Fairway Rollin' - Brooks and Bryson, Tiger's Recovery, and Top Picks for the Memorial

Episode Date: June 1, 2021

The world of golf is moving so fast, and House and Hubbard have got you covered. They dive into the viral sensation that was Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau (02:45), then get an update about Tiger Woods's recovery following his traumatic knee injury (13:22). They then offer up their favorite names and stats going into the Memorial (24:39) and look ahead to the next major. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On R2C2, C-2, C-Sabathia and Ryan Rucco guide listeners through everything going on in the MLB, NBA, and NFL. They also talk to friends, athletes, and celebrities about the world of sports, and much more. Check out R2C2 with C-C-2 with C-C-Sabathia and Ryan Ruko on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast. Unlike any other, we are back and it is beautiful, my friends. This is Faraway. Roll. The golf podcast and the

Ringer Podcast Network. I am your starter. Joe House joined as always by our PGA tour correspondent on the ground. Nathan Hubbard is just a two ball this week, my friends. We're strolling over, throwing a peg

in the ground, a couple right down the middle. Hey, Nate Dog, how you doing, buddy? House. Everything's moving too fast. Everything. We really are at warp speed on the PGA tour. Now, I want to thank you for taking a break from your extraordinarily busy ring or dish schedule because I'm interested in the Venn diagram.

There have to be some folks who are fans of this golf podcast, fans of Taylor Swift, and fans of your upcoming show on Ring or Dish about deep dive on Olivia Rodriguez. Did I say her name right? You did. Yeah. So what do you think that then diagram looks like? It's two people who just continuously tweet at me. That's it.

What do they say? What are their tweets? They just have lots of thoughts on how various Taylor Swift songs are the, you know, equate to golfers. Like, shake it off is really the Jordan Speeth anthem. I like this. I like where we're going with this. We're going to talk about Jordan Speeat and his need to shake something off.

Because that was not good yesterday. Well, let's do this. I mean, what's the one? Bad love? Bad love? What's that song called? Because maybe we got... That's every song.

Bad love, isn't that? Bad blood. Bad blood. Come on now. I mean, I didn't even tee this show up like this, but are we going to talk about Brooks and Bryson? I think we have to. I think we have to.

I mean, look, the first thing that we have to, to say about this Brooks versus Bryson thing is it's hilarious. Yes. The second thing that we have to say is that it's real. Yes. But the third thing that we have to say is, are we really just going to pretend that Bryson, the week before that didn't say he had an actual encounter with aliens outside of his house? Well, see, that's the thing. That's the distinction to draw here, right? Because part of the commentary that I've seen since the whole spat of last week between Brooks and Bryson and everybody knows the history

we're not going to run through it is has there is it taking on a little bit of an edge where the guys where it's performative right because of this impact program and and like maybe although you made the right point it is real it's authentic it has It was not a forced encounter between the two of them.

It was a perfectly legit coincidence that Brooks happened to be taping his, his TV hit as Brooks wrote as Bryson walked by. So like as authentic as authentic gets the golf world needs this. It loves it. And not just the golf world. This thing went viral global and all sports. And even just fans of. of regular old pop culture media.

I mean, People magazine had stuff online about this because it's not that often that you see two big stars in any kind of vertical openly talking shit at each other. Real beef. It's great, right?

Real beef. Here's the thing. Is this working for Brooks? I mean, does his stuff the nerds in the locker routine work? Because it seems like every time that that attitude, comes out in public. And to be clear, I love it. I loved the eye roll. I loved him using every swear word in the entire book of swear words on TV and not really giving a shit about it. But every time

this starts to go public, you know, before the last PGA, it seems to work against him. Like, when he just comes out and kicks everyone's ass and then says, I'm too cool for you guys and takes his trophy back to Florida and goes kneeboarding or whatever, that seems to work. work a lot better than when he talks shit the night before. He was talking shit here. Yeah, but here's, I think there's a distinction to be drawn between the way that he tried, it seemed, with the PGA championship in August of 2020 out in San Francisco, where on that Saturday evening, he took a look at the leaderboard and is like, I only recognize one

name on here of a guy that's won a major. That's like a psychological kind of, of plurial. by him that I honestly believe was as much to fire him, his own self up as it was to disparage the rest of the field. We know he was hurting then too. Yeah. And I honestly think that it was a motivational tactic for himself, like part of, let me like bite down hard on exactly how I'm thinking.

And, you know, the way that that you see in other sports athletes, you know, biting down hard on particular sort of aspects of the. competitive fire and what they see of the competition in front of them to go ahead and try and assert a psychological advantage. I think that's what was last year's issue. This thing, I don't think, has anything to do with him trying to get an advantage over either the field or, yeah. And it occurred, you know, like on a Friday. It wasn't even part of like, it wasn't Saturday going into Sunday where he needed to say anything about Bryson. It just was a coincidence that happened to be captured on camera that was mother effing beautiful.

And it was, I think, fortuitous and also not planned in any way, shape, or form to have the leak of that video coincide with the announcement of the latest iteration of the match, which will be in July. it's Phil and Tom Brady going up against Bryson and Aaron Rogers out in Montana. So, like, we're five weeks out from this. And immediately, they make the announcement. It's inside of the same 24 hours of this video being leaked. And bam, Brooks is on social media at Aaron Rogers. Like, sorry, bro. Sorry, bro.

It's wonderful. It's wonderful. It's great. Did you see the 30-minute video that Bryson posted sort of tracking him at the Byron Nelson? I definitely watched it, and there were many things that caught my eye, and some of which we cannot discuss on this podcast. That's true. Yeah, I loved it. I would have chosen different things to emphasize.

Yeah. But like it's not my life and it's not my video. It's like the sway house, like a TikTok sway house for like golf nerds or something. Look, you understand where Brooks is coming from. I'm not saying I'm not saying I would have rolled my eyes and motherfucked him on live TV. Right. But I understand. Well, it is curious.

and I'm glad that you mentioned this video. So for folks who may not have seen this, Bryson is an avid person on the Instagrams, on the YouTube's and all the social medias. And his team, somebody in his team, taped a whole bunch of footage of him in the week of,

what's the tournament in Dallas called now? The Byron Nelson. Oh, it's always been called. I was trying to think of the sponsor, but it's stupid. It was the week of the Byron Nelson. So basically in his backyard, And so we got to see him living at home during a week of competitive golf.

We got to see him going to practicing routines. He's like the wicked witch of the West or whichever one of them like melts in water. Well, among the many, many curious editorial decisions in informing this YouTube, it begins with, it opens with him going to a property that I can't tell whether it is a practice. He goes and looks at the practice room at this, but is that going to be a house that he's built? Or is it going to be like a separate just practice place? Yes. We don't know the answer because they didn't provide us any kind of guidance around what the purpose of this facility was.

But he went there in the pouring rain and it was a waste of time for him to be driving in the rain and going to this thing. But they made the editorial decision to leave the YouTube with that. So good on you. Go for it, boys. And speaking of go for it boys, that is the element of this that that particular video and we'll get out of this rabbit hole in 10 seconds, I promise. His crew, is he that young? Is Bryson that young? Why does my mind's eye look at his crew and I say, why is he hanging out with all these youngsters? I think it's a good question to ask. He is still, you know, a late 20s. Yeah.

Yeah, but he's a little bit of a little boy, isn't he? This is what I'm getting at, right? I don't totally again. He's 27. I know. Isn't that when you start becoming a tiny bit more self-aware? I don't know. I think maybe he's been sort of golf golden boy his whole life. And whatever team has been around him has kept him insulated.

He's kind of a boy in a bubble. But he's seeing aliens. He's fighting with Brooks. And the really big major concern that I have about all this is what we spoke about about way back in September, I'm going to say, which is, I'm worried about the Ryder Cup because Jordan Speath is going to be on the team, and he and Patrick do not get along well.

And now we got Brooks and Bryson just ripped out in the open. We got Brooks and DJ ripped out in the open. This is going to be the worst chemistry team in the history of the Ryder Cup possibly. Meanwhile, on the European side, they're making fun videos and they're hanging out. They're just sitting back laughing. So here's my advice. Just enjoy it.

Like, who cares? It's a spectacle. It's an event. It's an exhibition. And we do get to see, you know, 24, 25 of the very best golfers in the world competing all together all at once with the added, you know, upsurge, swale of the nationalism. And hopefully by then fans will stop behaving badly.

But like it's notorious for over the line fan behavior. No, I'm terrified. Which is great and part of what fuels the spectacle of the whole thing. But like, I want all the drama. Who cares? I don't care. We've won three of the last 10. Does it affect my life one bit?

No. Do I want the United States to win? Yes. I just do not see. Captain Steve Stricker getting in between a Brooks, Bryson, like, shirt off wrestling match over a Twinkie that's left over. Jeez Kurt Steve is going to be out there doing his very, look, I love him, by the way. Stricker in the lead of Southern Hills, Southern Hills looked magnificent.

I can't wait for the 2022 PGA Championship, by the way. Another very, very, very quick. I watched almost none of that, but the course renovation, the stuff that they've done. They eliminated in many, many places, tea boxes. So they stick teas. They mowed from the fairway all the way up through the teeing ground. And it looks so goddamn good.

It's so cool looking. Anyway, that's for us to look forward to and savor in 2022. Cheesecurt, Steve, he'll be fine. And the boys are going to do whatever they're going to do. And he'll just sit on top and it'll be fine. And if he's not, there is one other piece of news we should discuss very briefly before we get into what happened last week and what's happening this week, which is that we got a little insight into one Eldrick Tiger Woods in his recovery.

Yes. Let's quickly summarize. He gave a short interview. I can't remember to what media venue. But I know we talked to Golf Digest. Anyway, he briefly described how grueling the rehab is. Most painful thing he's ever felt in his life. Right.

Well, that made sense to me. That makes sense to me. That's scary. He was stuck on his back outside of his house, unable to get up. It made me first curious about the physiology. Like, our legs have that many nerve endings in them where it's because our legs affect so many other parts of our body. Like an ankle, a calf problem, you feel it in your glutes.

And then next thing you know, you have a bad back. And you have a bad back because you have a cap problem. That's just the beauty of the human body, I guess. But I'm trying to wonder like, that's a guy who's been through grueling rehab. A lot. Many times in his life. And a ton of back ones. And I would always think that the back ones have to be the biggest challenge, the most painful.

Because I know how it feels to have a bad back and how limiting it can be. I know, but the bones in his back didn't poke through the skin in two places. I mean, this was a discon. integration of his right leg below the knee. So what do you think, like in particular is the, I mean, the two things I'm curious about I'm interested in are prospects for full recovery, and he's focused on being able to walk with a normal gate, which is exactly what you would want to hear and what you would anticipate. But then, you know, is that an achievable goal, one, and then is there another achievable goal,

to potentially out there as it relates to golf. I don't know. What the hell do we know? I just, like, let's zoom out to 30,000 feet. This looked like a move from Tiger to tell everybody, hey, let me lower the bar of expectations here. Like, I'm just trying to walk. Yeah.

I can't walk. Right. So please stop questioning. Don't burn too many cycles on Fairway Rowland asking if I'm going to win a golf tournament again. Think about me walking. That's reasonable and very good expectation management by Tiger and his team exactly what I would expect. And we continue to root as hard as we could root for him getting a return to normalcy. You and I have like firsthand experience in a way with Alex Smith,

the former quarterback of the Washington football team who suffered, you know, an injury that at least is in the same kind of class as as what Tiger seems to have suffered. We've never gotten the real gory detail of exactly what. happened to Tiger, only the, you know, what we've been able to fill in the blanks on. But, you know, we know what Alex Smith went through and then we saw him on a football field for several football games. This most recent NFL season. Yeah, when you and I just texted each other in absolute terror while that was happening.

Right, right. And quite honestly, thank God he's retired. You and I have the exact same feeling on that one as it relates to Alex Smith. But seeing him on the football field does give me modest hope for, I don't care about Tiger playing competitive golf again. I just want to see him out with his boy, honest to God. I'm with you on that. And I think we can hope for one thing better. I think we can hope for Tiger on a golf cart with an earpiece. Yeah. Doing the alpha shit that Steve Stricker won't necessarily be born to do in that locker room if things get a little tubby between Brooks and

Bryson or Brooks and anybody else or Jordan and Patrick or whatever. Tiger may be the unifying force in that locker room if he can show up and bring that sort of alpha dog energy well you know another source of that alpha dog energy and it's hard to believe it was only 10 days ago pop a bear phil mickleson is absolutely positively 10,000 percent going to be in that locker room as the as since this is a pga of america event the rider cup and since he's the reigning champion of the psa championship, I'm pretty sure Mr. Phil will be in there. And that's another potentially stabilizing adult force that could have the effect of producing comedy among all of these disparate pulling forces.

Yeah. I mean, listen, the last time there was, there were issues, he was, he was sort of creating a stir over Tom Watson's captaincy. So I'm not sure Phil has a history of unifying necessarily, but he does have a history of not being afraid to speak out and to solve the problem. So let's see. Yeah, that's right. Well, it's hard to believe it was only 10 days ago because we really have,

it feels like to me, been in warp speed. So basically, Phil wins. We're in the afterglow of that once in a lifetime historical achievement. And then we get the cycle of Brooks and Bryson, which goes for about 48 hours or so. And then we get the announcement of the match, which has its own particular flavor and flair. It has Tom Brady doing a bunch of these brilliant meme tweets that get millions of likes or whatever. On his game already, Tom Brady. Kudos to TB12.

Take a suck at, Chuck. Yeah. And then we had to get ready for the Colonial, the Charles Schwab, you know, whatever the corporate name is. but we're at the Colonial in Texas and Texas native son, Jordan Speath, who plays, I mean, he says this is his favorite place, his most comfortable place, his scoring there is incredible.

And he shoots three rounds in the mid-60s, and then Sunday comes. And one of the stats, there are many stats. He is this season tied for 126. in fourth round scoring. And again, we're back to the Sunday Scaries with Jordan Speeith. Now, this to me had a different kind of quality to it.

And I will tell you, I'm at peace with how yesterday ended up or the tournament ended up on Sunday. But I'm interested in your take. Well, he said it best. He just had no idea what was happening when he took the club back. And this is something we've seen him struggle with. before. As great as he's played, it's still been rare to get four just pedal to the floor, speed days. He was fourth and putting at this tournament. He was 16th off the tee, but he was only 31st in approach. I mean, he lost over two shots in round four on approach. He lost strokes

putting. He just didn't have it. And listen, I think it is unrealistic for us to think that a switch gets flipped and he's back and he's suddenly Tiger Woods again. First of all, he never was Tiger Woods. That was the beauty of Jordan Speeith is we get the roller coaster ride. It's just that the overall quality of Speath's play right now is great. It made me a little nervous, though. He did sound pretty lost after that round, and it was an ugly start. Listen, it was reminiscent as he and Cochrak were taking dumps on the first couple of holes. They were whatever, collectively five over through five or something. It was a little bit like the start of that last round at the PGA, wasn't it?

Kind of a mediocre finishing day where we were focused on two guys. Each of them were making some critical mistakes, but there just wasn't anyone else around to come grab the reins. And so the spotlight stayed on them and there you had it. I don't fault, Spieth, for that last shot on 18 that went in the water. I think he took, you know, he had a tough drive. He was in the rough. He had a small landing area.

and he just, he hit the wedge that he thought he had to hit, and it goes in the water. I just think he's got to put better in a final round. He's got to swing the club better in a final round, and Jordan has got to get to a place where instead of talking his ass off to Michael, his caddy, he's got something fundamental and technical that he can come back to to just find a green.

That's the thing that I'm most interested in and curious about and want to go into just a bit more because he did, as you observed, confess that from the very first swing of the day, he was out of sorts. And when that happens to a player of his caliber, how do you pull it together? Now, he did, he had three birdies and the three bogeys

in the first five holes, but that he did birdie, I think, six and nine. So he did pull it back a little bit. And, you know, the outcome of the tournament was still very much, you know, in doubt. And he had an opportunity to grab the thing. He just couldn't put two great shots together at once. He couldn't get a putt.

He couldn't get a chip in when he needed it. And, you know, kudos. Now, it was from an objective standpoint. It was terrible golf. Like, it was terrible golf. And it's not the PGA championship. but Kiowa. So I'm not, I'm not willing to give the guys the benefit of the doubt. I mean, I want my, play better for Christ's sakes, guys. Jordan had the worst round of anybody in the top 20.

Co-crack was even. I mean, Charlie Hoffman of all people gets a T3 just because he shot five under. And listen, he's playing really good golf. So that's not taking anything away from Charlie Hoffman. But this is the, this is the downside of being a feel player and all feel player. It's the risk that you run, which is there are a bunch of guys who are, more sort of golf robots who, in their worst hour, can at least fall back on some basic things that they can hold on to. You know, I know that I can hit a little three-quarters cut driver that's going to find the fairway. All field players do not have that fairway finder in the bag, right? They either have it and they're on and they're just striping the ball, which Jordan Spieth has been the best player on approach since basically February in all of professional golf.

So he's had it. But the problem is when they lose it, they don't have that, okay, I understand the plane of my swing so well that I can just fall into the slot and I'll just find greens. And that means that I'm going to have a bunch of 25 to 30 footers for birdie. But if I rattle two of those in and I get lucky on a couple approach shots, I get two more birdies and I limit my bogeys. I'm going to shoot somewhere between two and four under today. So I'm interested because we are now two and a half weeks out from the U.S. Open getting started at Torrey Pines. Tori doesn't feel like a place to me that Jordan can have success.

So like the next opportunity, I feel like looking for him on the big stage where he goes and reminds us of what he's capable of is the British. but maybe it's right to be cautious about, you know, crossing them off any list. I just, is there any scenario under which you think he can be successful at Tori? I mean, I think he can be successful at Tori if he hits his, if he hits his irons great and puts the way that he's been putting. But I think what we saw on Sunday, that's why this week's going to be really interesting for us, because it's a golf course that for a lot of guys is actually going to play like they haven't seen it very much

because it's been totally redone by Jack. But Jordan's got to show us that he can rebound quickly. This was the first bit of real Achilles' heel that we've seen since he's been on this run. Yeah, this and Phoenix, because Phoenix was kind of like a revelation like, oh, Jordan's back on the scene. This is Jordan out kicking ass.

Jordan Speed can win golf tournaments again. And then he had a lackluster finish in Phoenix. And Brooks went and grabbed it on Sunday. And now kind of a repeat of that. But we've seen so much good golf out of Jordan between Phoenix and February. And now that I honestly was a little bit surprised to not see him. I thought it might be a little bit of, you know, he wins by four strokes. When I went to bed Saturday, I thought there was a good chance of that.

It felt like Rory at Quail Hollow where there just weren't a whole lot of great contenders chasing him down and he should grab it. And we would say, not unlike San Antonio where he won, hey, I'm super happy for him. And let's see him go do this at a memorial or a Rive or a major where the field is really strong. Now, that's not to take anything away from Cochrak because Cochrak won a real big boy tournament at Shadow Creek

where there were a lot of great golfers playing. And there's no doubt that this guy's tea game is big time. And when you're first off the T and second T to Green and seventh in putting, you're going to freaking win, even if, like, Koukrak lost shots on approaching round four, but he just hit his drive so well on that course, which I think maybe, you know, it gets a little bit of the wrong reputation.

We think of it as, oh, this is a course where guys who don't hit it far can win. But this is really a course where you have to hit the fair way to set up your second shot. Unlike, you know, this week it's going to be about the, second shot coming into the greens. Last week, it really was, can you drive it straight? And if you can't do that, you got no shot. And it has historically, Colonial we're still talking about here,

not been a place where you would say the long guys have the advantage in Cochrex reputation preceding the season that we're in right now, big long hitter. Now he's putting his ass off. I think he's in the top 10 on tour across the board for this season, putting wise. He might even be top five. He's really, and he becomes an interesting guy, depending on what kind of success over the balance of the season he has as a potential Ryder Cup kind of guy, because that kind of play that he has, where that accuracy off the tee combined with, you know, a very solid putting game. And, you know, if nobody going into this

2020, 2021 wraparound season had Stuart Sink and Jason Cochrak as the multiple winner on tour guys. Yeah, and the guy's born in 1985. I mean, the dude

is, you know, well into his 30s. It's that sort of continuation of what we're seeing, which is guys are a extending their career. And in some of these situations, some of the young guys are choking up a bit. I mean, you're right. Cochrak's sixth and putting on tour right now,

at least shots gained. But this is a guy who has continued to work. He's found a way to hang around on tour. And now it's starting to pay off. I mean, I'd be stunned to see him in the Ryder Cup locker room just because we got so much clustered around the top. That's right. But I mean, if he wins a third tournament, what are you going to do? Or even a top two, top three, he could score his way into the group. I mean, you know, he's playing good enough golf. Yeah, he's going to be, you know, at Eastlake for sure. And like you said, I mean, he's now showing, you know, the more, the more you start to get that confidence that you can win, the easier it becomes to win. These things build on themselves. So speaking of building on itself,

we have a wonderful tournament right now, which is like the tune-up, the true last tune-up before the U.S. Open. And a lot of guys are not playing at the Memorial Jack's backyard this week. sad does not see DJ because it seems like DJ probably we're not going to see him until Tori and he's kind of been inscrutable. I'd like to get a feel for where DJ's at before, you know, I think about doing anything with him at the U.S. Open editorial. Justin Rose, who plays great at the Memorial, is not playing this week. And he tied for 20th at Colonial. I was on him a little bit with a little bit of cash and a little bit of DFS action, a little fan duel action on Justin Rose.

Co-crack, as Dottie pointed out, an Ohio guy not playing. Right, right. So, but we do have seven of the top 10 and 11 of the top 15 in the world. So, and it's a 120 person, 121 player field. So limited field, great field, produces historically some, it's been kind of a springboard tournament. It's put some guys kind of on the map and helped some guys resume build, uh, some young player's resume build and put us on notice that they're capable of greater things. Bryson D. Chambot won the Memorial in 2018.

Hadecki with a signature win at the Memorial. And Patrick Cantlay, which is an interesting name, as we sort of formulate here on what we might anticipate this week at the Memorial, another guy with a W here. And for Cantlay, it's his biggest win. So I have seen some names, but before. before we get to names, I want to get some, some of your thoughts on how you anticipate this place playing.

We have some, some great, as always, feedback. Justin Ray is way back on the scene. Our boy, he's got Jack, Jackson, Jack must be sleeping well because Jack Ray, we're talking about Justin Ray's newborn son, two and half weeks old, because JR is

all over the place with the stats. He's on the Action Network podcast. He's putting it up, but some of the research last year, the Memorial had the toughest scrambling percentage of any venue on tour. And it was the fifth toughest to hit greens in regulation. So you put those two things together. It's really hard to to scramble here. And it's hard to hit the greens in regulation. And on top of that, Jack, there was a bulldozer following the leaders last year as they were finishing.

the rest. John Rom was finishing up winning that event. There's a bulldozer basically like three holes behind tearing up the whole golf course, right? I think that there was a reason why he was making these changes and it is perhaps in the scrambling

stat that you pointed out. This course had some challenges and it was bordering on unfair in some places and not really rewarding great shots. And so Jack's gone around and he softened up a lot of the slopes on the green. So they're not quite as crazy.

He moves some T's in bunkers around. He's narrowed a few fairways to take away that advantage for the bombers. But, you know, he's leveled some fairways so you can actually see the hole on your second shot. Fifteen is an example. That's 16, you know, that green they've talked about a lot. They added a really important backstop so you can actually hold the green now. But it's mostly that now you can land the ball on slightly leveler surfaces, so they actually hold. This course is going to play differently. The rough is still thick with like six Cs, but the course is going to play differently. And a lot of the guys who are used to going around this course are going to have to just do the men in black, you know, blank out your mind, refresh start from zero.

Otherwise, they're going to get stuck reading greens, reading shots. in ways that the course just doesn't play anymore. Well, I'm interested in seeing the sand is still there and the sand is still prominent. There are at least 70, I think I saw 76 bunkers. Yeah, and he's moved a lot of them to make some of them more relevant, right? Right. So you're going to, you need another, like, you know, sand save percentage is another, you know, metric to take a look at as you try and build a dance card. So talking about names, the golf commentariat,

all of the experts out there, a lot of buzz for Victor Hovlin because he fits a bunch of the stuff that we've come accustomed to seeing at the memorial, which is young player springboard event. He, his ball striking is... But he's a shitty scrambler.

Well, and here's the thing, right? We saw him challenge to win the work day last year, played at Mirfield Village, and then they changed the golf course and they played it. They played everybody will recall two consecutive weeks last season, last summer, at Mearfield Village, a workday event, then golf course refurbishment in between. And then they competed the memorial and he was tied for 48th in the memorial. Now there's a million reasons why he could, you know, he went from a top five finish in the workday

to a tied for 48th in the memorial. there's no reason like I would bet not one eye, not even an eyelash if Victor Hovlin won this week. He certainly checks a whole bunch of the boxes, except for what you just mentioned, which is scrambling. And the one thing our mind's eye sees when we see Victor Hovlin is sometimes he is an awful chipper of the golf ball.

Dumpy wedges. Yeah, dumpy wedges. But I'm interested in some names that you might have in your sights. I mean, first of all, we just got to address the elephant in the room. Bryson DeShambo is the second favorite here. But this is where he lost his mind and went tin cup last year, right? With the three wood out of the rough, he had a quintuple bogey on a par five. He misses the cut.

He's got a tendency to blame the course a lot, including, by the way, that's what it seems like he was mumbling in the background, as Brooks lost his shit during the interview. And there've definitely been some changes, but the rough is still thick. So I'm not sure I'm feeling Bryson this week, especially because Wednesday and Thursday, there's going to be some rain. And we know Bryson hates the rain from that ridiculous YouTube video where he took his shirt off too many times. So I'm not feeling Bryson so much. We'll come back on the favorite. For me, there's a couple of guys that I would look at this week.

Look, Matthew Fitzpatrick shot four under on Sunday last year. Rom one and shot plus three. Fitzpatrick finished solo third. he's still sort of looking for that elusive breakout win. And so if we're thinking about young guys, Pat and the resume, Fitzpatrick looks good to me this week. I also would say there's two guys more towards the bottom of your DFS card that you should pay attention to.

One, Doug Gim. I love Doug Gim for a top 20 this week. He was T-14th on approach, and we know that shots gained approach is an important metric this week. He was 20th around the Greens last week. So Doug Gim, he's sitting, right or about 70th, 71st in FedEx right now. But, you know, thinking about how he gets himself past the Northern Trust and into the

into the BMW once the playoffs come. So I like Doug Kim. And then secondly, Kyle Stanley led the field in shots game approach last week. He lost over three quarters of a stroke putting. But I love the way that he's striking the ball. And he's that kind of guy who could make his way into the top 25 and could be the last guy you pull on your fantasy card. Yeah, I like that.

I like you laying out some of these second tier names because I see Doug Gim's name showing up on a particular statistical category. Again, kudos to our homie, Justin Ray. Here's the list of guys that are top 30 in both strokes gained approach and scrambling percentage over, you know, the recent history. Here's the list. Charlie Hoffman, Russell Henley, Patrick Cantlay, Doug Gim. So you're Doug Gimcaw, you're backed up by a statistical profile that I feel like, you know, if Justin Ray thinks this is the profile that's going to work here, I happen to agree with him. That puts me on Charlie Hoffman.

I already want to be on Charlie Hoffman. I always want to be on Charlie Hoffman. I'm on Charlie Hoffman this week. I don't really need to see anything else. His five under finish at the Colonial this most recent week. That's just icing on the cake as far as I'm concerned. I never have any issue rooting for Charlie Hoffman. So he is on my card for sure.

I do want to address the curious case of Patrick Cantley, who is also on this list of top 30 in strokes game approach and scrambling percentage. He has the highest percentage of rounds in the 60s at this venue over the last handful of years, the best birdie average at this venue in the past 10 years, the best cumulative score, par over the past five years. And yet, Patrick Cantley has missed the cut in four of his last six and doesn't have a top 10 since February. Yeah.

He was insane in Austin at the match play event for a little while. How about this? We saw a ton of him on Sunday at the PGA championship. He was legitimately pushing his way up and then he fell all the way off over the last four holes. And, you know, there is a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing going on. with him and it doesn't seem like it's the talent that's the problem so it's a it's a caveat

mTOR with patrick can't lay this week i say it is a wild time for golf isn't it it's so hard to put your finger on who the best player is right now there's just nobody who's who's there's a bunch of really great players but we're not going to know shit about dj like you said and i i don't know this is a big week for us to see what patrick can't like can do because he ought to be you know, in California, we know how well he plays in California. He ought to be among the favorites at the U.S. Open if his game is informed.

So we're going to learn a lot from him. I think a guy, you say up and down, Jekylland Hyde, a guy who's been pretty consistent of late is Corey Connors, and I think because of that, we tend to overrate him a little bit. But he was T-22 here last year. Last week he was T-20,

but he lost half a stroke putting. So everything else was good. Ninth an approach, off the T. But again, as putting, he was 59th and putting up. He can spend this week getting a little bit more comfortable with that putter. You could see Corey Conner's very easily get into the top 15. But as we talk about who's going to win this tournament house, I just, I mean, it's got to be JT. And here's why. Oh, okay. Interesting. Two things are going for JT. The first is, I got to believe he's going to try to avenge his

defeat last year to call him or Calumorcau. I know that was at the third. workday, but it's on the same course. And we're always going to remember that scream when he hit the 60-footer. There are no fans around except his dad. And he just howled, followed by Morikawa dropping in the putt on top of him. So that was a moment to be sure. But he is riding the great karma of writing a significant check to the mini-tour player, Mike Vasaki, who qualified for his first tournament,

couple weeks ago. It was a viral video where he was crying, talking, you know, telling his father that he'd finally made it. JT took him out for a practice round this week and is helping to subsidize his golf career going forward. You know, now, whether that's image repair, who know, I'm just saying he's riding the good karma train. The golf gods have to be smiling on him. He's got a little chip on his shoulder to try to win after having this seemingly in his grasp last year at the course. I'm all in on JT this week. I love where you're going with JT and the particular impact of the karma train because I can't recall where I saw it research-wise. He has not been playing great golf for about six or seven different consecutive weeks here. All of the tournaments he's competed in.

The finishes are mediocre by his standards and there is a metric. I can't remember who did it. but where if you compare, you know, when he goes on like a little bit of a lull, he tends to break himself, snap himself out of it, and then go on a complete heater. And we could be on the brink of putting that lull period

in the rear view mirror and the heater coming up right and staring us in the face. Now, I have already played JT, and I want to talk about my one and done for the Pat Mayo League coming up here, because there are a couple other names. Now,

I wished that I still had Tony Fee now. I love Tony Fee now this week. I also love him at Tori. He, his strokes gain Tee to Green has been so good. And he plays great at Mirafield Village. His last six trips, he has two top eights, I mean, two tied for eight, a tied for 11 and a tied for 13. And we saw him a little bit last year.

I remember seeing him on Sunday, maybe making a move and then kind of, falling off. So he's 100% a horse for a course and I like him. I'll put him in all lineups. In all my lineups Charlie Hoffman and Tony Feenow are going to be in. But the two guys, I love your Cory

Conner's call. He's going in my lineups as well. I've been playing Cory Connors every week that he's in. I had him in my PGA championship fairway Roland Doe thing where I finished in the top, I don't know, top third, maybe top quarter. Not terrible. I wish I had, you know, but in any event,

I'm on Connors, my choice for this week in terms of one and Don who I have available. Corey Connors or Hadeki Matsuyama. Speaking of guys who, you know, another guy on the list who could go out and grab the mantle is like the best guy in the world at the moment kind of thing, right? If Hadeki wins the Masters and the Memorial, and we know the pedigree at the memorial. I don't hate it. I mean, I think if those are your choices, you got to go with Hideki. Okay, all right. I'm willing to do it. I just, I want to back you up on your fiener one, though.

I mean, I just like, people have been saying how shitty he's been playing because he missed like three cuts since including the players. But like in his last five tournaments, he's finished 10th, 17th, 8th, and 20th with one miss cut in between those four. So like, and that was at Wells Fargo. Like Tony is, Tony's going to backdoor his way into something more than the top 10 pretty soon. He loves these greens. the reason he didn't play better last week was because he didn't put worth it worth a good goddamn. Yeah.

These bent grass po combos, he was sixth in strokes game putting at this venue last summer. He loves this combo. I mean, you know, we're prepared for him doing what he does, which is top five or top 10, and I'll be perfectly satisfied.

Like I said, if he was available on one and done for me, I'd play him without hesitation or reservation. I'm going to play Hideki. because I like a story and I like rooting for him and I'm happy with it. A couple of other names for this week as you're trying to build out the card. So Sebastian Munoz, we just watched him put his ass off. He hit the ball in the fairway and then putted his ass off.

Sebastian Munoz deserves to be on a card. And it looks like, you know, I... Why are you laughing? Because I said bad things about this guy because we were seeing too much. of him at the PGA championship and I never thought for a second he could win. And then I had somebody telling me, slow your roll, buddy. Just be more generous. Kevin Strelman was all over the TV screen at the PGA championship.

And then followed that up with a night, kind of validated it with a night. He was tied for eighth at Kiowa. And then he validated that with a tie 20 at the Colonial. And he just, he's a methodical like plots his way around the golf course, hits the ball somewhere safe and then gets the ball to the green. So I don't hate Kevin Streelman this week either. Yeah, I love Kevin Streelman. I mean, I was calling him the mortician because, you know, the gray hair poking out.

And, you know, there was something weird about the way he looked at Q. And I'm sorry for disparaging the look. You can't control how you look. I mean, I understand. The sunglasses on the back of the head. He just looked like I was like, go back to the embalming room. and get off my screen chemistry. I didn't mind the grinding.

I just didn't mind the grinding. It's what you expect out of that venue. I just want to say, the only thing we should be worried about with your Hideki call is that he was T-39 at Byron Nelson and T-23 at the PGA. Without, you know, a whole lot.

I mean, there was a moment after Friday where we felt like maybe he was going to be in the mix after shooting 68, but he came out and shot 76, 72 on the weekend. So I don't, but I think if those are your choices, you got a role with Hedke because of the storied history at the place. That's all. And I'm, you know, I'm a sucker for narrative.

Speaking of sucker for narrative, got to give a very quick shout out to my new very best friend, Tom Summers, at the Oakmont Country Club. Oh, Lord. Got to get out there last week. Speaking of grinding, what an extraordinary. place, Nate Dogg. We're going to go back because Tom wants both of us

to be there. I gave you a last minute invite. It really wasn't. I didn't give you enough time to really hook it up, but man, what a place. Not even close. My favorite golf course I have ever played in my whole life. And I have some great venues on my list.

I've been really lucky over the last 15, 20 years to play some incredible venues, including Cyprus, including Pine Valley. My favorite, by far, not even close is Oakmont. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's not even close. I mean, it is

the scale of it, the history of it. What did you do well? Third shot recovery. Yeah, yeah. Because you hit it into trouble and then you have to advance the ball to get yourself out of trouble and then give yourself a chance at par

by hitting, you know, quality third shots. And I had a decent day ball striking wise with that. I also played the part free's pretty good. And the sand was all of a, as you would expect, perfectly uniform consistency. So as soon as I hit one good sand shot, then I felt comfortable hitting out of the sand for all the rest.

And I will tell you, I was probably in the sand 14 times. I mean, I, I, there's definitely some church pew pictures and, you know, all the rest of it. Shots gained sand number was strong. Yeah, I mean, you know, I say bogey. So it's like, that's a W. I mean, I think I, I mean, I shot under 90. Good for you. Right.

At Oakmont from, you know, reasonable teas. But we're going to get back out there. I just had to give a quick shout out to Tom because, by the way, Tom Summers, a 0.6 index at Oakmont. So imagine what kind of golfer that young fellow is. House, if we were to go to Mirfield Village and there's a chance that I will be out there this weekend, what do you think is the over under on the number of milkshakes that we would have? Really? How many milkshakes do you think that you would comfortably have if we went there? Seven. Because we would be there. I would be there long enough. I'm having one every day. And if we're only there four days, that means three of those days I'm having two. So I'm having one for breakfast. As soon as we get on the grounds, I'm going, because I feel like that's the number you need to have to properly sample the entire array.

to probably. I mean, maybe I'll, you know what, I'd said it at six and a half. And then if I hit the under, I mean, I'm nailing the over on that for you. Oh, 60. Just hammering it. But it's like, am I really committed to having a milkshake for breakfast every day? I think the answer is yes. I do too. You know, but, but if we had a tough night the night before, milk might not feel good. But no, that, that would be exactly what I would want. That the cool soothing, the sweetness, all that butterfat, oh, I think that, I mean, I I kind of want one now. Let's go get one right now.

Take a picture for us. Take a picture if you make it there and give us a little sampling of the array, Nate dog. Okay, buddy. All right, there we go by Birdie buddies, my par saving pals. My eagle enthusiasts, wow, two and a half weeks out of the U.S. Open. What an appetizer. Jack's backyard, the memorial this week. Best of luck to everybody with all of your DFS and gambling plays.

Hopefully we gave you something to think about. a couple names that will help you with the return on investment. We are back. We might have to do an impromptu show. They're going and playing Congaree down in South Carolina, which is a Fasio design that made an appearance immediately on all these top 50, like top 50 golf courses in America. And it's a one-time event because the RBC Canadian was canceled due to the COVID stuff.

So maybe we have an impromptu show the week in advance. of the U.S. Open coming at Torrey Fines.