Fairway Rollin' - Pace of Play Problems at the Genesis, and WGC-Mexico Picks | Fairway Rollin’ (Ep. 03)

Episode Date: February 20, 2019

Joe House is joined by Ringer golf correspondent Nathan Hubbard to talk about his brother Mark Hubbard’s first win on the Web.com Tour as well as J.B. Holmes's first-place finish at the Genesis Open (2:40). Then, The Ringer’s Megan Schuster stops by to discuss the slow-play epidemic, old guys outplaying the young guys, and her current confidence in Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy, and Justin Thomas on this week's Golf Social (24:45). Finally, Harry Gagnon joins to offer up his picks for the WGC-Mexico Championship (38:45). Guests: Nathan Hubbard, Megan Schuster, and Harry Gagnon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. Each day starting on Monday, February 18th, the Big Picture will be hosting six Oscar preview videos leading up to Sunday ceremony. Sean Fennessey hosts with a variety of other Ringer staffers covering everything you need to know about this season's Oscar race. You can watch these videos at YouTube.com slash The Ringer or catch the highlights on the Ringer's Instagram and Twitter. Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast.

Unlike any other. We're very happy to have you. It's time for some fair way. Oh, yeah. My bar saving pals, my birdie buddies, this is the new golf podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. Brought to us by our good friends at Callaway Golf, who had more drivers in play than any other brand

at this past week's Genesis Open. The Tiger Woods presented Genesis Open, including the winner of the event. J.B. Holmes was out playing with a beautiful Callaway Epic Flash sub-zero. He banged it all over the joint. My friends, I'm Joe House, the starter of this fine escapade that we're about to go on together. A couple things out there this week. Obviously, the Genesis Open is in our rearview mirror. we saw a hot tiger we saw a slow jb homes we saw an incandescent justin thomas who couldn't get

across the goal line and we're running it back everybody that matters except for jb who's taking the week off is reassembling for the w gtc event down in mexico we have on the line none other than harry going on to help me with this week in tiger woods and a few picks of course we're doing golf social with Megan Schuster and none other than Nathan Hubbard, the unpaid ringer intern and resident golf correspondent, his brother won on the web.com tour this weekend. So Nathan comes on to share with us what went into that spectacular win. Without further ado, the first tea is open. Let's go let out a little chef, my friends. And now on the tea, Nathan Hubbard. Oh my goodness, birdie buddies. Our first guest today,

it's nice to kick off the show with a genuine, great big, swinging Johnson. This gentleman is the former CEO of Ticketmaster, the former chief of commerce, among other things at Twitter. He is the current CEO of a business called Rival. he is an unpaid intern at the ringer.com perhaps his greatest accomplishment. He was a guest judge on perhaps the very best YouTube eating competition in history. House eats three. But for our purposes today,

my par saving pals, he is the brother of a winner on the web.com toward Nathan Hubbard. What's happening, my man? A couple of days for the Hubbard family. A big couple of days for the Hubbard family. A big couple of days for the winner. the Hubbard family. Now, you texted me at 1.30 in the morning, Saturday, it was early,

early Sunday morning. It was overnight Saturday into Sunday because you were having a hard time sleeping on the 54 hole lead. So let's just set this up a little bit. Let's tell everybody what the hell we're talking about here. Your brother, Mark Hubbard, is a professional golfer on the web.com tour. He is. He spent three years on the big tour after coming out of the prestigious 2014 web class that included Thomas and Fienau and Daniel Berger, to name a few. Those are names. Three years up on the big tour. Yes, they are. He spent three years up on the big tour and then came down last year, go of it, but $1.75, so he had another shot this year. and he came in to the year feeling okay, a little rusty, missed a couple cut.

Last week finished top 20. He was making a lot of birdies, but, you know, wasn't all the way there. And then just caught it this week and went to bed on Saturday night with a 54 whole lead. He slept a lot more hours than I did, clearly, because he came in Sunday and closed it out. Yeah, it was unbelievable. we were following the event. It was down in Florida near Tampa. It was the L-E-C-O-M-L-E-C-O-M.

Lake Holm? How was Mark pronouncing it? How are we pronouncing that event? I don't know. I thought the tournament was sponsored by the Cheetah in Tampa, but I think they may be upgraded this year because it's a new thing, so I'm not sure how it's pronounced.

I don't look. Web.com definitely lives under par. and so we're just going to leave it at that when it comes to the Cheetah. The check cleared. The check cleared. That's the only, and that's the most important part. So let's do a little backstory on Mark. His entry into the professional golf world, he played collegiately at San Diego State, right?

San Jose State. Yeah. San Jose State. I said, pardon me. and from graduating college to playing on the big tour, what was that path like? So he won the WAC tournament his senior year, kind of came out of nowhere and won the WAC tournament.

I'd been beating him a couple years before that. And all of a sudden, happy Lodd PUTt, and he won the WAC tournament, went on to the Canadian tour, won a tournament on the Canadian tour, which got him onto the web, and into that class year. And he never won a tournament that year

on the web, but he had so many top 10s that he qualified in the top 25. And that brought him up to the big tour. So he really had a really fast acceleration to get there. And then you get up there and that's when the grind starts. Yeah. And over his three years on the big tour, I feel like I was fortunate enough to catch one of the highlights. He actually performed very well here at the event that used to be in Washington, D.C.

it's no longer here. Out at Congressional, we walked with him, and by we, I mean, I walked with you, tracking him. He was paired with Ricky Fowler. This was, I think, two years ago in one of the final groups. He was among the top 10 for sure on Saturday and was paired with Fowler, which was a pretty neat experience, just as a guy, from my perspective, walking it. What would you say is a couple of Markey's highlights over? I call him Marky because you did that, by the way.

That's right. Look, you hit it. I mean, the guy has had a lot of those kinds of experiences where he never top 10 on the PGA tour, but he was in the mix so many times. And when you talk about what an unbelievably mental game this is and for him, why this weekend and the win was so important and such a different state of mind for him, you know, he was, you saw it. He made the turn after that six.

pole at Congo on Saturday. He makes the turn playing with Fowler, steps up to this par three, seven, and he's in, like, he's like T4. And he hits, he hits a T shot that looks like it's going straight at the hole. It's two feet

short in the rough. And by the 11th pole, he'd snapped the head off of his, off of his, you know, fairway metal, right? And that was hit. Right. That's it. And so, you know, a lot, a lot of those experiences where, you know, he was in the hunt in San Antonio

pulled the wrong club, right? He was in the hunt in Reno. You know, he had a final round pairing with Phil in the desert at the old Bob Hope in Palm Springs

and played great. Shot five under with Phil. Phil put his arm around and walking up 18, gave him good advice. He finished, you know, 15th. So, you know,

besides the omelet bars in the tour, you know, food station, those have been the kind of highlights that he's had through his career where he's been in the mix, been hanging in there, but I can sure as Sunday go back and plot, you know, when things get tough, there are times where he's stepped up with the consistency across four rounds.

That's the grind that's out there. And what was so great about Sunday is, and not just Sunday, really, the whole week. I mean, he told us on Tuesday, I'm going to win this golf tournament, and he never says that. Wow. Why did he say that? Where'd that come from? You know, it's just the last two years have been such a mental grind for him. If you look at the highlights of Mark, and you saw this because you walked it with him,

he's the guy who pulls every kid out of the crowd and signs a ball for him. He's a kid who, you know, when the old lady's getting scolded by security for trying to take a selfie with him, he stops, grabs the phone and takes the picture. He gives and gives and gives, but he's so hard on himself. And he beat the hell out of himself mentally. And he's done that. for two years, and I think that's contributed to him not getting the results that he wants. Well, I saw his interview on Friday night, heading into the 54-hole lead, and he said,

I'm not a puppet to the outcome anymore. And I sat back and was like, what kind of Gandhi, you know, Carl Jung, Hillary Clinton, presidential election shit is that. Yeah, some Zen shit. And that is the state of mind that he was in all week. At some point, I think these guys, you know, as any. human being does, and this is why golf is such a great analogy for life, at some point, you've got to throw off that shawl of suffering that you're wearing and just say to hell

with it. I'm not going to worry about results. I'm just going to go do it. And he got himself to a place this week where he was good to himself and forgiving of himself. And it carried him through the weekend. I mean, how's I caddied for him at one of the web final events in Columbus over the summer in August. and there was a time when he was, you know, scrambling in the mix a little bit, he was grinding, but, you know, the nicest guy on the course had an eagle putt that he left like a quarter inch short. Words that came out of his mouth, I would not dare repeat on this podcast, not even watching Cousin South throw up on House East Three. They were so awful. And I left after caddying for him that week, and I wrote him a long note.

And I just said, this is not you. You are better than this. You got to act like a pro if you want to be a pro. And, of course, he didn't need me to tell him that. He's his own harshest critic. But I think he spent the last couple of months after the web finals thinking about what it means to be a pro. And part of that, a huge chunk of that, as you know, is getting your mind right.

And the game has always been there. And so over these first couple events, we're looking at his birdie count going, you're making more buries per round per tournament than you have in your whole letting go of those mistakes and he was able to harness that this week. So for folks that may not pay attention to what I'm going to call, I don't mean this in a pejorative way, but it's not the upper echelon of the big tour. It is, you know, kind of a tier down. I'll call it, you know, second tier.

But the second tier, the thing that folks who may not follow golf, professional golf that closely, it is loaded. It is so effing competitive. And you wrote a story for the ringer.com in your role as unpaid intern about the relegation process in professional golf where a big chunk of guys who have performed well on the big tour each season get dropped out. and they have in this second dairy tour, the web.com, a whole chunk of guys that can rise on up and take their spots. And just for the sake of context, the people on the web.com tour, you have guys who have won major tournaments.

Mike Weir played in this tournament that your brother won this week. Mike Weir, winner of the Masters, and your brother kicked his ass. So this is a loaded secondary tour. Talk a little bit about how competitive of it is and then how does a player like Mark figure out how to be

successful in that secondary realm? Well, so the tour is a grind, the web is a grind. You think about how many pro-golfers there are in the world. There's 55 guys on just one NFL team. There's only less than 200 guys

on the big tour overall and another call it 150 on the web tour. But the web tour is tough, man. It's not the glitz and glamour. very few fans out there. They're staying in, you know, courtyard by Marriott at best. They're not eating well.

They're alone. There's just tournament after tournament after tournament out there. And it is tough. And you think about the quality of guys that are out there. Mark graduated in 2014, and he's playing alongside Justin Thomas and Tony Fienow and Daniel Berger. These are guys who are hitting at 400 yards,

and Mark's whacking it out there, 265, 2,000. 75 at the time and turned into me going, I'm playing a totally different game, and yet you get up to the big tour, and you've got to find a way to compete. And so it is a tough, tough tour. You know, last week, by winning,

he made more just last weekend than he did all the year before. And the joke that comes out on that tour is what's the difference between a large pepperoni pizza and playing the web.com tour? And the answer is that the pepperoni pizza can feed a family of four. And I think that the tour probably structures it that way because they don't want guys comfortable.

But every single year you've got another cross of kids who are coming up from college, who all started their training way earlier because golf became a thing, who all idolized Tiger Woods and picked up that club earlier than the guys ahead of them and had more structured coaching and teaching and video technology to help them refine their swings. and so you've got people constantly nipping at your heels. You can't make a living on that web tour. So there's guys who really have to make that choice who don't bump up to the big door.

How long am I going to stick it out and try to make, you know, five, six figures a year, you know, in hopes of fulfilling my dreams. And so, you know, last year was a tough year for Mark, for example. You know, this year, without a win, without getting into that top 25, which you need during the regular season to get up to the big tour, you know,

he's going to have to probably step back and think about his options in life. But that's why one win and one weekend and catching that lightning in a bottle can really not just uncork you in terms of your confidence going forward, but it can be life-changing and getting you back up to the big tour. Yeah, well, you just hit on one thing that I wanted to ask you about because you actually have the perspective of someone kind of living it. That is the aspect here of it takes a village, right?

For a guy in Mark's shoes to be able to pursue this dream of his, it's not simply him living for himself. He's married. I'm sure that he and his wife are excited about starting a family at some point in time. But while he's chasing his dream, it's not the right time to necessarily start the family. And then just the sheer numbers in terms of what he's able to make by playing in these events on the web.com tour

where the highest purse, you know, if you win the event, you win 110 grand or 115 grand. But otherwise, you know, it's kind of five figures. Just like you said, you have to have that support network, the family and friends that provide not just the moral support, the mental support, but there's got to be economic support as well, right? Yeah, the glamour of it is gone. I mean, look, our joke is he's not buying dinner until he makes a million dollars on tour, right?

And we're sticking to that. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to buy an expensive dinner this week if we celebrate. He's coming out to L.A. tomorrow. But, yeah, I mean, it is really tough. And all these guys live in states where they're not paying the income tax. They're never home. But they've got to declare that residency just to try to maximize their income. But I promised to last year he was cash flow negative.

And so at some point that, you know, we think about the guys Phil and J.T. and, you know, J.B. Holmes won a million plus winning at Rive this week. But, you know, at some point, that pressure of I am only going to eat what I kill. So there is no other sport that really is that way with so many guys down the chain just trying to keep their head above water. And that's some of the beauty of that relegation process, you know, turn. or that part of golf, which is, first of all, everybody has a chance to get to the big league, but also everybody's vulnerable. And quietly, it's one of the most fun things at the end of the season when you see the mental

toughness of the guys who step up and keep their role either on the B tour or on the big tour. And then also the guys who tend to crack and just slip out and you can see careers changing, right? That guy's going to have to go be a head pro at a nice country club. Not a bad gig, but not what he dreamed about growing up. Yeah. And in that respect, and your story captured it, we'll have to point folks to it on the ringer.com. It's the truest of true meritocracies.

You know, it is just pure merit, all the guys, the things that separate the level of play among these guys, it's razor thin. And, you know, you have to believe in yourself and you have to go get it done. Now, one of the things I want to make sure that I cover with you. today. I want to pivot a little bit. The reaction, you mentioned J.B. Holmes at Riviera, and one of the takeaways after that tournament, there has been a lot of

commentary this week about how long J.B. Holmes takes over each individual shot, over putting, and over the rest of it. As a person that's in professional golf, the way that you are, do you have any thoughts on this slow play concept? I'm of two minds on it. I mean,

the first is it's a little bit like pass interference in the stuff. Like, they've got to find a way to consistently enforce the rule. Right? Mark was on the clock both days with no TV coverage and in the final group. And not playing that slow

of a round on the web tour, right? Same rules official. So, so they're finding it heavily there. Meanwhile, J.B.'s taken four and a half minute. It doesn't even start his routine until the other guy is putt. They've got to find a way to do that. My own view is the hard part about golf is that it doesn't fit well into the bite-sized content world that we live in. And the same, you know, you look at baseball, baseball's attendance down year over year last year for the first time in a while.

That's an existential crisis for baseball, and it comes with the shrinking attention span of this generation, and golf is not going to be immune from that. Now, the cool thing about golf live is that it's actually as much of a pretentious sport as it is. It is also probably the most democratized sport in terms of everybody who goes to see a golf tournament can get a front row seat. The fact that they're letting this drag on so long just is an alienating thing. thing in this world where we want these little bite-sized snackable bits of content that can go into my Instagram story. You know, having J.B., you know, do six laps and get his 10,000 steps, I could like to see them in four-six.

So I agree with you. I'm of two minds my own self. The interesting thing is you have to remember that the big tour makes its money from its television contracts. It's an entertainment product. It's competing for. entertainment dollars and advertising eyes on television. And so it has its block of time on Saturdays and Sundays.

And to me, as a consumer of it, I kind of don't care how long it takes the guys to get through shots other than in two respects. Can they get the round finished by dinner time on Sunday? and does the duration of a dude standing over a shot diminish my opportunity to watch other guys play? Because that's the ongoing complaint with the TV broadcasts is not enough golf shots sort of across the field. They end up focusing, and I understand the rationale why, but they end up focusing on like the lead group and it's to the exclusion of other guys that might be bumping up into the lead. And if there's a slow player in the lead group,

then you kind of get stuck watching that lead group. But I also wonder, and I'm interested in your perspective on this, whether the slow play creates a competitive advantage potentially. Like I wondered watching J.B. Holmes and Justin Thomas, whether J.B. Holmes, you know, his sort of death by a thousand plum bobs, how long he was taking over each put, was having any effect on Justin Thomas, who had kind of gone off the rails. What do you think about that?

Well, first of all, I think they need better snacks and liquor in the clubhouse. That will get these guys around a little bit faster. But I do think, I was watching JT's speed yesterday in Twitter account to see what he was going to say. Because you've got to believe it was getting to. I mean, listen, this happens in tennis all the time, right, where the opponent blows it way down and the umpire, the chair judge has got to yell at the guy to start going. It's a tried and true tactic. I don't know if that's what J.B. was trying to do, but I'll tell you this.

If I was playing with him, I don't care if we were at Baker's Bay or, you know, in the final round of the rib, I'd have been pissed. So, you know, you got to imagine it's a little bit of a mind game that, again, if they enforce the rule consistently, I'm okay with it. But if you're going to let one guy do that and then put somebody else on the clock, yeah, it doesn't work for me. Yeah, I'm with you. Well, look, this is, we could do this for hours. I appreciate you coming on today on the heels of Mark's first win this season on the web.com tour. You have to come back on where I expect nothing but unbridled success out of at homeless hubs. That's his Twitter feed.

It's an awesome Twitter follow, by the way. Mark Hubbard, all season long. Nathan Hubbard. Thanks for coming on today, my dude. It's my pleasure. You know, what he said to me when I talked to him, House was I'm ready to go get the next one. So we'll come back on after number two.

I can't wait. I can't wait. Thanks, buddy. And now on the tea, Megan Schuster. Yo, Shusty, what's happening? Hey, how are you? I'm A-O-K. So as our ringer resident golf expert,

give me a reaction to last week's events at Riviera Country Club in the beautiful Los Angeles. area. It is a very beautiful area, but, How's I have to say, I'm already preemptively exhausted by this discussion, but it's one I suspect we'll have to continue to have for some time now. And that is the subject of pace of play. By far the biggest takeaway on social media from Sunday, from a great Genesis Open tournament all around that had a great leaderboard going into the final round. But the takeaway was the ridiculousness of some of J.B. Holmes' antics during the round that took five and a half

hours for him and his playing partners to finish. Five and a half hours. So it's interesting. You use the word antics. What do you mean by antics? I mean, you know, he did his typical plum bobbing thing, which is, you know, to be expected at this point. But there were just some holes where it seemed sort of overblown. He would wait for Justin Thomas to complete a hole when they had the similar line he could have been lining up getting ready to hit. And instead, like on 10 on Sunday, he waited until after Justin Thomas hit his put. It was on the same line. And then he started his routine that took over a minute.

So it's just some things like that. And I really don't want to harp on J.B. too much here specifically for reasons that I'll get into. But it was just certain things like that that were particularly frustrating for me as a viewer to watch someone take that much time. Yeah. So I just had Nathan Hubbard on the brother of Mark Hubbard who won on the web.com tour this past weekend. And I asked Nathan because, you know, Nathan's in like the tech world, but he's also in, you know, live event space and has kind of his thumb on the pulse of how folks are sort of allocating their entertainment dollars. And I asked him, you know, the question about the pace of play and whether he thought it might have any impact on, you know, sort of the demographics and the level of interest. and he gave an answer that was pretty close to a guy that I like on Twitter.

Well, I follow him on Twitter. He's a senior writer at ESPN, Kevin Van Valkenberg, who made the point about kind of, you know, we have a whole generation of young folks that have been raised on, you know, kind of an iPhone platform and have been consuming their entertainment in digestible bites. how does a golf broadcast that, you know, really goes, honestly, you can watch golf for 10 hours on Saturday and Sunday if that's your thing. But even like the television broadcast in the afternoon each day on major network, you know, CBS or NBC goes or Fox when it's the U.S. Open goes from like, you know, three o'clock to 630 or seven. Are they anticipating that people are sitting and watching that all the way through? and if so, you know, what's the viewer experience like?

And, you know, there is skepticism out there about the sustainability of this product. And that's what it is. You know, it's an entertainment item. It's a leisure activity that is watching golf on television. How sustainable is it when you have, you know, players that are playing at a pace that's outside the boundaries of the rules? Mm-hmm. I will say I agree with all of that. And I do think that it will get more difficult to figure that out.

When you look at a sport like baseball that is constantly trying to enforce time limits and is trying to move quicker. And then you see the PGA tour allow something like J.B. Holmes on Sunday, giving no warnings, not putting him on the clock, not penalizing him at all, not even trying in any way to hurry him up. It's a little bit frustrating. I will say on Sunday, there were a lot of great memes on Twitter, a lot of fun pace of play jokes on Twitter. So in that respect, it was kind of nice that I had more time to scroll through my Twitter timeline in between shots.

But in general, I do think it is harming viewership in that people are there to see golf shots. They're not there to see, you know, the beautiful scenery of which there was at Riviera. It's a lovely course. But we're there to see people playing and we're there to see action. And when you have to bounce between so many different groupings, especially on a Sunday of a tournament like this, it's just, it takes up too much time. Yeah, I wondered aloud in my chat with Nathan, whether, you know, if you're focusing on the lead group with J.T. and J.B. Holmes. And J.B. Holmes is taking an extraordinary amount of time. That means there isn't time to switch around and show other guys that are pushing up onto the leaderboard. guys like Rory, guys like Siwu Kim, who had like legit chances as the day turned out.

Now, part of why I feel sort of sympathetic to J.B. And honestly, that whole final group, the weather changed so much over the course of, obviously over the course of the entire four-day tournament, but over the course of that day, and it had such an impact on the way that the Greens were playing, the greens were genuinely confounding these guys, especially on the back nine, such that both Justin Thomas and J.B. Holmes missed from distances that they never, ever, ever, ever miss from.

Because, you know, the combination of the speed of the greens plus the heavy breeze was just throwing them all for a loop. I mean, Bubba Watson ended up tied 15th. He four-putted the 72nd hole. He four-putted 18. and had a chance of being, you know, up in that sort of top 10 range if he hadn't done that. No, you're right. And honestly, I, you know, don't mean to criticize J.B. too much because he did close out on a very difficult course.

A lot of guys were coming off talking about how difficult the back nine was. Justin Thomas had 34 putts in the final round. And before that, he hadn't had more than 26 in a round over the weekend. So it was insanely difficult. and I do think that, you know, in those kind of conditions, you are a little bit more forgiven for taking more time. But also, you know, to J.B.'s point, you know, why would he want to speed it up? You know, he's not being penalized. There's no incentive for him to speed it up. He just won $1.3 million playing the way that he played. So there's really no incentive for him to change. It's not, the onus isn't really on him to change.

It's more so on the tour to force that. Yeah, well, I think we can agree, at least on the putting greens, we would like to see guys show up a little more ready. And let me tell you something real quick, Shusty, if everybody was putting with Odyssey, and it certainly seems that way, the number one putter on tour, but they're all putting with Odyssey, they'd be ready and able to go execute. right now Odyssey is featuring its stroke lab technology, which I am going to get to experience with my own two hands coming out to Los Angeles, California next week. And I'm going into the stroke lab and hopefully coming out on the other side of live. But the Odyssey putters have been great all season. So speaking of grinding it out, let me ask you this question.

I asked Nathan Hubbard this. Do you think that J.B. Holmes' pace of play had an impact on Justin Thomas. I would venture to say that in short, yes. I think the longer answer is that I think the conditions probably had the greatest effect. You know, they'd finish the third round Sunday morning by Sunday afternoon. The course was almost completely different. I mean, you could just see his frustration around the greens.

He wasn't getting great reads. It just had a difficult all-around day. But I would say that I would suspect his frustration was mounted by playing with someone who was playing so slowly. And, you know, when Brooks Keppko was talking about slow play a few weeks ago, he said that that was one of the most frustrating things to him on the course, was being paired up with someone who played so much slower, who was just moving at a different pace. I don't see how it can't affect you, I guess. Yeah. Well, I'm interested in this Justin Thomas' failure to get across the goal line thing. And I'm looking for an explanation, because this is

the second time this season that he's been, you know, in the final group or, or, you know, right around the lead and he's not been able to get across the goal line. And, you know, there was such a dramatic difference in the quality of play that he demonstrated. He looked absolutely in charge for a good portion of Sunday, definitely during the completion of his third round. He, he shanked one on the ninth hole. went over chipped it to six feet and made saved par and i was like oh he this is this is his tournament to win when you see that it was a shank shank that he hit you know on on number nine but he walked right over calmly chipped it right up there and made the putt um but

you know whether it was the change in weather whether it was the fact of of the grind of the day i'm not sure what to attribute it to but he he certainly fell apart He lost that mojo, that momentum, whatever confidence he was feeling at the end of the third round. And now that's something that we've seen not just out of him, but also Roy McElroy has three top fives this season, two different opportunities to really go try and take a tournament by the jugular. And then Jordan Speath, who has been having these opening round successes, and then as tournaments have gone on. So we have Justin Thomas, Rory Macaroy, and Jordan Spieth, all of whom were at some point, you know, wearing the crown, the youth crown. And the list of winners this season, Shusty, is old dudes. It's, it's J.B. Holmes.

It's Phil Mickelson. It's Justin Rose. And, you know, Ricky is the youngest, I guess. Now, Adam Long did win the Desert Classic. He came out of nowhere. But the list of winners, the two youngest guys are Zander Shoffley, who won the season opener. And then your boy Adam Long at the Desert Classic, but otherwise, a lot of very distinguished, accomplished, multi-time winners on tour.

And we're out of Rory and J.T. and Jordan Speeth, you know, I don't know what to make of it. Should we do like a confidence index on these guys' house? Because I have to say two of the three I am not worried about, despite falling apart at the end. Watching Justin Thomas this weekend was wonderful. He very nearly set a 54-hole scoring record at this tournament, which I think is wildly impressive. Now, he obviously fell apart on Sunday during the last round. Like finishing with the 75 when you come in with a four-shot lead is not acceptable. his putting woes were also not acceptable,

but I think he showed enough to me over the first three rounds and over his first few tournaments this weekend or this year to really give me some confidence. And I will say I started the season really worried about him. I know you and I have talked about this before. He was putting up Instagram stories, taking ice baths after walking around the course in Hawaii and golf not being a contact sport.

That was a little bit concerning for me. But this weekend I thought he did really well and I felt the same about Rory. Jordan Spieth is obviously in a different category right now. He just seems to be kind of wafting through the breeze after the first rounds. And he is the one that I really have no idea what to make of. But the other two, I fully expect big things from this season. Okay.

I like the sound of it. And I like the confidence index. Let's do that this year. We're going to keep track of these young guys. We need a young guy to come back up. Maybe it'll be this week down in Mexico. What a loaded field. I'm very excited.

I mean, Harry Gaillon from Against All Odds is coming on in a minute. We're going to break down the Mexico tournament. This super classy field that we have coming together. Tell me this. Do you have any feelings about your own selection for this Mexico WGC event? My own selection. You know, to be totally honest with you, I'd have a really hard time picking against Phil right now. Wow, Phil.

Love me some Phil. I guess that, sure. Just, you know, defending his title. Now that Tiger's in the mix, I think he'll be playing extra hard. You know, the whole shorts thing just got okayed for practice rounds. And Phil seems pretty excited about that on Twitter. So I think he's feeling great. Beautiful calves, massive calves.

Impeccable calves. I was truly stunned by that photo. That was really something. Phil does fit. It's every other week with Phil. And last week was his off week. So this could be his on week. He is defending.

and we know that he likes Mexico. He does. It's a good one. I love it, Shusty. Great. Thanks. That's golf social for this week. We shall pick it up again next time.

Wonderful. Thanks, House. Thanks, Shusty. And now on the tea, Harry. Ganyon! Yeah, buddy. Yes. You all know him.

You love him. A vital member of the degenerate trifecta on Cousin Sals against all odds. Harry, we had a rough week last week. Boy, it was toughy weekends. My picks last week. Like riding a roller coaster at Magic Mountain. I had Jordan Speed at 25 to 1.

He opened with a brilliant 64, but on Sunday, he tank. Disastrous. 81. Are you kidding me, how? We both... It's unbelievable. That he's been inconsistent with some real bad holes. He actually, on Sunday, went for a double. He had a triple.

And if people don't know what a snowman is, he had an eight. He had an eight on a... Now, Harry, who would he? your number one pick last week? Remind me. Well, I did like, like I said, to be the 25 to 1. I did like Bubba real good because he had won there three times at Riviera

in the past. He finished 15th, not terrible by any means, but what was terrible by all means was my top 20 pick for Martin Laird. Marty finished in a tie for dead last. Now, I know he had to start and then stop with the rain early in the morning, but a horrendous pick nonetheless.

Everyone's got to play in bad condition. Sometimes you get the break, sometimes you don't. but I promise to do much better this week. That was bad. Well, no, look, I, picking winners is hard. We do the best we can. No doubt. I felt like I, you know, together we did a pretty decent job.

I gave out Rory. I liked the narrative. And he was right there, you know, with the last two holes to play in his round. He's three starts this year. He's top five all three so far. That's pretty damn good. I thought he was ready for a moment, and I'm a little disappointed that he didn't birdie 17 and then par 18 to just apply a little bit of pressure, but it was J.B. Holmes to win.

Now, you like J.B. Holmes this season, you had him lined up for the, for the Pebble Beach event, right? I had him. Historically, he'd been playing really well there, and then he just, he didn't get it rolling, just like Laird didn't get it rolling this week. And Laird, like I said last week, very historically, very, very, good at Riviera, it just didn't pan out. And then, of course, heading into the fourth round, he pulls it out.

All right, Harry, so we have you for a special occasion this week. Previous two episodes we've done this week in Tiger Woods with our main man, Chris Vernon, with Verno. This week, you are on the hot seat for this week in Tiger Woods. Now, the first thing we're going to do, we're going to give Tiger a grade for his performance at Riviera last week. What grade would you give, Tiger? You know what? I'm going to give him a better grade than you probably would think.

I'm going to give him a B minus, maybe a B plus, just because, look, he had hit a 30-footer, 35-footer, just to make the cut, and he buried it for Bertie with the field playing the rest of the day on Saturday. And let me just say that, look, he had a decent turning. But what I think what we need to focus in on, leading up to this week in Mexico, where he's finally playing again and the majors, having that unforgettable round. And I think we saw a glimpse of that in his round three performances past week. He opened on the back nine to start his round and went birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie, and then had another eagle on the par five first, which put him seven under through ten holes at the time.

Look house, we are seeing something evolving. I think with Woods, something that might be magical down the road. And when I say down the road, I mean Augusta, wouldn't that be something special to see him alive late on Sunday? It might just happen. Like I said before, we discussed me and you. He's plus 271 a major. 12 to 1 to win the Masters.

He's got a shot. He's playing. He's getting there. And this is playing so much better than he did a year ago at this juncture. Harry, you just turned on the chills machine. You should see the hair standing up on the back of my head. Now, you put it so dramatically. I'm right there with you. I'm giving them a solid B plus. Now, on last week's episode with Verno, I expressed some concern about how taxing this week was going to be for Tiger because it's his event. He's the host. It's his foundation. That's the beneficiary.

He's being pulled in a lot of directions. I mean, he brought out the heavy duty celebrities, the high wattage celebrities were there on Monday. They did the collegiate event where they invite a group of college kids to come compete. And there's money opportunities for their schools associated with that. He's just a lot on his plate for this event. And I said to Chris Vernon, I wondered if this would be an event where Tiger missed the cut. And not that it would be deliberate, but they would miss the cut and then use it to kind of recharge and refuel. And he's playing that host role. But I'll be gosh darn.

if he's not standing there, as you just described at the end of his second round, knowing that he needed to make a put to keep playing, and Tiger Woods, top notch, Eldrick Tiger, zipper zone fashion, he sinks it and then goes off. I mean, you just described the start. It was unbelievable. So I give him a very solid B plus. Now, I'm personally surprised that he's playing in this Mexico event.

I'm impressed. I love whether it's intentional or not the exporting of golf, you know, him going into Mexico. He hasn't played like, you know, this event, this WGC event used to be at Dural when he was healthy. So he's played in this particular event a bunch of times, but he's never played in Mexico since it moved there. And, you know, this field is, it's an incredible field. This is where we get, you know, the real mashup of the best. European guys coming over and all the top U.S. guys and some of these threesomes. I mean, listen to some of these pairings. Tigers playing with Bryson D. Shambo, who he has a great relationship with, but also Abraham Answer, who was raised in Raynosa, Mexico. Do you think that's going to be a popular group for folks to walk around with? You have Phil Mickelson playing with Justin Thomas and DJ, Dustin Johnson, Phil J.T. DJ? What? What do we talk? And then look at this one. John Rom, Patrick Reed and Ricky Fowler,

I would love, I mean, you know, I know Rom and Reed will get along just just fine, but those are two guys who run hot. Like you can imagine there being a little bit of, man, I would, I've just, I'd love a little spice, a little Mexican flavor out of, out of, out of somebody getting their nose out of joint. And then look at this one, this firepower, Brooks Kepka, Rory Maca Roy, Bubba Watson. Good God, Harry. Oh, wow, wow. Bubba's played good there. You know, it's going to be interesting to see. Brooks hasn't played too many events lately, so it's going to be interesting to see how he gets off, too, you know?

Well, as is our way. Let's go ahead and give out our epic flash picks of the week. And this is Epic Flash by Calloway. the number one driver on tour. And by the way, the driver played by non-staffer J.B. Holmes. J.B. Holmes played a Callaway Epic Flash sub-zero and won at Riviera with it. He put it in his bag for the first time down to Tori.

That's pretty damn good, Harry. He's not a Calaway guy, but he likes that driver. So let's talk. I mean, this is just a wealth of riches. It's going to be really, I find a field like this so, hard to try and, and, you know, make a selection out of. I know who I'm going to pick. I have one guy in mind, but let's just talk about some names before we get to the ultimate selection. Give me two or three names that you're thinking about. Sure. Yeah, you know what? I'm going to,

you know, three years. And last year, J.T., Justin Thomas, the year before, he finished fifth. And I know Justin Thomas probably didn't sleep well on Sunday or at all after blowing that four-shot league. I mentioned the Homs. I'm sure he's going to be fired up all week and can get him at 10 to 1. Like I said, he lost the film a playoff in Mexico last year, so maybe he's still focused and he's going to be a rebound. I think

a guy to look at his spaniard Rafa Cabrera Bello. He finished one back last year and shot in the 60s every round last year. I'm seeing his odds on a whopping 50 to 1. And a couple of guys, you know, our guy that

we mentioned, Cameron Smith, you can get it 66 to 1. And my guy that I mentioned you a couple times how Tong Lee is it 66 to 1? So I'm looking at those at maybe even Bubba, who's played like I said there well before and he's already at these WGC events he's played well in.

I want to say in the last seven years, he's come in second three times in this tournament, whether, wherever it's at. So at 35 to 1. So I like Bubba and there is an angle here that I'm interested in your thoughts on. This venue uses the same grass combination.

It has cuckoooo-fairways and some cuckoo-you rough. And on the greens, it's a mix of poa and bent grass. So it's the same combination as what they use at Riviera. I'm wondering if the guys who just experienced that, you know, that was like that combination was on steroids because it's not typical at Riviera for them to be playing a 25-mile an hour wins sustained over the number of hours and then not to mention you know all the water and everything yeah exactly uh i'm wondering if if the guys coming right from riviera are going to have

an immediate familiarity uh when they arrive it's just going to feel you know like like what they've been doing all week long and maybe that'll be uh something that feels like like kind of a a relief you mentioned uh uh rafa cabralia beio i like his odds uh he's uh he's uh he's odds uh he's here. I thought he played pretty good at Riviera last week. I'm also looking at Hideki Matsuyama. He's available at 30 to 1 and finished top 10 down at Riviera last week. And, you know, he has some, some nice advanced metrics that suggests that he could be ready. Now, he, he, uh, didn't put great last week, but these, these greens are, are like a full marker slower. on the stimp meter.

You know, they're running about 11, and it was 12 plus for sure at Riviera, probably closer to 13 as the afternoon went on. It's going to be hard for me. My Epic Flash, Calloway Epic Flash pick of the week, I just can't stay away from Justin Thomas.

I mean, this is the moment. He's available 10 to 1 odds. Those are bad odds. I think I might live bet him. I'm going to root for him to have a mediocre first round, and then live bet. him after his first round and have him come out and burn the house.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And then maybe on Friday. I mean, what he just showed, I feel like he's going to have such a sour taste in his mouth after last week that I just feel like he might come out and burn the house down. Give me your number one pick for the week. You know what? I think I'm going to jump on with you. I got to jump on me and you around the same side.

I think I got to go with Justin Thomas, too, just because the, you know, you notice like on 16 on Sunday, he got that birdie and it got him close. He got, I think got it within one of, of Holmes, and he was so pumped up because he knew he was having such a rough day. And that guy, he just still couldn't get over the hump, and he still came in second. He couldn't pull it off against Holmes. But I think, like, he is determined. He is driven to get that done. And, you know, like I said, in the last two years, he's finished second, he's finished fifth at this course. Same situation, like you said, same stuff.

He plays well there in Riviera. He plays well here. So I think it 10 to 1, I agree with you. Maybe you'll hold off to have a nice round and then die down later on and maybe grab Justin Thomas at maybe fifth. Like I said, 15, 17, 18 to 1 and hope that he plays a great on the weekends. Like I said, last year, on the weekend, he shot a 62 on Saturday there, and he shot a 64 on something. to even get close in a tie with Phil. Yeah, so that that's what we're after.

Let's have a repeat of that because that means his odds Friday night. That's when I'm going to go online. His odds Friday night were, you know, not looking great. So we're going to get some good value out of JT. I love it when we going together. I hope we're not a mush. I hope we're not a combined. I hope it's not a combined mush, Harry.

There we go, my par saving pals. Harry, as always, appreciate your input. Let's go, JT. Let's get something this week, buddy. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right, there we go, my birdie buddies. We are scheduled to have next week off,

but I have to tell you if something extraordinary happens involving one Eldrick Tiger Woods, I'm going to insist on having a podcast about it. But otherwise, the schedule calls for a little bit of a breather, and then we're hitting the ground running with Bay Hill.

We're going all the way straight through the Masters week after week of Fairway Rowland with spectacular guests and hopefully lots of very helpful analysis and tips for your fantasy points and your pocket books. Until next time, we will be rolling on a fairway. Rolling! Part of the Ringer Podcast Network.