Fairway Rollin' - Jake Knapp Latest Long-Shot Winner, the Match, and Cognizant Classic Picks

Episode Date: February 28, 2024

House and Hubbard tee off with their recap of the Mexico Open and Jake Knapp’s victory, continuing a trend of long shots who have won tournaments this season (01:56). They then give their thoughts on the latest iteration of the Match, Anthony Kim’s LIV debut, and more (15:00). Finally, they end off with their preview and picks for this weekend’s Cognizant Classic (42:34). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello, friends, and welcome. Oh, yes, my friends, we have done it. We are back. This is Faraway Roll. A golf podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. I am your starter, Joe House. My birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiast, my par, saving pals. I am joined, as is our way by my incomparable,

Our PGA tour boots on the ground. We are rolling from the West Coast to the east. The Florida swing is underway. Nathan Hubbard is here. Two pegs in the ground. Off we go. Nate Dogg. We talked about Jake Knapp.

I hope that everybody listened because we're dumb about a lot of things. I was dumb about McKenzie Hughes, for example. but we weren't dumb about Jake Knapp. This dog had been coming for a while. I'd watched him strut his ass around the clubhouse. He'd watched him out on the course and just the effortless speed. And man, in round one and two, those ball striking stats were just off the chart. Great.

Even as the putter was super mediocre. And then suddenly that round on Saturday, he went from 82nd in putting on Friday to first in putting on Saturday. That was enough to cover for a pretty shaky Saturday or Sunday where he at least hung in there and closed it off. That's about all we have to say about Mexico House. Well, we said a bunch of other names,

but I am glad we had a few of the birdie buddies come out of the woodwork and say, yo, thanks for putting nap in the... Doug Gim? Doug Gim, we talked about. He was a T-8. The Woo-W-W-W-Parlay. I mean, Dylan Wu was 20.

4th, Brandon Wu was 13th, T-13s. You would have had to have played that parlay as a top 30 played alongside of a top 20. The double top 20 didn't hit. But listen, this was a quasi-glorified Corn Ferry Tour event. And the course is unfortunately not particularly interesting.

Although the 10th hole seems super hard. I just didn't get from the coverage on the ground why it was really that hard. It's not that the announcers weren't trying. you just couldn't really see anything. There weren't holes to fall in love with. I know the guys feel wonderfully well taken care of by the tournament and Grupo Salinas. And the resort at Vodante is awesome.

And so I think everybody has a decent time down there. Other than that, there's not a whole lot on this course that feels like, you know, something that you want to write home about house. Well, we will tip our hat to Jake Knapp, and, you know, eight or nine starts on the proper PGA tour. Yeah. grabs it as a rookie, third rookie of this year to win last year, all of the, over the course of the entire calendar wrapping PGA tour season, we only had three winners. We're rookie winners already in the calendar year, 2024, three rookie winners. Jake Nat managed to get it done by hitting only two fairways.

This is part of why you Nate Dog circled him as a potential contender because you don't have to hit the fairway at Venante to win the golf tournament. And had negative strokes gained total on Sunday, one of only a handful of players over the last couple decades to be able to pull off such a thing. But he got it across the goal line. The storytelling was good. We liked hearing the background about him. It's part of the thing that the Nate dog has been pleading, begging, advocating for relentlessly. Please tell us some interesting stories about some of these interesting characters. He's an interesting character.

There's a genuine, you know, he had the struggles that he had and overcame him. PGA tour winner, good times. Great job by Jake Knapp. Excellent job by Jake Knapp. It was the fewest fairways hit in the final round of a PGA tour win in the last 40 years. Yes. But he also led the field and strokes gain approach and did not miss a put from five feet and in. And those are both courtesy of our man, Justin Ray.

But those are pretty impressive stats. It's fun to see guys struggle with the pressure of a PGA tour tournament down the stretch on Sunday, even when it's the big Finn, and Jake Knapp going head to head. So if you like drama, you had it. It looked like maybe Jake was going to fumble the bag, but he, like you said, he steadied himself enough on the back there, in particular coming down 14 and on, where, you know, you play that in one under. Listen, he got to 18 and just was trying to get in the house. I think he could have birdied that if he needed to. But, but it is, There is that ongoing drama on Sunday on the back nine,

even at the Mexico Open, that for me is compelling television when these guys are playing for things that really matter. And the most telling moment of that whole tournament to think about how much this stuff matters to these guys was when Sammy just Dr. Whippies his drive on 18 under the fence. And you know in that moment he can't eagle. He's not going to make up a two-shot deficit.

it. So he knows he's playing for second. And as soon as the rules official comes over, the first thing that he asks is not, do I get relief? And by the way, I think C.T. Pan, somebody else had gotten relief from that fence. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't even ask about that. His ask is what, House? His ask is, where are the other guys below me? What are the scores? Because he starts thinking about how many points he can make if he stays in solo second and how transformational to his year this can be. Well, and that is one of the other themes thus far to this season that we're observing. We're seeing the DP World Tour players over here in playing the PGA Tour events, Sammy, and Bob McIntyre, both. You know, top 10s.

Bobby Mac T6 and Pavon's won an event and almost, almost, one a second. Yes, right. This is the ongoing theme. Some names that, you know, otherwise, maybe not tour folks familiar with. And this is how it should be, right? You got Jake Knapp a tour rookie. You got the DP World Tour. Both of these, Jake Knapp came from Corn Ferry Tour. These are the feeders where guys had to go earn it. They didn't get moved in. They had to earn it. That's the point I wanted to make. And that is, to me, one of the directions that ultimately could produce the world golf sort of tour that is the most entertaining, most compelling. If you're telling me that these events, the stakes of these events is that qualifying up into the big leagues, then, you know, that that has my interest.

It's still, you know, Sunday afternoon nap time. Yeah. Not to make a bad pun on Knapp, but, you know, the feeder concept of it, for sure, if we're going to have these kinds of, you know, second tier field events, then that has to be, you have to play that up. Let's be clear. I think the tour is really happy. All this shit didn't happen last year.

I mean, Jake Knapp had the shortest odds of any winner on tour this year. far. If all of this had happened last year, you could have had more than Justin Thomas on the outside looking in. You could have had real players who might not have qualified for some of these elevated events in a year in which you really, really needed them. And by the grace of these Grayson Murray's and Jake Naps and Pavans of the world, Nick Taylor's, you suddenly have a bunch of guys sitting up high in the Comcast Business Top 10 of the FedEx Cup who all those guys aren't in the top 10, but they're pretty close, who are definitely going to displace some guys who qualified for the top 50. I mean, I think the Tour's data was going to look a little weird,

if not for these winners, because you're already seeing them for the next couple of events adding more spots to the field. They've gone from 144 to 156. at Valero because the corned furry tour guys are not getting starts. And as they look ahead, maybe they're going to get starts as we talked about at Rocket in Detroit or 3M in Minneapolis down the line. John Deere. As some guys back out in the way that they did this week when they start to feel more comfortable, but do not underestimate that Justin Thomas miss of the FedEx Cup had as big an impact

on guys' schedules as anything else as the schedule itself, as the elevated events as anything. These guys do not want to be on the outside looking in. And this Mexico event was really the first one where guys said, I don't have to play it. It's also why the cognizant, formerly Honda, that we're going to see this week, has somebody like Rory in it, because he's going to play that leading into API,

leading into the players. He needs to get going and get some rep. So very interesting to see the impact. It is good timing for the tour to have Rory show up. He has one at this. venue. I mean, you know, he has played well at this, at PJ National before. The one observation that I will make, um, in terms of comparing last year to this, we, we, we did have one guy win three of the first six events. Yes. And he's not on this tour anymore. And Scottie Schaeffler also was,

was, you know, one of one. But again, Scotty's been in all these events so far. And he's been in a couple. I would say all of them. Yeah, but his poo-poo putting has not helped the kid. Spieth has played a couple of these. Thomas has been it, right? So Rory showed up and almost missed a damn cut, right? So I think it's interesting to see some of these guys play well early in the season. Now it's actually going to be fun to start watching the FedEx Cup standings

because there's going to be some screws that are tightening around a few of the guys who right now are just sort of sitting at the bottom. All the guys who qualify for these elevated events are getting lots of points. And again, if you look at the top 25, you can see, oh, okay, there's Xander who's kind of, you know, he's had a little bit of a met time. Sahith is hanging in there. A bunch of Sam Burns, like they've played fine, but really just in those elevated events. They're separated from the pack because they're getting a ton of points for participating in those elevated events. But 40% of the guys who are in the top 50 right now are not going to make it at the moment if everything ended today.

So it lets, again, we're going to look at the end of the Florida swing. That's going to tell us a lot about how the tour's math worked out and how much turnover there's going to be. But you're going to have a few guys if we keep getting these long shot winners. You're going to have some guys who start to get nervous who may not make it to East Lake who you would be used to seeing. Tommy Fleetwood is 52nd right now. Victor Hovland is 55th. Justin Rose is 56. Tom Kim is 60. Now, those guys are going to work the way back up and you know that it'll come around. But we were saying that about Justin Thomas last year and it didn't happen.

And he had every opportunity in the same way these guys will. Yeah. By the way, Rory McElroy's 93rd. That would be the biggest eye opener. Yeah, we're, I mean, so we have been, to your point about Jake Knapp as being the shortest odds winner, what was he, 75 to 1 when it, when the tournament started? something along those signs. There's a little better odds than that.

Yeah, but, but some, some guys, some guys actually got them all the way up, I think, to 50, but still, it's not a,

um, it, it, it was not one of the ones that was on everybody's books. We know that. That's right. So, um,

we have been patient. I think the tour's been patient. It's time. Let's, uh, the, the west coast is in our rearview mirror. We had one.

super note word. the outstanding performance on a Sunday at a championship venue, and that was Hedecki at RIV. We were deprived of a really awesome potential outcome at Pebble because of the weather. But we have two major winners interspersed with the handful of rookies. So that's, you know, good, good tidings. But now, right? Now we can taste the calendar is about to flip. Oh, you know.

We're about to get daylight savings time here on the East Coast. It's Augustus season. It's a gustus season. We're now leading into Augustus season. Yeah, which is why Rory is playing this week at PGA National. By the way, you know where else he played this week? The match. And he looked terrific. The park at the match.

Yes, he looked terrific. He said, you know, I had some good shots. I think I might be able to build on this a little bit. And I said, oh, you think so, Rory? Did you hit some good shots? So let's talk about the match. I enjoyed it. I give it two thumbs up.

Let me hear your review. I'll give you some of my thoughts. No, give them to me, because I agree completely. This was the most fun one. And it just reminds us of all the things we talk about. It's really fun when the men and the women play together. It's really fun when it's a shortened thing. It's not so fun when DJ.

Jay Khalid talks too much, but Chuck is great. And like Max was built for this. He just was terrific. And the chemistry between everybody was fun. I mean, what's not to like? It was at night. Tons. Yeah, at night. Awesome. Playing under the lights at a public venue surrounded by the local community that

featured lots of kids who were staying up past their bedtime. But here's the thing, right? Super easy fixes showing, revealing themselves to us. let's get some team element going. We need to see some teamwork. Teamwork makes the dream rock. I would love to have seen, you know,

Rory and Rose together on a couple holes or whatever. Can't have more than nine holes. For God's sake, everybody was dead tired, you know, 10, 11, 12, and then there was a tiny bit of drama with,

you know, the shootout thing on 12, but by then, forgot, it'd been on for too long. Make it nine holes. Make it tight. Take half of,

the people that you had assembled for that thing and get rid of them. Maybe forever as far as I'm concerned. You mean on camera people? Yeah. Catherine Tappen. Wonderful sports media on camera talent doesn't need to be part of this event ever again. DJ Khalid. Shoot him into the sun.

Congratulations for all you've achieved. Please don't come anywhere near anything having to do with this kind of thing again. And Paul Bissonette, I think, is like a, you know, funnyish guy, but, you know, he got, he got, DJ Khalid sat on his face. If he was just Chuck and Ernie and Trevor and one person, perhaps, traveling along, the thing to me that, that was compelling and what I liked was hearing that participants talk. Yeah. It was really, really nice to hear some Lexi. Guess who's great. Lexi.

Lexi's great. She's great. let her cook let her cook that's exactly right i mean she three puts the first green the internet's mauling her and then she eagle twos the next and talks about i mean it's just great yeah so uh and and you know this this this um made for tv exhibition thing suffers from none of the um whatever tension conflicts whatever if they wanted to go get brooks and have brooks come participate i'm fine Yeah, me too. The point is having personalities, people that can talk.

Even Bryson, right? Bryson's interesting. So, you know, if you want to make him a villain, go ahead and make him a villain. You can put him out there. He is interesting. Yeah. Yeah, look, I like, I appreciate that they're making it better. My recollection was the last couple were Matt.

Like, if you asked me to talk about the last big match moment, I remember, it's Tom Brady split in his pants. saying have a suck of that, Chuck. But this one felt, other than that, like I remember J.T. is the on-course reporter in the course in Missouri, right? Yeah. But this one was really fun, and I'm glad they did it,

and I hope that they keep showing the rest of the golf world that you can evolve and change and learn and take feedback. And even in the middle of a telecast, you can get better by telling some people to shut up and some people to talk more. That's right. All of those things are options. They definitely did.

They definitely did. They definitely did. And it was the right call. But yeah, so a success on a quiet Monday night, great, great job circling that Monday night on the sports calendar only handful. Yeah. I do think that the takeaway for me is Rory McElroy decided that he has to go focus on golf and that he was going to shut down everything else in his life.

that got in the way of that. That's not entirely true because there's the TGL stuff. But like, all of the drama around the live PGA tour stuff, he has effectively removed himself from the narrative. Very effectively,

because it's now just become so apparent that it's a mess and that we're a ways away from figuring out how it all gets stitched back together. And I think he probably saw that and didn't want to be the flashpoint and the lightning route anymore. And I think removing

himself and some of the thoughtfulness of his common sense then has just freed him up to go play golf. How's you know I'm never going to pick him to win a major because he hasn't won a major since 2014. But I like the mindset that he's in. I just want to now see the results

go because the first couple of events that he's been playing golf, he's shown it to us briefly. But again, he's 90 plus in the FedEx Cup right now. He's got to get out there and start performing on the course. Well, you know me. Forever.

A Rory Truther. Perpetual, never ebbing, only flowing, Nate Dogg. How many, if you had to guess. How many master's bets on Rory have you made? Yes, yes, yes. I put the over under at six. Yeah.

So, like, yeah, I won't say the increment in terms of the amount that I bet at a time. No. But right now, it's sitting at three. units. It's a three unit bet on Rory. Right. And the odds are terrible. Like, don't never do this. But once you get some props and some head to heads, you will put at least six units on a Rory. I'll get there. I'll ultimately get there. Yes, exactly right. Yeah, it'll be some combination. Finishing positions, head to heads, birdies in the rounds,

because all of it. You're going to see him now and you're going to see all the good guys. That's what's going to be really fun about the lead into the masters is we're going to have two events. at Big Boy courses with Big Boy Fields in March, leading up to the Masters at API and the players, where we're really going to get to see these guys perform and see what kind of shape they're actually in. Well, there's two guys that we're not going to see at Augusta. We're not going to see what kind of shape they're in.

One of them is Taylor Gooch. He's not happy about that. He wants to put an asterisk next to whoever wins this upcoming Masters, which is a, you know, our buddy KV, Kevin Van Valkenberg on the No Laying Broadcast channel

made the observation today with everybody dunking on Taylor Gooch and the poor guy can't get out of his own way. That he's a very charming in person and good interview kind of person. He just can't get out of his own way. I think that's it.

Listen, he's good buddies with Max. Like, I think the behind the scenes feedback on Taylor Gooch is all good. I think he just, yeah. Why is he talking? Nobody, why does he have to say anything? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's a really good question. It just, I think there's some level of self-awareness about it all.

He was that sort of rising star. He got the win, took the money. And then it feels like he's one of the guys who doesn't like the consequences. Like John Rom in that interview this week, he understands the consequences. He knows and he wants it to work out and he's got faith that it will. But he understands that he made a choice to play less golf and make more money and that there's some consequences that comes with that. Seems like Brooks kind of understood that. Seem like DJ definitely, you know, didn't even care, but definitely understood that.

Bryson going on podcasts, talking about how they fulfilled every single requirement if you look at the hands. book for the world golf rankings. So what's up? It's a crazy person talking. Taylor with some, some, I think, you know, in hindsight, some statements that he probably didn't mean in the way they're being interpreted. Let's put it that way.

I'm not sure he meant, hey, because I'm not in, there's an asterisk, right? I think he's thinking about the entirety of the field. And then, you know, and then the, you know, any, any sentient human being with access to the internet could do with the no laying up. guys did sally posted here are the here's everybody here's the list yep and you know

here's who's missing out it's bow hostler it's benny on it's like a handful of names of more pGA tour guys are not getting in if you use rankings outside outside the world golf rankings you know on the other hand it is true

that these pGA tour tournaments not saying the majors but definitely these pGA tour tournaments are missing some of the big guys. That is my takeaway from the West Coast swing is there was. There was something about Rom not being there. I'm not going to make fun of you. No shit.

He's the defending effing champion at Riv. He didn't play there. Yeah, but like I didn't miss DJ the first year. And I even was okay without Brooks and Bryson, although like I love having Brooks in the majors. It just in that moment in time, Brooks hadn't been a real factor on the PGA tour because of his injury and when he was healthy, he really didn't even fucking try in PJ tour events. He only tried the major. Rom leaving, and we've talked about this, but like it does feel like there's just a void.

Let's see. I want to take you down a path for two minutes. I mean, we're going to get back to it's going to. It's going to undercut the players for me is where I'm going, man. I know, for sure, for sure. You know, there's a luster. We're looking for that luster. Amon Lynch on the Golf Channel today had a conversation with George Sever.

because we're taping this Tuesday evening as we do. And he made the observation that with where things seem to stand right now. 2027. Yes, exactly. The process in terms of these two tours figuring out there's an urgency that's been lost. And ROM jumping over was one element of it and this infusion of capital from the SSG, the strategic, the great sports strategic thinkers. and by the way, at some point,

I'm not sure which show I'm going to do it on. It is kind of funny that it's this, the particular group of investors in this thing, you could point to a number of them and say, oh, these are the geniuses that are to solve your problems. Yes. This motherfucker that ruined the Red Sox, he took like one of the iconic brands on planet Earth

and took a giant shit in a bag and gave it to Red Sox Nation and said, oh, here's what I think of your 100 plus years of emotional investment in this thing. It's this giant poop in the bag that has mooky, you know, traces. Playing for my team, yes. Yeah, yeah, playing for the Dodgers, exactly right. In any event, that's a show for another day. We will have fun with it.

But I just wanted to get your reaction to what Aeman laid out there, which is no deal imminent, no deal likely this year. tours operating side by side for the foreseeable future, how long it will take for the two sides to come together and work out how they can cohabitate. But in the absence of urgency, it's probably a long way off. Do you agree with this? I do.

And it's based on two things. I mean, the ROM jump will go down as one of the biggest moments in this whole saga. because it either was going to be the forcing function that brought it all together or it was going to be the thing that created long stagnation. And in part because there was probably some hope among the leadership at the Piff and live that Rom coming over, now we can really hold on. Now this is going to do it.

And it's going to be like a, you know, a land war in Asia that we're just going to go and go and go and hold out. It's going to take forever. And, you know, there's going to be a lot of. of attrition and casualties, but maybe over the course of years will win. So the ROM thing was the first thing. And when it didn't force everybody together to suddenly galvanize around whatever that document was from June 6th that Jay and his eminence took on television together, when that didn't happen, you knew, okay, behind the scenes, we were hearing about seven or eight private equity

groups pitching to be the U.S. solution. And that was Jay going and getting leverage and saying, look, I have to, you know, we talked, I don't know why it took so long, but they went out and got the leverage. And now that they have the money, the urgency isn't there. They now have a case that they've made to all the existing players that they can be extremely wealthy by staying on the tour. If people still make the choice to jump and leave, there's nothing they could have done. But, you know, the thing for me was hearing about over the first couple events, what was actually being talked about on the player advisory council board and how there was so much negotiation still happening about basic governance measures related to just this U.S.

investment. How do the players get input? What can they veto? What can't they veto? How do they measure, hire, fire a commissioner, for example? Until those baseline things are sorted, you can't even begin. to talk about what's the path to bring players from Live back and enter them into that equation and give them full or partial rights of voting in and out of commissioner and all that second,

third, eighth order things that have to come. You just realize that the Hornets Nest that the tour was built upon. Pulling that apart and trying to create a healthy functional company, it's going to take way longer than anyone thought. And therefore, this year, everybody has clear conditions of competition that are about what they qualify for next year, which means until the full merger between Live and PJ Tour is put together, you can't pull the rug out from the players and say, psych, these conditions have totally changed. You've got 156, 200 guys playing under a set of rules right now in the PGA Tour, assuming that they're qualifying for things in 2025. So if they don't get it together until 2025, the earliest that you're going to be able to actually create something

is for the following year, and that's going to be 2027. Yeah, I do wonder if one of the pathways that's out there is that the Saudi money comes in as just a sort of basic investment in the new for-profit entity, and then you sort out the tour aspects later. But that has to be up. It's up to his eminence, how important that is to him

and how important his membership at St. Andrews. And there are some changes they can make. Again, if they just change Valspar and Valero to increase the number of people who could qualify, presumably that means that they can open the door a little bit more. It's just creating preference for the live players over guys who a full year and a half ago

had a set of rules that they were applying, you know, that they were applying and playing to try to qualify for is hard. So that's going to be the challenge that they have. And it may be solved through some Super League where the best 25 guys or 30 guys on the PGA tour can opt out of events and opt into the Super League, that might be the way to solve it.

That could get done sooner, but there are still baseline governance issues that have to be worked out. And I think Amon's hearing exactly what has been talked about in player dining, which is, man, we got a long way to go to figure some of this shit out. And the urgency is gone. Rom's gone.

We have money. Everyone in this room now has equity and ownership in something that's going to matter to them that's going to be worth potentially millions of dollars. So there's there's not the, hey, what happens to me? Where's my share? Now, and the people who are left are pretty dug in house. That's the other. This is, here's my question on that front, though. It's only worth something if it's worth something. And what I mean is, why should we watch? Why, why should I watch? What compelling entertainment value is being provided, you know, the things that that have drawn,

the U.S., the global consuming sports public to professional golf, how are you going to get there? That's what Norman is playing for now. He doesn't need to win. It's a red herring for us to talk about Live ratings. Because all that needs to happen is for the PGA Tour to lose, and they're going to have to get back together with Liv. What does lose mean?

Lose means we look at the ratings, at the play, and at the API this year and at the other elevated events, Hartford, Wells Fargo, and they're down. Okay. Suddenly people realize after the Masters that the good golf is only at the majors, so why would I pay attention? So that at those elevated events in May and in June,

after people get a taste of what it looks like when all the guys are together, ratings go down because they don't really care. They're only going to pay attention for the stuff. That's when the tour... There we go. That's what Norman's playing for. He doesn't need you to watch over there.

He just needs you to stop watching here. And then there's going to be a meeting of the minds. Yeah, that's right, because the talent is the thing. Speaking of the talent being the thing, we started this line of discussion a couple minutes ago, with the lead in being the return of Anthony Kim, who is playing, making his debut, his professional return, his, he has risen.

He is reincarnated. You tweeted about wait till you see him. It was a cryptic tweet that you put out there. Now, you and I have had the benefit of seeing a current version of Anthony Kim. We've got some, seeing some footage and some of the comeback, you know, sort of detail that's out there. what are your expectations nobody's going to be able to watch it unless until you know you get

if you have your live app you can watch the replay of it yeah they'll show the replay on the CW but we're not gonna I'm not waking up at 3 in the morning to watch Anthony Kim no I think people will pay attention look all I meant by that was I think the man

man's been through a lot it's his story to tell yes and and I think I actually personally wish that he'd gone out and told that story before coming back and playing golf, because I think it would have galvanized a lot more people to be interested in him and supportive of him. And I think that, you know, he wears the trauma of his life. And so let's see. It is, it is objectively weird that they've made all these announcements and he's coming back and they've showed some video from far

away on the range of his swing. Every other live announcement has come with like a guy in a letterman's jacket and all kinds of pictures and stuff. It doesn't seem. like that's what they're doing for Anthony Kim. Anthony Kim still seems to prefer to be a little bit of a ghost. And we'll see if, you know, we learn a little bit more about him this weekend. Look, I'm rooting for him house. I just would say it's been a long time. Professional golf is hard. What do you expect this weekend? Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I was hunting for bookmakers offering odds in any way, shape, or form. He's just, he's not listed. You can't, you can't bet. There's no scenario under which you can, I haven't been able to find head-to-heads or anything reflecting.

You know, he's not even listed as a potential winner in a couple of the books that I'd check. I mean, you and I had heard that he was hitting his 10-year-old Nike irons as recently as a few months ago. Yes. So who knows what's true? Because, again, this is a ghost. And it's a bit like seeing Bigfoot. And this is a man, first of all. there's a man who's been through a lot and who has a story to tell,

and it's much bigger than golf. And again, I hope that he gets to tell it because it feels like there's a lot that he can, you know, I think he can help other people with what he's, what we understand that he's gone through. That said, if we're talking about the golf, who, I mean, let's just say, if he finishes, where there are going to be 50 guys in this tournament? I didn't do the investigation to see.

That sounds right. I mean, a top 30 would be eyebrows going up. Wow. For me. Am I over under for him? Whatever the number is, I don't think he finishes outside of the bottom five. He might beat one person, but I think it's going to be... Chase?

No, he's not playing. Yeah, Chase is out. It's going to be like one of those. Is James Piat still in that thing? There's 54 players in this event. There's 13 four-man teams and two wildcard players. And it's HUD, Hudson Swofford and Anthony Kim. Oh, well, Hudson Swafford's won on tour at least once in the last five years.

The PGA tour Hudson Swofford. I had no idea that he was on Live. I really, sorry, Huddy. Miss you. Not at all. I am hoping that he does well. And I do think, I'm not going to wake up and watch it. It is weird again that he chose to do this over in Jeddah.

it just suggests that, hey, there's a lot of, like with all the guys who go to live, if you really pull it apart, at the core, it's about money, right? Yes, for sure. And so if you were really doing this right and reintroducing him, you would be coming in with clothing sponsor, you would be coming in with advertising campaigns, you'd have photographs of the player instead of just stuffing him into the desert. I mean, there would be a whole comprehensive, like, re-

assimilation reintroduction to the person. Like the reason that he's legendary is because of the swagger, because of the character, because of his charisma, his ris, Nate dog. And maybe we'll get some of that. You know,

they do permit chats on the live broadcasts is actually one of the things that I enjoy. They don't interrupt them. They don't do a side by side with a commercial. You can actually hear the guys have a conversation. And it's, you know, you learn a little something. Right.

He wants, this is, to be fair, like the lowest cost option, right? Like, there are no stakes whatsoever. He just took a gigantic check. There are no stakes. So if he's terrible, from now all the way through with however many events he plays, it just won't matter.

Yeah. From a sporting perspective, this would be a little bit like Barry Sanders or Andrew Loll. luck coming back, right? And playing, except like with no buildup and none of the, I mean, those are two guys who felt like stepped away sooner than you thought. You didn't get the full explanation for why. They kind of disappeared at least for a while. We're starting to see Captain Andrew Luck back, whatever. But like to not actually do it in a way that accelerates your brand. Like,

if you were CMO of Anthony Kim, you wouldn't do it this way. No, no. Unless the check was big enough. Maybe the check was big enough. Yeah. But to get to our previous conversation, it does feel like Norman's sitting there with a T-shirt cannon full of money and he's just shooting it into the air and trying to

throw every firework that he has is a grand finale right now in this moment to try to force through a settlement and a deal. And if that doesn't work, then suddenly again, you're in a land war in Asia where it's a bit of a staring contest

And thank God, the fans will actually have a vote. Because if you don't watch in between the majors, the PGA tour is going to have to do something faster. If you do, I don't know what the motivation is or the urgency for the tour to get something done. So let's see. I mean, again, it's all up to the quality of that television product. I mean, Norman did say that he's tried super hard

and he keeps trying to get Hideki. He really would like to get Hideki. Of course he does. You get the country of Japan if you do. You get Japan. Exactly right. That makes the most sense. Yeah, sure.

To me. Hey, hey, Bertie buddies. Line up your first win when you bet the PGA tour on Fandul. America's number one sports book. Because right now new customers get $150 in bonus bets with any winning $5 dollar bet we are finally on the Florida swing. We're down at PGA National this week. The Cogness and Open used to be known as the Honda.

The Nate Dog and I are looking at horses for courses. And we are on players like Russell Henley, players like Shane Lowry, looking at a little Sungjay M. Don't be afraid of Eric Cole. These are all guys. You can play in finishing positions. You can play in head to heads.

Why don't you put a little bit down. and then the win outright. While you place your bets, you can track every shot live in the app and watch select par three holes. Just visit fandle.com slash rolling and take a swing at an extra 150 bucks. Fandul, the official betting operator of the PGA tour. Quick disclaimer, you must be 21 years old or older and present in select states. If you have a gambling problem, you can.

call 1-800 gambler or visit the ringer.com slash RG. First online real money wager only $10 first deposit required. The bonus is issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. See terms at sportsbook.fandul.com. Speaking of events that might not get watched, shall we talk about the cognizant ghost Honda Open that's happening this week? Yeah, speaking of Japan, there used to be Honda open. Honda's a Japanese company, right?

Yes. Right. Yeah, I got it right. They wisely made the decision to get out of the business of propping up the tour at an event that guys grew accustomed to skipping. They're not skipping it this year. It's a pretty good field. Yes. We've got Rory.

We've got Matt Fitzpatrick. We've got Cam Young. We've got Tom Kim. we thought we might have a chat with Tom Kim and Tom Kim's playing golf this week instead. Nate dog, Adam Scott, like I just mentioned, you know, a handful of major winners right there.

Chris Kirk defending. Eric Cole is back. Russell Henley always does well here. Yeah, I mean, you know, good, good strength of field. This is one of the toughest golf courses on tour. They changed one of the holes. It is now par 71. Yeah.

Um, it is, there are, there's water on 15 of the holes. Um, it's dog legs everywhere. You take, it takes driver out of the guy's hands. Only 50% slightly more than 50% of the time guys hitting driver, which is one of the, the fewest, uh, uh, sort of ratios on, on, on, on any, uh, tour event. Um, and there's a handful of horses for courses that, that, that, you know, we'll get to, um, how you sizing this one up. It's Rory. We're going to see Rory. you know, in Florida, he didn't cover himself in glory at RIV. No. But it still looked like he was kind of just, you know, finding form is the way we'll put it. Yeah, it's hard just having seen so many long odds guys win tournaments to start to focus

because you have a strong top of the odds board and then it gets diluted again. So it's hard to know whether to bet the trend or not. I'll say this course is, the winning score last year was 14 under. This course is going to play easier this year. It's going to play, unless weather comes in and it's a big factor, the rough is down a little bit. And the hardest par four, one of the hardest part four is on tour, which I think is is the 10th hole, has been turned into a par five, which will be fairly easy in terms of its length. Right. So you're going to see numbers that are a little bit lower than what we're used to here. That

said, there is water everywhere. And, you know, there's guys who've bet Benny on all the way up into the 20 to ones to win this thing thing. But, you know, Benny on is one of those guys who's prone to make a mistake every now and then, right? So you got to look at this, at this, at this, at this course and know it is a shot maker's course for sure. It's a tough course to gain strokes off the T. It's a tough course to gain strokes on approach. But it is approach play this week, as opposed to last week where we knew Jake Knapp was going to come in and he could gunsling around that place with no consequences. Ain't going to happen this week for anybody with the big stick. I mean, as much as we love seeing Rory Stripe drives, as you said, he's probably not going to have that club on over half the times where he could, you know, where he's not on part three.

So this is going to be about ball striking. And House, what do you see? I mean, look, the thing that's jumping out for me on the odds board this week is, is sung J.M. Oh, interesting. And I didn't really get behind it until, I'm looking at his stats. Yeah.

We saw him come out at the century in T5, and he looked terrific. And he's had a miscut at Tori and two T66s at Pebble and Phoenix and a T-44 at Genesis. He just has not been himself. And it has been shots-gained approach. He's just lost shots-gained approach

ever since the century. It doesn't, like, I think, and here's my theory. You and I joked about the fact that I saw him in the gym at the MX. He took pictures, Rivweek, I believe, with J.T. and Speath in the gym. Sung-J.'s losing some weight, and his body's changing a little bit. And I think, I think that the thing about a golf swing is your body is a perpetually moving machine, right? And I think his golf swing is changing a little bit with the strength that he's gaining and some of the weight that he's lost. I don't think that is a permanent thing.

And I think as he comes to this course where he's had some success, this could be a week where he jumps in. You're not going to see too many times when Sung J.M. has fallen to 40 to 1 to win a golf tournament. One of the things, I like that play, I mean, you know, when do you want to, what are the circumstances under which it makes sense to lay off Sung J? It doesn't occur very often because he's more often than not, you know,

consistent. So you give a little sprinkling and make sure you have your position, covered. Yeah. Right. I'm going to do a couple things in the first place. The guys are on Bermuda Greens. This is the Furman Fass Bermuda, the Florida Bermuda that some guys absolutely adore.

One of those guys, classic horse for course Russell Henley. You're going to hear Russell Henley, if you haven't already been doing that. He won here. Three of his tour, three of his four wins on tour. on Bermuda. He has 20 career top five finishes. 14 of those are on Bermuda. So you got to like just make sure you've got some Russell Henley position built in to this week.

Shane Lowry, got to have a little Shane Lowry. Yeah, been a tough start for him. But yeah, but look, we, we kind of were in this spot last year, you know, looking at him, him coming in and they just put up another top five because the place suits them par can be hard here he's the right kind of animal for that

Keith Mitchell is a guy another guy who won here and a guy that we associate with a good a good tee ball that the driver is his weapon but he didn't need driver when he won here a handful

of years ago he just had an extraordinary ball striking performance in Mexico so Keith Mitchell on the card. Eric Cole, not going to leave him off. This was his playoff party last year. Exactly. Right. So you're going to build a card. You're going to put some names into some finishing positions. If you want a top 20, some of those names, if you want to parlay a couple

together there, there's some action. That's just to make sure you cover the field, they dog. Yeah. And I think even look at as as as top heavy as this field is, you can look down and there are some things that stuck out to me. I mean, Danny Berger. Yeah. I like it. Last time we saw him at this course, he was solo fourth, and there's signs he's back. He gained over a shot on approach in both Amex and Phoenix. It had just been the part of that was struggling, but he did gain strokes there in Phoenix. He's plus 190 for a top 20, had an opening 66 in Phoenix on route to a T28.

We talked about Doug Gim. He's gone T13, T12, T8, his last couple times out. He's 11th in shots gained total this year, gained over a stroke and a third on approach last week and he's gained on approach in each of his least last three times out. He's sitting there at like plus 250 for a top 20. Bobby Mac for crying out loud was plus 400 for a top 20 after last week's T6.

He's struggled a little bit as he's gotten on to the tour, but this is a Ryder Cup player and he's coming into Florida. I just think if you're playing momentum, plus 400 for a guy who just T6, who has held up under Rider Cup pressure is pretty interesting. Well, let's make sure that we add in the added incentive, Luke Donald, in the broadcast booth for this. So that that might provide some semblance of comfort, you know, channel some of those good Rider Cup vibes for Bobby Mac, right? No doubt, no doubt.

And it's a President's Cup year. And that's why I think Christiane Besayden Hood and the Beezer, as we call him, is a guy you got to look at this week. He was second at Tori. We know that because he took, or sorry, at Amex because he took. home the first place money that Nick Dunlap abdicated. But his approach play has been stellar. He's sitting there right now at plus 250 for a top 20. In his five starts this year, he's gained 2.15, 1.38, 2.13, 1.26, 1.16 strokes on the field on approach. He's got a second and three top 30s. Off the T has been the issue, but it's really been more about his distance is why he

hasn't gained shots off the T. His accuracy has actually been pretty strong, and it certainly was in his last start. So you're going to see a lot of Beezer bets here, but plus 250 for a top 20, I like. Yeah, I'm going down the board, a couple names jumping out at me. Sam Ryder, you see his name show up in a few places, three miscuts in his last four starts, which, you know, has him, you know, down the dance card. You're looking at, you know, 150 to 1 or better. And in DFS, you know, a bare minimum salary, but he is a Bermuda monster. He absolutely loves putting on Bermuda,

and he's got a couple of very good performances at this event. He didn't play it last year after his good, you know, turn of fortune out on the West Coast swing, but Sam Ryder playing this event this week. And one of those, those Bermuda. Just don't cut to his mom mid-round if he's winning.

And then I'm interested in, Chan Kim. Did Mark Hubbard play with Chan Kim this past weekend? He did. And, and, and, and, you know, big dog. Big dog. So this is, this is what, what caught my interest. There has been some, uh, uh, corollary between this venue and Wiley out at the Sony open. Um, and Chan Kim has under, on his resume, a 64 at the Sony in, in January. Uh, and then we saw him on the first page of, uh, and then we saw him on the first page of, uh, of the leaderboard in Mexico. Give me a little bit of boots on the ground review of Chan Kim. Well, he didn't drive it quite like you would expect, given the hoss of his weight and height. But boy, he was consistent and resilient

and hung in there through the whole weekend and actually got off to not a great start on Saturday, but then fought his way back in the round and it carried him all the way through to Sunday. So he's a tough player. And this, you certainly, if you're looking at momentum, this is one of those guys alongside the Bobby Max of the world where you go. I really like what I saw coming into the weekend there. If he carries it over with the approach play, could be a good week.

I have two other names. And then I'll let you have the final word. I'm going to play a little Matt Fitzpatrick. I feel like you're getting a little value plus 320 for him to top 10. he is that, you know, he didn't play great at RIV. In fact, he was one of the guys that missed the cut at RIV. But he has this track record of, first of all, very good on Bermuda. But second of all, if PAR is a good score, you like some Matt Fitzpatrick exposure.

And then Carson Young, who I'm looking at just a top 20 play, plus 400 to top 20. And if you want to, you know, expand your exposure to Carson, you can play him plus 200 for a top 40. His ball striking at this place is good. And he had a nice performance in Mexico. So if you're looking for a little bit of form and a guy with some comfort at this venue, Carson Young could jump onto your dance card. Yeah. I don't mind it.

I mean, that feels like a wrap to me. I think the one thing just to note is Stefan Yeager has figured out how. to be a professional golfer. Yeah. Yeah. He really struggled. I think he kept bouncing up and down between the KFT, you know, came off as KFT money winner and just kind of struggled with the season.

And it's kind of always been that way through his pro career. He's been out here a little while, turned pro in 2012. But he seems to be figuring it out. I mean, T3 at Farmers, he was in a position to win and he didn't have the best Sunday there. But the T3 at Mexico just tells me, guys playing. really good solid, consistent golf. And that's coupled with, even in the fall, he had a number of T-25s that suggests, you know,

he's really starting to play consistent. It has been a long time since he has been cut. I mean, the last cut was April 16th at the RBC Heritage. So he has got one of the longest consecutive made cut streaks on tour right now. One of these days, this is the guy who could potentially break out of the field and get a win. He's getting enough reps up at the top of the leaderboard. He knows what it feels like now. I like what you're putting down, Nate, dog.

So there we go, my birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiast, my par saving pals. What was that? A dozen names, 14 names, build a card. Best of luck. We are about to really get moving here on the professional golf calendar. Best of luck to anybody that tries to set their clock to wake up in the middle of night to watch Anthony Kim. I'm sure they'll feature him

quite a bit, but we will be back on this channel next week with a full review of the we used to be called Honda Classic, our preview of Donald Palmer Invitational, some early takes perhaps

on season two of that show on Netflix, the full swing. Lots of stuff happening in the professional golf world. If you are on the East Coast, one of the things happening in the regular guy and gal golf world is warm temperatures. I think I might be playing tomorrow, Nate Dogg. It's like 65 degrees on February the 28th out here on the East Coast.

If you, my birdie buddies, are able to throw a peg in the ground, please. Let's hit them straight out there. You must be 21 years old or older and present in Select States. Vandul is offering online sportsways. in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit fandul.com slash RG in the following states, Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia.

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