A Tampa two-fer as I attended Media Day events for two very different upcoming golf tournaments in the Tampa Bay area — the PGA Tour’s Valspar Championship and the Aramco Team Series Presented by PIF - Tampa, the only Ladies European Tour stop in the United States this year. Free golf was involved.

Had plans to record a brilliant season finale podcast, but life got in the way. A pulled wisdom tooth gave way to a sore throat, which thrashed my vocal cords for a few days. It pushed me up against a long-scheduled vacation with my wife and our two grown kids.

Our son is 23, and our daughter is 20. We booked this trip knowing that there’s a limited shelf life on chances for the four of us to travel together. Given the vacation schedule and my newly gravelly voice, my planned intensive three-part-interview with Jon Rahm will have to wait (shut up). Instead, you’re reading something that I wrote over the course of several nights in different hotel rooms, which is the story of my professional life.

It’s December 2023, and nobody knows anything when it comes to negotiations between the PGA Tour and the PIF, or the Tour’s Policy Board and the new interlopers who may or may not invest in golf. William Goldman had it right.

I took a trip to Miami last October to experience all the fuss about LIV Golf. Eight months later, the PGA Tour announced it was going into business with LIV’s backers, and professional golf was tossed into disarray. I decided on a return trip to South Florida to see what else has changed.

College football is about to change, dramatically. Here’s one version of how it might play out.

Spent a lot of time in Stamford in June and July hosting Golf Central and Golf Today. Seemed like every week brought a new Golf Emergency. The first week of August was no exception.