Fairway Rollin' - 2020 Tiger Predictions, Brooks vs. Rory, Evil Patrick Reed, and a Torrey Pines Kickoff With Bill Simmons & Nathan Hubbard | Fairway Rollin’

Episode Date: January 21, 2020

We tee off on the 2020 season by previewing the top tournaments of the year, the Rory McIlroy vs. Brooks Koepka rivalry, the 2020 Summer Olympics, breakouts to look out for, Patrick Reed as a real-life Shooter McGavin, and of course check in with Tiger Woods. Host: Joe House Guest: Bill Simmons and Nathan Hubbard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All right, my birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiasts, we are back. It's 20, 20. Fairway Rowland, presented by our awesome friends at Callaway Golf, my par-saving pals. How does hitting more bombs off the tea sound to you? Pretty good, right? Calloway, the Kings of Distance. They're giving you even more bombs with the new Maverick. driver. That's M-A-V-R-I-K. Who needs the E? They used advanced artificial intelligence and new materials

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That was my house impersonation. That's your impersonation of me. Hello, my friends, and welcome. That was your gymnas. To this podcast, unlike any other. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've done it. This is the best golf season.

Maybe ever, he says. Well, because you apparently have to care about the Olympics, which I didn't realize. And then we also have Ryder Cup. Ladies and gentlemen here on Fairway Roll, and the season premiere of Fairway Roll, and I'm very pleased to be joined by the podfather himself, Bill Simmons and our inimitable boots on the ground man about the PGA tour,

Nathan Hubbard, just down from Palm Springs. He just watched his brother Mark Hubbard shoot a three under yesterday Sunday. Should have been five, six, seven under. At the American Express event. Bob Hope, let's just call it the Hope. It is still the hope. It's the hope. Everybody calls it the hope.

Unofficial ringer intern and unofficial Mark Hubbard and unofficial Mark Hubbard. There's two unofficial jobs for you. What do you carry for Mark? You don't carry the bag. He carries the water. Carry the water. I carry the bag. I carried the bag in the web finals and drop the eight iron.

three times, and I have not caddied since. I don't know what happened, but... That eight iron probably caught a ding. They found the eight iron 265. You don't hit an eight iron from 265, so I think it was the caddy's fault, not sure. We should do a caddy episode. I could come in and tell my top 25 worst stories

that happened to me when I caddied. Where did you caddy credit? For three years now in Stanford. In Stanford, yeah. Well, I mean... It was something. There are caddies out there that reach out. We get some good stories, some good intel.

the caddy community here on Fairway Roll. Holy macro. All right. Go ahead. Start us off. 2020. Well, here we are the official start of the tour. All due respect to whatever happens in September and October, November, December.

I mean, the PGA tour, they now start their seasons in the preceding year because they have so many tournaments, so many venues. It's so popular that they just put these events out for these guys. And they started doing FedEx points in September. I can't follow any of it. Settle down PGA is the moral of the story. Maybe cut like five of these. They call it the wraparound, which sounds like it's setting on the massage chair, but it's not really.

The problem with the fall now is there's more events this year. So we are at the start. But they've pinched in a ton more events. And so there's a bunch of guys who have a big head start over the rest of the field. So we can talk about that. Yeah, for FedEx points, you start collecting and accruing points with the events that are being competed in September. So some guys have already played six, eight, nine events. It's like getting postmates points, though. It's not like, those aren't real points. No, they are. I mean, that's true. They're not,

they're not the upper echelon points allocated to those events. The first real tournament is this weekend, Tori Pines. Then we have, when's Phoenix open? That's the following week. Yeah. And then, and then we're off. Yeah. Pebble Beach, Riviera. And the OGs come in. Yeah. I mean, this is, the, the beautiful thing about the golf season traditionally, calendar-wise, you start. You start in Hawaii. You know, they have this tournament of champions. It's beautiful. It's Capulua. It's just after New Year's, hangover. You're watching primetime golf. I mean, it's just so delightful. Then the Sony Open, then this event up in Palm Springs, you just ease into it. But this is when things get serious. And we know it's serious, both because of the venue

and because we've got the names. The big hitters are coming out. This Torrey Pinesfield always pulls a great crowd. It's Tiger Woods debut. It's Roy McElroy's. debut. Jordan Speeth is coming out. We're going to see the first Jordan Speeth siting in 2020. Jordan. Can I do a quick Torrey Pines thing? Of course.

We love Tori Pines. So Nathan and I, both of us have club soccer daughters. There's been a lot of driving around various parts of Southern California. All over the Orange County. A lot of locations that maybe you're not that fired up about spending the weekend. Maybe not really looking for that weekend in San Bernardino. Norco. Norco.

Or Indian, what's that, Indian Hills? Indian Wells? No, no, not Indian Wells. Where's the one that's like two hours away? Anyway, the race track one. All the way down. Okay, there you go. Sounds like a place a lot of horses die.

Well, one of the good ones is when you get San Diego or Oceanside because that allows you to go basically San Diego or near the water. Dana Point. One time, my daughter had a tournament and we had stayed at all these different like, you know, whatever holiday ends, all those different types of. You just get a bed and whatever. I was like, I'm staying at Torrey Pines. I want to know what it's like.

I want to really get into it, get a feel for it. Tori Pines is incredible. It's, they've designed it like it's basically, I'm just talking about the actual location resort, all that. Absolutely. It feels very like Scotland-y, you know, where... There's dramatic cliffs. There's vistas.

You look out onto the water. It's elevated. Old school rooms. that kind of a little shining-ish. Oh, so the actual resort itself? Really nice lunch place where like that you can look at people teeing off and all that stuff.

And it's just, and you're right near the water, you're near all these cool things. And it's just such a happy place. And if I was a golfer, I'd be like, this is awesome playing Torrey Pines this week. That's my Tori Pines range. You're saying you stayed at Tori for one of Z's soccer tournaments. But didn't play golf.

What a waste. I just want. What a waste. No, not a what a waste. It was what a brilliant idea. I had so much fun. It was great. It did let you relax.

It's so cool. Yeah. It's a great spot. It's really nice. I've never stayed at Pebble or even, I don't even think I've been to Pebble Beach, but I'm sure it's exactly the same. Oh, we'll have to work on that. The artichoke soup up there.

I didn't like the what is a wood away's comment, Nathan. We're horrible at golf. You got to play when you can. Outside of San Diego. I've got to stay at Tori Pines. I bought a sweatshirt. I sent pictures to house. It was great.

It was good. So since we've been gone, some things have happened. The last fairway roll in the 2019 season wrapped up coincident with the Tour Championship. A couple things have happened in the meantime, most prominently of which Tiger Fing Woods had knee surgery and then came back and won the brand new tournament in Japan, the Zozo, where we are, you know, the Tour to its credit, exporting. The, you know, PGA brand all over the world. It's a worldwide brand. They have Hadeki Matsuyama as the native son in Japan. Golf is insanely popular in Japan.

And Tiger goes over there and wins his 80-second tournament, tying him with the legendary Sam Sneed for most PGA tour wins in the history of competitive golf. Beats the hometown boy, too. Beat the hometown boy, Hideki. Absolutely right. So that happened. We also had the President's Cup, which... Well, can we go back to Tiger for a second?

Of course. The fear is, last year was the sports movie and the ending. Yeah. And then we look back 10 years from him and be like, oh, man, we should have appreciated that Master's murder. Right. And we made the mistake of thinking he was back when really it was like Nicholas in 86 or something,

like the one last awesome Tiger moment before he moves into the next stage of his life. I don't know what I would bet on if you gave me those two choices. Was that the sports movie or was that the beginning of this post-prime apex? I have two data points I'll share with you that make me think that there could be continued greatness. One is he came back very quickly after his knee surgery. So it was not like, you know, both Dustin Johnson and Brooks Kevka also had knee surgery in the off season. Brooks one worries me.

I didn't like that they did stem cell shit with him. No. And then he came back and he played Vegas and there was a Kepka on the leaderboard and it was his brother Chase. Yeah. Which knee is the worst knee to have stuff happen to if you're a golfer? Is it left or right? The left knee if you're right handed because of the stuff. Right. Because you push up that.

And then the stress that you put on it. So was it his left knee? I believe so. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. So he withdrew, Brooks withdrew from the President's Cup. But on the Tiger point, Tiger not only wins this event in Japan, but he goes and hosts his own charity tournament that they give out points for. for some crazy reason.

They actually competed. He finished fourth in his own event. And then he went and captained the U.S. team in the President's Cup at an all-time iconic venue, Royal Melbourne, in Australia. And he was the best U.S. player. And it wasn't even close. And the only thing that was concerning about that is he played Thursday, he played Friday, he couldn't play Saturday.

He woke up in the morning and he called Freddie Couples and Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson. His co-captain is like, boys, I can't go. I can't do it. Now, they had flown across the country from, I mean, flown across the world, pardon me, from his event in the Bahamas. So I'm not surprised to hear that the trip from the Bahamas to Australia caught up with him. But those are two data points to me that suggests that, like, the level of play that he exhibited

at a venue like Royal Melbourne, where he didn't have, like, they weren't there warming up for a month. It's a totally different kind of golf course. just a firm and fast and, you know, the ball runs and it requires all this kind of strategy. And he's the best mother effort on our team over there playing. His ball striking is as incredible as we remember it. Like, those are good data points. That makes me feel good. Now, it seems like he's been resting since then.

He's been kind of out of the public eye except for his public, you know, stuff about the, the genesis where, you know, they have a giant event at Riviera here in Los Angeles. Well, he's also riding the high of that international competition. I think so. He was super happy. It was the first time. It really, the whole hierarchy fell into place where it's like, you know, like in the Oscars or something where Tom Hanks is kind of the go-to guy now for the older actors. And he's just kind of that guy. And that generation grew up watching him and respects the hell out of him.

Even Brooks Kepka doesn't say anything bad about him. At least not yet. That's the second time he's cried on a golf course, I think. after his dad died and he won the British, right? And then, and then there. Because he was, like, finally part of something. He was this guy who was basically a tennis player, had that same tennis player.

I'm just me. I'm not involved with anyone else. And now it's like he had all these buddies and mentees. I just feel like at best his body is peace in the Middle East. Like, it's super fragile. When you have those brief respites, you've got to take advantage of it. And for him, from here on out,

it's going to be about schedule management. And whether, as the first, player to outwork his entire generation if it's going to end up shortening his career relative to his peers because he hustled so much to begin with. You know, he turns 45 this year. He's not a young man. Physically, I felt not to compare myself with Tiger, but I will. I felt 43, 44, 45, some shit starts, like your eyesight starts changing.

Yeah, I'm wearing my bifocals right now. You start if you don't stretch enough, like, and he's a freshman athlete, but, you know, People would tell me this before I hit my mid-40s. Like, oh, man, wait, 44 your eyesight changes. And everything they said happened. And I just think when you hit 45, that's fucking nuts. You look at Phil, by comparison, who is trying. He has not had the major injury.

He's as flexible as Gumby still. But these last couple tournaments, he really, really wanted to make President's Cup. And he came out in the fall and he played Napa and he just couldn't perform. He was in Amex this weekend as the tournament host. and he just, he's trying his best. He's becoming more of a social media star than he is a golfer right now. He's, it seems like the next step for him

is going to be a commentator, like the Johnny Miller rap. Well, I mean, and he'll innovate there because his social media stuff, the way that he's appeared on the scene with a particular vision and a voice last year, we had an enormous amount of fun on the pod because he's got a real creative comedy instinct. Yeah.

He's really funny. But I think, you know, look, he won at Pebble Beach. He's the defending champion at Pebble Beach. He won in 2019. Then he fell off a cliff. And there's some combination of his own physical stature because he went on this insane crash diet kind of thing

and he lost a bunch of weight. And I think there are still, he's still putting the pieces kind of together in terms of the competitive golf. Also, when you have a really fucking weird haircut. He's got the same haircut that he's had for 30 years. Now, it started to look like Vegas lounge singery. He's 50 in June Yeah

Yeah So he's senior tour Waiting to happen He is not gonna He said They asked him this week At the Amex What about the senior tour

And he said well look As long as I continue to hit bombs I mean I'm not leaving this tour I'm not going anywhere Senior tour would probably welcome Phil Nicholson I'm guessing I don't think Phil would welcome it though

I agree He's too big for that stage I think he's gonna keep competing Now the other thing that happens In June of this year as he turns 50 is the return of the U.S. Open to Wingfoot. Oh.

Yeah, the site of a crime. In all time. Yeah, exactly right. Crime, it was a homicide. Yeah. I mean, or it was a suicide homicide. I don't know what. Jesus.

It was dramatic. Nobody snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in that manner. Right now, he is not qualified for the U.S. Open. He's on the outside looking in. He's 82nd in the world ranked. rankings or golf rankings. That's one where they should step in. They'll give him an exemption.

It feels like it. Now, he's not been a particularly nice person to the USGA over the years. You recall two years ago, he was dissatisfied with green speeds at Shinnecock and putted a ball that was going to roll out the green and then ran after it and stopped it and hit it back up while it was moving. Kind of a very disrespectful thing to do in any golf competitive golf, but in the U.S. Open in particular. So our biggest concerns as we look at the year, we have three major guys who had surgeries. Brooks, Tiger, and what did DJ have? Knee surgery. Another knee surgery.

Another like lap, houroscopic. We have this really weird Olympics wrinkle, which we were arguing about before we start taping the podcast. I personally don't get it. I think that's a big ass to fly across to Tokyo. And if you're on some sort of rhythm as a golfer, that's a huge monkey wrench but you all pointed out

the majors are going to be done by then so maybe that's the time to do it I still don't totally get it like does Tiger Woods is he really going to care that he won a gold medal? Yes! He's all about majors

All he wants is the Nicholas Major record is like I won the silver in 2020 Does it elevate Does it elevate Justin Rose's career in your mind? Yes. Yeah, me too. It definitely does, yes. It's a gold medal.

Yeah, you're competing out. The field is like not as good as a field that you would encounter in a kind of a normal tour event. But still it's the effing Olympics. I don't know. It's your country. It's your opportunity to go shine on behalf of your country. And he himself, he says that it's a goal.

It's a big goal. I care about the Rider Cup. Well, that's coming this year also. I know. I'm just, if I'm waiting it, it's like, it's representing your country. It's like, how about this? Win the Riter Cup. I don't really care about the Olympics.

House, the thing that I, on the President's Cup in Tiger, being the best player there, there was a lot of talk because we, you know, that we didn't really know the quality of the players who were on the international side. One of the things that came out of that and this past weekend is that Abe Anser is a badass and he's going to win a golf tournament. Boy, oh boy. I had him in my lineup this most recent week. I think he's a killer.

He can put his face off. But, you know, you look at our roster and we got a few hosses, but they're not that many major winners. Like, there's a lot of guys who, you know, you know, who have one. Guess what? DJ has one major. That's true. Justin Thomas has one major, and it's the PGA. You know who else has a PGA? Duffner and Keegan Bradley. And like, these guys have not necessarily stepped in and dominated their field in the way that Tiger and guys before him have. So Tiger's just more comfortable in that situation. That's what makes me nervous about Rider Cup coming up and why this year is going to be fun. So Abe? Abe. Abe answer. Abraham

I know. He finished second last week. Yeah. Put a charge on. He's, I'm looking at up, he's 28. Somebody's going to be like the 27, 28-year-old kind of breakout guy. That happens every year, right? There's a whole...

So who are the candidates? There's two slugs of youth. There's a group of guys that just came out of college, two of whom won in the first four tournaments that they competed. But those are like the prodigy breakout guys. Yay. There's another kind of golfer where it's like 27, 28, 29, and they just start putting shit together.

I think that's maybe gone because these guys start so early, and video has absolutely changed the way these guys swing, and they get better earlier. And so the peak age of a golfer has got to be moving forward at this point. So these guys who came out of college, Morikawa, Matthew Wolfe, both those guys won last year. And then there's the second tranche of guys coming up. Well, Victor Hovlin is also in that group.

Victor Hovland, who... He's my favorite of those three. Victor Hovlin. He is. Weird schedule this fall, by the way. Top ten at Greenbrier, then a 30th and a 40th. That's all he's played. And haven't seen him.

He is gone. Where'd he go? He played in Dubai. He's getting laid. He played Asian. He's a young guy. Handsome. You could see him do it.

But there's the second tranche guy who came up from the corn fairy tour, the B tour, and the best of them is Scotty Sheffler. Absolutely. And Scotty Schaeffler kicked everybody's ass on that tour last year, including my brothers, who finished fifth, but he got his ass kicked by Scotty. and Scottie's going to win a golf tournament. Well, Scottie Schaeffler led the Amex for how many, multiple rounds, I don't recall. How old did you, bro?

He's got three top tens. He's 30. So he's still in that range. There are guys in that group, though, you're talking about. So Patrick Cantley fits that age group. You've been on him for two years. Well, I thought he might win a major last year. I mean, he's just got the game and the temperament for it.

And he was standing on the 17th T at the Masters in 2019, either tied for the lead or won. below and then he smashed the ball dead right. That was it. But, you know, he's going to be on that stage. I still continue to like him. But, you know, just to circle back a little bit, the interesting thing, one of the stories of this whole season will be this schedule. Yeah.

Because we're going to start with the players in March. Then we're going to go to the Masters in April and then we're going to go up here to San Francisco to TPC Harding Park. Harding Park, yep, for the PGA championship. And then in June, we're off to a, uh, uh, uh, Phil Mitchell Meltdown Wingfoot. Yes. The PGA move was one of my favorite schedule things anyone's done in the last 10 years.

As you know, as the czar of sports, I like to try to fix things at all times. And this was the all-time no-brainer. I can't believe it took so long for it to happen. Golf fell into place. It fell into place in my head. It just the schedule makes sense. There's a beginning, middle, it end now. It made the PGA worth more.

It now ends with the British, which I think is the right move. and I just love it. I'm so happy they did that. And it adds one more awesome thing to May, which is now becoming like a sneaky great sports month because you have NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, the derby, there's always an awesome fight, and now you have a major too.

It's a good one. I agree with that. And the thing that I especially like about it, and it didn't work out because of, you know, the impact for Tiger of winning, but you get to see the guy who won the Masters compete right away, right away again, because it's barely like a month.

It's like three and a half weeks or so at best. The flip side is the field, the long schedule thins out the field. Yes. So we got a lot of tournaments where guys who you never heard of and won't for a long time to come, if ever, are winning golf tournaments, right?

Like, did you know Jim Herman won a golf tournament last year, right? Wonderful guy. I know he's a good guy. like he's like Gullum with a five iron though. Like he's not a guy that people are going to get behind. Right. Dylan Fratelli won a golf tournament last year.

So it thins out the field a little bit and it puts a lot more emphasis on whether you've won a major or not. I agree with that. So I think that's a good segue into one of the themes that we like coming up in 2020, which is Rory and Brooks. Yeah. Which kind of emerged at the end of last summer because they ended up in a final group at the FedEx event in Memphis, Tennessee. I was there that week.

And Brooks kicked his ass. I haven't been this excited since MJ versus Clyde Drexler. Okay. So you're not feeling it. You don't think there's enough there. No. Fuck that. Nobody gets to rivalry with Brooks.

Okay. Well, Rory hasn't won a major in four years. Yeah. I mean a major and then you can have a rivalry with Brooks. That's it. Yeah. It's like, hey, I've got, I know you have six NBA titles, but I have some Western Conference championships in my best.

It's like, who cares? They do have the same number of majors now. Rory has four and Brooks has four. Yeah, but Brooks is on one of the best runs in recent golf history. It is an unprecedented run. He has the opportunity to become the first player in competitive golf to win to three-peat at the PGA championship. That's not happened since they moved from, you know, match play. And he finished in the top four of all four majors.

last year, which I think is good. And he showed up at the Espies with his date in the best dress of the night, for sure. He showed up topless, essentially. His social media has been incredible. His, he throws shade like nobody. Well, what he just did, Bryson D. Shambot. That was great. Rest in peace, Bryson.

Body bag. And I think more importantly, like, not since Tiger got hurt in 08, did we have, like, the measuring stick guy for all the other guys. And now he's the guy in this majors where if, you know, it's a Thursday afternoon, you've been working hard all day. and you didn't get you to the scoreboard, your first question is like, where's Brooks? Where is he? Oh, is he fifth?

Is he third? You look him first, then you look at Tiger. Where's Tiger? Where's Tiger? He's going to make the cut. So you're looking for Brooks is the measuring stick. Yeah.

Okay. Which is the measuring stick now. And I think if you're another golfer and you know you have to win the major, Brooks is the guy you're thinking about. And if he's like in the top seven, top eight, you just know in the back of your head. All right.

Got to worry about that guy. Yeah. And you hear the crowd share, it's like, how fuck is he in the seventh? Oh, man, that was Brooks. Oh, shit. Brooks is making a run. There's no other guy like that. You don't agree?

No, I do agree. My only concern with him is his health. And that sucks. Let's let Brooks take PEDs. Send him PEDs. And his weird lack of performance in anything other than a major. I don't know exactly what that's about, but let's see. For me, I look at Rory, I look at Brooks.

Thomas is a gamer. And I think he is, maybe his diminutive stature doesn't give him the sport. But that guy competes like hell. He's the only guy. He clearly had the respect of Tiger at the President's Cup this year. And probably was the only player who seemed to be, like Tiger looked at him and was like,

okay, I see bits of me and him. Yeah. He just, he's got to now he's got to deliver in something other than PGA. He's a scrapper, for sure. Yeah. He does have, there's been a few instances where he had the opportunity to, like, really put the hammer down. And he has.

And he hasn't, including... Including, yeah, FedEx Cup just last year. Yeah. All right, my par saving pals. Quick break, I want to talk to you about Odyssey Golf. They're brand new triple track putters. When it comes to putting, alignment is arguably the most important part of the equation, which is why Odyssey continues to set the standard for performance with the new triple track putters.

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How about our guy Tony? Tony Finole. Love him. Is he a possible jump-a-level guy this year? I don't think so. He seems like he, you don't think so? He seems like he's too nice a guy. He's living an incredible life.

He's the Tony Atlas of 2020-Pi-Ga-Ga-Talph. What do you think, Nate? I think he's like cooch except nicer. Yeah. Like he's going to play well in a bunch of tournaments. He's going to show up. He's going to be on the board. He's always around.

He's fun to follow because he hits it 400 yards. but, you know, has he got the killer instinct to lock it down? I think Thomas does, but it's time for him to show that now. J.T., you mean. Yeah. Well, I mean, there is some thought out there, the golf commentariat. If you're looking for somebody that might be a new number one this year, Justin Thomas is showing up on a lot of...

Is that something we can wage around? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who's going to be the number one golfer this year? Well, it's something, you know, it can change. But will Justin Thomas... I'm sure you can get a prop. We can get somebody to write us a prop.

Justin Thomas be number one in the official world golf rankings at some point in 2020. That's a prop that we can get somebody to write for us. Well, the other thing, you know, the other subplot is Patrick Reed, whether he fully just starts to become shooter McGavin. Whether he just looks at this and goes, here's my end. Here's how I really make ways. I become the real life shooter McGavin, the villain of golf. I think he's there. Yeah.

I think he's there, but not with enough PR about it yet. Oh, there's a lot of PR. There's a lot of PR. He's suing people. There's so much PR. Well, he didn't sue Brandl Shambly, but he sent him a cease and desist letter. We need-in-called him a cheater. The last piece that's missing is like the giant New York Times magazine feature or the GQ cover story or some sort of mainstream media giant piece where he just says like seven fucking crazy things in it. Where you just go, oh my God, this guy is a lunatic.

That's the last piece. Okay. That's when he would officially become the villain. He's got to embrace it. We're not that far away. I mean, there's a, the, Alan Shipnuck did a piece about his family, coincident with him winning the Masters a few years ago.

And that story is not a lot of momentum. Not a great story. That gave him a lot of villain momentum, though. Yeah, I mean, he, who knows what happened with, with his family? First of all. It's not relatable, is the thing. is he going to be villainous enough to take a side swipe at Tiger? Because that will really turn America against him.

He won't do that. But if you're going to be the true villain, you take a swipe at him and then are you ready to actually challenge Kepka would be the other move? Are you going to go toe to toe with Kepka? He literally called himself Captain America. And two years ago we were screaming for him against Rory at the Ryder Cup. I'm not sure who I'd take in that battle this year. Like, my heart may not necessarily be rooting for Patrick Reed in the Ryder Cup.

He really did himself an enormous disservice. Like, fans have turned on him because of the way that he, and he was aided and abetted by the tour. The tour is really weird with its own ability to think through how people are going to react to its decision-making. They protected him after he put his golf club down in the sand at Tiger's event and twice moved sand with him. it. And rather than say, I know that's a violation of the rules, I had a momentary lapse because we were playing in waste bunkers and, you know, you can ground your club and I just lost my mind for a minute. Like, you need to just own that you broke the rules. And, you know, he said it was unintentional and then the tour did an investigation and found that there wasn't cheating, but they

penalized. I disagree. I like that he didn't own it. And if you're going to be a true villain, He should be coming. He should be wearing a Make America Great again hat. A MAGA hat. But that's it. We need it. We need heels in golf. Think about the squad that's going to be going into whistling straits.

If you take out Tiger, you got Patrick Reed, you've got Brooks. He's got to qualify. He hasn't played well enough. Fair enough. But this could be a squad that has Coocher who stiffed his caddy in Mexico. Patrick Reed, who's digging, who's a front end loader for a sandwich moving, you know, sand in the trap. Yeah.

You got Bryson DeCambeau, who, I don't know, some may right with that boy. Six-pack. He's got a six-pack now. What do you mean? It's a hard team to get behind and go crazy for us. So we need Phil to maybe be a captain's pick for us to not be rooting for, like, you know, Jesus on the other side. And it's hard to root for Rory. It'll be like that 0-4 Olympics when we bet against the U.S. with Argentina.

Yeah. Well, that was a good, that was a spite bet. That was just smart. Yeah, that's what I mean. We might be spite betting the rider cup table if we don't like enough to I'm looking at the FedEx Cup winner odds. JT is first at 7-1, tied with Rory, Brooks is 8 to 1, John Rom, 12-1, 12-1, Cantlay is 14-1, so I think that cat's out of the bag with that one.

Yeah. DJ's 16, Tigers 20, Ricky Fowler, 25, then it starts getting weird. The only Fienow's 30 to 1, Patrick Reed, 40 to 1. I'm going to tell you out of... Victor, 50 to 1. Those names? Tommy? Tommy Fleetwood, 50 to 1? No. DJ at 16 to 1 is kind of interesting to me. Can he stay healthy? That's it. Can he stay healthy and can he stay engaged? That's the thing.

Right. And for FedEx Cup, the difference between that and the majors this year is the fall season affects how many points these guys are going to go in with and ultimately how many strokes they have coming out. So some of these guys are going to wake up in the summer and realize it's going to be hard for them to get the tour championship. Yeah. The major thing this year is interesting, though. Last 10 years, half the major has been won by non-imms. Americans, right? And we've got John Rom who's sitting out on the board, never won a major, sniffed a million of them. I'm going to bet him to win the Masters. John Rom, the indie read of the PGA tour. Every year, every year people go, is this year. Zander has not won a major yet, and he's leading a bunch of statistical categories. How dare you? He's finished the top three and three of the past six. He played great in the President's Cup. You got a couple guys. So this could be a year in which you actually have a bunch of first-time major winners again. You're going to have four first-time major winners. Easily. Ironically, I think JT at 701 might be the best bet. Safest bet.

Not an injury risk. Right. No, he was hurt last year. What was the injury? He had a risk problem for a little bit. Oh, I was going to say, shorter people have less injury risk. There's less torque. Ricky's got a new swing.

I don't want to talk about Ricky. But see, listen to you. This is when he rises. I hope so. I like Ricky. Justin Rose. I think Ricky's a great ambassador of the game. Justin Rose missing the cut at the Masters is something I will never forgive ever.

He won at this event. He's the defending champion at Torrey Pines, and he talked about how he deliberately crafted a schedule last season, the first year that the PGA championship was in May. He wanted to be up for all of the majors, and the mother effort went to the Masters and shit the bed. He missed the cut. I can't forgive it. Honest Abe is 100 to win. He's not winning the FedEx Cup. He's not one in the federal.

I'm just throwing out odds. I'm not saying he's going to win. Okay. Like Abe, though. Who's the greatest sports abe? Well, we had the Japanese pitcher Abe, right? Isn't there an Abe? No, I don't think there's been a, like, famous Abe for sports.

We have to look that up. No. Definitely not in basketball. Look up. Here's a name I want, oh, whose odds I'm interested in? Yeah. Definitely not for basketball. Jordan Speeth. Give me some odds.

Jordan Speeth, 30 to 1. Oh. My favorite golfer ever. So let's talk about it because he had, you talk about guys, Nate, that have missed the tour championship. He's missed it the last two years. He hasn't won since 2017. He showed some glimpses last year. He was on the leaderboard at the Masters for a little bit.

And the Masters is his place. He putted his ass off last year. Finally. He had a great putting year. But his driving stats were as bad as. you know, you or me. I mean, they were off the charts. Not good.

Maybe he needs the new Calloway. What's the Maverick? Maybe he needs the Maverick. It's got artificial intelligence. They've put it through 45,000 simulations. They could dial that sucker in for him. Calloway, he's not a Calaway guy, but maybe they should just send him one to him anyway.

Can we help? But he's gone from being a story about clearly, like one of our most human stars, 20 to 22, he could not have been bigger. Thomas was calling him the golden child when he chipped in in Connecticut out of the trap, right? He's gone from being one of our biggest starts to now not even being a story.

And so I love that he's a headcase. I love that he's coming back. I just, we got to see him hit the fairway, and we haven't seen it yet. Well, it's going to start this week. We'll have an opportunity this week. He's playing at Tori. He was supposed to play at the Sony,

but he pulled out because he was sick and he didn't want to do all that travel while he was sick. What's a bad news here, guys? What is it? I think I'm out. What? He's only 26. Something happened.

He's another guy. I need to read a story that he spent three weeks in Malbu at some rehab place. Now, even though he didn't have anything wrong with him and just was trying to get his head straight or some sort of... Maybe he needs to go see the Dalai Lama. Or he went to the Joshua tree with his caddy and they just did mushrooms all weekend. Transcendental meditation. I need some sort of breakthrough. It can't just be I'm running it back again.

But he's not Knoblock. I mean, he just had to get out of the press. No, but there's something's different. When I watch him now in these tournaments, I'm just waiting. I'm waiting for the double bogey at the bad time. I mean, it happened with the frequency over the last two years. Or the drive that's like, man, if he can just stick this drive, and then it's like, oh, man, uh-oh, that might not, that might be OB.

But he's always done that, right? That happened at the British, and he still won. I mean, that was the story of that tournament. How many years ago? 2017? Yeah. Because he birdied in after that. Yeah.

He had the ability to an incomparable, incomparable, unparalleled, competitive. 2017 was a while ago. Feels like it. Kevin Durand was on the Warriors. Guess what? Mayor Pete, wasn't even a mayor? Golf is hard. Like, Brendan.

Love Donald Trump. Brendan Todd at the beginning of this year, I had a conversation with a couple of guys in a clubhouse and we're like, that guy is the worst pro I've ever seen. and he's won two and a half tournaments and he's second or third in the FedEx Cup. Like, it takes time. It's hard. It's hard and swinging a baseball bat. Like, it is hard.

And with so much of the game, being mental, it just takes a while to come back. The kid is still the golden child. I think this year could be about Speeth coming back. I hope so. He's going to play the Rider Cup. That would be one of my favorite stories.

The numbers you have in your fantastic research document where he was eighth to last of driving accuracy? I said that he was bad. But I mean, when you just see it in, print like that, it would be the equivalent of if you're like, hey, do you think Jimmy Butler's three point shot's going to come back? Because Jimmy Butler's shooting like 26% this year from three. And pretty good sample size at this point. And at some point,

you just kind of are who you are. When you're that low in driving accuracy, something really bad has gone wrong. And I mean? I will say the thing about golf and maybe Nathan will agree is you can find it. It's findable. It's findable. It's. It's not... The driver? Because of the Callaway Maverick? It doesn't deserve. It could be the Callaway Maverick.

It could be really anything. It could be equipment. It could be one simple change. It could be your alignment. Massage chair? Mishaz Share would definitely help. I highly recommend... The right girlfriend?

He's married now. And I feel like I ought not to talk about that. He's married now? You should not talk about it. I'm not going to talk. Yeah, he's married. He's been married for a couple years now. Oh, because...

Well, the timing of the marriage... Oh, yeah. Now we're getting somewhere. What do you mean? We shouldn't talk about this. Coincide in some respects to... Oh, yeah. He hasn't really won since he's been married.

Yeah. Are you listening to this, Craig? Yeah. The lesson is always, don't get married. I mean, just take your time. You can wait. Take your time. You don't need...

Dude, your late 30s. That's it. Like us, like me, especially. Yeah. 38. It was great. It was a great age to get married. Any regrets?

None. No regrets. I was 33, and I feel like I was... Yeah, 33. I feel like maybe I was a little early. Birdie buddies, another quick break from this chat with the podfather, Bill Simmons, and Nathan Hubbard. I want to tell you about Maverick irons. Last year, Calloway started using artificial intelligence to design their drivers.

And it changed the way people think about driver construction forever. Golfers everywhere were absolutely bombing the ball, because of this breakthrough leap in technology. But guys like me were saying to say, hey, what about that same distance technology in an iron? Well, wish granted. That's what Calloway does. It grants wishes they created the new maverick irons

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Who's going to win that? Pull up some major odds. Let's see if there's anything juicy out there. Well, wait, before we do that, explain the slow play rules to the public. Oh, I can't explain them. Well, but it's basically, hey, slow play dudes. it's going to end this year or there's going to be some ramifications. We got to do something because guys have been caught on camera rolling their eyes at Bryson DeShamo.

And here tofore, we've only had a penalty of dinging an entire group of guys instead of being able to single out the individual. So it says, hey, we're going to put some guys on a list, on a naughty list. And if they keep being bad, we're going to start fining them strokes, which costs money. Okay, but here's the problem. how they're measuring that? They're measuring that based on shot link, which is the way that the PGA tracks each shot that you take on the course. The problem with that system is that there are volunteers who are out on the course with little mobile devices entering in the information. And most of those volunteers do not have eyesight that would allow them to get their driver's license

because they're 85-year-old volunteers working the side. Dickhouse's dad. And so... Dickhouse. Dickhouse? Yes. And so... They could not possibly get this stuff right. So there's going to be guys on the list who shouldn't be off the list because Shotlink is basically some geriatric mess of data. It is potentially subject to garbage and garbage out. That is a risk.

Now, here's the thing to me about slow play. And it is kind of a funny thing that it really resonates with the golf community. One of the slowest people on the planet. Right. That's true. Except for the master of the 45-minute shower. God, I love a nice thing. long hot shower. Followed by just water all over the bathroom.

And he was like, what happened? Did a water buffalo get murdered? A merry tidy. Enjoy is a six-hour round. Well, that's not true. And we've played together. And I'm, I play. You're weirdly not a slow golfer. I am not a slow golfer. You're slow everything else, though. But this is a great entree into this discussion. Because of the popularity of the tour with the avid golf community, people lose their mind over

this slow play thing. And really it doesn't affect us. Like, we are just watching golf on TV. What it really affects is the competition amongst the guys out there playing. We saw it in the last tournament last year with Brooks. Well, he was paired with J.B. Holmes. He got screwed with J.B. Holmes. And it killed him. Yes. And it was a slow 87. It was one of the slowest 87s you could imagine. And Brooks was, you could see him like it changed how his day should have gone. That's exactly right. So for the competition part of it. homes it makes it is uh you know a compelling thing but i i mostly don't care about slow play i only care about it as it affects my life which is when i'm out on the golf course and that's you know

when you watch it on tv and see these guys being so deliberate overly deliberate and you're the concern is oh shit when i go play now uh you know my either the my local public place or even the club you're going to see guys out there repeating that behavior showing, you know, being overly deliberate. Emulating the bad behavior. Yes. Well, that's why it really resonates with the golf community, in my opinion. I don't care about that as much as I just want Brooks to do well.

He's my guy. You really are high on Brooks. I love Brooks. I just absolutely love him. And I don't want, when he's with a slow player, like, that's something we should bet against next year. Because I do think it affects him. I think he's a brisk guy who likes his pace. Well, they try and keep him up.

They're going to try and keep under wraps who's on this list. stuff. But now it's the case that the golf journalist community and, you know, sort of the fanalyst community are tracking this. The Friday guys have gone in on it. The shambo is just permanently on the list. Yes. The players will tell you this. The guys who assess these penalties are the little rules officials, who have the same relationship with the players in the way that some refs hate NBA players or NFL players. So there's a bunch of guys now who are worried that they've just empowered a bunch of rent to cops to abuse the authority. They'll never penalize the fills and tigers of the world,

but it'll empower them to mess with some of the players further down the list. So you asked for the major ads. Yeah, let's do some major odds. This will be the right way to end the show. I can't believe the source fun. Brooks Kepka, two to one that he wins one major this year. Two to one. How do we not go all in on that?

It feels like a good plus bet, but I don't want to be. then we get to root for Brooks for every major. We need to know more. But his knee is not right. We need to know more about his health. He played in Dubai and he was mediocre. I think he'll do whatever it takes. I will say this.

Including trips to foreign countries. I will say this. On this podcast a year ago, I picked him in the Players' Championship competed in March and was dismayed by how much he sucked. And the news story that came out was that he had done the diet. The story came out after he sucked You were upset.

I remember that podcast. Yeah, and so I... Well, also, you were offended as somebody who loves to eat. He stopped eating cheeseburgers. Yeah, diets offend you just anyway. That's exactly right. So I couldn't tolerate it. The no cheeseburger thing.

But he came out after that shitty player's performance and was on the leaderboard at the Masters immediately. So he does have a switch. He does have the ability to flip a switch. DJ's... plus 250, Rory's plus 275, Tigers, 3 to 1,

Speeth 4 to 1, which is weird because... Wow. I did not expect to see him in the top 7. John Rom, plus 4.50. No, that's not enough. Rose plus 450.

Ricky plus 450. Thomas is 5 to 1. Fleetwood's plus 650. These odds are terrible. Well, they're stupid, but... They are. They're really stupid.

Can't lay's 10 to 1. I'm just going through some guys. Patrick grades, 14 to 1. Then it just Victor Hovins, 25-1. Yeah, I don't know about that. Where's Honest Abe? Where's my guy? He's not even on here.

J.B. Holmes, 50-to-1. Won't be betting that one. Don't ever want to root for that guy. You sure we don't do Brooks, 2-1? We can go ahead and do it just to cover. It gives you something to root. Every one of the majors you want to be rooting for it. Who's the safe for bed unless he gets, you know, blows out his ACL or gets in an accident?

It has been an incomparable run in the majors that he's, been on. He'll be favored in every majors. But there isn't precedent for that for that to be sustainable. There are nobody's other than Tiger. Tiger's the only one. Brooks, you're probably not listening. Almost definitely not.

Almost definitely not. But I just want you to know. I believe in you. I'm going to do this bet. We can't do any better than that. Bill Simmons, Nathan Hubbard. Wait, that's it? What?

What else do you want to talk about? I had a... You have another season prop for us? No, you had one more prop. Which golfer would you at least trust your way for a girlfriend to be left alone with. Oh, that's easy. It's always Dustin Johnson, isn't it?

No. What? It's Tommy Two Gloves Ganey. Oh, no. No, Tommy Two Gloves Ganey. Just because he has the two gloves? No, you missed the story. He was in a prostitution sting.

And then he won the tournament on the Corn Ferry tour last week, and they didn't even talk about it. There was no mention of his recent arrest after his victory. Can I have more details? $60. It's on video massage parlor? Ish.

Like a Bob Crafty type thing? Yeah. Yeah. I mean... Maybe you need it on wine before the tournament. It was a little bit of a Florida man story. All these stories are always in Florida. That it was a prostitution sting.

He was on a list. See, they had video. I mean, there's a whole bunch of names, a whole bunch of people. You know, I watched the Aaron Nundez documentary. And it goes downhill when he gets to Florida. He signs there, goes there to play college, and the fucking wheels come off. Starts getting tattooed. hanging out gangbangers.

It just loses his mind. Florida. In golf terms, this guy is, like, we're going to go through a whole season pretending like it didn't happen, just like we did with Aaron Hernandez. Yeah. I would least trust my way for a girlfriend with Dustin Johnson. That's the way I feel as well. He's a big figure.

Tall guy, handsome. Handsome. He's lanky. Stenson's a little scary, too. tall, handsome, muscular guy, a foreigner. Yes. He probably has a cool accent. Both guys have accents.

That's the point I was going to make about DJ. DJ does that slow southern drawl. Tall, rich dudes with accents. Tough. We can't compete with that. Can I ask you both something? Yeah. Why would you not say Tiger Woods?

No, he's fine. He's old down. No, you know why? Because women don't like Tiger Woods. That's why. They turned on him. They did. They saw what he did to his wife.

My wife is not a. Tiger Woods fan. Eelan, their team Eelan. He might as well be wearing a Make America Great hat again. You had another prop. Which player would most likely to have nudes released? That's what we had. Abe.

We've seen Abe's making history somehow this year. We've seen Tiger. Brooks did it deliberately in the ESPN thing. That wasn't really having news. That wasn't somebody's cell phone. Who would the public care about? I mean, my dream would be Nathan's brother, Mark Herbert, would be my old.

I think we would just get so much baggage out of that. Ricky Fowler? I can actually make that happen. I mean, why not? It has to be some shot from 10 years ago. Ricky Fowler. Well, this is like, it's always somebody you don't expect. Ricky just got married.

If a Ricky Fowler sex tape, because his wife wasn't like an Olympic pole voltater or something, if that came out. She Olympic Pole Walter? Yeah, yeah. Very attractive. Very attractive young lady. You had another prop. Will there be any evidence this season that Patrick Reed has friends? or a friend.

So who's Team Patrick Reed? It's got to be somebody who grew up with them, right? Although all those people hate him too. He had a bad reputation in college. His former college coaches had to give out very vanilla, highly saccharine explanations for why he wasn't a cheater. He did build a relationship with Webb Simpson. Webb was his protector at the President's Cup,

so maybe, you know, Webb is the guy, I don't know. I'm just trying to get out of this podcast without it was getting a letter. Well, so if I had to rank the storylines this year, Tiger and Brooks are 1A and 1B in some order just, I hope they do well.

Golf's more fun when either of them is succeeding. Kepka will almost definitely succeed. Who knows with Tiger? Patrick Reed is a villain. Is great. I really am super duper excited for that. That might be worth betting him to win a major at 14 to 1. Just to root for it?

Yes. That's great. And just what is Spieth out of Fork in the Road season where if nothing good happens this year, now we have to really look at and go, oh, man. And then who's the guy who's going to come out? Like we mentioned some of these different possible breakout guys. Some young guys. Even though we know who they all are and we've had them in draft fantasy lineups and stuff like that. But is one of these guys going to actually make the jump?

Because it seems like there's one a year where it's like, oh, this guy, he's. ready. So who is it? That's a great. Yeah. That's all I got for your house. Stay at Torrey Pines. It's wonderful. It's a delightful season coming up. We have CBS starts its broadcast. Our pal Amanda Ballionis making her debut this weekend, Tori Pines.

So everybody check it out. Almost overqualified for that job. Well, they have her doing stuff with the stats. No, but I mean like she's just so, she actually knows golf. Normally it's like, hey, what happened on 17? and she actually will have... She worked for the tour before. She could go in the booth and announce with the dudes

and be really good at it. She could. I think the guys really respect her because they know she knows her shit, so they actually give up stuff to her. Well, let's talk to Jim Nance and see if you can make it happen. Shout out. The one thing I don't like about her, she hates dogs.

Huge, huge anti-pet person. It's so weird. Goes on airplanes. If somebody brings a dog, she sprays water at them. Maniac. Never met anybody who hates pets that much. This show is going to go up midweek and you'll be able to see the

charity event that she's running today actually. Yeah. Martin Luther King Day. There you go. Fellas, Bill Simmons, Nathan Harvard. It's unbelievable. We're off and running. 20-20 golf season. Let's put a peg in the ground. All right, my friends, there we go. The season premiere Fairway Rollin. We've got that

loop completed. Very excited to kick off this season. We have a variety of guests from a lot of different walks of life lined up. We're going to be going year round this year. We're not going to end with a tour championship because too much stuff is happening in the world of golf. And we are going to be doing a lot more with trying to give you some good guide and some good advice about picks. Of course, we haven't given you any picks this week. But, you know, we just want to get the ball rolling a little bit softly here. Following up next week, we'll have some selections for you, some recommendations for your wallet, for your DFS lineup, for your fantasy lineup. But we're very excited for a whole season's worth of Fairway Rowland, presented by Callaway Golf.

Until next week, my par saving, pals, let's try and hit one straight down the middle.