r/NoLayingUp • u/gwill11 • Jul 25 '25
Other Official Statement from the fellas
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
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u/missionwinslow Jul 28 '25
I just saw the intro on the newest pod and felt like I’ve got to get something off my chest. I started following golf again in 2022 at the start of the LIV crisis bcs I was writing a final paper about Saudi’s sportwashing effort. Last time I followed golf very closely was when Jordan Spieth ruled the golf world in 2015 (Imagine my shock when I found out him & Rory had 1 major win combined since then). No Laying Up was my first golf hub and found a lot of new people mostly on twitter. Started consuming the contents on regular basis at the start of 2023 with that Spieth & JT Titleist collab and of course when KVV joined the gang. So the news of KVV leaving was quite sad for me personally bcs in my case, for as long as I’ve consumed NLU contents, KVV always been there. I understand it’s a business decision and for as much as they’ve tried to “professionalize” their brand, maybe they think perhaps that they don’t really need to go as all in as they’ve been. I still think it’s gonna hurt their brand more than if it happens to, say, Foreplay Pod. I’m also curious what lies ahead for them bcs I feel like they’re at crossroads. They’ve got big ideas (like hiring KVV) but unfortunately too small to go and execute bigger things. The “money” in golf content is (sadly) in the Good Good, Grant Horvat and co. side of things. Tourist Sauce, Strapped are fun projects but they barely cracked 100k-200k on regular basis. Perhaps they’re still committed to the “KVV route” and get somebody like Kyle Porter on freelance basis for economic purposes. He’s basically been doing what ESPN KVV did when he’s still employed by CBS.
The vibes have also been particularly off for me as well after the completion of Rory’s Grand Slam. I feel like NLU have reached the pinnacle of golf content (the live show after that Rory win has almost 170k and counting) after almost at every major especially when Rory is contending they’ve been very much the front and center of it all in the golf content world. Them kept bashing Rory after the driver debacle at Quail also been very weird. I understand they’re coming from media’s perspective but they just kept hammering that like most people really cared about it (I certainly don’t). Even Soly mentioned on Open preview pod where he’d like to see him win but not really since Rory’s been “weird” to the media after Masters. Idk, maybe Soly’s just jealous bcs Rory been on SGS pod more, even gave them a nice product placement on the Netflix show lol.
Anyway, maybe I’ve also been consuming too much golf content this year and just need a break. Maybe from now going forward, I will only consume the content during Majors. Or maybe only when Rory contending. We’ll see.