Fairway Rollin' - Pat Mayo on the Honda Classic, LIV's CW Debut, and Arnold Palmer Invitational Picks

Episode Date: February 28, 2023

House and Hubbard are joined by Pat Mayo to discuss Eric Cole's and Chris Kirk’s performances at the Honda Classic (03:27). Then, they talk about their takeaways from the West Coast Swing (13:47) before diving into LIV Golf’s television debut on the CW and the problems facing the league (18:55). Finally, they talk about some of their favorite bets for the Arnold Palmer Invitational (41:08). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Pat Mayo Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Kevin O'Connor. I've got some big news for you. The mismatch is hosting its first ever live show in Los Angeles at the L.Rae Theater on March 6th. Me and Chris Vernon are going to be there. I'm fired up about it. At the L.R.R. There's been performers like Bob Dylan and Kendrick Lamar and Rage against the Machine in Licky Lee.

I'm fired up. Get to be on that stage with my guy, Chris Vernon. We've been together since 2016 doing NBA podcasts. And now we're going to get to meet a lot of you who have listened. to our show for so many years. We'll do a Q&A at the end. We might have some special guests, but we're definitely going to be talking basketball.

It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm excited about it. Tickets are going fast, though, so be sure to head to the LRA.com to get your tickets now. Doors are going to open at 7 p.m. And the show is going to be starting right at 8 o'clock. Let's go, baby. Hello, friends, and welcome this off podcast.

Unlike any of them. Oh, yes, my friends. We have done it. We are back. This is Faraway Row. The Gold Podcasts on the Ringer Podcast Network. I am your starter. Joe House joined as I am every week by my incomparable accomplice, our PGA tour correspondent, the boots on the ground.

Nathan Hubbard, this week, my friends, a special addition to the crew along for the whole ride. an award-winning fantasy golf journalists, among many, many, many other credentials. My second favorite Canadian, Patrick Mayo from the PME experience, the Mayo Media Megalopolis. He's on board. The first T's wide open.

It's going to be a three ball today. Three pegs in the ground. The fairway is looking juicy. Let's get this going. Nate Dog, how you feeling, buddy? I'm feeling like I got to understand and how Pat Mayo knew to play Eric Cole last week. That's how I'm feeling. Fortunately, we have him sitting right here with us.

What do you know? We do have very few rules here on Fairway Rowland, but one of them is when one of the homies goes out and takes down an enormously prestigious award, we must have that homie on the pod. We're talking to the Fantasy Writers Association podcast of the year. I mean, I saw a giant check associated with that, with that prestigious award, Pat Mayo. Tell me you got a giant check. Yeah, I wish.

I did put out there that I will be keeping the $150,000 that goes along with the award. Of course, there is no $150,000. In fact, they make me pay for the shipping for the award to come to me. So I'm really out of pocket. They're fantasy writers. I probably should have won at this point. My goodness. Well, but you got to tell us.

We talked about Chris Kirk last week. Surprise, surprise, so did everybody. He was absolutely due. It's a lovely story. Put aside the ridiculousness on 18 that probably got your junk moving in all kinds of ways because you thought you were going to win. What is it that you saw in this mini tour god who has had very few starts on the PGA tour and really hadn't shown us much, save for AT&T, Pebble Beach that got him in your dance card?

Well, the big thing was he was my sleeper to jour at Sony earlier this year. And I had never heard of Eric Cole. Apparently he'd been playing during the swing season. I was like, all right, who the hell is this guy? So I did a bit of a deeper dive on him using my fantastic tool, Fantasynational.com. Shout out to anyone out there who wants to get in. We have a very special two for one, Wednesday to Wednesday deal. Fantasynational.com slash mail.

Get you 20% off to do all the research. someone's going to make picks for you because that's ridiculous. You make your own picks, but you know, you can go in and research all you want. And I did that with Eric Cole. So I was looking through him from basically the Houston Open on. He started off the swing season, very poor, miscut, miscut, miscut, miscut, and then all of a sudden you just start looking at these numbers. So I always just overweight strokes gained approach every single week, as everyone kind of knows. It's the most important thing that you can do.

And I see in Houston gained, RSM, he gained. I was like, okay, that's not so bad. Can't drive the ball worth a lick, as it turns out. He weighs 135 pounds. Well, I mean, he put it out there 330 on 18. Now, getting all jazzed up trying to go for it for Kirk put it into the water. So he has enough swing speed on it. But the biggest thing to me this week was, so he had been on my radar for a little bit.

And it's funny because I can really, I wrote him up last week in my newsletter. I wrote him up in Golf Digest. And the big thing was he ranks top five in the field and scrambling and sand saves for the year. He plays really well on these shorter courses. And his chipping ability is like top five in the field. field. That is until you need to get up and down for Bertie on the 70 second. I was going to say, it would have been nice with a one stroke lead and your knees start to buckle a little bit. Then it's a little bit different. But I kind of shit on the Honda field last week.

I would have preferred there be, listen, I don't need an elevated event every week. But if I could have got Ricky and day and like that next level of player, I don't need Rom and Rory everywhere we go, but to have like three or four more names, it really would have got my juices going, but having 175 to 1 outright, who should have won in the final grouping going into Sunday, did it enough for me. So I kind of retract my statement. This is kind of a nice building week for the PGA tour. We're going to get a few of these sandwiched in between all of the elevated events that it's time to create some new stars. I'm not saying Eric Cole is going to be a star. And realistically, the reason I got onto him, he's won like 54 times on the Florida minor league

golf leagues. So he's played this course a bunch. He's very familiar with Burmese. Utah. And listen, when you bet someone 175 to 1, you just want to chip in a chair by Sunday to see if they can get you into contention. Once he rolls in a 60 foot pot on number five, you're like, all right, maybe he could be said Straka of this year. But, you know, Kirk played, I mean, it's funny because I've lost three triple digit winners in a playoff in this event over the past seven years. I lost Burger and his debut to Patty Harrington. I lost Luke List against Justin Thomas. And I had a huge number on Brooks. the year the Keith Mitchell won. And it was funny because Kirk could have made power and won it in regulation. And the put that he had was exactly the same put Keith Mitchell made to win the tournament against Brooks and Rookie to sink me that year. So that didn't happen. I was like, oh, third times a charm. This is got to be perfect. Kirk hits it behind a tree, has to lay up. What is that shot? Exactly the shot Justin Thomas had against Luke List that Justin Thomas also put to six inches tapped in and scum me that week.

So the Honda just kills me, man. The Honda gets my heart rate going and it just leaves me and just a pile of tears. You're literally seeing ghosts. You're recalling these situations over the past. I know it's fantastic. And I love it so much. I do want to acknowledge, you know, Nate, you mentioned Eric Cole's weight. He has Addison's disease, which is, you know, affects a gland thing.

No, no, I'm just saying. You know, it is a testament to his success. I mean, the mother effort is out there grinding on the minor league tour and catching Ws everywhere. Like, that's the kind of guy you want in that tense situation. I mean, Mr. Mayo was watching with great appetite. I mean, he was licking his lips with Cole. The only thing that would be a knock from my own perspective.

And I really thought that. You're going to say it. You know. You're really going to talk about the job. You can't, there's no winners. No winners in joggers. No winners in joggers. Evr won.

Evr has win. He may have been plus 3,000 this week, but he won. He doesn't count. He doesn't count. That was kind of a corn fairy tour event. Although I guess this one counts is sort of a corned ferry tour event. What? Honda?

No. He had, I mean, legendary. Look, Zinger said it over and over and over again, but he hadn't missed inside of 20 feet until coming down the stretch. So he did show a lot of stones for a 34-year-old. old rookie. Look, it's going to go one way or the other. When he gets into contention, he's either going to just completely melt and collapse or he's going to hang in there. And frankly, they were kind of giving it to each other coming down the stretch.

You take it. You take it. You take it. But it's still made for some compelling golf, I have to say. I enjoyed it. Yeah, because there were stakes, right, Mayo? They were like really playing for something. The winner of this event goes to the Masters. That's something. Oh, I totally forgot about that. I didn't even think, I mean, in terms of Kirk, yeah, Kirk probably would have played himself into it anyway because we're getting to Bay Hill where he actually just kind of cleans up top 10 checks every single year. But with Eric Cole, I was thinking like he wins this event. He gets his tour card for three years.

Like that would be so huge. Like that is real drama to me, even if people have never heard who Eric Cole is. And I know viewers of my show were like on pins and needles the entire time. It's like, oh my God, are we going to have golf season paid off for just through Eric Cole coming through with one more. But like, it was kind of unfair though. So he he overcooks the draw into 18 a little bit, knowing Kirk's in the water that he can get it up and down.

And it was a nice spot to try to get it up and down. But if you were Chris Kirk from the day before, why don't just walk your ball back? I don't know, 35 yards to get the perfect angle to the pin and chip it that way. Is that, shouldn't the play on 18 just be hook it into the grandstands and take your drop wherever you want? That is professional golf. That's the we've seen it, uh, a multiple. number of times that thus far this season.

I mean, they all use the stands as a backstop. That's exactly right. It's, it's, it's wonderful. It adds to the overall success. I want to make sure that we mentioned, speaking of Eric Cole, he has a deep connection to Bayhill. I mean, have you seen this, this about him, Pat Mayo, in your own research thus far?

I haven't. I don't want to hear, though, it's like with Sam Saunders all those years where it's like, How could he lose? Well, he's never played it in the, in the API, but he's played it. He's from this area or close enough. And he won the club championship at this thing, you know, in the last like 15 years or so. I'm just saying, like, if you want to throw a little bit down maybe a top 40 or something like that, it's still got to be plus odds, right? Oh, yeah.

He's 250 to 1 to win this tournament. Yeah, and listen, I like him. He was good at Pebble. I worry about the length of this course for him. because it was the shorter courses, RSM, Sony, Hebel, Honda. And we're going to get 20 mile an hour wins at least Thursday and Friday. This is going to be blowing pretty good. It's going to be a tough one for the shorter guys.

I just got to ask you before we get off Honda, though, because this is probably the last time we're going to see the Honda, which it sounds like is good for your wallet. But there is something to these events that aren't the designated elevated ones that feels like it could be an advantage for people who are paying. attention. You paid attention. You did your work. You saw that Cole could be an interesting player. Most of the golf betting public is going to have events like whatever this iteration of the Honda is going to be in the future. And we're going to get another one, you know,

week after the Masters. There's going to be a number of these events this season that are a bunch of who are they's. But if you do the work, you can really sip through and get an advantage relative to something like this week. Don't you think, Mayo? I do. Like, we were on a bunch of of long shots last week that all ended up there. Like if Justin's Sue just had made a putt on Saturday or Sunday walking away with a nice wind. Yeah, I had felt like a coming out party for him this week for sure. He's struggled coming off the KFT, but boy, this was a big week for him. He's a real player. I've been watching him for about two years now. And you can see it. It's all there, but the putter is a real problem for him when it starts. I mean, on Saturday, he didn't

hit a put outside of three feet. That's not an exaggeration. That was the actual. Stats. And he still shot 70 at a very difficult course. That's how dialed in. His ball striking was. This week I had Cole, Sue, and Ben Taylor. And they were all right there. but of course Chris Kirk who I scoffed at at 20 to 1 or whatever he was. It was like Chris Kirk, you know, he probably rightfully is him and Billy Horshaw were the third and fourth best players in this field. But now I'm betting them at the same number. I bet Max Homa every week. It's like that doesn't feel right.

So I went long shots. Fortunately, top fives also pay. So that's that makes me feel somewhat good. Yeah, it covers off a nice nut. We're catching you at a good time in the season because we have in the rearview mirror fresh, the western. West Coast swing. And then we have this little breather at Honda. We're in the Florida swing,

but we have two absolute bangers back to back here in terms of the money and the quality of the fields. 23 of the top 25 in the official world golf ranking here at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. And then the following week is the players. What's your sort of overall takeaway from the West Coast swing? What did you think about the elevated events? How did it feel dramatic to you?

you? Did you like the presentation of the of the game? Like, what's your overall sort of sentiment? I think that the elevated events are working out as well as probably they could have imagined that they're working out. When you jam all these guys into a field at fun courses that people are familiar with or, hell, listen, Phoenix, no one really knew anything about it 10 years ago. Over the past, like, five, six years, it's really grown in stature. And I know it's not one of the elevated events every single year. At least that's my understanding of it, that they're going to rotate some of these around. The RIV is going to have its status every year. Bay Hill is going to have its status every single year. Same as Memorial. So it's nice to see courses we all enjoy

coming on at a good time. And when your leaderboards can be Shephler, JT, Romm, and Nick Taylor, which I think is a really important part of this because we saw Keith Mitchell at Rive as well, work himself into the mix. I am firmly against making these. 70 person no cut events. I think that's stupid. I think that takes away from the actual drama that goes into it. Yeah, Nick Taylor comes in second. He won $2.4 million.

That's more than he wanted any one of his other wins throughout the course of his PGA tour career. And he had a legit chance to win that. Like that is like Rory going and winning the Masters this year and completing the Grand Slam. If Nick Taylor can win one of these elevated events, like that's insane for what it does for his career. So I still want that element to it.

Because like I mentioned, I kind of ragged on the field at Honda last week because there was no one really in it. But it gave us this drama that is very difficult to produce anywhere else. And this Eric Cole story or whoever it was that was going to make the run. You had, oh, the Ricky Bobby's main opponent, Jean Gerard, end up inside the top five. And I don't know if he was smoking the long cigarettes or not or whether or not he's from France. I think that's just Martin Traynor at this point. But like those stories. He made that up.

He made that up. He was the Monday qualifier, right? Yeah, Ryan Gerard is his name. Ryan Gerard, I know. You took that in a whole direction. I had the Canadians. I got to keep him on their toes. Watch out.

I mean, you're lucky I didn't break out my Francaux, you know, to go through this. We'll save that for the French Open week. But that's a real story. There was a guy, I forget, he was another qualifier who chipped in on his 36th hole to make the cut. And maybe it's because I'm paying more attention to it. I was paying a little bit of attention to the Singapore, Open, or not the Singapore Open, the Hero Indian this week, which is like the most, it looks like a mini golf course.

I think there's windmills on the course. And some of these pot bunkers are just, they make the Pete Dye ones at Amex look like Gibronyville. These ones are like real hits that you have to hit out of. Either way, there's real drama that comes as a part of this. Maybe you don't get that every single week at these non-elevated events. But I thought the stories were compelling enough to satiate the guy that's watching every single week. The elevate events are very clearly going to get the higher ratings. They're going to draw the interest. When you get these stacked leaderboards at the end with real stakes coming down

on Sunday with all of the names you know, that's going to be a ratings bonanza every single time. But now that we get to these events, there was something different. And I know that weather kind of played a bit of a factor with Pebble. Pebble didn't seem compelling to me. This did feel compelling to me. And Nate, you mentioned there's going to be no more Honda as the title sponsor, but we can't lose this course, just like we can't lose Pebble. And Maybe there was a calculated effort to say, hey, we'll get these ones for the elevated events on the year around. Like if we know we're losing Honda anyway because it has the worst spot on the schedule, well, maybe if a new sponsor comes in next year, maybe it can be an elevated event next year and use that as a bartering chip in the negotiations. Yeah.

It was striking to me how much different. This felt a little bit like Napa earlier this year, the Fortinet Championship, where you could tell the sponsor. wasn't particularly pleased. You could tell that the tournament is probably not going to stay on the schedule in the way it currently is. There's a lot of uncertainty. You saw a lot of empty seats out there.

But man, the most remarkable thing was how much different the stripped down NBC Golf Channel coverage looked relative to CBS in the past couple weeks. Is it going to get better at API? Are they going to do more drone? Are they going to do more

sort of of the visual and technology that we saw on CBS. I actually missed it and I think that is a credit to how quickly we became accustomed to it on CBS. Can they replace A-Zinger with Chat-G-T and see how that works? Chat-G-T with Zinger's voice

as the voice of it. It would make him sound very informed. I'll tell you that much. You guys have unwittingly several times now talked about how compelling this past week was and much of the Western Coast.

Was there another golf tournament this week? I don't know. Well, I mean, it depends on your definition of a golf tournament. Golf was competed down in Mexico. Was there an exhibition? At a resort and it was a bunch of dudes and shorts, like hats backward. Not Cam Smith. Or Patrick Reed.

Both of them had pants on. Was your caddy work in their house? I don't know. That's a great question. I didn't look for toucan. But I'm sure that I hope he had to have been on somebody's bag down there, the two can. And I'm sure he was well compensated in view of the purse.

It was on the CW. My favorite part of the broadcasts were the commercials because the shows on the CW are fucking awesome. I want to watch all of them now. And I'll save, you know, I'll do a review. based on the commercials as we go along through this season of Fairway Rowland but I just want to start that and putting that out there

wait to you see the CW commercials this shows that they're touting they are sick but speaking of sick I came to this with an open mind I was prepared to be wowed well I mean a healthy skepticism because it's an event with no cut

so where's the what's going to get the juices flowing Yeah, before the event, I went to the leadboard. I was like, God, they actually have some guys. I mean, they have some names, I wonder. And that was the last time I thought about it until I saw Bryson's Instagram story. Oh, I missed Bryson's Instagram story. See?

That's, you know, I was. Celebrating his crushers win. I did commit some time to it, a decent amount of time. And just, well, there is a stark. dramatic contrast between what we understand to be the amount of money flowing into the pockets of the players and the amount of money that seemed to have been spent on the production of this competition small sea because the t-ball shots sucked the tracking of the ball sucked the shot tracker the shot the tracker sucked the shots into the green sucked one the only thing that

didn't suck was i i enjoyed the the light euro uh dance club feel i felt like i was sitting you know at the at the pier you know down in the dominican republic having some sushi with the light euro music in the in the background the dude the dance music i mean other than that it was a resort event at a resort with dudes dressed like there at a resort sushi at a dominican resort that's a terrible idea i did it i did it it was right on the water explains a few things it's delicious I loved it. Anyway, that's my review. Did either of you catch any of this thing? I caught two chicks making out go into commercial. That was like the picture that was circulating

around the internet. So I mean, in on that, if they want to make that a part of the live broadcast, why not, right? They need to come up with some compelling angle would be my humble submission. Nate, did you see any of it? I did not see any of it. What I did see was Sally Jenkins, the esteemed writer for the Washington Post and the piece that she put out today and I just want to read you the first sentence

that she wrote, the airborne toxic event called Live Golf is slowly dissipating and soon all that will be left is the mere faint scent of its portable toilets. I mean, this is how it's being covered.

This was, we talked about at the beginning of the year, this was supposed to be the time. And it doesn't help when Chucky Three Sticks wins the tournament, although he's a perfectly wonderful human being

and it's great that he got the win. But when you've got supposedly the star power competing with the Honda, you would like to see the star power take over. But man, there is just, it feels like there's a death spiral right now. And I know some people can be like, well, give it. But like, the only thing that's going to save this, and by the way, it may well happen is one of those guys winning a major this year in the head-to-heads. Otherwise, I think we're in a death spiral.

They either have to compete. And the best thing would be, I really think at the Masters, if somehow it's like Rom and DJ Rory and Bright. Like if there can be three, it'd be great live guys and two of the top PGA guys, like that's a ratings bonanza for CBS. They are praying for that to happen. And keeping Liv somewhat viable.

I think I was on the show about a year ago when Liv first started going. I was not necessarily optimistic, but I seem to have the least pessimistic view about Liv. And I still do. Like, it's not going to run out of money anytime soon. And it's a sports league that's in year two. it's not going to be the greatest thing,

but they do do some things right. And the PG is going to steal that at some point. Like, we kind of mock like the shot tracker and all that stuff, the Euro music going on, which I find hilarious. But how's when you're watching it, the don't blink stuff means they're actually showing shots, which is compelling to me. I would say,

I would agree with you except for though they're in like low deaf. I don't know if there's such a thing. It's low deaf, but they're in low death. Like, I'm glad to have. Here's the Kethe's. up you know we're we're gonna catch you up this is the don't blank okay great it's a it's a six and a half second snippet of of a put that on on grainy footage uh i mean you know all right now i'm up in speed when there's only 48 guys competing i'm not really getting lost uh although the

o t b style uh tracker of uh where the teams stand you know every second is a little bit distracting the perpetual OTB tracker on the left side of the picture. The bigger picture, I will continue to watch it. I'll continue to have an open mind. It needs to be an interesting and entertaining TV products. It's a TV show on Saturday on television. So if I give me a reason to watch the TV show that's not like morbid curiosity

over how shitty does Brooks Keppka look. Well, and speaking of, yeah, but speaking of TV shows, It was in a backhanded way. I realized this week, the Netflix thing killed it for me, man. I mean, just showing me directly in no uncertain terms why Brooks and why Polter left just had me go, man, I don't really,

I don't watch the Champions tour, and I'm not going to watch this tour. And maybe there's some people for whom this works, and of the 0.2% of households that were watching this thing in markets where it was on, I'm pretty sure the demo is probably skis. you younger than the PGA tour. But now what?

What are you going to do with it? Is this going to grow the game? And Mayo, I'm not seeing a product right now that is substantively different, which means it's just dilution. And we just don't care enough about those guys relative to the product that already exists, do we? So two things. One, there is something to this team concept.

I really do believe that. Is there? Yeah, there is. Because to make it different. Like this is the one thing that really truly makes it different from the PGA tour is that, oh, I have a big bet this season for the range goats to be the number one team on

Live. That's not true. It's not looking good. It is. There was one book that posted Live Futures, and it was when they were, like, doing the draft. So the consensus was going to be that like Hudson Swofford, this is Bubba Watson's team, by the way. Yeah, well, I'm intimately

familiar with the goats. Can you name all of the teams on Live? No, no, no, no. I feel like I could name eight or nine, but Not all. The gleaks? The cleaks. I could do the cleeks.

The Nutflict. The Nutflicts. The dirty taints. What happened was, just the tips. You had the Bubba Watson team, and they were listed at 33 to 1, the second worst of all the teams. And that was with the assumption that I think it was going to be like Henny Duplessis, my guy, not that good, but I do like him. And Hudson Swofford, then all of a sudden they just end up with Thomas Peters and HV3 on their team. out of nowhere.

So they left these odds hanging. So like me and just a circle of degenerates just started hammering these live futures. We'll see how it goes. Gouge got himself into the mix last week. And I do think it positions itself well for the team concept. If they can explain it and get it to catch on, hence why they constantly have the team shit all over the screen at all times. They're really trying to pound that home. And they are actually going to play all over the world.

I don't know if the rest of the world is going to care. But it's more than the PGA tour does. this point. Like, if there is a tournament, I don't know where all the tournaments are, but if there's a tournament in Singapore, I can assure you, the live tournament in Singapore is going to be much better than the Singapore Open at the DP World Tour ran there two weeks ago in terms of star power. So there are little things. They just have to do it and execute. And that seems to be the most difficult proposition for them right now. But honestly, it doesn't matter what they do this year. If they can get guys into contention in majors that everyone is watching, that's going to do more for

this tour than anything else they can actually do with a TV product. Just getting a TV product was something I think that most people this time last year never thought would be possible. No, yeah, it's a fair enough point. I mean, their revenue sharing and those CW shows, hopefully they're pulling a lot of, a lot of eyeballs. Chase Kepta was 15, Kepka was 15 over par. And he didn't finish last. Hey, well, it's because you got Schwanee Kim, man. What about, what did Phil finish? He wasn't under par. He was, not living under par. Anyway, to Mayo's point, and this is why I will continue to try and be open-minded,

they are going to Australia, and it's going to be effing huge. I think they're going to get big crowds. There is a big Australian contingent. I think it's going to be, you know, the Australian golf community, golf public has been, you know, begging for big players to come. It's why that President's Cup felt so big time at the end of, what was, Was it 2019? Yeah.

It was sensational. And those crowds were humongous. And we had the best players, you know, it was, Tiger was out there. You know, it was a full contingent and compliment of all the best players across the world. So I will not render judgment. I just want an interesting television show. That's my requirement out of the Live Tour in the next couple of events. They are playing in Singapore.

That is one of the stops. Yeah. All right. You didn't know that? No, I did. It seems, this seems like a big miss. They're not playing any South African tournaments. I don't know what to tell you.

Yeah, who knows? Well, you say Australia and I agree with you, but it does seem like they've kind of cornered the market on great South African players, at least the most notable ones as well. Like when you can run Louis and Charles out there, they're the most successful ones from the past 10 years. They're the ones that would play in the Joe Berg Open and the Elford Dunhill non-Links tournament that happens in like December every year. Now, I think that one of them did play.

in that this year because, you know, they just want their guys to come and play. But I thought that would have been another good spot to, you know, grow the game. That's what it's all about. But Nate, Nate, I have to ask you, you said that, you know, Charles Howell the Third, Gladdy won, good guy. It's funny how when you see someone who's like kind of washed like Charles Howell the third, no one begrudges the fact that he went to live. Yeah. It's, look, I, I really thought that they were going to fix it this week. I, the fact that Chuck 3361 means that at least for now, they're not giving these guys a script.

I would have bet a lot of money that they would have gone, because there's no fucking rules. Who cares? Like, go to Chuckie 36 the night before and be like, you're going to blade a few wedges. And, you know,

you go to a couple of the guys who were in the chase. Like, Cam Smith didn't finish that far back. And you just rig the whole damn thing. Like, why wouldn't they? It's not off the table that this thing's going to be scripted at some point. See, I don't think so

because I don't think their ratings depend on D.D. and Brooks ending up at the top because it's all about the team, right? If the business model is what they've said, which is... There is no business model. We understand. I got it. But they claim that the teams themselves will be up for sale, that they will, the teams

themselves are responsible for attracting sponsors and that they'll generate value through, I don't know what, non-competitive golf and everybody's watching on television. How do you respond to the report that? DJ lost as Adidas sponsorship basically because he insisted and maybe it was contractually required to have Adidas sponsored the entire team and they looked at Patrick Reed and others on four aces and said thanks but no thanks. That seems to be a pretty damning indictment of the team model in the moment at this point. Yeah. And this is also a brand new concept. I would understand that that would happen. And I think it did come out at the majors when they play. They're wearing like

their team colors and team logos at the majors. Like that will raise awareness. That's actually a pretty good idea from their front. But one of the things that you do get, if you believe in the team concept, that Charles Howell wins. What does that mean? Well, that means Bryson also wins. It just gives you more opportunities to put these guys, kind of on TV, I suppose, on cable,

at least to get them out there. And they can celebrate. It makes it look like, you know, Bryson's doing more than he did if he has a shit week. Well, he also won because his team won. and just find different ways to get, you know, these guys looking like winners on TV. Still all trial and error. Like, if you didn't have Greg Norman in there, I feel like this could be somewhat not successful, but it wouldn't be a pseudo laughing stock at the same time.

It is a laughing stock right now. It's a laughing stock. And it's a laughing. You know what? It's a laughing stock to people who follow golf, cover golf, and are super into it, which isn't a high percentage of the population. Like, I was talking to my dad, and he's like kind of intrigued. by it because he knows these names.

That's right. This is the whole thing. They successfully grabbed enough. Those guys are TV stars. Think about how many times over the course of a year, over the last half decade, those guys have been on TV. You know what I mean?

Those are household names. This is going to, I mean, Shipnuck was down there. And just following his writing through the course of the couple of days, he seemed to at least come out with a little bit more of an open mind. So I'm saying it's a laughing stock, not because it's going to stay there, but this could be a fascinating story if they can actually find a way to pull this off. My own belief is that the golf watching audience just is not big enough in the same way that House, did you watch the USFL this weekend? XFL.

XFL, I mean? Well, the defenders are are pretty tough. The DC defenders, so I did catch a little bit of them. They like to play a smash mouth brand of football. as akin to the old hogs, the good old days with Rigo, here in the DC area. Did it make your pod with Simmons and Jacoby on Sunday night? You know what? You know what it did?

Inflated my bank account when DC Defenders minus three and a half came through. Yeah. That is the final piece of this. That's a really missing. All the crazy shit. Mayo, can we bet on whether Tiger's going to play the players? We can't, but I would guess. that he's going to play somewhere.

And match play makes no sense. You think he's going to play before Augusta? Yeah, I don't get, if I were him, I'd play Valsma. If like that's a low pressure event, you do some good for the tour because it's, you know, the week after the players. Is he really going to win the players? I guess theoretically, it's a good course for him to come out and compete at. He doesn't need to, it's pretty flat.

You don't need to bomb it 350 yards. You can, you know, you can go stinger off the tuit every single time if you want to and turn it into a putting contest. It is a course where shorter hitters really can compete. So he wouldn't have to use all of his facilities in order to get that done. But he's played well. I remember the first time that he came back and we were wondering, you know, does Tiger have it?

Does Tiger not? And he almost won Valispar. I think it was the-Bal-Barras. He was tracking down Patrick Reed, right? Yeah, and Casey ended up winning. Reed made that put. I had bet on Patrick. It's funny.

Honest God, I'm going to wrap this back around with Liv for a second. But I had bet on Patrick Reed that week. He had a put to beat Paul Casey on the 70 second hole. He was down the hill on the 18th Green, got it up the hill, and it just rolled back down the hill. And then he missed the next putt, and then he lost the tournament to Paul Casey. Mayo, you're like the Sean McVeigh of like photographic memory, but only of things that have crushed your wallet. Yeah. And the next year, Casey won again because Coprack couldn't get it up and down with my money on him on the 70 second hole.

So, but Adam Adwin might win there. Maybe you bet on Casey. What about that idea? Yeah, well, he was like, you want to bet on Paul? I can't win Paul Casey at 16 to 1. I understand. I have a story I'll tell you offline. I'm not allowed to say it on the podcast.

That would make me bet on Paul Casey. But Livtor, this is the main thing that they're doing wrong. We can pile, throw into a bucket everything that they're doing wrong. But the segment of the golf viewing community that they could really speak to is the Daily fantasy community, the gambling community. And I can't even get stats from this event. I can't get a real-time leaderboard from this event. You just hit the nail on the head.

That's where the entertainment value resides. That's what would make it compelling. Because so many of these guys you want to bet against or bet on, they're polarizing personalities. And we've all bet on them a whole bunch already. Give us the data. There's a muscle memory to it. Oh, yeah, I have 50 bucks on Brooks. Kepka.

Of course I do because it's, you know, XYZ and this is the scenario and blah, blah, blah, right? But they're just not leaning into that. If they could find some way to give us accurate data, or at least real-time data, they've done the one thing the PGA tour can't do, which is show us every shot. That's great.

I can follow along with my guys. That would be perfect. But if you just start generating sports betting, all of a sudden it becomes a bit more appealing to pay attention to. I wasn't given a reason to watch it this weekend. You're right. That's exactly right. The house.

Make Mayo commissioner this thing. No, no, no, no. I want him to save all his good ideas for the good golf that we have in front of us. I will take the money. I am here to say that right now. I have no doubt about that, considering the fake $150,000 that you didn't get for your fantasy award. Birdie buddies do not miss your chance to step up to the tea and take a swing at betting the PGA tour on Fandul. Right now, new customers can bet the tour with a.

no sweat first bet up to $1,000 back in bonus bets. We just went through an enormous dance card for the Arnold Palmer invitational. I have a liking for the guys in the 30 to one class or so. You're Victor Howlins, your Turrell Atkins. And then long shot guys, Gary Woodland's 90 to 1. That's a major winner. Billy Horshaw also 90 to 1. I like that class coming into this.

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in West Virginia. Let's try and make some money. We have an unbelievable event staring us right in the face, 23 of the top 25 in the world. I won't spare, I won't make you go through whether or not the official world golf ranking is an accurate representation of the current best players in the world or not

because it's too stupid for us. Yeah, the odds, you know what? That should be the world golf ranking. That's right. Here's a neutral course, set some odds of who's going to win. That's a fact. We are in lockstep as always. Mayo, is ball striking important at this golf course?

I think overall Tita Green is very important at this golf course. Because we've seen, like, listen, on paper, the way that you win this tournament is, A, don't put it in the water. That's step one, just like it was last week. So does that mean you need to be the best driver? Well, Bryson did that. Bryson won this tournament by driving and putting. You need to have a combination of either like irons and putting, driving and putting, driving and chipping, something like that.

Two of the four strokes gain metrics really need to pop for you to win this event. It doesn't have to be putting. You can put well, not great, and get away with it because you could chip really well. And then you don't have to make 60 footputs or something like that. But if you're driving's off a little bit, you're absolutely toast. You're not hitting your irons. You're done for. And to look at it, we've seen.

And I don't know if this is because fewer and fewer top-end players have been playing in this event over the past five and six years. Two years ago when Bryson won, there was like legit. No one at this tournament. Like Rory was there. Rory plays it every year to spend on him first round leader to win all the money. And then he won't win the tournament as we see every single year, except for the one year he did win and gained like 30 strokes putting on the final day. 2007, 18. 18.

I was in Mexico. I remember that. I was watching it. That's what I do on my vacation. I go somewhere else and watch golf. on my TV in my Airbnb. Either way, we've seen Euros and internationals just play really well here. This is more of a international style course than it is a PGA. I don't even want to say resort course, but just PGA course in general, whereas PGA National, you've seen a lot of the same thing.

But I don't know if that's because a lot of the Euros and internationals make their American home in Orlando. So they're just predisposed to playing this tournament. When you take a look at the very top of the list, like Rom played it, I know he's a euro, but we consider him a PGA guy. He played it for like the first time last year. Justin Thomas hasn't played this in eight years. Finao in Morikawa haven't played it since a week before the pandemic started in 2020. Like a lot of the top end American players just don't play this tournament.

So is it that it actually leans towards this lynxie style, more well-rounded, playing in the wind, you know, making, you know, getting very creative around the greens, playing it up, some banks and back down? Or are just the best American players not playing this tournament so those guys can do? that. I don't know. Like this course. That's the secret. They don't want to say it out loud because it's

Arnie's thing. Guys don't really like this course. Same reason they don't want to play PGA National. They don't want to get embarrassed and potentially shooting. Everyone, DJ went to 3M and shot an 80 day one. Yeah. He was having some DJ problems. Yeah, he won like the next week, so it's not that thing.

He won the Masters. He cleared them all up. But it is, this is, I don't know that there's something about. about the Justin Thomas hasn't played this in 2015. So, look, when I look at the odds board then, and it looks like Rory's been bet down a bit of,

well, no, there he's back at 1,000. But Romm has separated himself. I think we all agree on that. In the test of these early elevated events, Rom has sort of thrived. Sheffler clearly number two. I guess you put Rory three. I just am looking down Mayo.

every time, every time, that House and I look at a player who is a top five player in the world at 20 to 1 or better, and we don't jump on them. We always have these regrets. And I'm looking at Willie Z at 22 to 1. I'm looking at JT at 25 to 1. Does that make you salivate? Are you running away from that? Because you just think this is going to be about which of the big three at the moment, maybe four if you put in Max, are really going to win this tournament. my co-host Jeff Feinberg said it really eloquently, which is not something that he normally does on my show this morning. Golf betting has gotten so easy, yet none of us refused to accept it that the same four guys win every single tournament and none of us ever bet on them. Because no one wants to bet John Rom at six and a half to one.

No. Although, House, if you hit a three-game NFL parlay that paid five and a half to one, people will be. People would try to buy your picks from you. That's a fact. I would be ecstatic my own self. But there's just something with us because we can get guys that are 175 to 1 to get into contention in different tournaments. That it just seems outrageous that we'd pick someone at 6 to 1 to beat 119 other players. And I'm still on that path.

Like, I'm not betting Rom. I'm not betting Schaeffer. I'm not betting Rory. And you hit on the name, Nate. I woke up this morning. I saw Salatorz at 25 to 1 and I said, take my mind. Yeah. He has been striking the ball.

all extraordinarily well since he's come back. The putter was a little bit sketchy, but that's the Willie Z experience. Will Zellatoris has gained strokes putting in six consecutive events. Yeah. So you've got to feel like that's sometimes misleading. As you know, because he makes the long ones. It's the shorter ones where you've got to get a little nervous. But that's good here.

If he's leg putting well, and listen, where has he done his best work? It's twofold. One, on really fast greens, aka the major. and B, really large greens and unique greens like Augusta National and some of the majors that we've seen. Even at Rive, his lag putting was really good. Again, it was the short two-footers that really get your heart going in that circumstance. But that's what you're going to see at Bay Hill, lightning fast greens, huge greens. But if you are lag putting from 60 feet for birdie, well, that means you're not chipping and you're not in the water.

You hit greens and regulation here, you are going to be fine because you are not making big numbers. You can make bogeys all you want. Everyone's going to make a ton of bogey. this week. But if the winning score it has been like we've seen at this tournament the past four years, Sheffler won at minus five. Pat, that was a winner for me. That was a fun one.

Fun weekend. Didn't shoot below parr the entire time, first time since 2006. That someone didn't break power on the weekend and won an event. It was glorious. But he won at minus four. And we've seen minus 10 and minus 12. Those are Willie Z's scores. He's not getting to minus 25. He's just not making enough

putts. But as long as he's missing birdie putts from six feet and not par putts from six feet. Like the other guys, we're going to have to chip it on and scramble. Well, I'm okay with that. I'll take it. Listen, if you can tell me right now, Will Zellator shoots minus six, I'm going to take my chances at 25 to one. Nate, you have your eye on anybody? No, I mean, I'm with, I'm really pleased to hear Mayo say what he just said. Because I just think, look, Min Wu Lee, 26 last week. He shot a 66 on Sunday.

Love him. He was, yeah, he was over part on Saturday. hurt him, but he don't forget, he was T-14 at the Masters, 27th at the U.S. Open, 21st at the Open. He's 125 to 1 out there. You get something nice on a top 20 for him. He can play with the big boys as the point of those master's results. So I like to see it, but I just, this feels like the elevated events are doing what we wanted them to do. It's funneling it down to the key question at hand, which is who in this moment is the best player in the world. There's so much money out there.

And with all the Haas is there, everybody's bringing their focus in their A game. It's not the same level of focus that say Sung Jay had last week at the Honda. He's going to be playing better this week, I promise. And I just search for a few of those top 20, top 30 bets. But man, this week for me is breaking the tie between Schephler, between Rahm, and maybe you put Rory in there,

see who can go win this thing. And I think you expand that. to the next 10 on the board. Because if Justin Thomas won this, I know Thomas isn't playing the best right now, but if he won, you'd be like, oh yeah, of course Justin Thomas won. He's one of the five best players in the world. Of course. So there's like 10 guys that kind of fit that criteria right now. If Homo wins, you're not going to be stunned. Zellantoros doesn't. It's the same way. If Tagala is not going to be a breakthrough winner this week, I don't think.

Okay. Here's, okay, the odds have dropped since I looked at this earlier. But it's a discussion that I actually had back and forth earlier house was Lowry, who sucks at this tournament, granted, has never made a cut. But he was like 65 to 1, and The Gallo was 45 to 1 or something. What are we doing here? Yeah.

The only thing I can think of is Lowry's worn out because he's playing so much and he's telling everybody that he's playing so much, which is a golfer's way of complaining. There's something going on with him. He fired his caddy. He had a top five last week, notwithstanding, but he played well.

He played well. He couldn't put to save his life. I have a bunch of guys in the 30 class that I'm willing to be talked out of, but these are guys that one of the things that you look at the records, and I don't have the full indexing in front of me. But like, you know, you have to have played this event. You have to have finished well at this event to really be in contention to win. Tyrell Hatton, past winter.

Do you trust that, though, because most of the top guys never play this event? No, no, I don't try. I mean, it's just, it's just data, element, right? I mean, I do think this particular venue playing it in the wind counts for something, right? Because the wind is so unique to

this. Like, it's going to the forecast for this week is, especially Friday, going to be crazy. And I think part of that also runs in favor of the non-U.S. players. But like, you know, Tyrell Hatton's one here. He's

available at 30 six to one. He was in the top five last year. Victor Hovlin, 31 to one. Another top five guy, Horshiel, who used last week to get himself, you know, sort of organized. He showed up a little bit. He showed up enough. I mean, he's available to win. Now, I'm not going to bet him to win, but he's 90 to one. That feels, you know, he had a top five here last year.

Like those are guys where, you know, I'm not scared off by any of them. And if any of those names came across the finish line, it wouldn't be like, oh my God, I'm going to, you know, Porscheal maybe because he's been out of sorts. But that's the kind of like direction to any potential value in those, not any of that attractive to you, Mayo. Vic, I could see because it does feel, I mean, he kind of suffers from like Tony Fienow syndrome a little. old Tony Fienau.

And Tony Fienau, I think, is a player that we should potentially be looking at this week. He just kind of at a sight, out of mind at the moment. And his underlying numbers are actually pretty good. He's never really done it here in his career, but like, who cares? There was one year where he went to the waste management four consecutive miscuts that he lost in a playoff to Webb Simpson. Like, sometimes you're just playing better.

And the player Fee now is not the player that he was even three years ago. But to think about Hovland, and maybe you'll, I have no data to back this up. But it seems like he scores well on the hardest holes on the course when everyone else is blowing up. Yet when he gets to the easy holes, he just, he doesn't know what to do with himself. And Fienau suffered from that for years. Like one at Rive, Fianow couldn't birdie to save his life for like five consecutive years. Then he'd go out and just, you know, make mincemeat of number 18, like, or not 19.

What is it? What's the one at Rive? The 15, there's one of them that's just like outrageously difficult. Maybe it's number four, the part three. Yeah. Part three is super hard. 12 and 13 or super hard. 18 is not a walk-up park.

Yeah. Anyway. Either way, I think that there's two betting strategies that you can employ this week if you live in a place where live betting is the move. And let me run these ones by you. Wait until Friday when it looks like there's going to be 35 mile per hour wins. Maybe try to find a guy who is going to make the cut, but is pretty close to that number that has his round finished in the AM.

And maybe he's seven strokes off the lead or something like that. So we've seen some giant comebacks at this tournament. And maybe the books will factor this in. I don't know. I'm not there. But even someone like, how Bezadenhout or Lucas Herbert. Like these guys are going to be like 600 to 1 if they're a shot above the cut line

when they finish their AM route. And then just wait for everyone else to come back to the pack. And all of a sudden you have these triple digit guys, a huge odds that you can then use to leverage on Sunday if they're in the final group or they're a stroke off the league. You may have to lay, you know, minus 200 to head yourself out of it, but you wouldn't have been in that position to begin with anyway. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do.

You've listed some of the names I really like. I love Hatton. I love Hovland. Fienow has my interest. The money's actually in on Zalotaurus. The only other guy, I mean, I bet Tom Kim, because I think he's going to win next week. And I don't want to be the guy who's sitting here like,

oh, shit, I was going to bet him at the players and he won this week. He kind of has the right game for this. He's not going to drive it in the water, presumably. He's very accurate, very good with his long irons. is just, is this one of those courses where he can putt? Because it's either he can put or he can't put. There's no in between with Tom Kipp. But Sam Burns.

Look at Sam Burns. Okay. Interesting. Why Sam Burns? 50 to 1. And you talked about the data points earlier. I found them. This from my friend at the Fantasy Grind, Jeff Alrick.

DJ, Jazzy, Jeff Ulrich. Six of the past eight winners had recorded a top five finish at Bay Hill in a previous season. And eight of the past eight winners had recorded. recorded a top 17 or better in a previous season and 11 of the past 12 winners had played at Bay Hill the year prior and made the cut. So there's been a lot of repeat winners and repeat solid performances. Maddie Fitzpatrick, four straight top tens. Nate, you're on the scene all the time. Is he hurt? What's going on with him? I think it's just been slower to gear up. My guess is it's a little bit of a major hangover. Smells a little bit like what we saw from Thomas after he won his first

PGA. His odds are now down to like he's 35 to 1, 40 to 1 in some spots. No one wants to bet him. Like besides Rory in Hatton, no one has a better record here. Yeah. And he's a winder, supposedly. We'll see. Listen, I hope he's hurt because I need, I have a certain family member who's

first alternate this week. I need somebody to drop. Well, Dietrich's not going to play, is he? That's what we keep hearing, but I don't know. he was out on the range today. So he had a case of my feelings are hurt because I five putted from four feet. It could be. It could be.

Sam Ryder. You go with your Min Wu? Min Wu? I like Sam Ryder. Sam's playing well. You mentioned Minwu. Remember where he won? Tell me.

Scotland. Scott is open. Right. That's right. The week before Morikawa's win. And that was against all the big boys in super windy condition. And this guy can drive the ball. Like you don't, you wouldn't to look at him.

You'd be like, oh, this guy is like a finesse player. He's probably a hot putter. Great, great with his short irons. No, this guy steps up and smashes the ball, which is a way that you can win this week. And we've seen that. Like, Riders won at 180 to 1. He's just been playing good golf. He's been riding the putter recently through Rive and through Phoenix.

It got in top 20s and both. But what he did at Torrey, and for the love of God, stop showing these people's moms on TV. It jinx Sam, right? Never. Mom. Never do the interview. No more month. So those two, can Luke list putt? Ever?

That's just through every week question. It's a perpetual question. You know the answer to that. You know the answer to that. Hey, he lost seven strokes putting in two rounds here last year. But he has two top tens in the past five years too. He gained 11 strokes ball striking at RIV and lost like 98 putting. But maybe that's his week. I have two names that you kind of catch that recent form kind of by, but also fit the profile. of the kinds of guys that have won. I like this Gary Woodland situation. He's made the cut five out of seven times. He had a tie for fifth at this venue last year. But what I really like was the performance at RIV.

Eighth in strokes gain T to Green and, you know, in the 30s and strokes gained approach. So if he has that kind of sharp aspect to him, and we know that he's comfortable at this place based on the made cuts and the top five last year, I also like, when you look at that list, it's major winners, right? You got a lot of major winners. Gary Woodland, major winner.

Another form guy that I like is Keith Mitchell. I mean, we've got to have Kashmir Keith in the mix. He has two top six finishes in his past four events at this venue. And his form is hot, hot, hot, top five and two of his last three events. As hot as his cashmere outfit, Pat Mayo, right? the problem is it's 50 to 1. Like, Hadecki is 60 to 1. Well, these are not, I'm not betting

outrights to win. These are going to be guys that I'm looking for head to head opportunities and guys that I'm playing in the top 20 and a top 30 strata. Okay, well, it's not so weird that they've put two of these elevated events back to back all within basically five weeks. Well, I was wondering, like, are they trying to...

Five events already. By the time we're done with the players. Why are they doing this? back to back. I have a theory. I have a theory on this. And it kind of goes to like one of the problems with Liv is that you're going to end up watching the same guys play every single week. And it's going to become monotonous. But at least right now you can package them together as like two big weeks in a row. So you have Phoenix and Riv. All the same guys are playing then you don't see them for a week or whatever. And now this one is just inherently always going to be this way because

of the scheduling with API and players going back to back. None of these are actually elevated events. They're not like the rotational ones. So we're always going to get that. But when you look at the other one, like Heritage, my favorite tournament is a week after the master's, it is an elevated event. So it's back to back there. Travelers is an elevated event that is the week after the U.S. open. So there must be some sort of strategy that they see. And maybe you have to balance it with the networks. I don't know, but trying to put these in back to back weeks. Maybe they feel like the golf audience actually isn't huge. And if you can capitalize on the success of one week, maybe it can bleed over into the next one in terms of ratings. That's the only idea that I really

have. And most of these tournaments are close to each other. So if guys are going to play back-to-back weeks, you cut down on the trap. Yeah, really the only one that doesn't fit that mold is LACC for the U.S. Open to Connecticut for the travelers. But I totally agree. I think it's obviously deliberate. It provides a kind of predictability for the guys as they chart out their you know, when they must have been sitting in what December, November looking at the kill like, holy shit,

how are we going to pull this off? But look, I mean, it's going to be the middle of March and we will have five elevated events already including the players as the boost into the masters. Like, you know, we've all been very, very impressed and pleased by

the quality of the competition, the elevated events feel like something you know, if live is golf but sadder, you know, these elevated events are truly golf but louder. I mean, it's really been attention grabbing. And if that's the desired goal or one of them, you know, kudos on mission accomplished, I would say. Can I run two more names by it? Oh, we're here for names, buddy. And of all the types of players that we talked about, Nate was bringing up the European influence,

the weather influence, and you see a guy who actually has a lot of history at this event good history, kind of off the radar and someone that I used to love to bet and just gave him up

about three years ago. Thank God I did, because he hasn't won anything since. But would it shock you if Tommy Fleetwood won? Yes. Really? Yes.

It would. It would. He has this, this is the sort of course that his game is perfect at. Again, he's not someone who's going to, like Zalotaurus in a weird way.

Where's the best that we've seen, Tommy? We've seen him play well at Han, in the single digits. US opens in the single digit. This is a single digit wind event. I think he's live. Yeah.

I just, I think all those times when he thrives, it's not when the top 20 guys in the world are in front of him playing. But at some point, Tommy, the thing that surprised me most about Tommy, and I've seen him before, he really is a small dude. Like,

I thought about him as being a lot taller with the long, flowy Jesus hair. He's a small guy. guy. And he doesn't look like he's got the constitution that some of the top. Even Thomas's body looks different than Tommy Fleetwood's right now. I just wonder if it's passed him by. Now that I said that, bet him because he's definitely

Yeah, you have to bet him. Bet him at least the top 20. All the listeners are a fair way rolling since Nate and I just took a shit all over him. Yeah. The other ones, I mean, I'm not betting him because his odds are like truly ridiculous at this point. But Jason Day, he's won this event. Yeah. He's 28 to 1. Like, you can still bet him 65 to one to win the Masters, but you can bet him 28 to one this week. It's basically the same field. Yeah, I think where, you know, with Jason Day, you have to catch him when he's in these heaters like he's, like he's in right now, top 10 and a top 20, both of those plays and also looking for juicy

head to head where, you know, the odds line up where the matchups are, um, situationally appropriate. He's going to get hurt before too long. Come on. You know it's coming. He looks healthy. Like I did a Big stats breakdown. I'm rooting for him. I did the stats breakdown of his numbers. He's basically the, he's 80% of the player he was statistically doing everything the same as he did when he went on his run in 2015. He's not driving the ball as well, but he's been one of the best guys on tour driving out of nowhere after struggling for like three years. And now he's back to being that Jason day that I used to bet against that, oh good, Jason Day is finally going to putter take himself out of this tournament. Oh, he has 27 feet for power. Oh, it's in. Great. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the Jason Day move. The other Jason Day move is he gets, he's got the injury bug. He always has, although I do value and massively respect the way that he's fought back and brought his game back around here. How close is Disneyland to Orlando? Is that like very close? No, it's there. Is this the one that he withdrew from then was spotted at Disneyland later that day?

Probably. He's got a lot of kids, man. Yeah, he's got stuff to take care of. Well, if he has any more kids, I'll have to go to live, get that guaranteed paid day. Well, he, I won't take us down this rabbit hole, but there was an indication that he responded to a ratings post. There was a post that the sports business that our buddy, Johnny O. Rand posted. It was Johnny O. They got a 0.2 rating, and Jason Day asked what the PGA, what the Honda got? I don't know if it was accurate or not, but.

Well, what is a 0.2? Is it how many households? I know they, they weren't completely rated, but is that like 50,000, something like that? I think it's in the 20,000s. I think it's not, it's not up to 50, but I don't know. I won't swear to it. If we called it 50K, like, what does golf channel get on a Thursday for PGA? I know. I mean, that's seriously.

It's a, it's a fair enough question. It goes right to what date said when we're talking this through, which is, it just aren't that many consumers of golf on television. Like, it's not that big audience. world's furriest animals. Nate, Homa, Homa slipped at 22 to 1. Each time he slipped past 20 at Rive and Tori,

I bet him at both. Day has won Tori and Bay Hill. Leishman has won Tori in Bay Hill. Obviously, Tiger has won every course in the world, except for Riviera three million times. So that's probably not fair. But is this, and he has a great history here. He's never finished worth than 24th in three starts.

Is it just, with the way that he's playing, theoretically, he should probably be a lot, with the odds of Rom, Schephler, and Rory. But he's not. We're getting three times the odds. So we just blindly bet him again? You're seeing Homa at 20-something? Yeah, I mean, I don't want to infringe on the sponsor of this show, so I will not say the name, but it's a competitive book that's available.

Grab it. Look, the mistake that I keep making is assuming that Homa's going to have an off week. Because he's drinking at your house or something? Well, yeah. Yeah, the sustained, no, he's not. That's why he is not having an off week, because in years past he might have been, he is fanatically obsessed with being number one in the world. And he is working his ass off to do it. And I thought that maybe even his, you know, having the baby might throw him off, might slow him down.

We've seen a couple other guys this year who've had some babies and it's slowed him off, slowed him down a little bit just because you've got to get used to it. but Max, for whatever reason, has the system down and is playing great golf. So if you're seeing him in the 20s, I respond to him in the 20s the same way I respond to Justin Thomas, which is when one of those top guys in the world, and I do think Max is a top five golfer in the world right now. If the odds are better than 20 to 1 in your favor, you got to grab him. So that might be the last ad, but for me, it's Zal at 25. It is Sammy Burns at 50 to 1 back on Bermuda. And I took Tom Kim at 66 this morning.

because I just can't have him winning this week when I'm going to, I know I'm going to bet him next week. So those are really the three that I'm gearing around. And like, I do have room for a homo or, you know, one of the long Euro names we didn't mention. I'm not going to bet him to win. But if you are looking for a top 30, 40 house or head to head, my guy, the Polish, the Polish giraffe, Adrian Moronk. Yeah, he's good. He had a good week last week. Yep, he did.

Folks have been on Moronk lately. You've been on Moronk. Yeah, well, it hasn't really been paying dividends so far. But, you know, you have to stick with it. With the 30 to 40, that's something modest. You know what I mean? And it'll probably pay like three to one or something like that. That's real money.

Yeah. Speaking of real money, Pat Mayo, thank you as always for coming on here, giving us some real money advice. So your future play is Tom Kim at the players. Everybody just write that down, jot it down right now. The Pat Mayo write-up will be available in all of the media that he prepared. and distributes throughout the media world, including his own website, his own newsletter, which you have to subscribe to if you're not getting, what's it called meo, the Mayo.

Mayo Media newsletter, just substack Mayo Media. And I hate to do this to you while you're doing the extra, but do you want some Puerto Rico bet? Do you want some Puerto Rico bets? Nate Lashley. I have bad jokes to make. Speaking of golfers drinking in my house, Nate Lashley, I'm all in. Yeah, you know what? Bautia might play this event without a shirt on.

So we got about him. Batia, we got Batia, yes, Lashley, yes. Who else? Oh, but those are the two favorites. Bati is the one you want to go with. Succession's coming back, so fake Kendall Roy, you want to bet him at 70 to 1. Kevin Roy. We have Brandon Matthews at 200 to 1.

Bataia's a favorite? Bataia's 30 to 1 or 28 to 1 now. I wish Ryan Brem was in this event again. It's the one year anniversary of him winning this with his wife on the bag. He would win this. He actually played pretty well last week. Yeah, he had a heat. Sunday, but why not? I mean, isn't Brandon

Matthews just sort of like Brian Bram? Yeah, it's probably right. So 2001 seems all right, Batiya's just playing well. And actually, Kevin Roy is kind of like the new Eric Cole. He just gains on approach every single week. Had a good Honda too. It's great. See, I

try to take us out on the notion that you were giving out and all this free money. Well, he brings us back to more free money, like a whole bunch of other names to build a card with, to enjoy, you know, the visuals of Puerto Rico, because it's going to look brutal, I think, down at Bay Hill. I mean, I, you know, we've seen this tournament with the wind cranked all the way up. It was the one, the hat and one with over bar, right? Yes. It's just a ballbuster.

So maybe, you know, there's no live event competing. You can switch between the Puerto Rico and the Bay Hill. But anything that you're on, Pat Mayo, we're keeping it on until the very end. So thanks, as always, buddy, for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Yes. There we go. My birdie buddies, my eagle enthusiast, my par saving pals, lots of names, lots of ways to build juicy dance cards this week.

It's an elevated moment this week and an elevated moment next week. And Nathan and I are heart rates and other body parts are elevated in response. We shall be back next week, hopefully celebrating the return on investment. you are lucky enough to be in a place where it's warm enough to play golf. Please. Let's hit them straight out there.