Hail the Return of Pat Reed, Is LIV dead, and Koepka’s Torrey struggle

The Shotgun Start

Fried Egg Golf

Sports, Golf

4.7 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2026

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The hits just keep on coming early in this 2026 golf season: Patrick Reed is BACK on the PGA Tour... in August. Andy and Brendan begin this episode with some other breaking news regarding a beloved recurring bit possibly coming to an end and some more details about the SGS Live Show coming to Evanston on Thursday, February 12. They then dive into the biggest news of Thursday: Tony Finau's new Jordan Brand clothing. After a conversation about fashion, Andy and Brendan discuss Patrick Reed's decision to leave LIV Golf and play the DP World Tour in 2026 before returning to the PGA Tour in 2027. They debate whether "LIV is dead," as reported by many, and wonder whether any other LIV players will reassess their allegiances after Brian Rolapp removed another hurdle towards a PGA Tour return for Reed. Andy deems that LIV deserves this outcome of losing its stars following a FOX Sports graphic promoting the season opener that misspelled the names of Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, and Martin Kaymer (henceforth known as Martin Kraymer on this podcast). Brendan reads Patrick Reed's statement, in which he claims he was "born to play on the PGA Tour," even though he voluntarily left said Tour years ago to play on LIV. The real winners in all of this? Guys like Laurie Canter and Victor Perez, who now have one less player to compete against for these big purses. Speaking of returning players, Brooks Koepka played his first round back on the PGA Tour on ESPN, carding a 73 on the South Course at Torrey Pines. Andy compares his "re-debut" to what it's like when Tiger returns from an injury, leading to massive over-analysis of every little thing in one round or tournament. Koepka played with Ludvig Åberg - always comfortable going to and from the course - and Max Homa, both of whom struggled mightily on Thursday. Justin Lower and Justin Rose are atop the leaderboard at Farmers. We end the show with the return of Golf Advice, featuring an Andy-submitted question for Brendan and a listener question that BP deems "human advice."

Join us in Chicagoland for an SGS Live Show on Thursday, February 12! We'll be hanging out at SPACE in Evanston, Illinois for a night of Q&A, Champs Tour Minute, and plenty of Bears chatter. Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.ticketweb.com/event/the-shotgun-start-space-tickets/14054084?pl=space⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more details.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Now the shotgun start in golf is full of mathematics.
0:04.0	There's a lot of setup work that we have to do in order to make a tournament work.
0:09.0	So I'm going to demonstrate to you just exactly how we do a shotgun start here.
0:14.0	And here we go.
0:17.0	All right, all right, all right.
0:27.0	Gentlemen, start your engine. Greetings and welcome to a Friday edition of the Shotgun Start.
0:43.7	It is January 30th.
0:45.7	Andy, how we doing?
0:47.4	Brendan, I'm doing great.
0:50.1	I got to say it's it's Victory Friday, Brendan.
0:54.1	What are we celebrating, Illinois? No, no, no. No, no. I got to say it's it's victory Friday Brendan what do we celebrate Illinois no no
0:57.7	something much much longer term it appears you know maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse
1:05.2	but it appears that we might be getting the YouTube bank out the YouTube YouTube money in the bank. It's been sitting there for however long we've had our YouTube page, accruing with no hope of getting out, might be coming out. Maybe. I don't know. Don't put the cart before the horse here. You're tempting fate. But we have money sitting. I mean, it's not, you know, it's not going to
1:28.6	change the world. The Friday egg has YouTube money, just saying, but we don't know how to get it out.
1:34.1	It's like losing your pin and there's only, there's no way you can replace it or something for the
1:40.1	APM. And it's just been sitting there. It's an ongoing bit. And, uh, but it's a real bit. It's a reality on the ground. It's not a, it's not a mock bit. That's good. I'm glad we got someone who can crack into that safe. That's great. Hopefully. Maybe like you got a safe that you lost your key. Right. Right. You know. Apparently they just mail you a new safe key. For what?
2:04.4	What do you talk about? See he lost a safe key? Like at a hotel? Apparently they just mail you a new one. Oh, okay. Doesn't seem secure, right? Couldn't you just say that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Like somebody knows you're at town.
2:18.5	They can just be like, I, you know, I lost the key.
2:21.2	Here's the serial number.
2:23.8	We, uh, we feel like you need to have like a safe code.
2:28.7	We got an inquiry from a young whippersnapper.
2:32.0	I don't know.
	...

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