Fairway Rollin' - Hudson Swafford's Unexpected Win and Looking Ahead to Sanderson Farms

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

The world of golf is rolling along! As players look to rack up points to keep their cards, House and Hubbard sit down to talk about Hudson Swafford's unexpected win at the Corales Puntacana Resort & Club Championship and what got him there (01:41). They then look forward to the contest at Sanderson Farms and discuss how to find great value down the ticket with a lot of players you should be paying attention to (17:56). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast. Unlike any other, we are back, baby. It is time for a little fairway roll. On the Ringer podcast network, I am your starter, Joe House, my birdie buddies. We are in an exciting time on the PGA tour. You may not believe it because there are exciting things happening. across the United States and international sports environment, but golf is being played in luxurious destinations like the Dominican Republic.

We are going to go through the unexpected victory by Hudson Swofford, a pal of none other than our PGA tour correspondent Nathan Hubbard, who is on the line. The first tee is open. I'm going to go over, throw a tee. the ground and say, what up, Nate? How you doing, buddy? House. Let's get into it. It's nice to see Swofford back from the injury playing some good golf. So this is now, we have two of these resumed season, new season 2020, 2020, 2021 PGA Tour season events, sandwiched around the U.S.

Open, which is the 2020 U.S. Open. But we have now done a couple shows where we've been talking about these regular season events as items of interest to both of us because of the great opportunity for golf aficionados like you, like me, to see some players who don't get main stage spotlights to come on out and do some things. And we have two unexpected winners so unexpected, Nate Dogg, that if you have. had had wagered on Stuart Sink, who won the Safeway, or Hudson Swofford, who just won this most recent week down the Corrales Punta Kana Championship, you could have had either one of those guys at better than 200 to 1 odds. Those are long shot odds. Both these guys won for the first time in a very long time. Stuart Sink, obviously his first since he won the Open Championship. And for Hudson Swavard, this was after his 13th and 15th holes

where he dropped a double boge and a bogey and fell out of what looked to be a pretty comfortable three-four shot lead at the turn, you thought it was over. And when you couple that with a guy who has been on a major medical extension and was down to his last few events on that extension, he was going to lose his card.

this was a pretty impressive mentally strong performance from Hudson Swofford. This is an important point, this point that you just made, because a lot of this season, these regular season events that feature fields that are not peppered with the upper echelon players is we want. I love how we dance around that all the time. Well, what do we? It is what it is. It is.

None of the top guys are playing these. events, but we like that. We like to learn some new guys. We like to see some comeuppers have their chance to go do something on tour. And what we are reminded of is like just the point you made, the importance of that fortitude, that mental fortitude, the Cajonis fortitude. You asked Justin Ray before the U.S. Open, what's the Cajonis quotient? How do they factor that into their data analysis? And he laughed and told you they don't really have the Cajonis quotient. But you and I are on the Cajonis quotient, my friend. We're looking for big balls on the back nine,

are we not? We are. And we've talked about this fall season as an opportunity to get to know some of those young up-and-comers. And there's always one, two, three, four guys who break out in the fall and make their

way all the way to the Tour Championship, which Sebastian Munoz did last year. He's the defending champion this week in Jackson. But surprisingly, those young guys have tended to wither down the stretch, and it's been a couple of quasi vets, and in Stuart Singh's case, major vets,

who, as you said, have had the stones to hang in there and win in these first couple weeks of the season. By the way, thank God we got the Napa tournament in when we did. Oh, my gosh. Thoughts out to those guys. Man, oh, man. It is in a bad place. A lot of great places burned down just yesterday afternoon and evening.

That tournament would not have been held if it was scheduled for this weekend. No, restaurants and wineries and vineyards, all in Napa. We're really, really, really rooting for all of them to come through as best as possible. But the fire up there has been especially pernicious and taken out some legendary spots. You know, hopefully there's a rebuild in place. But your point about, you know, the opportunity to see some young guys. Now, here's what's interesting to me.

We have been kind of circling some names, right? Yes. So we gave some guys last week. That's right. We were looking for Doc Redmond at the Safeway. And Doc Redmond went off and had like six or seven birdies to finish that tournament. And it just wasn't enough to supplant Stewart's sink. This week down in the Dominican Republic, we were looking at guys like Sam Burns.

We were looking at guys like Adam Long. Adam Long was on my dance card. We were looking at guys like McKenzie Hughes. And, you know, we got performances out of them. We also had, you know, the old head that I think he had either the lowest odds or second lowest Osz odds. Henrik Stenson finished tied for 21st. So, you know, as we kind of do some, some assessing of where guys are in their games and what might we anticipate for them for the, for the fall, because this is, again, this crazy, highly compressed schedule where, you know,

some of the European players have left their families behind at home and they've arrived here in the United States and they're going to stay here and just play event after event after event. because it gets them access to the U.S. Open and access to the Masters. And a guy like Henrik Stentz, maybe he's just playing himself into form for this Masters, right? And for so many of these guys, the FedEx Cup points that they can grab right now are literally going to keep them on tour. But last week we talked about a couple other guys, too, James Hahn. James Hahn threatened. He finished top 10. We, of course, you know, Will Zelotoros was our guy who we've been talking about for a couple weeks.

the rest of the press is obviously picked up on him, and he had T6 at the U.S. Open, T8 last week, so he's certainly continuing to circle the drain around a win. These tournaments are where you sort of shake the sieve, and there's a few stones that hang in there at the end, who you can see are going to be significant players through the rest of the season. Well, speaking of shaking sieves and looking for stones,

I want to talk about Hudson-Zwafford for a minute, because you have a personal connection to him, which is to say you've been in his presence, you've socialized with him, you maybe even swung a golf club or two with him. You sent me a little video over the weekend, and I'm just going to leave it at that. Why don't we tell everybody about your connection

to brother Swafford and some of the extraordinary skill that he possesses? Well, HUD Swafford and his wife in 2018, were down at Baker's Bay, which I've written about for the Ringer. It's the place where Ricky Fowler and Jordan Spieth and J.T. Go for their spring break that they have posted to Snapchat repeatedly after the Masters. And it is a place that is mostly about the party and less about the golf,

but it's a gorgeous golf course that you tend to generally play barefoot and have about one or two marguerite as a whole. such that when you're coming up 18, you don't always remember everything that happens on 18, but what happened one year that I sent you the video on, and maybe I should have posted it, we're talking about it for crying out loud. But I was coming up 18, and HUD was down there, like I said, with some friends and his wife, and he was staying at a place that overlooked the 18th green, but, you know, it was probably still, I'm going to say 50, 60 yards back from the green, and we're coming up 18 and HUD's screaming,

Hubbard, give me your wedge, give me your wedge. So we throw a wedge up two stories onto the balcony of this condo where he's staying. He's sitting out on the outdoor furniture, on a couch and a table, having some margarineas or some beers or whatever. And he takes the wedge, stands up on the couch,

puts a ball on the table, and puts it to 18 inches. Yeah. So it turns out HUD Swafford has a short game. We knew it then. He was hurt with a different injury back then. Between then and this win on Sunday, he had a dead bone taken out of his foot,

which what the hell? I didn't even know that's possible. Right. A very scary sounding injury, especially for a golfer with your feet. And this is a guy who won the Amex in 2017. out at PGA West, look to be one of those rising guys who was going to start to really be a presence every week. And then he just kind of evaporated because he just has been dealing with a series of

injuries for a couple years. And again, to come down the stretch this week, looking at, you know, he probably was down to his last six tournaments on his extension, where if he didn't get enough points to qualify for the tour, he was done. Probably going to have to drop down to Corn Ferry and we've talked about it on here. The not so funny joke that all the players make about the corn fairy is what's the difference between Corn Fairy Tour and a large pizza? And the answer is a large pizza can feed a family of four. It is not easy down on the Corn Fairy Tour to make a living, especially not like Hudson's wife,

have a child. It's a lot more difficult. So to come down the stretch and persevere is a testament to the guy. And he did a lot of it with his short game. I mean, he, you would have thought with the double on 13, he was dead. We see that so often with a lot of these players where they're in the heat of it. They get on the back nine and they just throw it in reverse. And a couple of our guys did that this week.

Adam Long shot three over on Sunday. Now, he's won the MX before too. But you make the double and you think, okay, I'm either going to bounce back here or I'm dead. He makes another bogey on 15 and you all of it right him off. but boy, he had a great shot into 17, just stung a three-quarter six iron, and then made the put. And then on 18, you know, came up a little short with his put, had some work left to do, but drained it for the win. And that's a life-changing moment for a guy like that. He gets into the Masters, gets into the tournament in Maui, gets into a bunch.

He's got a two-year exemption now. So he can step back now and get back to just playing golf. one of the most interesting stories about Hudson coming out of this weekend is he did a lot of this using a mental coach. Oh, wow. And he had his mental coach on site who really helped him somehow let go of that pressure to try to deliver with that clock ticking on the wall. And it's a reminder that so much of this game and the difference between the guys who succeed and the guys who can go out on the local country club course and shoot a six. and think they can play on the tour is what's between the ears. Oh, and, you know, that's for sure true, but like also a hundred miles worth of talent.

For sure. But what I like about the game of golf right now is a lot of these guys are coming out and talking about their vulnerabilities. These aren't mental health issues, but necessarily, in some cases they are. And we've heard about that from a number of guys. But guys who've been vulnerable enough to talk about the mental process. You know, we saw Dak, the Cowboys quarterback come out and talk about it and get, you know, in a lot of circles he was cheered, but also there's that sort of undertone of guys getting razzed for being honest about the mental challenge of sport and how that interacts with mental health.

So it's a grind out there. We see these guys on TV. We see them raising trophies and getting big multi-million dollar checks. And it seems like life is easy and good. These are human beings behind it all. And so it was good to see HUD win that. And then I really respected the way that he communicated the struggle that he's gone through to get where he was on Sunday. Well, and we've been talking about that psychological element to this, how crucial it is to golf.

And we've been using it in the context of gigantic golf stars like Roy McElroy and like Jordan Speeth. And Rory, you know, when we ponder when we ponder when. it is that he might, you know, get back in form to be really truly competitive in majors again. We wonder about the psychological pressure of it and we had this proof positive from his inability to make the cut at a golf course that he grew up on in Northern Ireland last year. The pressure was just too much for him. He hit his very first swing of the day out of bounds. at the Open Championship last year.

And, you know, Rory clearly, he's been honest about it. And we ourselves, as we root for Jordan Speath to finally turn the corner and for the combination of his talent and his brain to reconnect and get him back into that space that he was in from 2015 to 2017, we both believe that it's there. We also both believe that the psychological element of it, looms larger than the talent element of it. And, you know, we keep sort of musing aloud.

When are those two going to join forces once again? And it's a reminder that it just sometimes takes time. Right. In any other sport on earth, the careers of these guys would be over. If Patma Holmes goes out and plays six terrible games in a row, even Pat McGamont Holmes, they're going to start talking about maybe we need to give them a break, right? But HUD could disappear for two years.

Jordan's now, you know, two plus years. The brutal thing about golf is you got to kill what you eat. But the saving thing about golf is that, you know, a guy like Stuart Sink can basically be non-competitive for almost 10 years and show back up and win a tournament and, you know, extend his career dramatically from there. So Jordan's going to come back. Yeah, Jordan will come back. You and I both believe it in that 10-year period.

for Stuart Sink still make enough money to feed his family and, you know, live off of some of the money that he'd made earlier in his career when he was, you know, when he, when he won his major, that this is the, you know, and again, I've made this joke many, many times. This is the Tiger effect on the economics of the tour. The, the amplifying effect of Tiger Woods from 1997 up to about, you know, 2015 on purses and everything else, the television, everything that goes along with it, hundreds of guys on tour have made a living by just being pretty damn good at professional golf.

Not necessarily great. It only takes pretty damn good. And that's that tiger, you know, effect, right? And there's some debate over whether this is a good thing. This is why the PGL has a little bit of a, if it's not a full fit foot, they've got, you know, HUD Swofford's dead footbone in the door at least. of the golf world. And it's because the guys at the top know

that being consistent week in, week out always, is hard to do. And when there's 150, 200 guys who have a shot at getting into a tournament each week, obviously, there's never a field that's 200, but 144, 156 guys, it makes it A, harder to win. And B, it means that when you come down the stretch

for an event like the FedEx Cup playoffs, which was set up to pay the best players extra money at the end of the year. It means that guys like Brooks Kepka and Justin Rose are, or Tiger Woods, who didn't have a good start to the season, are on the outside looking in. And the reason they didn't have a good start is because people like Stuart Sink and Hud Swofford were able to jump in, get a victory, get the points that ultimately, you know, nine months later, in this case, 11 months later, are going to get him into the Tour of Championship if they keep up some consistency.

And there are some people who think that's actually bad for golf. And that's why the PGL has at least inserted itself into the discussion. Well, and we will save for another day the topic of the TV contracts that the PGA Tour has in place. The upcoming impending demise of the Golf Channel, which is not that far off. and, you know, the interrelationship of the economics of golf on television and producing golf on television and whether or not under the current economic conditions, it is a viable proposition for the networks that have rights to golf and what the future may hold in that respect because the PGL, if they get a handful of the best guys and they have economics around a TVD, deal that makes sense, there, there, there, there, there's something there, right? You can't just

completely dismiss it out of hand. There, there is something there. But we, we need to get somebody, we need like a combo business TV, you know, golf expert. And we're going to, we're going to, you know, work on that a little bit to come on and walk us through what's been happening, really behind the scenes. But, you know, golf, golf channel is, is, you know, greatly stripped down. and what you're seeing of the NBC broadcast, including the U.S. Open, is diminished. For me, I love the idea that on any given week we can have a happy Gilmore story,

which was basically the random underdog going up against the big name and watching how they work in those situations. We don't get that in any other sport. And so I enjoy a really healthy mid-tier of golfers, especially in this day and age where a lot of the young guys who haven't figured out how to win yet

but have been benefiting from technology as they've come up playing golf. They've had completely different instruction. They've had their swings videoed from the moment they could pick up a club. They've had access to Trackman and all the sort of shot tracer technologies that help them understand angle and spin rate

and all of the intricacies of swings that the guys that we know and love, Tiger Woods didn't have that growing up. And so I like seeing the juxtaposition of generations, styles, and quality up against each other, because it means that all of us can get up when we finish watching the telecast and go play this sport. It's what's so great about golf. And it just sort of dangles that carrot out there that the golf guns are, you know, if a mid-tier or nobody guy can come out, if Ben Curtis can win the open,

it means that House, you and I can maybe go out there and, uh, and, break 70. And it keeps us coming back. I'm always under 70. It's just up in the 14th hole. That's about where I jump over the mark. For the maddening nature of this sport, it has this frame of optimism and hope that never goes away.

And I think if you, you know, we've enjoyed those events where it's just the top guys. That's what the majors are really about in a lot of ways, but those are still pretty full fields. We enjoyed that event in the Ozarks last week where it was just four really great golfers playing. I'm not sure that's what I need to see every week. I enjoy the drama of the nobody's going up against the heroes and just seeing what those clashes look like. Yeah, and there was a little bit of an element of that with the U.S. Open at Wingfoot. I mean, Matthew Wolfe is not a household name. For golf nuts like us, we know about Matthew Wolf and his arrival on tour and, you know, the fact that he already.

He already put a W in his in his ledger last fall and, you know, how competitive he was since the restart, including a top five at the PGA championship, but a very unconventional swing, a guy who fits a lot of what you just described in terms of having the benefit of technology and, you know, a swing, swing coach and all the rest of it. again, unorthodox, but still, you know, the great benefit of arriving on the scene fully formed and ready to go compete at the highest level. Now, the ratings for that U.S. Open were horrendous, but that's just a function of going up against football, and there's no way to avoid it. And that's it. Well, so now, having come out of the Dominican Republic, starting this week in Jackson, Mississippi, leading through the month of October, we're going to have these ever-increasing sort of escalating, strengths of field that's going to culminate, well, the sort of penultimate tournament is going to be this zozo because it looks like that's going to be in Los Angeles at Sherwood Country Club.

Tiger Woods will be there playing and defending his title and a bunch of the other top guys all committed this week. So that's looking like we're going to play Jackson this week. We're going to play two events in Vegas at really fun, really interesting, high-quality golf courses. the fields will continue to get better. A bunch of guys are going to play the Zozo. Then we'll have a couple of weeks that are sort of mid-tier tournaments. And then we got the Masters.

Yeah, it's a great run. I mean, again, a little bit of a breather at this point in the PGA tour season makes sense. And yet there's still opportunities if you want to drop a couple bucks on a couple bets. The DFS fields are outstanding. A real opportunity to distinguish yourself, create some variants in lineups.

the fantasy lineups are the exact same way. And if you want to put some, you know, guys to win, guys the top five, guys to top 10, there's reasonable wagers out there to be had. And this tournament in Jackson, you know, shout out to our homie Jason Sobel, whose column is up on golf bet right now. He mentioned some of these guys. I mean, you mentioned Sebastian Munoz, who's the defending champion here, but also quality guys, Song J.M., who I believe is going to play this week.

Sonjay's back. Sunjay boycotted last week for the first time, and I don't know how long. I mean, why on earth? But he's, I don't know, he stayed at a Howard Johnson's hotel, ate some chick-fil-A, and now he's at Jackson,

he's going to play this week. But some noteworthy names have all finished in the top 10 at this particular event, at this venue over the last handful of years. Harris English is on this list. Corey Connors is on this list. Kevin Streelman, Dylan Fratelli,

some guys whose name showed up since the restart as, you know, guys who collected a few top tens and top 20s on tour, and they're all, you know, lined up for this event. Sungshay's one of the guys you got to look at this week. You're not going to get great odds on Sung Jay, but Sungay lost in a playoff to Sebastian Munoz last year. I got to believe that his mediocre play through the course of the playoffs was tied to, at some point, this guy's going to start to feel fatigue. given the way that he manages or rather doesn't manage his schedule. But he had a little bit of a break here for the first time in a while.

So I'm excited to see what a refreshed Sung Jay looks like. And then there's somebody else who, you know, there's some really interesting storylines through this week. Scotty Schaeffler's back. He had to withdraw from the U.S. Open due to COVID. He was playing really good golf through the course of the playoffs. We wanted to see him at the U.S. Open. I mean, remember, it wasn't shortly before he tested.

when he shot a 59. Yeah, in Boston. In Boston. And this was, you know, he really threw the course of the playoffs, held off Victor Hovland as if that's a contest that really matters. But, I mean, we certainly aren't going to have a rookie of the year this year because we didn't promote anybody. So I guess he'll be the two-time defending rookie of the year.

But it's time for Scotty Schaeffler to win a golf tournament. Well, he finished top 16 here last year. And this is the kind of tournament. Just like Fienau won Puerto Rico, Hovlin one Puerto Rico. You know, you sort of got an easier way in, right? Morikawa won in Reno. Some of those sort of off-focused tournaments are a great way for a guy like this who you look at and think he should have a pretty successful 15, 20-year career.

But the first one is so hard to get, this is the kind of place that, usually results in a first-time champion. And you look at somebody like Scotty Schaeffler and say, you know, this is the kind of tournament. The championship trophy is a chicken. He needs to grab the chicken and choke it this week. Oh, no. You want Scotty to choke the chicken.

Well, here's the problem I have with Scotty, and it's just that great unknown. The odds are horrendous. He's 10 to 1 to win this tournament. He is at the top of the board in terms of odds to win. 10 to 1 is a brutally bad return. And I like maybe something slightly different,

which is every single guy on the card is plus odds for top 10. There are no negative odds guys to finish in the top 10. So maybe a more modest play on Scotty. I think you can get plus 150 odds. So if you bet $10, you get back $15. if Scotty finishes in the top 10, we don't know what he's been doing

these past two weeks. At least I don't. Maybe I'll ask you, do you know what he's been doing the last two weeks? He's been recovering from COVID, so he's been resting. But my question is, yeah, well,

what's that mean? How extreme were his symptoms? I haven't seen stories and I haven't seen him interviewed yet. Maybe he just had to be home. He didn't really experience symptoms. He was largely asymptomatic. Right.

So did he practice every single day? I think he's ready to play golf this week. Okay. But I'm with you that I'm with you that we can find value way further down the card this week. Yeah. There are guys who, listen, last week, you know, again, we said we talked about, we talked about James Hahn. We talked about McKenzie Hughes. We talked about all those guys finished largely top 20. And as you look down the card this week, there's some really interesting value play for maybe not to put money on this guy's going to win, but top tens, top 20s, head to heads. There's, there's some really interesting value play for maybe not to put money on this guy's head to heads. There's. There's, There's some winners this week. I want to mention a guy that you've talked about before, speaking of, and I like just the southern angle of it because I look for dumb angles anywhere I can get them. And that's Robbie Shelton, available this week at 175 to 1.

So certainly fitting that trend line of the higher odd long shot kind of guys. Pretty decent performance. Well, what I'll say is an inconsistent performance. post restart. He had a tie for third place at the 3M open, and he tied for 13th at the Northern Trust. So those are pretty good. I think there were a couple of miscuts mixed in there as well. But just a guy to take a look at who we know is going to be comfortable. He's young, and there's great value for him for a guy that you know has the game to top 10 in a tournament like this. Robbie Shelton could be worth a look. One of the things that we've seen

from the restart is that some of the old guys are flourishing. We talked about that earlier in the pod. Zach Johnson was tied for eighth at the U.S. Open. He played well at the PGA. He's kind of on a role. He was the man of the year, as we've said, had some really nice moments around that.

ZJ's 44. He hasn't won since he won the Open in 2015. If we're going to see another one from Zach, this is the kind of tournament. and this is the kind of year, that I might like to see him step up and win, and that you might not be too surprised based on how he's been playing to win.

He's 33 to 1, I think. I saw 35, but yeah, same zone. That's good value. So there is some value there. And then there's a couple other guys that we should talk about who are certainly tour of vets. Charlie Hoffman, who played very well coming down the stretch of the playoffs. He also played well over the last couple of weeks.

you know, he's sitting down there, certainly looks like a guy who has his game rounding into form after a little bit of a flat year in the 1920 season. Peter Malnadi is a past winner here. Probably the highest energy dude I've ever met in my life. The guy can talk with the best of them. But that's a guy to look at who also played decently well down the stretch. He played well in Greensboro and didn't quite

get his way, you know, certainly didn't play Eastlake, but was a guy whose game seemed to be rounding into form. So there's some interesting older guys. One guy who we're not going to talk about, unless you want to house, Sergio Garcia is in this field. Oh, I mean, whatever.

Is that really where we are with him? Is it over? Like, he won the Masters and closed up the shop. Keep getting them checks, Sergio. Keep getting them checks. He's got obligations to, his sponsors, his clothing sponsors, his club manufacturer, everybody in his life to go make appearances at these events. And I believe that he is playing professional golf to continue collecting

his money from those sponsors because there is nothing about his game that suggests he has any intention of actually winning golf tournaments. He's K.J. Choi or V.J. Singh at this point, as far as you're concerned. Hey, look, I think that is a demeaning remark to BJ Singh. Who works hard? Who's worked harder than BJ Singh? B.J. Singh works his ass off even as he approaches age 60. Do you think Sergio practices? I'm sure Sergio practices, but you know, he's got a nice young family. He's happy. He's got that nice life down in Texas, uh, with his, his, his bride from the golf channel. I mean, that, that's all, you know, it's a good life. Well, we look, fine. So we'll bear it. So we'll bear Sergio, but as we look at guys this week, you know, this course, it has greens that are usually

like top three on tour. People love these greens. They've had a ton of rain there. And at the beginning part of this week, the greens were not as nice as they've historically been. The other thing that changed since last year is they've put in a new irrigation system to help drain the fairways because they just do not drain. And so a lot, there's been a lot of live clean place moments on this. That's an issue in Mississippi. In Mississippi. So they've figured out how to drain these things a little bit better, which is to say that the fairways are going to run a little bit more this week. They're going to be a little firmer, which to a certain extent maybe helps a player like Zach Johnson

on a course that's not a, you know, this isn't Harbor Town where it's just about shot shaping and short. This thing has some length to it. If they're able to dry out these fairways a bit, it might make it, you know, easier for a player like that to jump in and be competitive. I agree with you. I want to make sure we mention two other young players, Doc Redmond, who had a really competitive string post-restart. His last two finishes in competitive tournaments, he's tied for third.

So he tied for third at the Wyndham Championship, because he didn't make the playoff, which was at Sedgefield, which I believe has a little bit of a correlation to the Country Club of Jackson. Is that where we're calling it? Yes. Yes, the Country Club of Jackson.

And then he tied for third in Napa. And the way he tied for third at Napa was by birdying nearly every single hole on the back and almost seizing the tournament. So I just, you know, I want to talk about Redmond as a legit, you know, kind of threat here. Really good strokes gained on approach. Yeah. And then great ball striker. We're not going to ignore Will Zalotaurus, are we? No.

Yeah. He finished tied eighth last year with a backdoor. He shot a 65 on Sunday and backdored into the top 10. Last week, yes. Yeah, just last week. And, you know, there's some school of thought out there. So we'll think so that this week's venue is better for him than last week. Well, he figured out how to putt.

And that's what's changed his game. He's always, he's a Walker Cup player. He's always been an excellent ball striker. He just couldn't putt to save himself. And now he is putting to save himself. He is absolutely at this pace going to pick up full-time membership on the PGA tour, which is nice to see because he's been dominating the Corn Ferry Tour. And of course, with the COVID restart, none of those guys got automatic promotion.

But, you know, Scotty Schaeffler is an example of a guy who won the Corn Ferry Tour and came up and started to make some noise. You know, we were talking about Will Gordon a few months ago in this way. He didn't have the same track record. But we were talking about Will Gordon this way. I just think the results we've seen have been pretty significant. I mean, you don't perform well at the U.S. Open

in the way that he did, you know, unless you've got real game. So this is more than just, hey, he's on a heater. This is just consistency, Sung J.M. like consistency. Scotty Schaffler-like consistency. So is he going to win? we'll see.

Last week was, you know, I would have liked to see him compete more for the win. Like you say, he sort of backdoored his way into that. But, you know, this guy is, if he can continue this fall, he's going to be knocking on the door of a tour championship pretty soon. I mean,

if he just keeps collecting top tens, and we keep betting him at plus odds to finish inside the top 10, that's good for our pocketbook. That's good for our wallet. That's good for Will's Alatoris, family. It is. He just scares me a little bit because we get, by the time a guy like this gets this many articles written about him, right? You wonder if you missed the moment and you get a little

bit of that. I brought up Will Gordon only because Will Gordon got written about. He had two good weeks and then we haven't heard much from him. I wonder if this is the same kind of story. I just the the portfolio of results is so strong. It's really hard to ignore. I agree with you. Well, we're going to have an opportunity. We just mentioned a whole bunch of names. We see how we do this week.

I'm going to do a little ZDFS on a fan duel. And I'm also going to go ahead and wager a little bit. I like top tens this week. I'm not going to bet anybody to win outright because we've been shown that anybody can win coming from any spot. And you don't really even have to be in form. I mean, there was nothing about Hudson Swofford's game. Nothing.

I think he had one top 20 to telecast to tell us that that was coming. But, you know, we're going to reconvene next week. We will have the winner of this Jackson, Mississippi event in the books, and we'll get to forecast what's coming up in Vegas. We have two weeks in Vegas to think about. And we also, we're going to run two shows next week. The LPGA championship is next week. We have this show coming up. And next week, we're going to have two shows.

We'll have a show go up next Tuesday, October the 6th. And then at the end of the week, we have a great interview with an LPGA rising star. And we're going to talk to her about how the LPGA tour has been handling the resumption of play, the events that they have under their belt, and, you know, how the rest of the season is forecast to play. They already have two majors in the same way that the PGA tour has. has two majors accomplished. And I think it's going to be a great conversation. I can't wait to talk about Aronimink.

Yeah, we've got a lot of interesting things to dive into. There's a lot of value over in the LPGA house. It's time to go ahead and crack that nut. I think we might have to go ahead and allocate a little capital on the LPGA championship, the PGA championship for the LPGA. But for this week, the boys are chasing the chicken. Don't choke the chicken, fellas.