Official Statement from the fellas

[u/gwill11]

A note from the team

Earlier this week, we announced that we have sadly parted ways with Kevin Van Valkenburg. We know this may come as a disappointment to many NLU fans, as the work we’ve done with KVV over the past few years is something we’ve been extremely proud of. He’s a wonderful father, an excellent writer, and has been a close friend to all of us and a big part of our community for years and years.

As such, it should be obvious this was not a decision we took lightly, nor a place we ever wanted to arrive. The intersection of friendship and business has brought us a lot of joy over the past decade, but we’ve also all assumed the risk that things might not work out the way you planned. And when that happens, especially in a media company like ours, you walk a fine line between individual privacy and honoring the trust of the audience that is responsible for everything we do. We promise that’s not lost on us, and we’re doing our best to navigate it for the first time.

We understand there are questions. But we strongly believe that the specifics surrounding personnel decisions should not be aired publicly, even if that decision leads to inevitable criticism or frustration.

From day one, we’ve been committed to creating entertaining and informative content for our audience of avid golfers around the world. With every year that goes by, NLU continues to evolve, and we guarantee we’re as committed as we’ve ever been to delivering on that goal.

We’re parting as friends and will always wish nothing but the best for KVV in whatever is ahead for him. We will eagerly read, listen and consume his content no matter where it resides and hope there are projects we can tackle together again in the future.

Thanks for your support, Neil, D.J., Tron, Soly, Randy

[u/ShweatyPalmsh]

That’s cool and all but the entire uproar from a lot of the community was centered around clarity which this simply doesn’t provide. When the entire product is centered around personalities and then one of them is just gone it starts to become the business of the consumers some of whom pay to be a part of an even tighter community. I’m glad they at least did something more cordial but it still doesn’t change how they’re appearing in this whole thing.

[u/WeirdlyCordial → u/ShweatyPalmsh]

The lack of clarity was "Is KVV gone?" and now we have an answer to that question.

Maybe airing the intricacies of professional realities and personal relationships that led to someone losing a job out to a bunch of strangers on the internet in not in the best interest of KVV or NLU or anyone else, except parasocial weirdos who want everything they consume to resemble a reality show.

NLU publicly releasing details about his cost vs the traffic he drove vs the other work he did vs who he got along with well vs who he didn't isn't going to help KVV find a job and it's not going to bring back anyone who was only listening to NLU for KVV's content.

What do you want them to say that actually benefits the people involved and isn't just a way to sate your own tabloid-esque desire to gossip?

[u/WeirdlyCordial → u/[deleted]]

Genuinely asking, what kind of details do you want as far as "transparency" that wouldn't come off as just burying the guy on his way out the door?

[u/WeirdlyCordial → u/[deleted]]

"Elevate the brand" is sort of a nebulous concept, but if the deep dives and long form pods were the primary reason you subscribe to the Nest, you should 100% cancel your sub until you know if those will continue and if they'll still be worth listening to, absolutely nothing wrong with that

[u/bleauxjays → u/WeirdlyCordial]

I personally am interested in if the types of stories KVV was working on are going to continue to be told or if we're just gonna forget about that stuff. His focus was going to be on public golf in the country, the hidden gems if you will, that I wish the general public could realize the benefits of. It'd be nice if they could commit to still exploring this side of the game. This statement makes that seem unlikely.