we don't do yet that you've seen elsewhere and you're like, this would be perfect for you guys. We, we're happy to do it.

Jason (23:53.516)

Thank you, boy.

54 Golf (24:12.578)

Golf season is officially here. and.

Jason (24:15.99)

You're up for a good season, boy.

54 Golf (24:18.508)

we're gonna have a really, really fun time. So thanks so much for listening. Let's get the fuck out of here.

Quotes, data, and photos courtesy of LIV Golf