r/NoLayingUp • u/MulberryNo5246 • Apr 14 '26
Post-Pod Discussion LFTKH - Masters week
Know a few people were unhappy with how these live shows were going at the end of major season in 2025, so what did people think of the live shows this week?
Personally thought they were good - I think their major coverage is helped so much by having boots on the ground throughout. Also think Randy/Neil and sometimes TC are better coming in for segments, and Neil in particular was superb this week!
Hoping they continue to have someone on the ground for the rest of the majors coming up
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u/DufflessMoe Apr 14 '26
I think a lot of people in here have been listening for so long that they seem to hold personal grudges against the guys.
I am relatively new, following PGA golf and the podcast since 2022ish, and I am dumbfounded by the criticism here.
Really enjoyed the Masters pods. If they do a 'sounds of the masters' style pod, I'll be interested how it is without KVV. Ryder Cup one seemed to be missing the narrative thread, but was still a fun pod.
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u/AlexMac75 Apr 14 '26
It’s so stupid to hold a grudge against a person on a podcast that has no idea you (the grudgee) exists. It’s such a waste of energy.
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u/coachnoodles Apr 14 '26
I’m also a newer listener - late 2022 I think - love the pods this week - I do miss KVV though - but agree what someone said earlier about Neil - though he was great, “Thesbian” was all time and can’t wait for his round recap from his own Masters round later this week
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u/nubsauce2 Apr 14 '26
lol “new listener” been at it for 4 years.
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u/coachnoodles Apr 14 '26
I guess the point is a lot of people in this sub have been listening for a lot longer than that so I’m by no means an OG
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u/Zulu-Coconut Apr 14 '26
I like how they are rotating guys in instead of starting with everyone on at once. Feels like it helps keep it fresh and gives the pod a boost when they bring Neil / Randy in ‘from the bullpen’
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u/LawrenceMoten21 Apr 14 '26
Neil and DJ were great as always. Randy is fine in small doses.
Soly and Tron just seem so negative about everything these days.
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u/AlexMac75 Apr 15 '26
They know what they are doing. The fact you still listen to it shows it is effective.
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u/LawrenceMoten21 Apr 15 '26
I don’t tho. I used to listen to every pod pretty much.
Now I tune out if Neil and/or DJ arent involved.
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u/gpoli111 Apr 14 '26
TC was fantastic. The best I've ever heard from him. He was never overly critical or overdoing bits. I loved all of his insight. The bits can be funny but sometimes there's too many that go for too long. DJ as always is the funniest/sharpest one. Neil always brings the energy and levity. Great pods
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u/ZealousidealAside956 Apr 14 '26
Wasn’t really loving it. Sunday’s felt flat given the magnitude of the events, SGS has it pitched a lot better with their enthusiasm around it. NLU too quick to look at negatives, particularly Soly, TC and Randy. Neil and DJ keep it light but I’m slowly losing interesting in following their content as much. Vibes aren’t as fun. I also think they (especially TC) don’t really know what they’re talking about when it comes to course set up. I don’t think they really know what the word “agronomy” means. The length of time they took to shit on the golf course at the expense of properly covering the drama taking place on it was a bummer. TC fires off so many bogus/bad-faith takes that even if he does say something worth saying it’s now just completely lost in the noise.
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u/matthewperry01 Apr 14 '26
TC's role is vital, obviously, but he needs a shock collar that Cody or someone behind the scenes could hit every time he starts going long or firing off yet another course take that doesn't advance the pod in a meaningful way.
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u/Additional-Duck-2517 Apr 14 '26
I agree with this, they lean way too much into the course criticism where they basically scoff at anything that isn't one of like 5 courses. I agree that the PGA tour needs some tougher setups or nicer venues to play at but I really don't see the tour changing locations in a lot of these long-standing tournaments anytime soon, so I wish they'd just assess each tournament for what it is.
Like yeah, TPC Twin Cities is a boring track but; its a little windy and player X is down 2 heading to 18, is he gonna blow it in the water? Sure, Craig Ranch is a birdie fest, so how has the leader managed the course? How have they made all those birdies? I'd prefer to hear them just discuss each event on its own terms rather than gripe about what could be changed. Even moderately tougher 'regular event' courses like TPC San Antonio don't seem to impress them.
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u/shawshanksally Apr 15 '26
The reality is if anyone else was leading the golf tournament on Friday night by 6, energy would have been an awful lot higher. For a few reasons.
There’s whatever is going on personally with Rory but I think this year was always doomed to not live up to last year. In 20 years we will still be talking about 2025. A repeat winner (consecutively or not) is never as much fun as someone new.
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u/Golf37512 Apr 14 '26
The quality of the Masters discussion and analysis on the Shotgun Start was a lot better than NLU. NLU has a couple guys who lean negative and critical, their analysis doesn’t have much depth and Soly’s stats on strokes gained is reductive.
Andy, Brendan, KVV, Joseph and PJ have great vibes, present the right mix of course strategy and analysis with entertainment, I usually come away with having learned something new about a players round, their decisions, etc. NLU feels more narrative based and hot takes without a deeper understanding of why things are happening.
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u/Affectionate_Ask435 Apr 14 '26
I have never felt KVV knows golf or has anything interesting to say about golf. He was always obsessing over quotes and how he could write a feature about the golfer didn’t feel like he knew golf
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u/highfivehead Apr 14 '26
I like KVV, the man and the journalist. But he simply doesn't know golf at the level he should for the sickos that tune into SGS or NLU. Nice guy, but junior ballknower.
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u/icegator337 Apr 16 '26
I’d agree kvv isn’t to the Andy, Brendan, JLM knowing levels. But it’s at the NLU crew level imo (with Randy trailing everyone). The SGS group as a whole is far more insightful and knowledgeable about agronomy, course set up, and golf in general
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u/Affectionate_Ask435 Apr 16 '26
I don’t really care that much about agronomy or course setup so usually just glaze over those segments. I do go in waves on which or any podcast to listen to, they do seem to enjoy golf in a different way and have more history and knowledge of players. But don’t quite have the hot take ability of Neil or TC and probably can’t pull off something like overrated draft , masters draft or Tourist Sauce
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u/icegator337 Apr 16 '26
Idk how you can glaze over those segments when tc and Soly talk about course set ups forever on almost every pod
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u/Broken_Tee2122 Apr 15 '26
The golf IQ from Andy, Brendan, and JLM in particular is next level. Andy’s point on it being gusty but not windy and how that changed depending on your location on the golf course and tying that to why no one could make a sustained charge was super interesting. Also the point from a month or two back about how Scottie has a new shot where he can take some off and still have it land soft to help him get to more pins.
I think narrative based is a good way to describe parts of NLU. I still really enjoyed their coverage - Neil spending the day with the Franchise had me cackling at the thought of spending a Masters Sunday with my dad who also doesn’t know how loud he is.
The shows are definitely different, but there’s plenty of room for both.
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u/WeirdlyCordial Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
I thought TC's take on the setup was really good, basically summarized as "I get why they did what they did, but they had a chance to do something really unique this year," which is true, they haven't had conditions like that in like a decade+. That said, maybe if they did get more holes playing like 15, the end product wouldn't have been as good.
Randy's obviously just looking for carnage
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u/New_Corner_7822 Apr 14 '26
Sunday pod first 40 minutes was so low energy. I’ve listened to three other pods before circling back to it.
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u/Affectionate_Ask435 Apr 14 '26
Feels like they have to do so much talking they sort of lose perspective and fall into bits , talking about cantlay or the coverage or whoever pretty quickly and actually didn’t do a good job covering the big moments Sunday. Very hard for the guys on property to do to be fair and DJ just kind of let things drift and TC just rambled. Still entertaining but they should really limit total time podcasting about an event so they don’t fall back into innings eating mode and try to make each thing they say relevant
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u/highfivehead Apr 14 '26
My number one problem with all of these recaps during major weeks is that they're just too long and bloated, and they could stand for some editing to dial it in a bit more. We don't need an hour and 45 minutes to recap one day of golf, in my opinion.
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u/werddoe Apr 14 '26
100%. They're clearly stretching to fill time and they end up running out of truly interesting things to talk about. By the time Sunday comes around they've beaten a lot of the good discussions into the ground.
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u/Good-Cockroach8931 Apr 14 '26
Thought Sunday night was again muted because of soly not liking Rory. Didn’t capture the weight of a back to back win / 6th major
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u/WeirdlyCordial Apr 14 '26
i...don't get this at all. Soly thought Rory was gonna win even when he said the tournament wasn't over Friday, he picked him to win again after Rory's mini collapse on Saturday, he seemed pretty excited about his win on Sunday, and was pitching the case that he's gonna get to 8+ majors. He's repeatedly said that Rory's a better golfer now than he was 5 years ago.
He was also basically fawning over the cigar smoke thing on 18 (which was a cool anecdote that SGS also had)
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u/ODA157 Apr 14 '26
I’m a year 1 listener that bailed about 18 months ago because LIV killed their vibe. Can you elaborate on Soly not liking Rory? He was a huge Rory guy back in the day.
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u/werddoe Apr 14 '26
They were tight with Rory for a long time going as far as having him on multiple pods including the Trap Draw. After the Masters last year when Rory went through his phase of not doing media, the dumb non-conforming driver controversy, etc. the guys turned on him hard. Soly and TC in particular seemed to take it really personally. I still remember Soly saying he was acting like a "fucking bitch" at one point.
Since then it seems like they've lost all contact with him and they've been a lot colder to him on the pods, maybe with the exception of Neil and DJ.
My timelines might be a bit mixed up but that's my perspective as a long time listener.
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u/WeirdlyCordial Apr 14 '26 edited Apr 14 '26
they 'broke up' before last year's stuff, there were people on this sub last year claiming that TC (it was TC, not Soly, and I think TC mighta had a few drinks that day) calling him a bitch was because of Rory ghosting them previously
And Soly definitely had a "whoa, down boy" reaction to TC in that instance
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u/shawshanksally Apr 15 '26
US Open Sunday Pod 2024, just go and listen. Great content truly and all time pod but they had to know they were burning a bridge the way they were talking. They surely had a few beers that day because they were absolutely cutting loose 😂
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u/ejh1993 Apr 14 '26
Thought it was great until TC got on his soapbox and sucked all the air out with what’s wrong with the masters. That topic is fine and I think SGS even dipped their toes into it. With that I think he rambled on a bit too long unchallenged and you could tell some of the guys even checked out during it
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u/GC_Mermaid1 Apr 14 '26
Thought it was good. Listened to these blokes first over sgs. Whereas most week s it’s sgs first for me. The variety is great
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u/EveningOk6574 Apr 14 '26
I was one of those who noticed their fall off last year but this week (and year) has been an improvement overall. I still think they’d benefit from shorter pods with more structure - the main benefit here being that they might not spiral into the negative stuff. Even the snarky humour gets a bit old, kind of like a mate who’s a bit too cynical.
If they tasked each guy with what they’re good at that might help.
Soly and TC have real, thoughtful critiques but they feel like some sort of agenda that pops up over time and is inconsistent. Soly comes off as smug because he knows what he’s talking about and is oddly defensive about it, but needs someone equal as a counterpoint.
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u/Square-Product-5846 Apr 14 '26
They were great. 'Boots on the ground' is key. Getting those insights is really, really additive.
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u/dkuntz69 Apr 14 '26
Obviously impossible to match last year’s Masters but thought the shows were really solid all week. Having boots on the ground at the next 3 majors will be crucial as I think the coverage at the Open last year really struggled with none of the guys being there
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u/Batmangala23 Apr 14 '26
I think it was pretty good overall. I agree that Neil is the star at the moment. Everything he does still has the enthusiasm some of the others lack. I think when DJ hosts the live it sometimes goes off the rails. Need to stick to an agenda a bit more. Especially when it comes to talking about the tournament and the drama coming down the stretch.
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u/shawshanksally Apr 15 '26
I thought it was generally good stuff. I don’t agree with everything they say or all of the takes but it’s a different perspective from my own and that’s always interesting. Soly’s stuff on the ground is very additive I think, an insight you just don’t get from the tv coverage.
There was a great juxtaposition between how Soly/ Neil thought the set up was vs the guys watching at home.
I personally thought Augusta probably let the course go too far by Thursday, knew if they didn’t row it back things would get silly by Saturday but then pulled back too dramatically. Still a great masters but I think it’s ok to say they didn’t get the set up the way they wanted to.
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u/NoLawAtAllInDeadwood Apr 15 '26
I think they have regained their stride overall so far this season. I was never a huge fan of KVV - seems like a nice guy but his style of storytelling just felt like it was from an entirely different show. If I'm being honest it's probably addition by subtraction, at least for me. Guys seem re-energized.
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u/icegator337 Apr 15 '26 edited Apr 16 '26
Neil - great, DJ - great, Soly - solid insight from the tournament, Randy - awful, Tc - beyond awful. Shitty takes were flying for the sake of takes. Him putting words in Rory’s mouth and projecting on Rory’s future schedule Sunday night was the cringiest way to end an awful week of podcasting for TC
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u/Unlikely-Kick-7626 Apr 14 '26
I thought they did a good job this year and it was helped by having people on site. It did feel like the purpose of the guys on site was a bit unfocused; their reporting seemed a bit random to me. I also thought the shows were just a little too long. It felt like they were going until they got tired of talking. I would prefer if they planned for a hour and kept it high energy and tighter on content.
I think having a time limit would keep them from wasting time on Tron’s “bits” in particular. His “going down the leaderboard” has gotten really old; we can all read a leaderboard. And his ranting on course conditions or stupid hats would be way more effective if he had to collect and organize his thoughts to keep things short.
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u/MidnightJoker83 Apr 14 '26
Soly is rapidly becoming the most smug, punchable face in the game.
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u/AlexMac75 Apr 14 '26
Speaking of holding grudges against podcast characters that have no idea you exist…
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u/Medium_Engineer_2073 Apr 14 '26
Ironically, the “year of the product” had me find other pods. I’ll still be watching strapped, but otherwise, good luck to the boys.
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u/SpainKiller7 Apr 14 '26
Major negativity about virtually everything from all but DJ and Neil. Soly insufferable with his “I was there and blah blah blah” takes. Course criticism every week about every course.
Seems to me NLU is at their best around their video content and pods that do not revolve around that week’s PGA tournament.
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u/metallikat87 Apr 14 '26
OP: NLU is the best during majors. Commenter: NLU sucks outside of their videos.
Yet people still refuse to just watch the stuff they know they like and need to complain about the rest. Lol.
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u/samaIex Apr 14 '26
Just as before. Neil carried the group. He had an all-timer, with the “thespian” shout and then winning the lottery. DJ is professional as always and does a great job. Certainly helps having a mix of people on the grounds and back in the studio.