Fairway Rollin' - All Things U.S. Open With Bill Simmons and Joel Beall | Fairway Rollin’

Episode Date: June 11, 2019

Joe House is joined by Joel Beall of Golf Digest to discuss Pebble Beach's conditions, which players look promising, betting props, and more (3:50). Then Megan Schuster joins to preview the players' fashion choices and discuss Phil Mickelson’s newest social media content (52:00), and Chris Vernon calls in to offer his picks for the U.S. Open. Plus: a surprise appearance from Bill Simmons (71:30)! Host: Joe House Guests: Joel Beall, Megan Schuster, Chris Vernon, Bill Simmons Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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which means tore proven distance and performance with unparalleled feel again available right now at Callaway Golf. Today's episode also brought to you by Destination Kohler in Kohler, Wisconsin, home of Whistling Straits and Black Wolf Run. Destination Kohler was ranked by Golf Digest to have four of the top 100 public courses in the United States. It's also going to host the 2020 Ryder Cup. That one is at Whistling Straits. Imagine my birdie buddies. Summer on Lake Michigan in the land of beer and cheese. You got rounds of championship golf and delicious ice cold beverages plus deep fried Wisconsin cheese curds. It is time to get rolling to destination culler.com to book your

package today. That's destinationcolar.com. Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast, unlike any other. This, my friends, is a major golf podcast. We've made it. Here we are. It is Fairway Rowland. Part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I am your starter Joe House. Fairway Rowland, presented by our pals at Callaway Golf. What a show today. We are setting the stage for the 119th edition of the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

This is primetime television on the East Coast. It is Father's Day on Sunday. It doesn't get any more major than this. my part saving pals. Joel Beal is on from Golf Digest to help set the stage, identify the storylines, create a little bit of intrigue around all the drama that we're chasing this week.

Of course, Megan Schuster, Shusty is on. We're talking about the scripting. We're looking for something creative out of the guys this week. And then Chris Vernon, we've got some picks to talk about. We've got a little capital to allocate and a surprise guest during that segment, it gets a little bit hairy in there, and I'm just going to leave it at that.

The first tea is open, my eagle enthusiasts. Let's let out a little shaft and get into it with Joel Beale. Ladies and gentlemen, now on the tea from Cincinnati, Ohio, qualifying for this United States Open at Aston Oaks Golf Course, and straight out of Golf Digest. Joel Beal, welcome. What's going on, brother?

It's another major week. You have been helping us give out some major observations, major opinions, and major good advice. How about this? You just shared with me this nugget. We gave out some props

when you and I were convened for the PGA championship barely a month ago at Bethpage Black. had some, some glorious, uh, suggestions on ways folks could allocate their capital.

I think you gave out the winner will have a Nike hat. You gave out, uh, something about one of the local pros making a cut or something like that. Remind me of, of the props that we gave out. Not exactly going on a limb. Between those three,

uh, a man named James, interestingly enough after he messaged me, deleted his Twitter account. I don't know if you didn't want this info out there. Uh, parlayed those three items into just a little bit of, to just under $10,000 a winning.

So it makes me feel good at House that we're helping the people out. Just under $10,000, that is winning capital right there, Joel Beal. Well done. Now, we're not going to be able at this stage of the game. This is the Monday of U.S. Open Week. And so far we haven't seen any of the books. You and I have been looking publish the props that they're offering up in any kind of comprehensive way.

every major you publish your own favorite props. That's typically, I believe, the Wednesday before the Thursday tee off. Is that right? Correct. Yeah, we usually push that Wednesday morning, give everyone enough time to get their wagers in. But yeah, it's very odd. Usually these things kind of trickle out early Monday morning,

but so far everyone's the media center is kind of scratching. Nike hat thing. I don't know what to do with that. I guess that's right. I can't even come up with any other props. off the top of my head. I mean, will anybody use them one iron? That's not really a problem.

The odds would have to be too crazy for that one. I think he's bugged Ferguson. Most of these guys don't even carry two iron anymore. So, yeah, I'm pretty sure that prop. If we see anything like that, go ahead and bet against that. Bet against that one. That would be the advice. So you are physically at Pebble Beach right now, correct?

I have the intentions to keep me up. I am here. We had six different flight games. places yesterday and a couple rerouting. But we are here, baby. And you said it's beautiful. I looked at the weather. I was interested in the forecast.

Is it like 88, 90 degrees out there today? It is supposed to be like high as actually went back and changed short. Not expecting this weather as well. But yeah, it's unusually warm here. Although it looks like it's just a cool down later in the week, especially the weekend. Yeah. So let's set this stage for the 119th edition. of the United States Open at Pebble Beach.

Let's set the stage with the stage. The stage is Pebble Beach. And, you know, this is a championship venue where the winners of majors at this venue are your all-time Hall of Famers. They are your Tom Watson's and your Jack Nicklaces and your Tiger Woods. Graham McDowell, maybe a slight aberration. But, you know, Dustin Johnson, a certified guaranteed first ballot, Golf Hall of Famer, you know, had to have to like serve it up with an 82,

a Sunday 82 for McDowell to slide in and grab the 2010 event. The venue has been something of an issue. and I'm talking sort of generically about the idea of U.S. open venues for the United States Golf Association. And the players have grown more and more comfortable with criticizing the USGA about the venue setup. What do you anticipate this week in terms of the venue setup and how players are going to find it and how the venue is going to play. One thing worth noting, I will let you answer that question in a second.

I do want to note the last handful of venues, the setup, the mastermind, was Mike Davis of the USGA. This year, he is out of the setup business. John Bonehammer is in. And so I wonder if that's going to make a difference. What are your thoughts on the venue? You know, it's every year at the base.

team team program in February. There is this sense, not only from the players, but various tour officials, USGA official stigma, that the USDA sits in this ivory tower and doesn't be heightened to the rest of their reputation. They can do it. They have a venue that,

that you only see once a decade. If you mess up a court, how it plays usually, if you can mess that up when guys this morning, so far they like the conditioning. The greens are actually rolling relatively slow. It seems like they're going to roll about 12 and a half, which is on the lower side for a year. US Open venue.

That being said, we were told the same exact thing last year at Schenekak. And to be honest, for the first five days, the first two days at least in the competition, the players were happy with it. It was just that staff going on the greens down and things on wild. So here, but you really have to hold your breath till Sunday night to really see if it's going to transpire. Given it is such a trust in the planet, I don't think we're going to see the fireworks that we've seen the past couple years.

Yeah, I share your view on this. one thing that I've, you know, run across and in trying to formulate some, some thoughts on guys that, that have the potential to win. It's such a radically different golf course in June than how it plays in February,

simply because of the difference in seasons, uh, kind of obviously it is cool and wet typically in, uh, Northern California when they compete the, the 18, proam, the old clam bake. And then by now, by June, you have a few things going on in the first place.

It's bone dry. No rain whatsoever. There's no rain. There's a 10% chance of rain in the forecast this coming week. The days are super long. They're like 15 and a half hours. Like sunset, a sunrise is like quarter to six in the morning, 5.50 in the morning. And it stays sun out all the way till 8.30.

at night nearly um and so the the the and the sun is is is out and the breeze is steady now the forecast for this week has the breeze at around 10 miles an hour it's maxed out of like 11 miles an hour and that's not big challenging win like the the variable at this venue that um you know can produce conditions that make it impossible for the guys is is is the weather and right now the way the forecast looks it doesn't look like the winds are going to get whipping but i'm interested in your thoughts like because of of what you're observing right now the green speed condition is especially you know over the course of these super long days where guys are teeing off first thing in the morning and they're playing right on into the evening um what if

what impact do you expect on the greens the poa over the course of the day because the greens are going to change, right? Well, I have one thing when you're kind of contrasting the two set up between the year in February. The other big thing is that, you know, for that pro-am, it's right there in the title. Amateurs and even worse, you're Ray Ramano's and Andy Garcia's. So the course is really set up easy in February to what you see now

where, I mean, I kind of like, I tell you, this is some of the victims that I've seen at a major championship venue. I didn't see a single guy. It really advanced their ball to the greens. They found the roll in the rough, but they're in the practice. But going, going back to your green standpoint. I mentioned earlier that they have met 12 and a half. And the reason is fake them out early in the week.

They're going to be totally gone by Saturday and Sunday. So they are making a concert effort to wire the green. So it's a little bit actually at the 2015 Open Championship at St. Andrews. Because they weren't expecting that much win, they tried to cut the greens a little bit lower than expected. Then wind kind of came and messed everything up. They had that delay in the third round of when expected. They're actually going to keep the green still relatively high.

compared to other U.S. Open Sierra Pubble Beach just because they don't want a situation where it falls. So make that point that they can kind of change throughout the day. But I think you're going to see a really conservative effort to make sure they kind of stay stable throughout the round. I'm interested. I want to follow up on your excellent observation about the status of the rough. There is a video Patrick Cantlay, you know, did the thing.

Every year when some player does this, he goes to the venue a few days early and drops a golf ball into the rough and the ball disappears and then then the guys try and hack it out the thing that caught caught my eye with the video that Cantlay shot was he walked off the number of paces from where he anticipates one of the pin positions to be on the ninth hole I think it was a back right pin that he had sort of mimicked and he took what looked to be like maybe eight paces off the green and was in a level of rough that this was not just, you know, cut. This is just gnarly, insane coastal grasses.

You know, he dropped like three or four balls. Now, first ball, you couldn't see it at all. He swung as hard as he could. It chopped out and skittered completely across the green. The second one, he could see a little bit of it and he hit it out. that condition, that, you know, just a few paces around the various green complexes, the players can find themselves in that kind of rough? Is that the prevailing setup there? It is. And, you know, you mentioned that every here we see this video in some form or fashion.

What's different about Kaly's video is that every course has deep rough at some point of the course. This is legitimately ubiquitous. very consistent. It's no matter of 20, 30 yards off the T-box to just three or four yards off of green. It's all this long and this brutal. I feel like Aaron Hills, I felt like they just made the road that was why they had to throw it down. This is one of the PEPL's professional standards. A lot of guys can get away, and at least in the practice round, Tab, was hitting three, four iron keys,

maybe three wood on some of the longer holes and be okay. So to really kind of give Pueble is teach you. have to kind of grow the rough and make a severe penalty if you do mess the fairway. And the greens are probably some of the, in some of the dimension side, some of the smaller greens you'll see professional golf. So, you know, we usually see, say that game wins that week, bold it because if you miss these greens, man, you're going to be lucky to save far. It's actually one of the reasons why I think it helped Tiger Woods this week.

It's one of the few guys that can really handle real rough around the green sea. is a really great up and down game. But man, if you miss these small pins, you're in trouble. So I think you're going to see, I think you're going to see these guys really try to just, whatever at all play, you're not going to see many drivers this week, whatever they can do to keep in the fair way they're going to do it.

Yeah, the three attributes that, you know, everybody in the analysis world emphasizes thematically are accuracy off the T and really you can, at the expense of distance, nobody cares about distance at this venue, accuracy from the fairway to the green, and then making sure that your ball is below the hole. Those are the three like defining thematic attributes that the guys who are going to have the most success. You see it sort of in every version of the analysis. and then there's a bunch of subcategories and deep analytics, but those three attributes seem to be the most required.

I'm glad you mentioned Tiger and his ability to get up and down. I watched, I'm not sure whether it was your site or golf.com. I think it was your site. There was a Tom Kite video where he kind of recounted his. his final round at Pebble in 1992 when he won in the face of like 30 mile an hour plus winds. The winds were way beyond even blustering. I mean, it was just roaring winds at Pebble Beach. And I was struck by how often he was off the, he was in the green complexes in places that were like misses. And some of them were big time misses.

Like his miss on 17, he looked like he was 30 yards to the left of the green in one of those bunkers. Of course, he hit it to, you know, six feet and then made the put. And, you know, the same thing was true on seven. He yanked a six iron on number seven and then chipped it in. And I was watching this thinking, who has this kind of scrambling ability on a Sunday when the championship? chip is on the line. And that's a very, very short list, Joel Beal. I think Tiger is the only one that I really trust the most.

But you had a story that's running right now on gulfgothdigest.com. Phil Mickelson. And the story is the numbers don't lie. Pebble Beach is Phil Mickelson's last shot. So when I think of scrambling and short game prowess and, you know, the ability to save glory from the depths of despair, Phil Mickelson is at the top of that list. What do you think about Phil having done this story, his chances at this week's event? It's funny. When I said, I just do because if I defend a guy who's gone over 27 at this tournament, what could I possibly find that will show that he's got hope?

When you look at how he's, which we've said is a different setup, but how he's played at, his game actually fits us to a team. What really helps him here is that there's this weird variance of where he usually hit his game. His strong suits, though, from a distance-wise, taking into account him hitting basically two on or three wood off every tee. A couple weeks ago, he said that's what he was going to do, and then out of nowhere last week he said he's going to carry two drivers in his bag, so who the hell knows what Phil's actually going to do.

but if you look at a profile of a guy who should play well here, at least what you mentioned, Tom Kite, Tiger at 2000 is almost the aberration because he flew the field out by 15 strokes, and it's really hard to get a gauge of how it actually plays. But if you also look at what Graham McDowell did, it's kind of guys who just don't make mistakes off the teeth. That's something we don't really associate so megalson with.

He's actually been able to keep it relatively near the fairway, not on the fairway. He's actually fairway percentage aren't that great, but he's at least able to keep it in the ballpotted trees here. so if you can just keep it out of the water, you have a shot. And believe it or not, if you're looking for, it might be the chance for Phil Miggleton pulls through. I have never been a guy who still in this tournament,

but man, it really seems like the stars are aligned for Mickleton to finally get that damn monkey office back here at the U.S. Open. Yeah, some of the stats that caught my attention, he is good from the rough. So while he's sort of in line with, the sort of average accuracy at this venue because his accuracy from the T driving the ball is horrendous. But at Pebble, he's kind of in line with the basic accuracy numbers. But we know that the U.S. Open off the T, if you're in the rough,

you have to be able to advance the ball, you know, get close to the green. And we're not talking about the deep cabbage stuff because that's just you you made the right observation guys are just going to have to chip out from that there's no advancing the ball from the crazy cabbage stuff but he had some good numbers uh of of accuracy uh you know on approach from the rough and you just mentioned that there's two different yardages that he that really seemed to fit his his play at pebble uh one of them was like 125 to 150 is that right and what was the other one because i think we there are ones

actually the next 5 to 175 which is interesting but we do we do associate Phil as this you know wedge the vine

he certainly is around the green zone he actually struggles to try to explain this to me basically he just has a little bit too much movement

from that difference with his wedge proximity pushing wedge or 9-9 or 8 iron and there's only probably about 7 or 8 guys on tour because again we think of

the U.S. Open of being the camera that you need to hit it straight and Phil Hickleton is pipe it down the fairway every time. But, man, as he's shown at Pubbleau 4 with 5 wins here and a number, and the fact that at least from a distance standpoint,

it's going to play the exact same way. I think you kind of have to give Phil, you have to put him in that eight or not, like that group of eight or nine guys who should be able to contend this week. Yeah, so that's funny. Eight or nine guys, I think that's like the entire list of potential winners

for this event. I think because of how competitive. competitive, you know, this year guys are for the top guys in the game are mostly healthy. The only guy that is, you know, doesn't fit that category is Justin Thomas with this wrist injury. So I'm fading him a little bit. But I just, the cream of the, the guys of the top, the cream of the crop are just so good. I don't think this venue under these circumstances in the face of how good the group, is you're going to have a, you know, out of left field kind of winner, which means, you know,

go ahead. No, it's funny to say that because someone asked me that the other day, you know, produces a guy from out of nowhere. And really, while that's maybe historically been true, the past eight years, it's actually been the top guy. We've had Rory, Justin Rose, Martin Kimer, Brooks Kepka's voice, Jordan's speech, Dustin Johnson. And everyone who's winning this is the guy who's been in the top 10

or turned into a top 10 guy. So I'm looking at the way the USJs kind of transform their setup. I know what you want about, but it does seem to reward the creams of the crop. So if you're looking for these guys in the 50s and 60s, I think that's more of an open championship bet, which is going to set up this week. Yeah, I'm not betting. There are a couple guys that I like in the 25 to 1 class,

and that's Jason Day and Frankie Molinari. both Jason Day has an impeccable track record at Pebble. And I think Molinari, you know, his ball striking over the last 18 months has been as good as anybody in the world. That's like the entirety of what I consider like value plays in terms of guys that I might indulge as potential winners. And those guys are major winners, right? We're not talking about, you know, chump change. you know, Frankie Molinari, damn near,

validated his, his open championship with the Masters, and Jason Day, you know, had his tear, but also has a terrific relationship, with Pebble. I want to talk about the previous,

go ahead. Sorry, not of that, but Jason Day brought on Steve Williams, Tiger Woods, former caddy this week, who was on the begs, of course, knowledge there was as well.

And I'm actually with you in Molonari. He's one of those guys. put up there. As I mentioned, this is one of the shorter courses, and Molinari's as straight as it comes. So the fact that he can kind of hit driver and get away with it while I think actually plays right into Malari's favor a little bit.

But yeah, I'm looking. Those two guys I like Lai, a little bit more than today. Just because they approach game can kind of go here and there. But both those guys, I definitely won't turn anyone against front this week. You know, I'm looking right now. I'm pulling it up. I want to see exactly what numbers those guys are. They moved down both.

So Frankie Molinari currently available at 35 to 1. This is for you and I, Joel Beal. Maybe we'll just go ahead and put a little in because there's always this phenomena. Once the podcast gets published, the odds start creeping down. Molinari available at 35 to 1 right now. That is a hot ticket. I like that quite a bit. And the same is true of Jason Day.

I mean, you know, it would be pretty stunning for either one of them to win this. tournament, although less stunning for the reasons you just mentioned for Molinari, because I honestly think that he had a U.S. Open style of game at the Masters. He was saving par from all over the place. And his, you know, his second shot prowess has been nearly unparalleled. But I want to talk about the creamiest of the cream. And that is Eldrick Tiger Woods. he is returning to the place that he was responsible for, in my view, the single greatest major tournament performance in the history of golf. And I honestly don't feel like that's hyperbole.

I'm talking to a lot of the guys, they don't either. And it's funny, they, just that he won by 15, that he won, one with the triple with 50. that's somehow even more astonishing to those guys that you could have a number like that to laugh the field and literally you watch the tape and I feel like

Roy McRoy actually has the same issue that he makes it look so easy when he's on that we expect it every time and yeah when you watch that 2000 that's the new West open it certainly takes you out of different places even hearing the announcers discuss that you can tell they aren't quite believing

what they're watching it's on YouTube if no one has never watched it, do yourself in favor in both three hours. Sunday around is something you've never seen in support before. That's right. One of the things that has trends, if you're a Tiger Truther, like I am, one of the things that really distinguished his performance in 2000 was his greens in regulation percentage. He was up near 72% greens and regulation over the course of that,

2000 U.S. Open while the field average that year was under 50%. It was like at 48%. So he, you know, that is a monumental difference between a winner and the rest of the field in terms of second shot accuracy. And if you're looking for trends as a tiger truther, our pal Justin Ray at the 15th club, who's coming on. We're going to have him up on this show Wednesday, sharing some of his thoughts and observations as the tournament kicks off on things to look for and potential winners and some angles that might put a couple dollars in your pocket. He made this observation that this season, Tigers hit nearly 73% of his greens in regulation.

And two of the three times that he arrived at a U.S. Open with a higher percentage. of Greens and regulation like this, and this was 2000 and 2008, he won those U.S. opens. It's looking good for him, given that he leads to the tour right now in Green's and regulation.

And it's funny, if you look at his numbers, they actually don't do them full credit because the master doesn't count for it as well as the match play, which Tiger obviously had a very nice run there. So someone was on the court is actually making the case that you put them to win there,

he'd actually be leading by about four or five percent. So he's really been on this game and the strokes game metric backs that up as well. A white breaks, I think ninth in strokes game, T to Green. I mean, the guy is so good with his iron, especially from 175

yards in that these tight green should kind of eliminate the, you know, can just find the green and let their players do to work. That's not really Tiger as them, though. He really gets his work done in the second shot. Now, the one thing that does scare me a little bit about Tiger is that he's been really, really bad.

at least the past is actually 203rd right now in rough proximity. So for him, it's going to be imperative to keep it in the fair way. If not, he's going to really be struggling. And Bryce and Deschambeau around today, he looks really loose. He looked good. You know, he has that quick exit, excuse me, at Best Stage. I think we can all kind of look back now in Tiger Woman. He was really feeling under the weather.

He didn't even show up to the course on Wednesday for his practice around. He was really battling a quote. I think that had a bigger effect than he really wanted to admit at the time. But we saw at Columbus, like two weeks ago at the Memorial with a very strong Sunday finish. They get finished in the top 10. He's feeling it again. And this is, of course, not only that he did he win in 2000, they finished C4 here in 2010. So he clearly gets to suit this game.

It serves as either. If you're looking for kind of one Achilles to heal and what's current game, it's kind of what he does on the green 33rd right now in stroke team putting. So the fact of that can kind of even things out a little bit around the green forum. Man, I really have to put him, I hooked and DJ right above him, but I think Tiger is right there number three for me in terms of my favorites going in this week. Yeah, so let's go ahead and talk a couple other favorites. You just mentioned Rory and how easy he can make things look when he has it rolling,

and fresh in everybody's eyes will be what he did yesterday at Hamilton up there at the RBC Canadian Open, threatened 59 all the way up until the 18th hole when a slightly wayward iron shot found the bunker and he tried to chip into the hole and I admire him for it. What do you think about, because I have a strong opinion on Rory for this event, but I'm curious as to your thoughts on where he is and whether or not he's a threat this week.

I mean, it's got who just came off 61. that could have easily been the 58, actually, was concerned he bogey 16, too. The two things that do pop out of me, I keep going back to, is that I think we mentioned this at best page, is that since that 2011 winning discretion had to do with, he's

just not been able to keep it in the fairway. I believe we've said the importance of, and this is more of a historical side, and admittedly I'm a slave to these type of thing, but no one has ever won the U.S. Open who's won the week before the tournament. It would break it. It would be roared.

kind of keep going back to those. Unless he really kind of takes his medicine and decides I just have to keep the driver in the bag. That's something he's not really been. That's a discipline he doesn't really have. I mean, again, I'm not, if you want to flesh to God be, I'm not going to try to convince you out of it. It's just, I don't think he's in that

broke DJ range. Especially I think he's going off to anywhere from eight to nine to one odds right now. That's just too much for me, given his history to determine that. Yeah, I don't like to sound like a hater, because I am not a hater of Rory. I have been frustrated with Rory over the years and have conveyed my frustration on the

podcast just because I feel like he should have been the guy that was rivaling Tiger's, you know, ultra incandescent performance over a number of years. And I was pissed at him when he got hurt playing footsie. And I was pissed at him when he changed equipment and it took him a whole year. year to get used to the new equipment. And, you know, he's just like he's losing years in his 20s when he's physically should be at his peak and not going out and grabbing majors by the balls. But I admire his game and greatly enjoy when he gets it going like yesterday.

It's an incredible thing to watch. Having said all that, I'm going to bet on Rory McElroy to miss the cut at this event this week. He came out and I think they asked him about a practice round today at Pebble. He said he wasn't going to make it because he was going to be hung over, if I'm recalling it correctly. And I just it's just a different kind of thing altogether at Pebble. It's so radically different from anything that he's experienced. And he's only played it twice since 2010. Now, maybe he's played it informally. He missed the cut at the 2010 open, and he, you know, he MDFed in 2017 or 18.

So he played three rounds and then, you know, missed the secondary cut. That's not a great track record at a place that, you know, has a peculiar and particular kind of requirement for success. and I think it's the case that all of Rory's advantage, which is hitting the ball 350 yards on the first hole at Hamilton and then having a 40-yard chip that he damn near holds out, that ain't happening at Pebble Beach. That's just not an option at this venue under the conditions that this is going to be playing in. So I'm crossing Rory off of all of my.

my lists. I know it's hard to bet a guy who can make things really struggle especially as the US Open. When things kind of start going off the track,

if he makes a bogey, he tries to get it all back on that. Good bogey is kind of said until he kind of figures that out. I just don't see him briefly, you know,

to win another U.S. Open because really if you look look to the one he won in 2011, it really wasn't a U.S. Open. You can kind of do whatever you wanted off as deep box.

As you mentioned it, even though the course is actually a little on the wetter side right now, if there's no more rain scheduled and force such as a place to dry, I just don't think this would be the year for Rory. Yeah. Well, one guy that has shown

a little bit of resurgence or return to form that has, again, many, many major chops, lots of major tournament success. Jordan's feet is back on the leaderboard again. What's the sentiment out there at Pebble about Jordan's prospects this week? I went for

this at the best page so many people are jumping off to Jordan's bandwagon and now that he's turned things around

with three times I said George's one at Pebble before and it's funny as much as we get

Rory not Rory for his driving actor he's actually about in the same boat been really

way where off in he has somewhat figure that out at least the past month

that gives you hope that you can get it done here right there with Tiger is on the

best line all these past three weeks was putting which will be interesting because his iron shots haven't been particularly great. It's just been when he's on the green. He's going to intrigue me in the next couple days,

least in the practice rounds, to see what he's going with this approach is because these shots that he was hitting at Memorial and even at bed page, they wouldn't find the green here this week. So he really has to tune in his second shot for out of the shot. But given his odds, they're still 17 to 1. Yeah.

That's a pretty intriguing number for, a guy who's who's already wanted to sports before. So, yeah, I'm a big feedbacker. Like him this week, don't love him, but I would think would have a pretty good chance, given the latest game's trending at the moment. I'm with you. I like but don't love him. I'm going to put a little on him to top 20.

I'm going to put a little on him to top 10, just because I want to root for it, and I like it. I don't think I'm going to touch him to win. Now, I know you have to go. I have one last thing for you during our time here. The glorious one of us, the sports books, the one that I follow most prominently, and since they don't pay for any of the show, since there's no sponsorship, I'm not giving them a shout out.

There are some props up. Now, these are vanilla props. These are not any of the fun props that I know you'll find over the course of the week, as the week evolves. But there are a couple that I'm interested in. Right now, will there be a hole in one? Yes is minus 145. If no is plus 115, I guess the only hole that feels to me like it's whole and wonable is seven.

And that means you believe that the wind is going to be pretty docile over the course of the week. In the first place, do you agree, is seven the most whole and wantable, or am I getting that wrong? No, you're right. I was just thinking there's not a lot to do it. He actually happens anywhere. It's got to be there. So minus 145. play it or no play? Is it'll stay away?

I'll let it ride. I'd play it. It's, uh, this many guys in the field, uh, that many chances at it. Even if the wind is somewhat steady, he's got to still handle it from that, from that distance. I like that one too. The other one I'm interested in your opinion on right now, the, the, the nationality of the winner, uh, USA versus the field. USA is minus 140. The field is plus 110. I have to tell you, I absolutely adore the USA.

We have had the nationality of the winner over the last nine majors. Eight of those nine has been a citizen of the United States of America with the only aberration being Sergio Garcia at the Masters. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Molinari. Molinari. Molinari is the one in the nine. I'm going too far back with this eight out of nine. But in any event, Nationality of the winner

minus 140, that means you get, if you put that in, you get Tiger, you get DJ, get Kepka, you get Ketlae, you get who else, Spieth, you get Phil, you get Kutcher. I like it.

Another guy who just seems to roll out of that and get a top ten at every major. It's funny. The only really non-American I'm like outside of Mollonari, at least it's jumping out, is Paul Casey who played well here in February and doesn't need a lot of

power. I'm actually off with Tommy Fleetwood back, and I feel like Fleetwood mentioned a lot of three majors, and so far he's got to punch it, so you're in here a lot of Fleetwood this week. Go ahead watch a win, but this is the one week I wouldn't roll with Tommy Fleetwood. But yeah, I'm with you. And I'm glad you mentioned Patrick

Kaly, too, because definitely his odds dropped after he won the Memorial. But if you're basing that best strickoff Memorial, you haven't seen what Patrick Canley's been in the past couple months. He played really well. Augusta had a nice finish at Bedpage. He played well as well as RBC Heritage.

So he's really coming to his own. He does score very well. So Patrick Canley is their name. I definitely keep an eye on this week. Yeah, I'm bummed. He's all the way down to 14 to 1. His odds are shorter now than Jordan Speeth. Speeth's at 16 to 1.

Cantley was available Sunday lunchtime of the memorial at 28 to 1 to win the U.S. Open. And I sat there like, oh, I had to put this in right now. And then I got distracted. I'm not sure my 8-year-old must have asked me for a piece of toast or something. And I got distracted, never got it in. The tournament ended. He immediately dropped down to 21.

And here he is available at 14 to 1. Let's end on, on, I want to end it on a negative note because I'm going to, I'm glad you mentioned Fleetwood. I'm fading the F-boys. I'm fading Fleetwood. I'm fading Fowler and I'm fading Tony Fee now. I don't believe we've, I've just grown impatient with all of them and all of them have walked up to, you know, the precipice of, you know, let's talk about the cliff on number eight. They've walked up to the edge and they look over and they don't like what they see. And the next thing you know, the ball's going in the water. Fleetwood especially. has hit eject on Sunday in particular

in all the big events. His scoring average at the Players' Championship, the Masters, and the PGA championship has been horrendous on Sunday. Fienow doesn't seem to me yet to have the mental part of this down, and you can't not have the mental part down and have success at Pebble. And I'm not sure if we, at this stage of the game, are not in a world where everybody just is overrating Ricky Fowler.

Maybe he's not as good a player as all of the accolades and the claim that's heaped upon him. He's a terrific personality, a terrific brand. I'm not sure how great a major golfer he is. What do you think? Well, at the last point, I was, I'm with you to the extent. I do think the marketing appeal vastly how weighs the, actual performance of the player. That being said,

if you look at his major performance, he's been consistently very, very good. I think the problem with Fowler is hasn't done that extra gear. To him is just, hey, here's what I have to do over the 72 holes

without really taking into account with the rest of the field doing. I mean, still relatively young. I think I wouldn't be spread to you once one or two, but yeah, I'm with you. I don't think this is not the course.

I think it's going to be more of a TGA championship venue or even an open championship, but the US 7 doesn't, I don't think this is Fitzfowler game. It's funny you mentioned Steve now. Legitably

probably a nice guy out here. Yeah. Can you just win an event though before we before we are putting him as a major contender?

All he's won so far as an alternate event. So I kind of want to before it back you want to major, I need to see you get it done on a regular circuit. And he had funny,

I was trying to make this place to Fleetwood because I was the last year he finished second at the U.S. Open, but it was kind of a backdoor second as much as one can be a backdoor second. He played very early in the morning

and made his run before conditions kind of toughened up a little bit in the afternoon. So I'm with you. I kind of need to see what Fleetwood does in the fire a little bit more before we keep right in this once Tommy Fleetwood's time to win a major. So I fully endorse staying away from the F this week. Stayed for Francesco. Ride Francesco, we're all okay with that.

Yeah, that's perfect. I love it. Frankie On you, that's our play. All right, Joel, Bill. Thanks for coming on as always. I think we've set the stage here. and we'll be looking. What else in addition to your props offering that you'll have up on Wednesday,

what else are you working on this week? So actually just right down the road. A little something on that. There's a course called Pacific Grove for those in the area. It's called the Four Man's Temple Beach. You can get on there for about $45, $50. Just as good as used and really good course. So we're going to take a visit there.

I have a couple bigger tiger pieces coming on later in the week. And then at that point, we'll just see how the tournament plays out and go from there. That sounds great. I'm looking forward to it. And we'll be reading all your stuff. All right, Hal. Be good, buddy. Thanks, buddy.

You too. My thanks as always to Joel Beal. Check out all his stuff, gulfdigest.com throughout the week. We are going to jump on with Shusty in a minute and talk about what the guys are going to be wearing. I want to tell you about this brand new podcast. The Callaway Golf is running. It is real golf talk with Johnny Miller. hosted by Chris Harrison of The Bachelor.

This is probably the most cherished podcast job in all of golf. Chris Harrison has it. He gets to sit down and talk with Johnny Miller after each of the majors this year. Johnny's sharing all his stuff in the purely unvarnished, tell it like it is kind of way that only Johnny Miller can. They're going to have this episode up right after the U.S. Open is finished. We're going to hear what Johnny has to say. Johnny and Chris, another terrific conversation.

all about Pebble Beach. Real Golf Talk with Johnny Miller on the Callaway Podcast Network. It will be up and available. Callowagolf.com, hopefully the Monday after the U.S. Open. Check it out. This episode of Fairway Roll and brought to you

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Megan Schuster, welcome to the T. House, thank you so much for having me ahead of this wonderful U.S. Open. How about it? I mean, it's the 119th edition, a wealth of riches, both between the characters that will be participating and the glorious stories. Please tell me that these handsome gentlemen are going to be wearing some handsome duds. Yeah, it's U.S. Open scripting season, right? Yes. I want to be excited, but the Masters and the PGA Championship really left something to be desired, juicy.

Yeah, there's a pretty low bar to clear, I will say, going into the U.S. Open to try and combat those other two tournaments. So I thought we could go through in a few different tiers. One tier, we can start off with the ones that impressed us that we actually liked, you know, start, you know, get things rolling on a high note. Then we can go through the ones that are fine and then the ones that are pretty tragic. How's that sound? I love it. This is the best way to do it. Okay.

So I will say the first one, and this is the major one that I'm most excited about, is Tiger Woods, which is such a thrill to be able to say, as I was very disappointed with his PGA looks. And I don't know if it's just the feeling of having big little lies back in my life, but I'm loving his not quite pastel, mellow California tones that he's got going on this weekend. he has sort of like a toned down like slaty purple for Thursday. He's got a bright pink on Friday, a nice turquoise color for Saturday. And then, of course, is mock turtleneck red on Sunday. It's like very summary tones without being neon or obnoxious, very satisfying color palette. Just pretty good all around. Is there a collar on any of these shirts?

I know there's not a collar on the Sunday shirt. He's got the blade collar going. On all the rest of them, right? Yeah, yep. Because he's an athlete. This is the thing that he wants all of us to know. He and Nike together, the collaboration, the T.W line of Nike wear is for athletes. The problem I have with it is who this is the only problem.

And this is not a knock because I'm not knocking tiger upon the advent of this. This is a great event. But like, who can wear that? You know who can wear it? Producer Craig can wear it. Producer Craig. He's fit. He's a youth.

his he's got a V-shaped, you know, he's got the proper size chest, he's got broad shoulders. But like, I don't have that build. I mean, I, maybe it's just for the youth.

Maybe it's a youth play for, for Tiger and Nike. What do you think? Yeah, I would agree with that. I think they're definitely swaying more toward that sort of quote unquote athlete crowd. I'm a little bit surprised that they haven't given Brooks the same treatment.

You would think if they were going to give Tiger that sort of a look that that would extend to Brooks as well, but maybe Brooks is more of a fan of the collar than the blade. Well, the thing with Brooks, and do we have his script lined up for the week? Yeah, very similar color palette, but he does have a collar all four days. Yeah, but the thing with him is they make sure that the sleeves,

the arms on those things are so tight that we're getting strong gun imagery every single time, you know, the guns are out. The sun is out all week long at Pebble Beach. there's no forecast that includes any real possibility of rain. And the only rain that we're going to have out there is Brooks Kepka raining the guns down on us from all over the place, it seems like. Howes, do you think he has those sleeves like taken in or tailored or do you think that his like biceps are just that big that like on a normal shirt, that's what it looks like. The latter. He's a monster.

It's major. You can't get me to say anything bad about Kepka when it comes to a major. The U.S. opens upon us. All I'm going to say is nice things about Brooks Kevka. I second the motion. The only other person that I have in this top group is Ricky Fowler. We all know he and Puma liked to try new things. And I thought this was sort of a nice balance between doing something new and something a little bit more understated.

For Thursday, he has like a pretty simple shirt, but he's supposed to be rocking some like bright blue pants, which I'm intrigued by, sort of continuing the trend that he had with the pink. pants that he used at the PGA championship. He's got sort of a muted camo shirt going on, a mellowed down orange for Sunday. I just thought it was a nice mix of color and some fun prints. Okay.

I dig it. I've only seen one version of his script so far, but I agree with you, there is like this mature Ricky vibe that's starting to sort of become the prevailing vibe for him stylistically. He's still defining him.

himself in a unique way, but I like the grown-up version of Ricky. I do too. I do too. I've been pleasantly surprised. Then in the sort of fine category, I had Brooks, and we sort of already talked about his looks. He is a very similar color palette to Tiger. He's supposed to be wearing some khaki pants on Friday, which I find to be sort of an odd choice. But not my favorite by any means, but I think overall, I'm just sort of a fan of the color palette. And then I have Jordan in this group also. I'm never particularly impressed with his looks, but in this case, there were so many that

I was putting in the bottom category that his was sort of elevated by default. But he's got some like soothing ocean tones going on, a lot of like seafone, navy, a nice blue for Saturday and a white striped shirt with seafone for Sunday, which I thought was just kind of a nice nod to pebble. I agree. That's all fine. And that's, you use the word fine. That's this category.

And that's how I would describe all of Jordan Spee's sartorial choices thus far this season. Yeah. And then my last one in this category, which may be a little bit of a surprise, is Justin Thomas. I remember you emailed me his scripting when it came out last week. It was sort of shocking. The camo, I think, is a tough look. He has some bright blue pants with camo with red and white stars on it, which is falling into the sort of traditional U.S. open trap of like, let's go red, white,

blue, but I will give them some credit for trying something original, I guess. Well, it's, it's, this is a Ralph Lauren special. They, you'll recall the octopus pants that Billy Horsal wore at Marion. Yes. They do choose, you know, to try and push the, the envelope that they, it feels like it coincides with Father's Day. They put some looks out there. There may be some dads, you know, who fancy themselves to be a little bit on the cutting edge, a little fashion forward. They just go ahead and volunteer some stuff that I didn't mind what I saw out of the Justin Thomas stuff.

The problem was like the cut, like the pants that you're talking about are, I, again, I'm a grown man. I cannot wear pants like that. They're like damn near jogger pants. Yeah, they really are. The taper all the way down and the slim. fit of it. Like anybody with any man with a with a genuine butt.

Like imagine John Rom trying to put those pants on, right? Let's just take me out of the equation. The Raminator could not wear these pants under any scenario. Am I right? No, you're, I mean, you're incredibly right. That would be quite the look. It's a very specific one that Justin Thomas can do because he is on the slimmer side of things.

But you're right. These are not cuts that are made for just anyone. That's a great way to put it. Okay, let's talk about this bottom tier. Yeah, the bottom tier, my first bottom tier entry is just sort of a blanket like Adidas. What are you doing? Damn it, Adidas. Step it up.

The second straight major that I've said this, but there's just zero imagination going on. They stuck with the full red, white, and blue theme. But like with no originality to it, there was nothing bold, nothing exciting or nothing even traditional. Really, it was sort of like a robot. design these. I feel like if you're going to do red, white, and blue at the U.S. Open, you have to do something either original or classic, and they did neither. This is the thing.

I feel like I'm glad you said the robot thing. This is exactly what I'm feeling triggered about. Are they running an algorithm for these outfits? Because everything like the DJ stuff couldn't be flatter. The Jason Day stuff couldn't be more boring. Sergio. Just, you know, Sergio's got a. make the cut of the major before we start getting serious about his clothing. But it's like,

Adidas has a reputation. I have been an Adidas clothing fan for a long time. But now I'm mostly like in their shoes. I like their shoes a lot. I can't tell you the last time I bought anything of theirs because the style of it appealed to me. Yeah, they've really sort of fallen off. I used to like their golf looks as well. But throughout this year, I've just been really, really unimpressed, like, week after week with what they're sending guys out in. Yeah, it's just blah. Yeah, extremely.

And then the last one on my list, once again, just like at the PGA, is Rory McElroy. Can my man get some respect? Like, Nike has had good looks for other guys, right? Like, Tiger and Brooks should both be looking fine this weekend. Rory just won the RBC in Canada. he's coming into the U.S. Open Hot. And once again, he's sort of dressed like someone whose mom buys his shirts at Coles, which is like no disrespect to Coles, but Rory deserves better.

He's got some weird stripe action going on on all of his shirts. They're essentially the same shirt just in different colors. Just really no imagination going on. I don't get it. I think it's a great point. You just conveyed it exactly the way I would say it. It appears as though his outfit was bought for him by an adult. who wants to dress Rory a certain way.

Hey Rory, go pick your own clothes. Like, he actually, I thought he looked pretty good, all things considered from the Rory Sartorial stance, yesterday winning the Canadian. I like the shirt. The shirt showed a little bit of ingenuity, had some color scheme that felt right to, in fact, it really set up nicely for,

and I think he was doing kind of a nod to the Canadian vibe. Right. But, I mean, it also has. a co-application to a to a preview of U.S. Openware. But I think that's going to be the best look we see in all week, was the look he showed it's Sunday at the R&R winning the RBC. I agree. And I guess, you know, if you're going to win a tournament,

that's the time that you want to look your best. But you also want to come into the U.S. Open hoping to win a tournament. And I wouldn't want to be photographed in any of these looks holding up a trophy. So it's going to be a tough weekend, I think. Well, he's not, he's missed the last three cuts at the U.S. open and maybe we should look at the scripting for those events. Maybe there's a pattern here. Yeah, maybe. We could blame the clothes. All right, Shustin, we got one more time for one more thing. What do you got? I think we have to talk about Phil, just like we always have to talk about

Phil. We do. It would not be a major week or really a week on golf social if we didn't have something to talk about with Phil. But last week, if you haven't been on the internet, Phil was hanging out in Jim Nance's backyard, which first of all, I just want a whole lot of more information about that friendship and how many, like, barbecue afternoons, Nance just has. But anyway, Nance has a replica of the seventh hole at Pubble in his backyard, which is an iconic flex. And they filmed a video there of Phil hitting a shot. And before we talk about what happens in the video, we have to note that Nance narrates the video like it's Sunday on CBS. And I wanted to ask you, has, do you think Nance just has this hole in his backyard so he can practice his calls?

You know, it certainly works. That cross-application definitely makes a lot of sense. We saw last year, Nick Faldo, I don't remember the time of year that they were out there, whether it was in advance of the AT&T event out of Pebble. I don't remember why Faldo was in Nancy's backyard, but we had a similar kind of experience with that one. It's an incredible backyard. It literally abuts. I saw it. I was. out at Pebble last year for the U.S. amateur and Jeff Shackleford pointed out to me where Nancy's house was. I mean, it's like literally right on the golf course.

It's like the property touches the property. It's an incredible setup. That sounds amazing. So anyhow, Phil takes a shot, hits a hole in one. He has this massive celebration, sends up a kiss Skyward. There was like a three second bleep out of the audio in the middle of the video. And I'm frankly pretty desperate to know what was said during that time that they had to it out. You think it's anything other than fig jam?

No, probably not. Seriously. Probably not. And honestly, why bleep that of all the things? Right. Just give it, just tell it. Just, yeah. It was the fig jammiest moment of all fig jams. It was perfect. It was perfect. And then, of course, he captioned it with dropping bombs to dropping the mic, dropping hole in ones on pebble number seven in Nancy's backyard is how I get ready for the U.S. Open. Hashtag karma in all caps and hashtag side sauce. So I think it's safe to say that Phil's ready for the U.S. Open. So I loved it because it felt like asshole sauce to me. This was like, you know, this was like a thing like it was the rich guy rotisserie.

You know what I mean? Oh, we're at Nancy's and we're having a thing and there's a barbecue. You know, the vodka tonics are off to the side there. And I will say this. I don't want to direct Phil's ire in my direction in any way, shape, or form. Phil was fat. He looks sloppy. you know he wasn't it wasn't the the tight fill he wasn't in garb he looked like you know he rolled in from

the club this is i've seen this scene a thousand times at any of the clubs you know you play at with guys at the end of the round and everybody's just shooting shit and drinking and talking all kinds of trash and he walks up he drops the golf club like he's dropping the mic this was all asshole sauce of course i loved it um but it was you know it's a different version of the Phil media presence that he's become. This was spontaneous. So it didn't have the charm that I've grown accustomed to. He set a different bar.

He set a whole new standard for me, Shusty. It didn't have some of the charm of the well- orchestrated stuff out of Phil. No, it didn't. But I will say having Nancy narrate it was a very nice new wrinkle to his media tour. Top level. Top level stuff. Well, who do you have? I know you've got strong feelings for Jordan Speeth and his

performance this week. Who are you going for this week? I do. I would love to see him have a good performance. I don't see him winning, but if he could get anywhere, you know, close to the top 15, top 10, I think that would be a fantastic boon for his confidence ahead of the open championship. I just, this is so unoriginal, but I just have the hardest time picking against Brooks. I was so impressed by him at Beth Page. And until he proves me wrong, I don't think I can pick against him. Well, I'm not going to pick against him either. I'm figuring out some ways to include him in a variety of different calculations. I've got my own spreadsheets going.

It's not the algorithm that Adidas uses for its terrible clothes. Well, thank goodness for that. My own gambling algorithm ready. Shusty, thank you so much. We shall return again soonest. I know that Phil Mickelson is going to have something glorious for us, perhaps even over the course of this tournament. Yes, I'm sure.

he will. Thanks, pal. Thanks, house. Boom, there we go. We have all of the intel on what the fellas are wearing. My thanks to Megan Schuster, we also know what Phil Bickleson's up to. Do you want to take your golf game to the next level? My par saviy pals, check out the new Golf Digest Schools, which offer more than 350 classes on every part of the game,

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It's like having the best minds in golf at your disposal wherever you are on your phone, laptop, or TV screen. We just talked about this. This is what Dustin Johnson is doing with Butch Harmon. It's why he fired Claude Harmon. He didn't need Claude standing there watching him. He takes a video and sends him to Bush. He's been doing it for 20 years.

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That's why I'm watching CBS Sports HQ. What is CBS Sports HQ? It's a free 24-hour sports network built for fans like you and me. I'm loving. I get the highlights, the analysis, the instant game reactions, a ton of all that. Everything that matters about the game without diving into any of the silliness, political, social, like on other sports networks, if you enjoy allocating a little capital, placing some bets, or just competing against your friends in a fantasy league,

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Please welcome Chris Vernon. House, I took a nap on Sunday, and Rory McElroy was up by two strokes, and I woke up 45 minutes later, and he was up by eight strokes. And I was like, wait, what happened? And so that was the Canadian Open experience, one, that I will not have this. week at Pemble Beach because not only is it on one of the most glorious courses to watch, it is also going to be in prime time. This is literally a dream come true.

We have a game seven in the Stanley Cup. We got the NBA finals going on. And then as of Thursday evening, we were going to get to watch golf for four straight days kicked off at the end with Father's Day. This is the best. But someone has gotten good again. Yeah, I really, it feels almost undeserved. Like this is a wealth of riches that I'm almost embarrassed by, but not too

embarrassed to enjoy it. Now look, you just went through two things that are different about this coming week. Here's one more thing that I believe is going to be different about this upcoming week. I believe that Roy McElroy is not going to be burning down any houses on the weekend of this particular tournament. is my contention that Roy McElroy has won the Open Championship that he is going to win in 2019 in North America, and that was just yesterday up there in Canada.

What do you think about that? I think that you're probably safe, given his lack of victories in the last five years under the circumstances. Also, U.S. Open, I mean, you know, he's coming off that win. He obviously had a great time in Canada. had a Kyle Lowry jersey on and made a bold prediction that the Raptors were going to close it out against the Golden State Warriors in a fifth game. I agree with you. Listen, he looked to be amazing.

Had a chance to shoot 59. Look to be amazing. They didn't in the fairway with it. He didn't in the fairway. But I've fallen into this trap before. I've fallen into the trap where it's like, oh, my God, look at that. how is anybody going to be able to deal with this? And then he shatters me.

Now, we'll say he might be a fairway rolling listener because I literally got in the discussion last episode with you about like, where in this guy? Like when it, like I thought at the very beginning of the season, he was just going to be wearing people out. And he was going to be running off with victory after victory. If it's not DJ, it's for it. If it's not for he, it's DJ.

And then he played well, but it wasn't like he was, winning or running away with tournaments week after week. And then, of course, he showed up at the Canadian Open and looked like the best player on Earth. So what do I know? But I wouldn't bank on him this week either. Yeah, he's having statistically, I believe, either his very best season in his entire career or his second best season.

And, you know, when you string together, all the top fives that he's put together over the course of this 2019 season. I mean, that's incredible golf. The funny thing is the standard with him is so high our expectations with him because to me, he's the only guy that ever that I've seen in the last 15 years that I would bear, you know, dare to breathe in the same sentence as Tiger Woods. I really thought that Rory had a chance to get to double-digit majors. I don't feel that way now. I don't feel that way any longer because of the missed opportunities. he's in his 20s when he was getting hurt and messing around with equipment and other kind of stuff like that. But, you know, Rory at the top of his game, you know, he kind of does it once a year,

once every 18 months. He reminds you of like, I mean, that, that's, and again, it's Sunday performances where he just comes out, everything's working. It's this one in the Arnold Palmer last year where he just was like, hey, you, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I was number one in the world at one point in time. and everybody was thinking about me. Yeah, and then, well, what about the one earlier, was it Mexico? Where he birdied everything on Sunday, and Dustin Johnson just would not relent. I mean, Dustin Johnson had to burty every single hole. You kept looking up, and you're like, dude, Rory is burying every hole

and somehow not gaining any ground. Like, this is outrageous. And that was kind of like, you know, that was in the fall, and it was like, okay, is this what this is going to be like? where, you know, these two have kind of separated themselves from everybody else. And maybe, like you said, when that was the expectation point coming in, then especially in the majors, right? He hasn't, I know that he won the players.

I know that at the very end, you know, he's made some runs in some of these majors. But it wasn't like we were watching all of his shot at these majors. And we all got, we all got geeked up for the first major of the year. and he was a big disappointment at the Masters. And so, you know, I think a lot of it feeds off of that, but he's still damn good. All right. Well, let's just cross them off the list. Obviously, we're going to do.

Now, here, let me, let me bounce this off of you. It is my contention that with this 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach, given the quality of play at the very upper, upper most echelon, of the game. That is to say, we have so many guys in great form right now that span a bunch of different generations, honestly, that we're, they're, to me, there are only maybe a dozen guys capable of winning this tournament. I don't think this is this US Open in 2019 at Pebble Beach is going to be a first time winner, nor do I think that it's, it's going to be, you know, somebody that's, that's down in like the 30 to 1 or 40 to 1 range.

I don't think somebody's coming out of left field and surprising us. What do you think about that? I think the devil's advocate would be, hey, you got tiny greens and some real penalty if you miss them fairways. And so many times what we have seen is when the U.S. Open gets, and you've got these bumpy greens where guys get frustrated on them. And so what you have seen in many U.S. opens in the past is not that the leaderboard is chock filled with the best players. But in fact, there are surprise names there.

I guess it's honestly dependent upon what kind of number you think wins it. Now, you are honestly, like you're subscribing to exactly what Brooks Kepka said. What he says is the majors, now, you can take this for what it's worth. But every time he's asked about it, he says the majors are easier to win. Because half the field has no chance. And then you're dealing with about 40 guys, and they're just there. But you're really having to beat about 10 to 15 guys. That's who I feel like I'm having a beat.

That's who I've got to beat in order to win one of these majors. There's about 10 or 15 guys that have a chance. So it sounds like Joe House subscribes to the Kepka theory on this. And I'll say that, you look through those odds and you're like, damn, man, there are a lot of great players right now, a lot of great players because some of these guys, you know, are, you see them in some of these regular tournaments and they're amongst the favorite. And they are way down on the list when it comes to the U.S. Open. Well, this is my point. I mean, this is exactly right. This is a cream of the crop kind of event here.

and, you know, I take your point. I think it's a good observation about the U.S. Open sometimes producing surprise winners, guys who persevered in the face of, of, you know, other other guys calamity. I mean, that's how Webb Simpson won. That's how, honestly, that's how Graham McDow won in 2010. DJ, you know, looked like he was going to win this thing,

run on away with it, and then went and shot 82 on Sunday. but, you know, Graham McDowell also won because Tiger shot 74 on Sunday in 2010. If Tiger shot even par, he would have tied McDowell for that one. But, I mean, the run that we... Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Here's the question. What's the number? I think it's like five under.

I think it's going to be like Oakmont wins the tournament. Yeah, five or six under. I think it's going to play like Oakmont played, where one guy, there'll maybe be five or six guys under par for the entire event. and one guy's going to be at like five or six under and everybody else, you know, there'll be a couple of guys scrabbling around down in the one under, two under range. One guy's going to distinguish himself and win by three or four shots. That's my sort of estimate as we sit here on a Monday.

Now, I'm going to do my deep dive in my analytics. I'm having Justin Ray from the 15th club on on Wednesday, and maybe he'll convince me me as something different. But as we sit here right now, that's my guess as to how this is going to play out. So you think that Kepka is going to shoot 10 under on the first day and then just be five over the rest of the time? You just, Hey, how dare you?

You just use the wrong name. I can't believe the blasphemy that I'm hearing on this podcast. Let's just go ahead and commence with this week in Tiger Woods. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger. Now, Verno, this is Pebble Beach, my friend. Brooks Kefka has competed in one event. Now, he was a top 10 in his event. This is 2016.

He played in the pro-am, and he had a top 10 in it, and that's nice. I give him a pat on the back for that. But Tiger Woods at Pebble Beach, this is some mystical, uh, spiritual shit right here, my brother. The single greatest tournament golf,

the single greatest major performance in the history of the game of golf, which was committed by Eldrick Tiger Woods in 2000. And here we are back with this redemption story, this reclamation story, this story of Tiger

re ascending to his proper place in the golf pantheon. Do you think in a million years that I'm picking anybody other than Tiger Woods to win this golf tournament? I do not believe. I wouldn't know you if you were picking anybody else except for Tiger

was. Okay, so here's the thing, House. What I need to know is, do you think that it will be any level of distraction that Stevie William is old caddy who was on his bag that incredibly historic day is going to come out of retirement to be on the bag, not of one else or Tiger Woods, but on Jason Day. I absolutely love this. I think it's a terrific story. I commend Jason. Jason Day. Jason Day, by the way, available right now on the books at 35 to win, 35 to 1 to win this tournament. I don't think he's going to win, but I'm going to play him a bunch of different ways. My man is coming out with great big, gigantic Sam Cassell balls and putting them on on everybody. I admire it so much, but I don't think Tiger, would Tiger be distracted by Stevie Williams being on the golf course?

I don't think so. I don't believe so. I don't think he's going to take it as a he doesn't regard Jason Day as a threat. That's the thing about it, right? If it was Kepka or DJ, guys that he lived legitimately considers to be contenders to win, that might be interesting. In fact, how about this, uh, uh, Verno? If DJ had fired his brother at the same time that he got rid of Claude Harmon as his coach

and hired Stevie Williams to be his caddy on his bag for this tournament, I mean, golf, the, the, the, golf internet might have burned down. That would have been, that would have been an incredible sequence of events. And I'm kind of disappointed that it didn't happen. Because you know, when we got together after the PGA championship,

I was critical of DJ at the end of that round. Like he was, what's up motherfuckers? Was that a technical difficulty? Yeah. It's called Bill Simmons. That's a technical difficulty. Well,

hey, you arrive at the right time. I was just about to give Dustin Johnson a hard time for continuing to have his brother on his bag. It seems like they have questionable decision making because Verno pointed out Jason Day went and hired Tiger's old caddy Stevie Williams to be his caddy this week. And I told Verno I don't think Tiger gives a shit about Stevie Williams being on Jason Day's bag. But I do, it would have been interesting if DJ had, DJ just just got rid of one. of his swing coaches, Claude Harmon, you know, of the Harmon royal instructor lineage. If he'd also got rid of his brother and hired Stevie Williams to be on his bag, on the advent of the Pebble Beach, you know, where Tiger set the all-time historical

major record, that would have been something balls. That would have been some Cassell big balls right there, some Sam Cassell big balls. Verno likes that. That's in his wheelhouse, like weird head game, spiteful shit, right? that's, that's, that's, that's when golf gets really good. Yeah, no, and now you've got Jason Day, who's going out there. I didn't think twice about Jason Day. I'm not kidding.

Like, I mean, it was just, like, he's there. You know, he's a guy I never, like, bet on, but I know he's going to be there probably at the end. He's had success. But now that he's got Stevie William, and every time you see all these special beats clips, you see two guys. You see Tiger Woods and Stevie William. Like it was undeniable that I'm going to think of. Like I almost now am thinking about Jason Day more and House tells me 35 to 1 just because

Stevie Williams is on the bag. Maybe he, maybe he was the brains behind that monster round that Tiger had years ago. All right. All right now. The Callaway Epic Flash pick of the week, the Epic Flash driver. Deploys innovative flash face technology that was created by using artificial intelligence. That's the only kind that any of us understand. Machine learning to promote faster ball speeds.

Callaway continues. It's unbelievable to have the most PGA tour driver wins of any brand, the most worldwide tour wins of any driver brand in 2019. Once again, another victory on a tour. Scott McCarran switched to the epic flagship. slash driver. After switching, he has three wins on the senior tour. He's leading that tour. He just continues to dominate it. Scott McCarran is not a Callaway staffer. He just wants to play that driver. But he absolutely loves it. And I think everybody, if you go get one for Father's Day,

that's my recommendation. Put one of these epic flash drivers of your dad's hands and watch them smile. All right, let's do these picks. I'm most shocked looking at the odds that DJ was the favorite. I would have bet anything it was going to be Kepka and I don't really understand what he has to do at this point to be the favorite going into a big major. I don't get it. Well, there's three guys tied right now at 8 to 1. It's on the book I'm looking at,

and this is up to the minute. It's Kepka, it's DJ, and Rory McElroy. And we just faded the F out of Rory McElroy. Roy McElroy just won the only tournament he's going to win in North America, the only Open championship he's going to win. And that was in Canada because he ain't winning the U.S. Open this week. And then I think it's very disrespectful.

Tiger is available right the second at 10 to 1. And that's, I mean, somebody gave me a reason not to pick Tiger. When is how much golf has he played the last since the Masters? Basically, how many tournaments has been in? He's played since the Masters. He's played, he played the PGA Championship. He played poorly. He didn't make the cut.

And then he played in, there's one I'm not remembering right now. And then he just recently played Jack Nicholas's Memorial Tournament in Ohio, and he had a great performance there. He's strongly he improved his accuracy over each of the days. He finished his round on Sunday. I'm not sure if you saw it Bill Simmons. At Sunday, he went out and shot 31 on the front nine. Golf Twitter was a buzz.

Everybody was getting excited. He came off the golf course. He didn't keep it up. But he came off the golf course with a huge smile for Amanda Ballionis. Put his arm around and everything. No, I don't know. That's blasphemy. Come on.

Jesus. You might have to edit that one. No, keep it in. He was happy. Let me just put it this way. It was a happy tiger. It was an excited tiger. He had hit 12 out of 14 fairways in regulation.

He had 52 fairways over the course of the entire or something like that, 47 and 52. A great statistic for accuracy over the course of that Memorial tournament. And he's been out to Pebble a few times in between the two weeks. You keep hearing about these tiger side. He's out there practicing. I mean, I think he's getting it on a little bit, Bruno. Well, and I can't talk you out of this because, remember I said in the last

Farroway-Wa-Rolling, we read this story that he went out or he went out there the week of the memorial. Like, and then he went and played in the memorial. And then after he plays this great round in the fourth, he comes and does the interview. And he's like the entire time he's talking about how, you know, kind of really put everything we were used into action in this last. round and it really worked out for us.

And, you know, I'm trying to hit the ball higher off the teeth because once you get the Pebble Beach and I was out there earlier this week, you know, the greens are tiny. And so you've got to really be able to land the ball. And so, like, he was just steady talking about how the layout of Pebble Beach is and how all of his practice was being used to hone things that he can use in order to win Pebble Beach. And this is two weeks out. I mean, he had just played in another damn tournament. He had just played in another tournament,

and he said he was using the prep for pebble beach preparation. So I can't talk to you out of it. And he's number one in the entire PGA in Greens and Regulation this year, despite the fact that he hasn't played all that much. He still hits the Greens more than anyone in regulation. And so now we're just talking about his putter. If we think he can hit fairways like he did at the Memorial, That was the problem at the PGA.

He didn't hit one damn fairway the whole week. He was sick. He was sick as a dog. Go ahead, Bill Simmons. I just like Tiger in Pebble Beach because we get to see highlights of old great Tiger Woods moments at Pebble Beach the whole weekend. It just makes me happy. The course makes me happy.

It is a top three course. Masters is one for me. I think Pebbles probably two. And I like sawgrass just because of 17. 17 is my favorite hole on any course. course. But it just has the, you throw on Father's Day, this incredible Warriors comeback that we're going to have. Oh, no. Yeah. Is that happening? And just Sunday has, is it, just let me hold, we're taping this right now. It's Monday afternoon. Just let me hold on to this for a brief second,

how great of a TV day Sunday could be, where you have the Masters, it's later. It's going to be a little later. It's going to bleed right into games. I mean, I'm sorry, US Open. It's going to bleed right into game seven of the finals, potentially Warriors, Raptors, a colossal choke job, Katie, coming back after all the shit he's taken. I just want to enjoy this for three more hours. The other thing is when you're talking about

Father's Day, we kind of need all of that to play out because it is like the one day where you're allowed to have absolutely zero guilt about anything you're doing. You're right? Like, I mean, the rest of the time, we do it anyway. We watch the tournament, so we end up feeling guilty.

Like we probably should be doing something else. Like we probably, probably. And then like you just let the guilt subside. But like on Father's Day, it's like, what do you want to do today? Like nobody ever asked me that. Right. House can back me up on this. You never, you don't want to cross the line with it where you keep reminding everybody

that it's your day because eventually I know my wife will snap and be like, look, every day is your day, okay? And do that whole thing. So you don't want to cross the line where you're getting yelled at it up. father's day. I try to straddle it, but I don't want to cross it. That seems like a pretty wise approach.

Is there anybody, Simmons, other than Tiger and Kepka, what do you think about DJ? I mean, those are the three. What's your ranking? Give us your ranking of one, two, three. Is this going to be the first major that we haven't bet on John Rom and Tommy Fleetwood? We finally quit on them? Yes,

yes, yes. This is the one. Oh, no, no. Hey, I found a Fleetwood bet. So here, I'll give it to see you now. I'm going to bet him to miss the cut, but go ahead. No, no. Bryson DeCambo has missed three of four cuts, and he hadn't been in the top 20 since Mexico. So I tried to find his matchup, and his matchup is Fleetwood, but we got to lay 145 on Fleetwood.

Are we doing it? How about that? I'm sorry for everybody on Fairway Rowland. Fleetwood fucked me so hard at the PGA championship. Me, too. in a head to head against Day. I bet him in a head to head against Jason Day. He was up by four strokes going into Sunday.

And that little bitch went out and shot a 78. To go along with the 74 that he shot at the Masters and the 73 that he shot at the players championship, Tommy Fleetwood, anywhere near, you know, a good finish in a big time championship, he's got an allergy. It's called Successitis. I can't forgive him. I can't forgive them for that. Then you guys have the same experience.

Okay, so I know that he'll be a lot. I will say this. Verno. House and I have been in many gambling menage ha-tois with Tommy Fleetwood, and he's the only one who ever finishes. We're just left frustrated every time. And I'm not doing it anymore. If he gives me his room key, I'm not taking it for this.

That's exactly right. Keep it in your pocket, Tommy. Yeah. Stay away from us, Tommy. I had, I had Danvers Shawplay 18th or better. I mean, that's a, that's a sickness set. 18th or better in the PJ, he bogeed every hole down the stretch and finished 19th. He bogeed the last five holes.

The last five holes. And I'm like, no way. There's no way you're going to end up in 19th. And so Zander Shaw plays my Tommy Fleetwood right now. And we also have John Rom. We rotate between the two of them. They both tannerized us for two years. John Rom, this is going to be in the tournament.

And then he only is seven on a par five. All right. So both of you guys have brought up Kepka, right? So Kepka's odd stock, as we know, right? I found it. So didn't you just saying that the odds were the same that you just looked at house? Yeah, for Kepka, DJ, and Rory. They're all eight to one.

It's ridiculous. All right. And I've got Rory right here. I've got Kepka plus 115 over Rory or plus one and a half strokes minus 110. Are you kidding me? Not Jeff, he's the underdog. Wow.

Against Rory McElroy? Yes. Kepka McElroy. How much money were your book except? I'm about to wire you. I'm about to get your wire instructions. I don't give a shit about my mortgage this month. I'm about to, I'm telling my wife, honey, how about 10 mortgages?

I'm about to watch Brooks Kepka do a Sam Kassel right on, on Roy McElroy's forehead. Are you kidding me? Well, here's the other thing. Do you feel like, because you could feel it at the PGA a little bit, that Brooks likes sticking it to Tiger a little? That he's, I think he follows all the narratives. He's one of those guys who claims that he doesn't, but he knows everything that's going on.

And he's very well aware of the whole Tiger Pebble Beach thing that's going on right now. And he's kind of like, what else do I have to do? How many more majors can I win before I'm the number one story at every major? Like, what else do you need for me? Really? this guy, Tiger, I just kicked his ass of the PGA. Now

he's the narrative again. Get the hell out of here. Well, I love this because we know that he needs a chip on his shoulder. Yes. Well, and the other thing is there's these stories, there's these stories that are like the only thing that holds Brooks Kevka back is

his level of interest. And it's like he's interested in the majors. And so that's why he wins them. And I always wanted to like kind of clown about that. Like, come on. Like, what, he just doesn't care about winning anything else. And, like, the truth is,

there's very little evidence to suggest that that's not true. That he cares about winning the majors. And if he goes out to just some whatever tournament, he doesn't particularly, like, I read this article the other day. He doesn't even really like golf. It was just kind of,

he wants to play baseball, but he wasn't good enough at it. And so he plays golf because he's awesome at it. And so I'm kind of with you on this Phil. Like, he scares the hell out of me. He's going to have to lose one of these before I start thinking he's not going to win. Well, what about this?

Because a couple different listeners have emailed this to me, and I thought it was an interesting analogy. He's the Kauai Kepka kind of combo, the similarities are a little more sitting there than I think maybe we realize. Because Kauai is wired the same way, right? There's regular season Kauai. And then the playoffs Kauai, he's one of the few players in the history of the league that actually gets better in the postseason,

which is a little like what Kepka is like, right, house? I think that's a pretty good one. I do like it. And they're both, no personality, they're just like machine, stay out of my way. You can barely get me to crack or smile,

any of that stuff. But here's a difference. We know that Kepka cares. Like, you know, he's putting the clown nose on the guy that, you know,

questions him and putting it up on Twitter and Instagram. keeps up with what people are saying. He was mad that ESPN didn't put him in his top athletes list last year. So he obviously gets this chip on his shoulder and has a

real awareness of everything that everybody said. If Kaua Lennard doesn't have a television, it would not drive me. It's a good point. He might not even have a cell phone. Like, is there any evidence that he's aware of the internet? Wait, hold on.

We're going to bring him in right now. That was my Kauai. It's time to the Kauai Laugh. Sorry. It's good. I think it's a good. Thanks. I think it's a good laugh.

Yeah, but maybe this is the year of just no personality guys cleaning out all of our, you know, we had a boring Super Bowl with Tom Brady, everybody's tired of. Then we have Kepka. I guess Tiger was the one aberration. But we're going to have Kauai as our NBA Finals, MVP. we're going to have the Bruins beating the Blues and the game 7 in the Cup Charra's got a mask on yeah I know Chris Vernon's a blues fan

I'm aware I'm just telling you your team choked in game 6 sorry Verdo you choked at home would be the greatest moment in St. Louis history gag job no it's a better road team come all right

everybody knows that they've already won Kweiss in Boston it might as well be our arena all right yeah no the Kauai Kepka thing I do like I do think it would be funny if this was the week of Kauai and Kepka,

where they both walked away as titles. Who is? Maybe they could sit them next to each other at the S-Bs, and they could not laugh at Tracy Morgan together. Verna, who's your Dark Horse U.S. Open pick? I found these. I went and looked up the caddy that have, like, been like a round couple of beats their whole.

old lives. I love this idea that like this old like these guys that have either been caddies there or really know the course. And so there's two guys, the Golf Digest wrote this article about it and these guys ask other caddy

like who they would have caddy for them. And one of them was this guy named Bill Harkey who they said he was a Pebble Beach caddy and like he knows that place better than anyone. And I think they said he's on Luke List's bag.

And Luke List is like plus 10,000. So five bucks wins 500. That's worth it. And then there's a guy named Batch, hey, there's another charity named Bobby Brown. Same thing. He's like a Pebble Beach Seasier. And he's kidding for Siwu Kim. I just had to find reasons to find people way down the list.

So let's be honest. I'm going to be betting on Tiger too. I'm going to take Kepka over Rory. I'm going to take Tiger Top 5 was plus 240. Should I do that? I'm on that. Okay. How about this?

Kepka, okay, so Lifting Kim are the two like long, long shot just for fun because I read that crap about their caddies. And then I, where was the one? Kepka is

plus 120 to be top 10. That seems really safe and like good odds. right plus odds plus odds on him with a top 10 and a major i daddy likes that what about how's game seven with keppka plus 120 top 10 that seems like a lay out i know i mean was it didn't luke list have a moment what was it at the pga where was luke list like in my life for a couple days there was it pg a he's had a pretty good season i don't remember he did did for have a little bit of a run i think it was at the pg a yeah uh had a little run my my dark horse i got to go with my

my beloved, uh, Frankie onions, Frankie Molinari, uh, Francesco Molinari, available right now at 35 to one. That's just, that's just value. It feels like to me, this is a second shot golf course, the same way that Augustine National is a second shot golf course. And Frankie, this is a venue. It's the shortest, uh, venue they play all year long. And, you know, he, Frankie didn't stand a chance at Bethpage where you have to hit the ball 300 yards just to get out of bed. Um, but his accuracy with these tiny greens and the premium on hitting fairways, I lot 35 to 1 feels like value to me. I'm putting a little, a little nickel on Frankie.

What do you think of this parley? Phil Mickelson 50 to 1 with the over under 50 and a half times that I mentioned as somebody I'm watching the U.S. open with what the fuck is going on with his hair? Because take the over right now on that. So all I need to do is win the 50 to 1. What is going on with his hair? I think he's going bald in the back, so he feels like if he just has more hair and it's more moppy, it's going to throw people out the scent.

But then on top of it, he's dying at this Dr. Pepper Color. Like, what is he doing? Just go shave it. Go tight. I think that we are in, we are firmly in the middle. It really started, honestly, it's come full circle. It started in the third round of the U.S. Open last year when he hit a moving ball as it was rolling. off the green. We are so squarely in the middle of the no fucks fill phase.

Yeah. He just does not give a fuck. And, you know, every week he's putting out something new on social media. He's killing other players in it. He's talking about hitting bombs. He's talking about playing Pebble Beach with two drivers. He's out of his mind. And he just doesn't give a shit. He should be talking about a better hair colorist. I have a, I have for a deep, deep, deep, deep, deep underdog. I'm just throwing this out there. Both you guys are going to laugh. Patrick Reed's 80 to 1. So basically if he's 80 to 1, everybody is just telling me him winning the Masters was a complete aberration and he's going to

just be a jackoff the rest of his career. Or he's hurt and I didn't know that. But how is somebody who won a major within the last year, 80 to 1? This is a great point. I'm looking right now. I immediately clicked on. I was giving this out.

I'm going to give it out. on cousin Sal's against all odds. So, you know, spoiler alert. Patrick Reed has a terrific track record at Pebble Beach. And he has a very good track record at difficult, under difficult conditions, which this U.S. Open setup will certainly feature.

And he was in the lead or tied for the lead for the U.S. Open. Again, we're our one year anniversary at Shinnecock. Now, he's an all or nothing guy, but he's available right now. now at plus 260 as a top 20 pick. I mean, two and a half to one for Patrick Reed. You made the point Bill Simmons. Did he not just win the Masters barely like 16 months ago? I like Patrick Reed. And Verno, like one of those guys who, A, not afraid, B, won the Masters when everybody at the Masters was rooting for him not to win the Masters. I mean, that was like a hostile environment,

much like the Blues trying to win game seven on the cup on the road. That's what it felt like for Patrick Reed and he pulled through, I don't know, 80 to one seems disrespectful and like there's something wrong with his wrist or something. I don't get it. All right here. I'll just clue you in. So the reason is, because you know how I like if you go to Vegas and if you wanted to bet on the Yankees or you wanted to bet on the Cowboys, you wanted to bet on Notre Dame, you just don't get good odds. Same with Tiger Woods. You just don't get good odds. Right. Because everybody wants to bet on those guys because everybody wants those guys to win and they want to root for it and make some money in the meantime.

Nobody likes Patrick Reed. Nobody wants to bet on him, so his odds never move. So you think, nobody even... So you think they set the odds high? Just to entice bets on Patrick Reed because there are no Patrick Reed bets. Yes. And then nobody wants to take that bet because it's like, well, shit, even if I win money, it means Patrick Reed won.

That sucks. Nobody likes Patrick Reed. Right. Hooray, I just won $8,000, but God damn it, Patrick Creed won the U.S. Open. Look, 80 to 1 is no joke. I would bet on just about anybody if it was going to deliver me 80 to 1. I mean, you bet $100, that's $8,000. Yeah, that's a good one.

That's a good one. I might be stepping in. All right, well, I'm going to tell you this. I almost need to worry. Like, I don't know if we did percentages, who would be the absolute worst of us. But I'm pretty high in terms of being bad. thinking about going and just absolutely slamming the Bruins tomorrow or for Wednesday night so that you have literally no chance at winning the Stanley Cup.

The emotional hedge. Oh, it is a bona fide loser. Trust me. You would be dead. I'll tell you. I'll tell you. I mean not to bet the Bruins. Sal and I had the all-time emotional hedge moment ever when we had the AFC's Patriots

2016 with Hillary Clinton. and Trump was like, Trump was on that as well by the way. Yeah, House was on that as well. I'm sorry, House. I've blocked most of it out of my mind. And Trump was basically four to one, the 24 hours leading up to it. And we do have a text chain from way back when

about whether we should hedge to be safe, cover our bet, and just none of us wanted to do it. The move should have been. We should have gone all in on Mr. Orange and really made it happen. Too bad. Let's learn.

that that is the last time you ever spoke to Nate Silver. It's not untrue. I just don't feel like I've run into him. It just seemed inconceivable. It's like the whole, we talk about hedging constantly. We do it wrong all the time. I'm about to do it tonight with I have the Raptors 17 to 1 to win in five, and I'm not going to hedge it and the Warriors are going to win.

It's like the whole point of making a great bet is you want it to pay off. but the smart move is to hedge and we never hedge. We never know how to do it, ever. Wins this weekend and none of us took it. I might take it. I actually think it would be funny. It would be like rooting for Russia in the 1980s or something. It'd be like rooting for Canada in the NBA finals.

Yeah. No, I've got one for you. You can just play, I know you're in the soccer too because of the daughter. So I saw, I looked up tomorrow's, Team USA game. It's Thailand plus five. So you go ahead and bet on Thailand tomorrow. Oh, take the tie. Yeah, they get frisky. They can put one in.

House, the maddest house has bet at me on gambling this century was when I did Argentina 10 to 1 without him. I was very bad for the O'4 Olympics and I won because I was just like, we're not winning the gold with Marbury and Iverson. And I was just like, screw it, screw patriotism, did Argentina 10 to 1. It came through. And then House was mad the whole summer that I didn't even tell them about it. Hey, this is a true story. The way I knew about the United States women soccer, I went and I looked up the line and it said minus five,

and I was like, what the hell? I was like, in soccer? And I went, I was like trying to do some research. And it said that they played it off friendly against each other. And they beat them nine to nothing. And I'm like, oh, God. Furno. Maybe minus five is not enough.

Ferno, can you tease goals in soccer? Could you like tease them down to three and a half and take the goal and a half and it's somewhere else? What are the rules? I don't even know. Do you think I'm actually calling you from gamblers and I? I don't know if you can tease down women soccer goal. Harry would know that. If Harry is really our go-to-air for that question.

Harry will know that. You're right about that. All right. So we're good? I'm going to go. This is fun, fellas. All right. Thanks for coming on.

It's a genuinely. a special occasion here. US Open Week 2019 Father's Day right around the corner. Well, it's really the year of Joe House. You've had 17 birthday dinners. You're still celebrating your birthday that happened a month ago and

all these majors all in a row and then you're going to go away for a month. And this is the best year you've had. You played golf with Cornizer. You've dreamed about playing with Coronizer for years. Now it finally happened. It's all downhill. It's all downhill.

This is it. That's your peak. Patrick Reed and then it's all downhill. That's it. For the moment he cashes in. Thanks, P.S. All right. Thanks, guys. All right. All right. So what are we doing? What are we, what do we, what do we, what do we, what do we come to through all of this, through all of this nonsense?

Well, we were sure doing Kepka over McElroy. Right. Yes. That's a lock. That is a house verno lock. We are combining on that one. It's going to be some number that that is shocking to the conscience how much we go on that. At least I am. I'm not I'm not even joking. I can't fathom that he's getting odds against Rory McElroy. It's one of the single greatest betting moments of my entire life and I can't wait to play on that one. I, I, you know me, I'm playing Tiger to win. I'm playing Tiger to top five. I'm playing Tiger to top 10 because the heart wants what the heart wants, Verno. So I've got Tiger exposure. We've got

Kepka over Rory. What else are you doing? All right. Kepka top 10 plus 120. I'm going to join you on that. Okay. And then I guess, you know, I told you the list and Kim. Those are real like super minors.

And then, okay, I've got, I've got Tiger at 240 top 10. I'm sorry, 240 top 5 and 138 top 10. Is that what you have? I haven't looked it up yet, but those, I don't care. Anything plus? If says plus in front of it, I'm playing it. Okay. So, yeah, I've got plus 138 top 10 is what it looks like.

So yeah, and then I guess we'll have to throw a little bit on Jason Day just because he's got Stevie William. Oh, Dr. Green, at this point now, I've got to take a little on Patrick Creed because I swear to God, if the guy wins the thing. Bill came on here talking about 80 to 1. I'll at least put 10 bucks, 15 bucks on it, you know? Yeah, I'm going to put $10.00. play Patrick Reed to finish

to the top 20. In fact, I'm not even kidding. That's one of my cousin South picks on against all odds. I'm going to give that out on against all odds when I go on there Wednesday. So I'm going to have a little read exposure to because we can't be caught with our Bill Simmons pants down.

You know what I'm saying, Verno? You know, we're going to look up, but he's going to be like plus nine through 13 holes and miss the cut. Yeah, that's fine. Just take goodbye to the money. Who cares? That'll be fine. We accept that. Maybe if the karma works out that way.

Verno, we will reconvene. Go ahead. That is the fun thing, right? Because then you can really like just MF Patrick Reed, right? Because he lost you money. Right? That is the other side of betting people you hate. Like, okay, I hated this guy anyway.

Like, I don't even care that I lost a, I don't even care that I lost a bet because now I get to curse this guy. I never mind a good hate bet. I like it a lot. I mean, I'm joining with you. We'll get a chance to, so we gave him. out, that's the picks. We will reconvene Sunday night.

It's going to be late on the East Coast when this tournament wraps up. But I'm counting on it being Sunday night. Hopefully no weather delays and nothing that pushes us into a Monday finish. We'll have the recap of this U.S. Open at 119th edition at Pebble Beach. You and I will be reconvened, Verno, Sunday night. I can't wait. I can't wait either. Thanks, half.

All right, thanks, buddy. All right, my par-saving pals, there we go. what a Titanic episode to begin this U.S. Open week. Hope there are a couple nuggets in there that you can use as you plan out the balance of your fantasy, your allocation of capital, your DFS lineups. We are going to keep that momentum rolling along here on Faraway Rowland. Come Wednesday, Justin Ray is joining us. He's from the 15th Club.

You know him and love him from his appearances on this podcast in advance of the Masters and the PGA Championship. We also have Paul Coherst, a former caddy at Pebble Beach. He's going to give us some tactical thinking about the correct way to tackle the Pebble Beach gambling dilemma. And of course, the beloved Harry Gagion from Against All Oz, he's on. We're going to talk about allocating capital, his picks for the week. Harry's always got a couple doosies for us.

That's Wednesday. It'll be up Wednesday lunchtime. And then Sunday evening right after this U.S. Open concludes, we're getting right back on the wire. Me and Vernon and maybe a special guest or two to break down what we just saw. I bet it's going to be something delightful. Until then, my par saving pals, let's hit a couple down the middle.