Fairway Rollin' - Jason Sobel on Bryson's Cameraman Incident, the State of Sports Betting, and the Workday Charity Open

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

Jason Sobel of The Action Network joins House and Nathan to talk about the big to-do with Bryson DeChambeau at last week's Rocket Mortgage Classic, including his blowup with a cameraman (02:52). They also talk about sports betting in the era of COVID-19 and how beginners can get into betting (23:45). Lastly, they preview the Workday Charity Open with their predictions and favorites (33:44). Hosts: Joe House & Nathan Hubbard Guest: Jason Sobel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the Ringer, I'm Tyler R.T.R. Times. When I spoke to NFL star Cam Newton in January, his mindset was clear. I want my whole career to be in Charlotte. Cam won't be getting that wish. He was released by the Carolina Panthers in March. Cam is a complex figure, and my interest in him goes far beyond his exuberant smile and transcendent style of play. Cam broke the glass ceiling in American Athletics, ascended to a place in a sport that few black quarterbacks have ever reached, making his fall that much more dramatic.

Over the past year, I've traveled the country speaking to coaches and teammates, friends and family, reporters, and even briefly to the man himself, trying to unravel the enigma that is Cam Newton. I uncovered contradictions at every turn. How can the hardest work on the team be depicted as a bad leader? And how can a franchise icon with the NFL MVP and Super Bowl appearance on his resume, may be so abruptly cast aside. The Ringer NFL show presents

The Cam Chronicles. The series premieres Monday, July 13th. Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast, unlike any other. We have done it. We are back. It is Fairway Road. The Golf Podcast on the Ringer podcast.

Network. I am your starter. Joe House. My Birdie Buddies, another great week on tour, the incredible bulk. Beefy Bryson himself went out and took down every long-distance record available on tour. Nathan Hubbard and I might have predicted it. In fact, I think we might have gotten the 23 under par exactly on the nose. Of course, neither one of us gambled on it.

We are back again this week talking about what happened to Detroit. We're going to check in on the state of the bubble. The Memorial Tournament announced that it will not have fans in two weeks. Also joining Nathan and I from the Action Network, our old pal Jason Sobel, little recap of how the gambling community has responded to professional golf back on the scene and all the traffic in the DFS world as well. The first tee is open. I think Nathan and I are going to throw a peg in the ground and get this going.

All right, my par saving pals. Nathan Hubbard is here. He is our PGA tour correspondent on the ground. And also joining us, I think from Orlando, Florida, the senior golf writer for the Action Network, an old pal of ours previously of ESP in the Golf Channel. Jason Sobel, what's happening, brother? What's going on, boys?

Yeah, I'm in Orlando. I haven't left to Orlando in a long time. now. So been just camped out here, not been to any tour events, but been closely watching everything. How are you boys doing? Spectacular. It's a great time to be alive, a great time to be a fan of professional golf. And we just had a terrific, unexpected, I would say, 20-20 moment with the incredible bulk himself, Beefy Bryce and Deshambo taking down the most recent tournament in record setting fashion. So I want to start there.

Jason, you wrote a story about this performance by Bryson potentially ushering in the golf money ball era. What are you talking about? All right. So there are a few different layers to this, but we all know Bryson loves his science.

Bryson looks at himself as sort of maybe an amateur scientist, maybe even a professional scientist. I don't know. But he measures wind vector, he measures air density, and calculates that all into his shots or so he says. So he's a big science guy. What Bryson has done recently, though, is looked at the math. And we have seen the analytics over the last handful of years. There's no more drive for show, putt for dough, as our fathers always used to tell us, you know, hey, you can hit it a long way, but you better make your

putts. Sure, you want to make puts. But the analytics tell us the further you hit it, the better off you're going to be. You'd rather have a wedge from the rough than a seven iron from the fairway these days. And Bryson, knowing these analytics, knowing how this works very much in a money ball type of fashion, I actually think maybe the better analogy is NBA teams figuring out that, hey, if we shoot more three-pointers, then those are worth more than twos. And so we're going to score more points and scoring more points gives you the ability to win the game. So Bryson's figured out that, hey, the closer you are to the hole off the tee, the more burdened, chances you're going to have, the more birdies you make, the better chance you have of winning.

I mean, it's a pretty simple formula right there. He's used the math to then recreate his science, his own physical science, which is, we've seen him. You called me incredible bulk. He's, what, bulked up about 40, 45 pounds since last year. We see the swing speed. We see how he's going after. He looks like the fourth guy on a scramble team. The other three are already in good shape. So he's just trying to swing as hard as he possibly can. And it's working for him. And I have no reason to think that Bryson won't have a really strong second half of this year. And if he does, there's no telling where this goes, where other players start looking as far as Rory McElroy and Justin Thomas and Brooks Kepka, Dustin Johnson. So these guys all start packing on the pounds, start putting on muscle mass, start trying to get their swing speeds even faster in an attempt to keep up with Bryson in coming years.

So that was a very long-winded way of saying that he's using the science, he's using math. And yeah, this is becoming money ball for golf in essence. Well, there's no doubt that the win felt totally inevitable. I mean, I think he was either going to test positive for COVID or he was going to win the damn tournament. Like you could just see it coming on Sunday and even before. And I also will say, I think, and we can debate this, he sure looks like the best golfer in the world right now. Having played these early events where you had some great golfers, some of the best in the world in all these tournaments. So somebody's going to have to go grab that title from him, regardless of what the World Golf rankings say.

But let me take the contrarian view. Like Nate Lashley won this tournament at 25 under last year. And, you know, he's won 6% of his starts, basically, at this point. At this point, Tiger had won 27% of his, of the same number of starts, right? He's, and even now, Tiger's won 23% of his starts. So, dude, we had a lot of, hey, Bryson's totally changing the game. coming out of Sunday. Sobel, is that what's happening here,

or do we have a guy who is doing the best he can with what he thinks he can be great at? You know, Nathan, I hate the Monday morning, quick knee-jerk reactions that it seems like we have every single week. I mean, guy wins a tournament, and then on Monday morning, all of us say, hey, if he plays like that, this guy's never going to lose. Well, yeah, that's not what happens, though.

Obviously, this stuff's all cyclical. Obviously, you get good breaks and bad breaks. And so, yes, the narrative coming out of what happens, happened this past week is that boy, Bryson is changing the game. He's broken golf. He's unlocked the secret formula. He's done all of these things that essentially,

and I don't disagree with you, make him look like the best player in the world right now. But when we step back, I think we also have to look at the fact that, first of all, it was a golf course that was set up perfectly for him. I had a player tell me, who played there at Detroit Golf Club last year

and didn't play this year, tell me on Wednesday beforehand. He goes, this is perfect for, Bryson, unlike the three previous events, he can just go smash driver all over the place and put himself in position. I mean, he probably needs four clubs on that golf course, give him a driver, two wedges and a putter, and maybe not even the two wedges. So it really is set up very well for him. And you look at it, he's doing everything, maybe not traditionally, what we would have expected from any golfer, but boy, it looks really good right now. And it remains

be seen. If he can keep this up, though, I have no doubt that he can't be the best player in the world at some point this year. I mean, first in putting, first in driving. His wedges, quite frankly, sucked. Yeah. And so that's the area where you wonder if can he get better. Look, we've seen guys go for distance before. And the traditional Johnny Miller story is you go chop wood, you come back and you lose your touch. I'm not sure Bryson ever was awesome with his wedges. That's certainly an area of the game where he gets better, you know, everybody watch out. My question is this, and House, you looked at his swing and we texted about it over the weekend. There's that release in his left foot when he powers through, and that seems to be like a requirement to not completely shred the tendons in his knee.

And every guy in this generation that we've seen who's gone for distance has had a pretty significant knee injury that set him back in some cases years. Kepka's coming out of it now. Dustin Johnson's coming out of it now. Is this a swing that is sustainable? Well, we saw, you know, Tiger is probably the very best example of what you're describing, which is, you know, sort of the inability of the infrastructure and the left leg to withstand the great force that the swing is producing. The interesting aspect with Bryson is, you know, he's attuned to it, right? So you imagine that he's doing exercises as part of the overall regime in addition to putting on the weight and doing exercises to increase swing speed and ball speed, that he's also

doing exercises to get the undercarriage in proper shape to be able to handle the torque. And that it's a known area of concern and something that he can, you know, shoot for as a goal to try and minimize or eliminate altogether from his particular, you know, recipe. But the thing that I want to observe as we talk about him, and it's worth sort of mentioning, he set records at Detroit, you know, he is by far the most interesting character on the tour at the moment

and the sporting public with this, you know, sort of uncuttered view of golf, because there's nothing else going on other than NASCAR gets a look at professional golf and Bryson is the most interesting character out there and he's simultaneously several things, right? He's a potential villain. He has a certain charm to him. He's swinging out of his shoes.

I mean, it's a really compelling story. And on top of all of that, he also triggers in the golf community this ongoing, simmering, you know, kind of concern around the distance and how far the ball flies due to equipment advances and advances in the golf ball. So he really represents the entire whole story as it relates to kind of the professional golf moment. But I just wonder, you know, Tiger should be back for the memorial, by all indications, that was, you know, going to be the case. How sustainable is this Bryson's story? That's my question to you guys. Okay. So first of all, I've got three takeaways from a lot of what you guys said there. A lot to unpack. But first of all, Nathan,

you made a great point in there and it's point I've been making the last couple of days. A lot of times guys win a tournament. We say, boy, if he plays like that, like I said earlier, if he plays like that every week, he's going to win. Bryson had like, okay, his A game off the T and his A game on the greens, but that was like a C minus wedge game. We saw Bryson win this fast week and win pretty convincingly and not really hit very many good wedges. If he dials in that wedge game, because quite frankly, he doesn't need that much else. The way he's driving the ball, his wedge game better get really good. And so I've got to think he's going to work on that. He's one of the hardest workers on the PJ tour. If he can dial in his

wedge game, watch out. It's going to be very dangerous. The second part of that, you guys made the analogy of tiger and injuries and can his body hold up. The better analogy here might be Jason Day. And I haven't heard Bryson admit this, but Jason Day has said for a long time, look, I'm going to put a lot of wear and tear on my body while I'm in my prime years. And if by the time I'm 40, I can't play golf anymore, so be it. And we've seen Jason Day break down over the years, back injuries and other lingering ailments. I haven't heard Bryson say that, hey, I'm I'm just going to go for it right now and I'm not going to worry about the future. But I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of his mindset right now, which is, you know,

hey, look, I'm one of the best players in the world right now. I'm going to do whatever it takes with my body to play my best golf and I'll worry about the future when I get to it. The third part about that and what you mentioned right there, House, and I wrote about it this week is Bryson's by far the most polarizing player in the game. I don't know. Since Tiger and his prime that we've had. had a guy more polarizing. And what I mean by that is that everybody has an opinion on him. Some people really like him. Some people love the fact that Bryson said, hey, here's how you

have to win golf tournaments. You have to change your body, change your swing. And this is what I have to do to get better. And I've worked really hard at it. And a lot of people support him. A lot of people like the fact that he's worked really hard to get to the point where he is right now. A lot of people also think that he's a little too smug, a little too whiny. We saw that on Saturday with a cameraman incident, which was ridiculous. You know, he's trying to change a game. I think a lot of people are fearful that what we have come to know is golf might be changed forever in the next few years if Bryson gets everybody playing golf the

way he is. And it makes courses obsolete and makes the game look completely different from what it is right now. So I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing. I think it's good when players inspire passion amongst the masses. There are too many players out there where you're casual. fan just goes, oh yeah, I like that guy. You know, not my favorite, but I don't root against them. You know, don't really have a huge opinion either way.

Bryson gets opinions from people. They either like them or they hate them. And that's good. That's good for the game. It's good to have heroes and villains like that. Yeah, we're all in agreement on that. Nathan, I know, speaking of the cameraman incident and hating him, you might have a perspective on what went down there.

Yeah, he was playing with my brother on Saturday. And, you know, after the round, I was watching on TV, obviously, and I noticed after the round he apologized to Mark and said, sorry for the craziness. And of course, that was about the incident. And here's what we know about the incident. He had a bad bogey on six. And he made a bad par on seven. So he was pretty clearly triggered as much about the way he was playing as the cameraman. But Mark did tell me that the guy had the camera about a foot from his face. And they walked up from 9T to 9 green together, and Bryson sort of explained what he was feeling, which I don't know that he articulated it particularly well after the round. But it sounded like, and Mark empathized with it, which was, hey, you know, used to be that, hey, we're trying to create a product here that's great for fans. and the media golfer relationship used to be sort of symbiotic, which is, hey, help me out, I'll help you out.

And in that moment, he felt like the camera guy was encroaching in his personal space only for the sake of getting a reaction and triggering a reaction. Now, what came after that in the press conference that followed and in the corporate sponsor list that he put out after he won, and the Instagram post with him in front of a Bentley and a net jet, I think we can debate back and forth. This is going to be the story of Bryson, because what is he at the core? He's an analytics nerd who, you know, we're asking to come out and be this articulate face of the game

because some of the oxygen's been sucked out with Tiger sitting on the bench for the last couple months, right? And so we've thrust him into the spotlight, a guy who's already a little bit socially awkward and still finding his way. He's 26, I think. So let's give him a little time to mature in that area. But I think his intent there was not necessarily bad, but he was triggered by his own poor play

and by what looked from the outside like an overt attempt to draw something out of him. And then the post-round comments just didn't help. That said, even with those post-round comments, was there any doubt he was going to chase down Wolf and win that tournament on Sunday. I don't think there was. We exchanged notes before the final round got going on Sunday, Nate. And we both agreed that we wanted to see Matthew Wolf. He hadn't been in that position where he was up by a few strokes going into a Sunday. So we wanted to see him prove it. And part of it was seeing Bryson right there, his giant hulking shadow putting Matthew

Wolf right into the shade. But I do want to touch. on one aspect of what you just described in terms of the camera incident because it is a nice segue into our sort of weekly state of the bubble, you know, check in. And it's this, we are in a new normal, right? Like the entire previous way of doing professional sports television coverage is different now. And that's going to necessarily, I think, include moments where, you know, the guys might be put in uncomfortable positions. And it might also be the case that like the camera folks who are also, you know, operating under a different mandate. You know, there are far less cameras there. And everybody knows that Bryson is the story of this tournament.

and aren't we now kind of operating in this this new normal where everybody's kind of trying to find their way? What do you think so? Yeah, you guys make some really good points there. I thought that, look, if you wanted a cameraman out of your face, I mean, that's a personal sort of confrontation. You can have a conversation about that and figure it out. I thought the comments by Bryson afterwards were just tone deaf. You're just not going to get away with that in a in a public forum like hey i'm you know i'm just trying to do my job and you you guys aren't helping create my brand uh basically the the worst way to create a brand in the public forum is to start talking about your brand because that's not going to go over well with most of the public

but nathan you make a great point i've said this for years about so many golfers that a lot of guys who are professional golfers basically became really good at golf because they were sort of introverted when they were kids. They didn't really get into team sports. They said, hey, I'm going to play a sport. I'm going to go to the back of the range. I'm going to hit golf balls by myself. And then they do that long enough.

They become really good at it. And we start putting them on this pedestal as one of the best players in the world. Now we want to hear from you all the time. Now you have to be an extrovert. And now you have to be outgoing and now you have to speak in front of a lot of people. And a lot of these guys, and I think you hit the nail on the head with Brison, they're just not quite used to it. They're just, it's not their personalities. And so they're trying to get their point across. They're trying to show some personality. But deep down inside, he's an introverted guy who likes science and likes math and is kind of a nerd. And now all of a sudden he's thrust into the spotlight. And there's going to be some mistakes made. And I thought that was a mistake. Not necessarily the confrontation with the cameraman itself, but the way he tried to explain it afterwards. And again, that's what you're going to get. And, you know, look, if that's the worst thing that Bryson does

right now, it's not all that bad. And he's going to get past that hurry. It makes me miss and appreciate Eldrick Tiger Woods, who goes through 10,000 times what Bryson went through every single week. And he comes up and he goes in front of the cameras and he gives the answers the best he could. Interestingly, Mark said it was more annoying to play in front of him than it was to play with him. He played in front of him on, I guess on Sunday. And the problem there was that Bryson's, first of all, hitting 365-yard bombs into him. So it's just a constant reminder of how bad at driving you are, relatively speaking. But you were starting to get some of the Tiger stuff, which is that, House, as you said, they don't have enough cameras. So they're already sprinting around in shots.

You can see camera guys and Mike guys running around the course just during the course of the broadcast. And, you know, they're clearly doing a heroic effort. But there were times where they had, on holes 9 through 13, they had to back off. He was playing with Seamus Power. They had to back off at least once each of those holes because there was a guy with a cart trying to set up in their fairway for Bryson. And so part of the story is that this guy is sucking the oxygen, not just out of the press room, but a little bit out of the course. And that's okay because the tours needs the story. And so they're doing it. But where it leads to for me is,

is this guy mentally tough like the rest of the greats? Is he going to hold up when he is staring down his arch nemesis, Brooks Kepka, with whom they still clearly have that feud over pace of play,

right? Is he going to hold up when he's with the big guys coming down, the big majors? Is his head going to translate? A year ago, there's video of him throwing all of his clubs

all over the practice range and he has his head in his hands like he's the coach of, you know, the worst team in basketball just sitting on a bench losing by 50, right? So this guy still has a ways to go to prove to us that his head can be a major champion. Well, he's currently the favorite on the gambling boards for each of the majors. He's the favorite for the PGA championship, the U.S. Open, and the Masters at the moment. the books have all responded in accordance with what the public is seeing. Jason, since we have you, speaking of the books, I thought we might do a little bit of a recap

of kind of the state of the gambling world, what you guys are seeing at Action Network in terms of level of interest, both in wagers and in the DFS participation. and, you know, it's been a pretty great first four weeks from my perspective as a fan. What do you guys seeing? Yeah, absolutely. And first how, I want to get into Bryson being the favorite because this was big news over the last 24, 48 hours, him moving past Rory McElroy to the top of the board for the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open and the Masters. Well, let's not be naive.

Here's how these things work. Okay, Bryson's playing well, of course, and people are going to say, oh, I'm going to check out his odds for futures bets for later on. The books, the books are smart. We know the books are smart in a lot of different ways. And so what the books do is they say, you know, look, it doesn't really affect our handle. If we have Bryson at 10 to 1 or 14 to 1, let's move them up to 10 to 1. What guys like me who cover the PGA tour do, we go right to our laptops and we go, hey, I'm going to write a story. Bryson is now the favorite at all three majors. And then I go on your podcast and you guys go, hey, Bryson, now the favorite at all three majors.

it's all free advertising, free marketing, free pub for all these books that moved him into that favor position. It's a smart move. I would do the exact same thing if I were them. It's not going to change a whole lot as far as the handle as far as who's betting where. Quite frankly, if you're betting on Bryson right now, 10 to 1, you're getting a bad deal and bad value. As for the betting market over the last few weeks, spoke with Jeff Sherman last night, who's the VP of Risk Management from Superbook USA. And of course, he's at Dolph Odds on Twitter. If you're not following him, give him a follow because he is the best handicapper

in the business in my book. And he said that these last four events have been four times the normal handle for non-major PGA tour events. So we are seeing a lot of people. I can tell you guys that I've never watched a full NASCAR race in my life until about six to eight weeks ago. and we had no other sports going on, nothing else to bet on. Next thing I know, not only do I have money down on the NASCAR race,

but I'm yelling at the TV for Chase Elliott to take down Denny Hamlin on the last stretch of the race to go beat him so I can win some money. I had no idea who those guys were, what I would have been talking about two months ago. And now I'm treating it like, you know, I'm a long-time NASCAR fan and better. And I have to imagine a lot of people are doing the same thing with golf right now where they say, yeah, usually, you know,

I'll watch the back nine of the math. masters if it's on. And if Tiger's in contention, I'll watch Tiger, but I'm not a big golf guy. Well, right now, you're sitting there on the weekends with no NBA, no NFL, no major league baseball, nothing else to watch. And so these sports fans are saying, well, I like to watch sports and I like to gamble. So I'm going to put the golf on and I'm going to put some money on some guys and I'm going to watch it and I'm going to enjoy myself. And maybe we're creating a new legion of golf fans out there just because of the process of elimination. There's no other sports to watch or to bet on.

And so, Jason, for that, that guy who's coming in, who's been sitting on his or her couch watching golf and, you know, she bets on football, knows how to play that game. She knows how to bet. But golf is kind of a new thing. How should the first time better approach? How do you get in? Are there certain kinds of bets? Are there certain games that you suggest, like for that first person coming in, what do you recommend?

Okay, so it's a great question because what I've found, and I've covered golf for a long time, but only covered it from a betting aspect now for just over two years. And I've learned a lot myself in that time. Basically, 95% of these sharp bets, the guys who are moving money, the guys who are doing this professionally, are on things other than outright bets. So they're not betting on winners. They're betting on matchups, head to head. They're betting on three balls the first couple of days.

They're betting on over-unders. They're finding little edges to find these sharp plays. 95% of the non-professionals, the non-sharpes, the fish, as they call them, are just betting outright because they go, man, I'm going to bet this guy is 100 to 1. And if he wins, I'm going to win a whole lot of money, which I think what you have to do is a better if you're going to start betting on golf is decide which better you want to be. And look, I don't bet a whole lot myself on golf. What I like is, hey, I picked a guy at 50 to 1 or 60 to 1 or 100 to 1, and now he's in the mix on Sunday afternoon.

I've got a little sweat. I'm not betting enough where, hey, look, you know, I'm going to move some lines. I had buddies who will move the lines based on what they bet on matchups on a given week. I'm not doing that much. And so, sure, a matchup, it's no different than betting a football game where you're basically going to win or lose that bet. Okay, it might be a little plus money. It might be a little more of a favorite. But for the most part, it's almost a one-to-one bet. But if you're just out there to have fun, and that's okay.

I mean, if you're not out there to just, hey, I'm going to take out a second mortgage and I really need to make money off this thing. If you're just like, hey, I want to throw a few bucks down and have some fun watching this stuff, for me, betting outright, betting top five, top tens, that's more fun, I think. Obviously, there's a higher risk and a higher reward, but it's more fun than just betting the matchups. If you know this saying, hey, look, I really want to start making money betting on golf. Don't pick the outrights.

Don't pick the outrides. Don't pick the outrides. Don't pick the top fives. Look at matchups. Look at three balls over the first couple days. Look at over under props. And that's how you can make money doing this. But so, but we've been so good the last couple weeks picking the outright.

Yeah. Well, that's why it's so tempting. That's why I keep doing it. Because I love it. I mean, seriously. We saw everybody at the Action Network. That was a nice win for, I'll call, I put us in this category, too, the semi-sharpes with Webb Simpson at Harbor Town where, you know, a lot of folks got off Webb sent because he missed the cut at Colonial. And he was a real favorite going into Colonial.

Then he missed the cut. But everybody, you know, a lot of semi-smart money. I would never call myself smart. But a lot of us were like, hey, let's get on Webb. And it was good return. I think he was available around 30 to 1, which is why, you know, but your point is the right point, which is you only bet the outrights, the guy, you know, bet somebody to win if you're prepared to say goodbye to that money.

And it's fine because, like, you know, there's lots of things we do in our lives for entertainment and pleasure where the return is not very high, but the experience of it, you know, makes it worthwhile. The thrill of picking a winner is so high. I mean, you look at it. say there's 156 guys in the field. I pick that one guy who won, whether it's two bucks or $2,000, whatever it is, the high you get from watching your guy try to contend down the stretch is fun. And by the way, guys, you want to know how non-sharp I am. Web Simpson was my favorite

outright at Colonial, won the next week at Harbortown. Bryson D. Chambot was my favorite outright at Travelers and won the next week in Detroit. So basically just tell me the week after I pick a guy and you should be all safe. Okay, that's good to know. Let's go ahead and start talking about this upcoming event. But first, wanted to talk a little bit about Fandul. What if my par saving pals, you could place a bet, lose, and then go on with your life as though it never happened? That is pretty sweet.

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R-O-L-L-I-N. You must be 21 or over, present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, or Colorado. First online real money, Rager only, and the refund is issued as non-witrawable site credit that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fandul.com. If you have a gambling problem, call 1-800 Gambler. 1-800 G-M-B-L-E-R. So we were in this unique moment where we have, for the first time in decades, the same venue hosting tournaments back to back.

Now, it happened with the USGA and the U.S. Open. We had the men's U.S. Open and the women's U.S. Open back to back in recent memory. But on the PGA tour, they have not had their players competing back-to-back weeks at the same venue in, you know, 30 years longer than that. that would, however long it's been, before we get to sort of some of the analytics and the right way to think about this, because it's going to be hard, hard to kind of parse it. Nathan, I want to get an update from, from you on kind of the state of the bubble. And we've been mindful every week on this show to talk about how it seems the tour is doing with, you know, protecting its players, protecting all of the people that are participating in these events.

events last week I'm knocking on wood seem to have gone off without too much complication. So far this week, I'm knocking on wood again. We haven't heard big reports of, you know, big number of guys testing positive. What's the sentiment on the ground right now? Well, they made one change this week, which was a big one, which was that for guys who've tested positive, if they have two subsequent negative tests, they can come back. And so we got a bunch of those guys between, Dylan Fratelli and Cam Champ and a few others who are going to be back in the field, who have subsequently tested negative twice after a positive test. And I think that was, again, the tour's way of being flexible without necessarily getting

into the issue of false positives or needing to even go there. It was a really easy resolution to say to the players, yeah, you're going to have to pull out of an event, but if you subsequently test negative twice, you can come back and get in. So that was the big change for the week. The other big change, obviously, is that they've blown up fans at the memorial, which we have been talking about here for a number of weeks. And obviously, a bunch of the golf press, I think we're starting to lean into why would we ruin a good thing and bring fans out?

So I think that was a wise decision by the tour, no doubt. The players didn't want fans there, if we're being honest. What the players did want was family there. And that's coming now. And so they're starting to allow some family in starting at the memorial, not this week at workday, but starting at the memorial. You know, the truth is that there's players who've been traveling with their family through this whole stretch because a lot of them are afraid to leave the bubble. Because as we talked about last week, all of the transmissions of this disease have happened outside the bubble. Players who've either gone out to restaurants or they've gone back home to Texas or Florida, and then they've come back into the bubble and tested positive.

So as we think about the field this week, this is going to be one of the weirdest weeks that we've ever had on the tour. And it's not a big deal. But most of the guys are treating this like a paid practice round for next week. And there's only 120 guys who are in next week. So this week it's a bigger field.

And they're guys who want to win for sure. But the guys who are in next week are playing this, mostly A, because leaving the bubble carries a ton of risk. B, because it's nice to get locked down in the same place for two weeks. and see because, hey, it's money, right? And so it's an opportunity to get a look at the course,

albeit a very different look than we're going to see this, you know, next week. This week we're going to see probably an 11 on the stint meter. These greens are going to be slow. The rough's going to be down. They're going to be experimenting with non-traditional pins and T placements. You know, still plenty of space for your drive like the Memorial always is. This will still be a second shot golf tournament both weeks. But yeah, I think this week you're going to see scores minus 20, whereas when we get back to the

memorial the week after, they're going to try to get the course into a place where it's minus 12. Either way, this week will be very interesting to see who goes all out versus who treats it like a warm up for next week. Jason, what do you see? Yeah, I agree with a lot of that. From everything we've heard, they're going to have some T-boxes moved up this week. 14 might be drivable for those who know Muirfield Village from watching it every year. The rough is going to be three to three and a half inches long. They're going to try to grow it up to four to four and a half next week. So obviously easier to hit the ball out of the rough this week. The green speeds are going to be more in the

11 to 11 to 11 and a half range as opposed to 13 to 13 and a half on the stint meter next week. And I think what that does, it narrows the disparity between the really good putters and the really poor putter. So I think what you're going to see is some guys who we've come to know, as really good ball strikers who can't make a put, well, that differential isn't going to be as great for them this week. Either they're going to start making some, and some of the good putters are going to start missing some.

So I think you probably want to look at the ball strikers this week as guys who might have a better chance than on weeks where we have some faster greens. Yeah, so let's go ahead and try and drill down. Let's start trying to name some names here. We love to try and help all of our Eagle enthusiasts out there, help some of our pals out there with their fan duel lineups. I have a handful of names that kind of fit

this parameter that you just outlined, Jason, of, you know, guys with good ball striking skills. Let's hear who you're looking at. Okay. So I'll start off at the top. In the top tier, start with a couple of guys who have won at Newerfield Village before, obviously the Memorial because they haven't played a workday yet. But Patrick Cantley, the defending champion from last year, Hadeki Matsuyama, who won in 2014,

both guys who I really like this week, your classic ball strikers, shouldn't get themselves into too much trouble. Hadeki, not a great putter, bet as I've read elsewhere, and I think it's a great point. This should remind him of the green speeds kind of growing up in Japan and more of what he might be used to, so I think it should help him more than some other players. Justin Rose is another guy who's won at Muirfield Village before. has a really strong track record there. He started off pretty well during this restart after the COVID-19 break. So I think Justin Rose, the guy that I like, dig it a little deeper.

You mentioned Cameron Champs' name tangentially before Nathan mentioned it. Got into the field in Detroit last week, sort of last minute, didn't have a chance to play a practice round because of that new policy was put into the field on Wednesday afternoon and finished in a share of 12th place. If we're looking for a trend to continue, which is, hey, Bryson, the last, week went out there and just mashed the ball all over the golf course and made a lot of birdies. Cameron Champ is the guy that I see this week who might be able to do it, especially at a big number at 75 to 1 this week and fairly low priced on Fandwell this week. I think Cameron Champ is a really strong play looking a little further down the list, depending on how far we want

to go. Matthew Fitzpatrick has bones on the bag this week. That can't hurt. I like him. And Scotty Sheffler is a guy who has not played well in his last few starts, but 79-65 last week before missing the cut, I'm going to bank on him having more of that 65 form than the 79 form. All right, Nate, what do you, what do you got going? I'm still trying to figure out how they grow the rough an inch and a half in a week. So Ohio, it rains every day in the summer. I think they're just giving it Bryson's protein shakes. The other guy, speaking of Bryson's protein shakes, I mean, this is not a down-the-line thing in terms of a pick that's high value in the field. This does feel like a totally wide-open tournament to me.

I mean, I think the big guns are going to be targeting next week, so I'd be looking at a lot of value down the stretch. And this feels like the kind of tournament that a guy who shows up every single week and grinds could win. And for me, that's Sung J.M. Oh, okay. I think he's just a guy who just doesn't care. And he's going to be pleasantly surprised that he gets to stay in the same place for two weeks and play two golf tournaments. But he plays everyone. He doesn't seem to be flustered by the week-in, week-in, week-out scheduling stuff.

Well, a lot of guys are really trying to plot their way through the next two months now that we know Ryder Cup's going to be moved. Now that we know there are some qualifiers for the U.S. Open that are these later tournaments that maybe guys weren't going to play. But for me, the one guy we do need to talk about this week is Brooks Kepka. He is 155th in the FedEx Cup. That means he misses the playoffs if he stays where he is. He's got 132 points. The guy who's 125th right now has 196 points. So that's basically a 12th place that he would have to win over the rest of those guys in front of him to hurdle.

But the other guys are going to keep amassing points. So for me, this feels like a week where Brooke circles it and goes, I got six events left where I've got to basically make up 60 points on the rest of the field just to play three tournaments in August for $15 million. I've got a field that's probably looking the other way this week. They're treating this a bit like a paid practice round. I'm going to go after it. Also, I hate Bryson DeShambo and I'm going to stuff it his face.

Well, that you just made the most compelling aspect of the Kepka argument. it would be very much like Brooks in this instance where, where Deschambeau is off the stage for Brooks to climb right back up on it. So that could be a reason. I'm looking at a couple names kind of in the middle of the pack. I like Joel Damon this week. And that might be a popular play. If you're looking at those strokes gained approach and strokes gain T to Green,

both of which have important accuracy elements to them. Damon is fourth in strokes gain T to Green over his past 24 rounds and seventh in strokes gained approach. And two top 20s out of his past three tournaments. So I'm going to do a little on Damon. He's available at three and a half to one plus 360 as a top 20 play. And he's been pretty reliable. We have two of those already this week.

feels like a tiny bit of value. I'm also looking at the homie, Max Homa, who also has been having very good ball striking since the restart. And he's also scoring well. He's 21st in birdie or better gain. He's inside the top 50 on par four efficiency from 450 to 500, which is, you know, important at this venue. And he's outstanding on par three is measuring 200, 25 yards. He's inside the top 10 over his past 24 rounds. On that stat, he's been terrible with the putter. He's got a cold putter. But, you know, maybe, you know, easing into this, you know, venue, the guys, I like what you described, Nathan, about the idea of the guys perhaps feeling a bit more settled coming into this event because they know that they're going to be in the

same place for a handful of weeks and can build a little comfort level. If the homie homa can get the flat stick rolling, he's available as a top 20 right now at plus 550. So those are two things, two guys that I'm looking at. Both of which... Well, House, I got to interject there just so our betters know. Both of those guys that you just mentioned are staying in a house with homeless hubs these next two weeks. And I got a little intel that both Max and Damon's wives decided to bail on coming to the house. So Mark, Mark, Mark's wife is there this week. But if that thing turns into a frat house,

I'm not sure you want to be putting money down on those boys this week. Well, why would it turn into a frat house? I mean, Mark's wife could be the calming influence, you know, to keep the guys on their... No, no. She's going to be the instigator. That's the issue. Oh, no.

So if they're all peaking for next week, that could be a problem. No, listen, I'm with you. I think both those guys are frankly due to really have breakout. they've had parts of their game that have been pretty stellar in this restart. So if Homa can get the putting together, if Homa can get the putter together, he's really due for a strong finish. By the way, it's not a hard and fast rule for me, but in regular times when a lot of guys are traveling with their wives and with their kids,

the guys who aren't traveling with them, those are my plays. If you look at certain players, there are certain players who only win when the family's back home. It's like, oh, so weird. And they get on to the 18th green, they're like waving into the camera and they say, oh, I miss you guys. I'll see you tomorrow, you know, can't wait to see you. And it's like,

oh, there's a reason that they're not there running up to him on the 18th green. And it's because there's certain guys who don't win when the families are around. So I don't mind guys being out on their own and have a little frat house for a couple weeks. I don't think we're going to do any better than that for ending the show. Keep your eyes on the home of Damon Hubbard Frat House. By the way, Nathan, your brother, Mark Hubbard, has been making the social rounds for his incredible flow. His hair right now is absolutely glorious. He really has been taking his Twitter handle.

Seriously, the homeless hubs Twitter handle seems to be a real inspiration. What's going on? What's going on is he's from Houston. Well, he lives in Houston, Texas, and it's too scary to go get your haircut. I'm not sure what's so scary about trimming the beard, but he's just letting it flow. He's got a real golf salad going right now. It's growing faster than the rough at Muirfield Village, apparently. So I don't know what we're going to get this week, but we'll keep our eyes peel.

Yeah, well, let's go ahead and sprinkle a little on homeless hubs, right? I like that. Four straight made cuts. One of the best things I saw on Twitter last week, Nathan, was that your brother looks like if Matthew Wolf went off the grid for a few months and just sort of, you know, kind of went out on the road by himself. and lived in his van for a month. There you go. Exactly. That's a compliment.

That's the look he's going for. The craziest thing about homeless hubs is he's doing all this with not a single sponsor on his shirt. So we'll see if he can get that rectified. It may require a haircut to fit in, as Bryson would say, with the right brand image. I don't know. There's some brands out there that should love that flow. I mean, you know, the CBD market is wide open, brother.

Look, the fun part of this restart is we've gotten to know some extra golfers. who we don't normally get to see. And while Bryson's certainly taking a lot of the oxygen out of the room, it's fun to see these are other golfers. And this is a week where I think you're going to see some of those folks in the field really bubble up because you can imagine that the big guys are really trying to peak for a tournament and a tournament host

who they really admire and love and respect next week. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much. Jason Sobel, always a great time having you on the line, my friend. Thanks, boys. watching and reading and your podcast. When's your own podcast going up this week? It's up already. Action Network.

Wherever you find podcasts, look at the Action Network podcast. It's there. I do it with Peter Jennings every week. We have a show on every Wednesday night, 8.30 p.m. We've got all sorts of stuff going on. We're breaking down everything. Jason, always a pleasure.

Nate, we'll talk to you again next week. Thanks, House. All right, my birdie buddies, there you have it. My thanks, as always to the homie. Jason Sobel dropping hot nuggets on there for us. Nathan Hubbard and I will be back next week. I think we might even have some real live professional golf players on the podcast. Until then, let's head them straight out there.