Fairway Rollin' - Promising Young Golfers With Jason Sobel

Episode Date: May 5, 2021

House and Hubbard return to recap some of the winners and losers of this week and to take a look at how the PGA fans are behaving now that attendance is up (01:16). Then they are joined by Jason Sobel of the Action Network to talk about who is looking promising in the AT&T Byron Nelson tournament (09:13). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Jason Sobel Producer: Steve Ahlman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

friends and welcome to this golf podcast unlike any other oh yeah baby we are back this is fairway the golf podcast on the ringer podcast network i am your starter joe house joining me as he does every time we roll the ball onto the green that is nathan hubbard our pGA tour correspondent on the ground starting off as a two ball this week by Birdie Buddies. Nate and I passing out some accolades. Some congratulations to the winners of the past couple weeks. A little recap. And then joining us for a three ball.

It'll be a couple holes behind. Jason Sobel, our buddy from the Action Network from Sirius XM, the hardest working media man in golf. Let's go ahead and stride on over to the first tee. It's wide open. There's a lot of stuff to take down today. Let's try and struck one out there in the middle, Nate, Doug. Nate dog, did you hit it down the middle?

Finally, a young guy has won on the PGA tour. I'm sensing a tiny bit of sarcasm. And this is a theme that we are going to cover with our homie, Jason Sobel. But, you know, we had a couple weeks off. We gave out a nice preview for the Zurich down there in New Orleans. We somehow we talked about food and did not talk about House Eats 3. I texted you immediately afterwards. I was like New Orleans food, the greatest moment of both of our collective lives,

save for a few things related to children and families and so forth. If you don't know what we're talking about, please go to Google and search House Eats 3 before dinner, before dinner. Definitely before dinner. 100% before dinner. You know why we got carried away is because we had Ricky Fowler on that episode. And handsome Ricky just, I mean, he took my breath away. I don't know.

Mesmerizing. Yes. Yeah. Lovely. I loved Ricky. We had fun with Rick. We, you know what? I watched Slow News Day that our colleague Kevin Clark taped with him, the extraordinary show that Kevin Clark does.

Yeah. And Kevin read Ricky a horoscope. It wasn't as good as our horoscope. No. I don't know why. It wasn't. How could there be such radically different horoscopes? I don't know.

It was fun to talk to Ricky about Bakers. And, you know, he's a happy guy. and I think that's what matters most, but I do think at some point here, we're going to start to see Ricky Round into form. He's got two top tens this season. He's going to be just fine. I agree with you.

And, you know, the player impact program, I mean, you imagine he has some interest in that. And playing well, FedEx Cup rank is one of the factors. So let's go ahead and pat ourselves on the back for New Orleans because we did give out Cam Smith and Mark Leashman. It was a wonderful narrative. This is why you listen.

Yeah. That's right. And thank you to all of the birdie buddies out there that hit us up on the Twitter and gave us your own appreciation, expressed your appreciation for us giving out that winner. We've given out a couple winners in the show. We've been doing okay this year. That Australian duo was awesome. It was fun to watch.

It was clear that they love each other, which seems to be chemistry is important. Nate, dog. I keep, you know, we keep seeing it. I have to say I was sad to see who stays. and just chunk it. He didn't chunk it. He just bladed it, faded it way right into the water. That just was disappointing for a guy who just has just a befuddling, perplexing,

and very, very successful career in golf. But he just, I don't get it. One of the favorite factoid about him that I learned from Justin Ray's 10 Notes to know, which is always one of my favorite Monday morning reads, he has a second place in like every important tournament that professional golfers play. He's got a second in every major, a second in, I think nearly all of the WGC events.

It's an amazing career. Technically second place in the President's Cup. I mean, it's not even technical. It's accurate. If you don't win, you come in second. That's the answer. Yeah. But that was, that was, I liked the format.

It was really fun. Long lived in New Orleans golf tournament. for the food and the camaraderie and next year for Jazz Fest. Yes. Oh, God. We have to figure out a way to get ourselves down there for that one. By hook or by crook. Speaking of by hook or by crook,

we then, the tour moved over to the Tampa area in Isbrook, and a guy that's been around the hoop a whole lot. We've seen him on leaderboards all season long. This was a classic, only a matter of time guy. It was. He played with Horschel in New Orleans and played super well.

He was carrying the team. I mean, he looked good. Yeah, so Sam Burns shot a final round 68, one by three. It was fun to see Keegan Bradley out there. Well, let me ask you, I shouldn't put it that way. Was it fun for you or was it weird for you? I didn't like it. So.

I didn't like it. That wasn't the answer I was anticipating. Why didn't you like seeing Keeggs doing this thing? Why is everybody cheering for Keegan Bradley so loudly? I'll tell you why. It's because we have got a lot of extremely drum. fans on the golf course right now. And I support it.

We have a lot of very aggressive, like I have been cooped up for over a year and I'm going out to a golf course and I'm going to yell and scream and just be jackass number one out on the course. There's a lot of jackass number ones out there right now. And, you know, some of them are being funny. Some of them are like pissing off Phil Mickelson

so much that after his round, he's grumbling in ways we haven't heard him before. There is some self-selection of a donkey patrol happening out on the PGA golf courses right now. Hopefully we get to a better balance. On the other hand, there has been some high comedy in watching players respond.

Forever, we heard, oh, I just wish the fans were back. And now they're like, who are all these drunk assholes yelling at me? Well, this is a great observation right at this sort of juncture because as more and more people come on to the golf course, it is coinciding with the rise of interest in gambling on. golf. And one of the things that folks have observed about, you know, the potential impact of fans

on outcomes, especially if you are live betting by hole, which is absolutely something you can do right this second on many apps, including, I believe, FanDuel, our favorite sportsbook app. And if you're live betting a hole where it's a head to head between two players, and you can fuck it up. You're on the golf course. I mean, there are a handful of ways for mischief to be made, my body. We are going to have some Russian mobsters, you know, putting air horns in people's pants and getting them onto the course.

Like, there are some not so great things ahead on this, I'm afraid, because of the exact dynamic that you're talking about. And whether or not anything nefarious is happening, think about some of the conspiracy theories we will get, which will be kind of rich. Like, imagine, I'm thinking about the air. Airhorn. You mentioned that. I immediately thought of Zach Johnson. I think it was at the John Deer where there's a lake. I can't remember the tournament, but I believe it was one of those tournaments in the Midwest where there's a lake. Oh, when the cannon went up. Oh, the can. It was a cannon, not the air horn. Yes. Wasn't that the John Deer? I think that was the RBC Heritage maybe where they shoot the can. No, but but it was a boat. A boat did something. Oh, yeah. That's right. A boat on the lake. And I don't remember what the, but I mean, it was, you know, it was visibly. He was. was shaken because it was a very loud it was like right as a moment as he was approaching a put. Now there was no gambling that we're aware of. Maybe there was gambling. Maybe that was all

point, right? Yeah, maybe the guy on the boat. But I do think we're approaching that moment. Yeah, where you got to be careful what you wish for. We've been wishing for fans to come back. They are rowdy. They're rambunctious. They're being well served. And they might have a lot more money on each individual shot than we've ever seen before. So stay tuned on that one. I think that's going to be a rising narrative over the next part of the season. A rising narrative. I have to agree with you. Okay. Well, I think, you know, we, Sam Burns, age 24, second youngest winner in the Valspar tournament history, which actually has a pretty esteemed list of winners, you know, nice, nice, and it's typically a tough venue for folks. And not surprising, but, you know,

we do have this trend. And we're going to go ahead and start comparing notes with our buddy Jason Sobel from the Action Network here. Okay, as promise, here he is, Jason Sobel of the Action Network. Jason, you in your preview column for this tournament down at Quail Hollow this week. Talk about the phenomena in the context of Sam Burns catching his first career victory. you observe, and we've kind of seen this, there are currently 10 players age 25 or younger in the world's top 50.

That feels like a lot of players age 25 or younger in the world's top 50, doesn't it? Well, hello, fellas. Thanks for having me on as always. I'm good to see you and talk to you again. Wait, Sobel, before you answer this question, are you worth a billion dollars now? What just happened?

Action Network has been sold. Action Network sold yesterday. Big news. I've got people talking. My mom sent me the article from the Wall Street Journal and saying, hey, have you heard this? And I'm like, yeah, mom, it's the company I work for. I heard about it. That said, I'm still not sure whether it means I'm going to be rich or going to be fired. And I'm just like kind of hanging in the balance between the two of them right now. So I honestly have no idea what it means. You're the Ryan Seacrest of golf. They can't fire you. And if they do, you got 11 million other jobs. So, and here's, here's how I know it, because you're going to tell us about Sam Burns and the young golfers. I am. Okay. We'll get back to the discussion. But yes, I thank you. I think.

Yeah, I don't know. Like, everyone from my company seems happy that we got sold. So I'm like, yeah, all right. Cool. Good. We did it. I didn't do anything. And I'm just hoping not to get fired.

So if I get a call from a boss as we're doing this, I'm going to put them on hold and keep going with you guys. So I can. Yes. So long, how long I'm working for action network. That's the right instinct. If it's Darren Rovell, hang up on him. I always do. I don't answer his calls. I will take a text from Rovel.

I'm not talking to my phone. It's too much. So how is it? It felt like a big number to me as well. And I mentioned Justin Ray on our Action Network podcast that it felt like a big number. And he kind of gave me the whole like, well, a few years ago I did research and I found 11 guys who were 25. I'm like, all right, well, cool.

The way to like kill my buzz there because I thought, 10 guys, 25 and under was a lot in the top 50, 20%. I did that math on my own of the top 50 in the world ranking are now young players. And I mean, it's always weird sort of putting that, that guideline on it, that borderline of 25. Just kind of like a nice round number. If we went to 26, it includes John Rom and Matt Fitzpatrick and Christiane, Bezden Hoot, which I finally said right. Well done.

Well, both 27, there's Cameron Smith and a couple other guys. JT's 28. I mean, it's like they're all kind of part of the same generation. So, you know, it's not that these guys are that much younger, but it still felt like a lot of young guys. Sam Burns is now 44th in the world after his victory at the Valspar. Some of these guys, I mean, they're already superstars. Colin Mourkeau, we don't have to sit around right now and say, you know, I think this guy's going to be pretty good. I have a feeling Colin Morqueau is going to be a good player for a long time. Yeah, no kidding.

Like, yes, he's going to be very good. I don't know if he's going to win five majors or if he's going to be stuck on one for a while and just be good. But he's going to be good no matter what. If he keeps playing with Matthew Wolf, it's not going to go so great. So we got to watch it. We got to get the Wolf are back into a guy under 25 who we're excited about. He's 21 years old. He's still 25th in the world.

I mean, he's fine. He's fine. He'll be fine. Whatever's going on with him, it's attributable. to the youth. I agree with that. He's going to be all right. The scariest thing about all those numbers for me is that today is Rory McElroy's

32nd birthday, and that sounds old to me compared to these other guys you're talking about. And that's sort of part of the point here is that 32 used to be absolutely the golfer's prime. I remember doing some research on the master's years ago, and it was like,

if you go through all the number, you know, how they do like the, all right, we're going to whittle it down and no guys this young, ever win. No guys this old ever win. They do the averages. It's like an average of, you know, 16th in the world ranking. An average it always used to be 32. Those are the guys that win major championships. And Rory is now 32, hasn't won one in six years. In the dichotomy right now of so many young guys being up there and playing such good golf, Rory won this very golf tournament that we're going to watch this week, the Wells Fargo championship two days before his 21st birthday. It was like the big

coming out party for him. He'd won on the Euro tour. We know, okay, Rory's going to be a really good player someday. But all of a sudden he wins a quail. There was a great field that week. We're like, okay, I get it now. He's really good. Two years later, he lost the playoff to Ricky Fowler, who was 23 years old.

We're like, man, finally this 23-year-old won. We're like, okay, that's the new generation, Rory, Ricky. And the irony of that dichotomy, if I'm using that correctly at all, which I'm probably not. But the irony is that. Who cares? You're worth a billion dollars. You can say whatever he wants. man, he just sold. The irony is that worry is now down to 15th in the world,

which is his lowest ranking in a decade. Ricky is who knows where. The fact that they gave him a spot the PGA Championship based on performance, which literally his performance didn't get him into the PGA championship, which is why he needed to be granted the spot in. We look at these guys and we say, hey, these guys are all going to be really good for a long time,

and we think that's true. And then we look at what's happening with some of the guys that we thought that about 10 years ago. and maybe it's not always true. I want to keep talking about this young crew because I like the way that you rank them, but I want to make sure we share the ranking. I do want to just hit the pause button for one second

on your Ricky observation. And the reason is because we are going to talk about that in the context of the player impact program, which was announced, well, it wasn't announced. It came to light about three weeks ago, and some of the dust has settled. So I want to let everybody know, we're going to get into that a little bit.

Ricky is the perfect segue into it. But before we do that, let's talk about, like, where you have these young guys, because there's eight or nine that are all sort of in, in this class. Let me hear the list. Oh, you want me to rank them? I did this yesterday, and I guarantee that if I have all 10 names sitting in front of me, it'll look totally different if I do it today, which I basically said in the column. So, Mori Cow was first, isn't it?

Yes. You have it in front of you. Yeah, I have in front of me. Second. Yep. Sung J. third. You have Zalotaurus third. Absolutely Zalotaurus,

much better than Sung Jai, of course. Wow. Sungay then, Joaquin Neiman. You have Sheffler in there. You're reading my piece. I just wrote it and then I forgot about it. That's good. Morikawa Hovelin Zalotaurus.

Zalotaurus ahead of Sungay. And you treat it as though you can just say, oh, of course Zalotaurus is better than Sungay. Okay, good. Scotty Schaeffler, Joaquin Neiman, Matthew Wolf Bob McIntyre

can I call him Bob is that all right Bobby Mac Bobby Mac we're doing and Burns of course is now in that mix and then see

who where the hell is Charlie Woods just give him five years that's honestly right why's he not on this list

give him five years that's all all right that's it okay well look so that's the sort of moment that we are in

And obviously that will... Got the ball strikers on that list. That's right. That's the attribute. And we'll be talking about that attribute, both in connection with our preview of this week's tournament down to Quail Hollow. And I don't think it's too early. We're only two weeks out. Let's start doing a little feeling around on the PGA championship. But before we go into that prognostication business and how we are going to put some of these young fellas into our mix at both.

Quail Hollow and at Kiowa. We have this opportunity to, this is our first time to speak with you, Jay, since the player impact program came to light. And it's kind of a good moment because we've, we've rounded the quarter pole in the professional golf season. The Masters is in our rear view mirror. We're coming up on the PGA championship. So sort of, we're at a good moment to sort of take into account this player impact program and

just sort of the sentiment on tour. I know you've talked about it a bunch already, but now that the dust has settled a little bit, what do you think is the vibe? What are you hearing on tour about sort of the player's approach to it? Did it catch some guys by surprise? Oh, yeah, it absolutely did. Zander Shoffley was on Series XMPGA Tour Radio

with one of our shows and said, I didn't even know about it. And I'm sure you got an email somewhere that told him back in January. Here's what's happening. But the fact that he is one of the top players in the world and he didn't even know about it says that, yes, this is going to catch players by surprise. Look, it was a great job reporting by Amman Lynch of Golf Week, who did a really good job sniffing this whole thing out and reporting this story. The fact that there was never any press release from the PGA tour and they still have not really made any sort of comment about this

PIP program makes me think that it's very much like fines and suspensions where We can sit here if a player should have been fine last week and we're like, man, I think he'll get fined a million dollars. No, I think it'll get fined $12. It doesn't matter because we're never going to find out the answer about it. So the PIP program, to me, is very much the same way where we can sit here and go, well, I guess Tiger is going to get an extra $8 million this year because he's the most popular player. And then you say, no, I think it's got to be Bryson now. I think Bryson's past him. it doesn't matter what we sit here and say about it because I don't think we're ever going to find out.

They're not going to give us the PIP standings and how much guys want. I think that if there's some blowback from the players and there was a player meeting just a little while ago, it probably just got out. In fact, I know it just got out at Quail Hollow as we're talking right now on Tuesday afternoon. But if there's some blowback, it's the fact that they're basically allocating $40 million for the top 10 players who, I know it's been sort of boiled down to the guys that tweet a lot and the guys that interact with people, but it's more than that. It's more than that.

Yeah, it's a lot more than that. Promoting the golf tour. I get it. And I liken it too, and I said this on radio last week, I'm a Mets fan. Francisco Lindor was signed by the Mets for a 10-year deal, $341 million. Tiger Woods has made $110 million in his entire on-course career. And so if you look at it and say, does Tiger Woods promote? the PGA tour. He promotes Nike. He promotes Monster. He promotes other products. Does he promote

the PGA tour? Of course he does. And so now he ostensibly is going to get a piece of that pie in promoting the PGA tour. So are other players. The blowback, I think, comes when you cut it off at 10 players. Zander Shoffley is a great example. He might be 11th on this list right now. Yeah. So number 10 makes $2 million. He makes zero because he lost in some algorithm playoff. But that's it, isn't it? I mean, this is really. really about, it's a bit like the Rider Cup. There's, there's 15 guys for 10 spots. Like, you know, Max Homa himself, the great tweeter, is going to have a tough time getting into the top 10 here, much less some guy, you know, my brother or somebody who, you know, a tweet goes via,

everybody's like, oh, it's the pit program. Those dudes have no chance. They thought about these algorithms in a way that, to deliver the purpose of this, which is reward the best players and keep them from leaving the tour where they might be able to make more money because the Saudis are trying to build the PGL, right? Absolutely. That's a huge part of it. And by the way, guys, we're only a few weeks removed from Adeki Matsuyama winning the Masters and us talking about, wow, this is going to be huge in Japan. It's huge in Asia. That's going to grow the game over there. He's going to be a superstar. Are we doing this globally? Are we doing it just domestically? Are we considering all the factors of, hey, if Hideki's a big,

Hedke might be a bigger star right now than anybody who's playing, you know, let alone Tiger who's not playing right now, but he might be a bigger star around the world than a lot of other players. And so what does it do for them? And yes, this is without a doubt in direct retaliation to the PGL, which quite honestly, guys, I thought it was dead a year and a half ago. I thought we're done talking about it. The Super League and soccer was like two days and bang, that was out.

and all of a sudden it's rearing its head again. I do have some news that that meeting that just got out at Quail Hollow a little bit ago, and by the time this podcast runs, maybe it'll be all over the place. But Jay Monahan is essentially told PGA Tour members, if you leave, you can't come back. That's it.

That's what I saw. So here's my question, and I appreciate the rundown sobs. In the first place, to one of your original points, it's been reported that there are 10 players eligible for this, but since we don't have anything in writing that delineates the parameters, all we have is the great journalism that Lynch did. We don't know for sure.

Why can't it be 15 players? Why couldn't it be 20 players, right? If it's at the tour's discretion and, you know, they've, they own the parameters, they know what they're going to use to reward folks, then there's no reason. Huh? This isn't it, though. They're going to find more ways than just this to funnel money to the top players, don't you think?

Which makes sense, right? And that was the other sort of aspect. They have made a point that the FedEx Cup rankings factor into this. So we don't know exactly that we've seen the indication of algorithms and Nielsen ratings and all kinds of other funny metrics for this. It's Monahan with a pencil and a piece of paper going, here's who I'm worried about. That's right. And by the way, it might not just be $40 million, right? The tour, the deal that they cut across the networks, what they extracted in terms of rights fees is enough to certainly come up

with more than 40. It could be, it could be a hundred. We don't know. And the only way we're going to know is if a player decides to share any of this information with us. They can do whatever they want with it. And the analogy that I was going to make that I really never got to with Francisco Linduars that the Mets have signed him for 10 years, $341 million to not just hit a baseball, not just catch a baseball, not just throw a baseball to first base, but to represent the team, to promote the team, to be in team pictures and get, sell tickets and do those kind of things. Well, the PGA Tour players right now, and this is why I don't necessarily have a huge problem with it, because PGA tour players right now have always basically been expecting to do that out just because they're

PGA tour members. And so, okay, you're playing for a lot of money. So promote the tour that you're playing for. Well, now, hey, there's some incentive to go promote the tour you're playing for because we're also going to pay you to do that, which essentially every team sport athlete has already been doing for years. They're promoting the teams they play for. That's exactly right. We're talking about guaranteed money for a television product. The PGA, these events every weekend, they're a television show. So you want the people, the players or participants in the TV show to be the players that the consuming public wants to see.

You know, I admire all the effort that went into the tournament down at Innesbrook, but the Q rating was not super high. So, you know, if you can incent some of the top tier players, right? At House, I don't know if you saw Dustin Johnson's tweet Monday morning afterwards. It really had a huge impact. Talk about curating and everything. Dustin said, great week at the Valspar. I'm just, I mean, give them the money right now.

Give them the money. That's exactly right. That's fantastic. Yeah, that's right. I think, I think Pauline's tweet picking out wedding dresses probably did a little bit better than that one. Yeah. Well, and the Kardashians taken up golf. I don't know if you guys have seen that. Oh, God. What does that mean? They've taken up a golf course to build something? I saw, I saw

Kim, but she's, you know, attempting a golf swing and it somehow showed up in my feed. I don't know how. I can't, I can't explain why Kim Kardashian showed up in any of my social media feeds. She was playing Calloway Golf Club, so that could have been the reason. Can we get off the Kardashians for crying out loud? Well, this is a to be continued, the player impact program, because like we say, we've heard an initial sort of outline for how it's going to go down, but we don't know. And there's nothing that impedes the tour's ability to do whatever it wants and reward whoever it wants on whatever basis it decides. But stop cynically looking at players having fun on social media thinking, you know, accusing them of trying to get the 40 mil.

There's only 15 guys who can possibly get it. Everybody else is just trying to grow the game. Well, and cynical or not, it is fun. and funny. This is the aspect of it that genuinely, I think, deserves a little bit of recognition, which is something that the tour really has been behind other professional sports in, which is letting us get to know there are participants in a unique way. And have fun. The best way that it's occurred so far is the guys taking up on their own initiative. What Phil did two years ago by jumping on, you know, Twitter and YouTube and doing his little videos and stuff.

And Homa told us on this very podcast, he just started doing it himself. Yeah. I like Ian Poulter now because he's so freaking funny on social media. I never thought that would happen. That you would ever. I went back and found a story that I had done with Stuart Sink back in 2008 or 2009. I did a Q&A with him after he'd won the Travelers Championship. and basically the entire Q&A was all about Twitter.

And like, you know, things like he. He was the OG Twitter guy. He was the OG Twitter guy. Most people don't realize it now because he tweets like once every two weeks now. Back in the day, he had, I went back and read this Q&A. His phone had gotten way. He left his phone outside. It rained out.

His phone got wet. And someone said, hey, put it in the bag of rice. And he's like, what? That doesn't make any sense. And he put his little iPhone 2 or whatever it was in a bag of rice, and then tweeted out a picture and like three days later, he's like, it worked.

And that was like the first anyone had ever heard about like putting an electronic device in a bag of rice when it was wet. And it worked afterwards. Be like, oh my God, this guy is amazing. I got to follow this guy. The rehabilitation of Stuart Sink

after the back during of Tom Watson at the open over the last year, I appreciate it because he's humbly gone about his business and had a lot of struggles since then. But he's now, he's winning. He's the OG Twitter guy, like Stuart Sink, who knew? Right.

That's a good point. Now, we're going to talk about, we're going to do early look at the PGA championship. I don't have him on my short list to win down to Kiwa, although I will say with what we've learned about his ability to drive the ball a long way and his accuracy with the irons. I don't mind throwing him in a DFS lineup this week at Wells Fargo. I'm not going to play him at Kiwa,

but I might have him. I might have Stewie in a lineup for, for the Quill Hollow venture this coming weekend. So Sobel, have you, is it too early for you? We're now officially two weeks out from the PGA championship down at Kiowa. And I'm starting to build a list. And I have to tell you, it looks very, very similar to the list that I built for the Masters. Are we going to Kiowa?

I always thought Kiowa. And I've heard a lot of Kiowa. Go ahead. Recently. And I'm doing a ton of radio that week. Do it your way. I didn't understand how to pronounce this thing. whatever feels good, buddy.

Yeah, it's fine. It's got an H at the end. Isn't it? Sure, go ahead and call it Kiwa. I don't mind it. I don't know. I wanted some pushback from you guys. Like, no, you're wrong.

We're going to do. We don't know. House, you called it Kiowa. I'm like, you might be right. I thought it was Kiowa. Is anyone going to like get mad at me and call me out if I'm doing radio that way? You can call it Kiowa. I hope not.

They might get mad at House for betting on Stuart Zink when he's not playing this week. Wait, wait, wait, wait. I saw him. I saw him in a list. Is he definitely playing? I'm telling you, he's on fan duel. He's available on the lineup. I was doing a lineup early today.

Never mind. I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm a golf professional over here. It's my bad. He's plus 6500. Those are crazy odds for Stuart Singh. All right. Speaking of crazy odds,

Roy Maca Roy currently available at 18 to 1 to win the PGA championship at Quail Hollow. Any reason? I mean, I mean, the key, Kiowa. Sorry. Keowah.

Any chance, Jason? Yeah, sure. I mean, but no. How much more are we going to say? I don't know. I'm just not there with Rory. I think there's a huge week for Rory, by the way, because he has played Quill Hollow better than anybody else over the last decade.

He's got two wins, seven top tens and nine starts. And so this is a great litmus test for Rory McElroy to see if he's ready for not just the PGA championship, but each of the year's final three majors and see if he's got something going. But yeah, we've got to see it. And I think three weeks off after the Masters was perfect for him. him. I think you needed it to recharge the batteries, need it mentally, needed it technically with a swing, needed it physically. And so, there's a great spot for him this week, but no, I'm not looking at them for the PGA.

It's weird, guys. Even though the last time it was played at Kiowa, Rory won by eight shots back in 2012, I'm still looking at guys like further down the board. I think there's going to be some value there. It's not going to be like a name we don't know out of nowhere, but I'm looking down the board. Like Mark Leashman is the kind of player that I could see winning this golf tournament. Just a guy who's like, you know, mid-30s world ranking, a guy that's been there, done that, a guy that if you won a major, you wouldn't be like, oh, my goodness, where'd that come from?

But he also wasn't the first name coming out of your mouth when you're sitting there breaking down who could win this one. But I just get a sense that it could be somebody a little bit out of nowhere. I do like your instinct here because it feels like it's been a little bit of, On rerun, every week we're looking at venues where wind is going to feature impromantly. And we keep doing this thing, Nate and I, of like, who are the Aussies and the Euros that we like? What awesies and euros play great in the wind? And it's a lot of the same kinds of names.

You know, that that was somehow we missed Matt Jones the week that, you know, the wind and the course conditions, you know, played in. But that was, you know, classic Camp Smith has been playing great. So, you know, all those guys, all the the Aussies of, you know, that vintage will show up on some of these dance cards, right? Yeah, I think so. Leishman Smith coming off that way at the Zura a couple weeks ago, really like both of those names. They played well this year. I mean, a guy like Matt Wallace. Sure. Matt Wallace hasn't been yet one on the PGA tour yet, but he's come close. He's played really well this year.

He seems like he's focused on playing the U.S. tour more so than the Europe. European tour. He's a guy that I can see on the leaderboard. Can't see him winning? I don't know. Maybe not necessarily finishing on top. But I just feel like those are the kind of guys that again, those of us sort of do this on a weekly

basis and know all these players, we won't be shocked by it. I think the casual fan might look at and go, who's that guy? But guys that have been there before. If we don't get a John Rom major this year, there's going to be some what the hell's going on. Isn't there? If we come

to September? Or do you not think so, Jace? You don't think the pressure's on him at this point. Between him and JT to win the second one. I just feel like the PGA, it gets serious with the Open. It gets serious with the U.S. Open. If these guys don't win in South Carolina, there's going to start to be some chatter. Like, can they win the really big one? You're probably right. There will be that chatter. But like, it's complete bullshit. Like, can John Rom win a big golf? He's 26 years old. He's ranked third. Yeah, he's going to win lots of. a big golf tournament. In fact, I mean, it's a discussion for another time, but we can sit here and talk about over the next five or ten years. I guess those are two completely different questions,

but who's going to win the most majors over the next five years or ten years? And John Robb might be my answer for either one of those questions. And I just think he's got a ton of game, plays his best golf on hard golf courses. Usually at majors, they tend to be a little bit harder. The guy's going to win. He's going to win it some. It's got to start putting one of the next three majors. Yep. Yep. And I mean, I love them for this week. I love them for this week.

And, you know, the only thing with the Masters Chase is it seems like maybe a tiny bit of a baby hangover. We wondered whether there be a baby bump or baby hangover par par par 66. And a backdoor top five. I mean, it's a reminder. Holy Mother F that like he got it. Right. He was my pick to win going into the master. I didn't realize after the baby came, I believe on Sunday that he wasn't just going to be like,

okay, cool, met the kid. I'm out of here. I'll be there Monday morning practicing. I didn't realize it was going to be like a late Wednesday morning, go play nine holes, then jump right into it. Is that what you did with your first kid? I know. Seriously.

Oh, I was playing golf that afternoon. Oh, my God. What a man. I wasn't even getting paid for it. I was like, yeah, I just had a kid. I'm going to play. Baby Sobel. Okay, well, let's go ahead and get to the meat of the matter.

This week, Quell Hollow, we've got 10 of the top 15, four of the top five. You know, we've had kind of a quiet couple weeks. The big boys are coming. It's a big boy golf course. A really interesting combination here of breakout wins and long shots along with guys of super crazy great pedigree. and it's impossible to forecast whether this is going to be another week featuring a breakout win, a long shot, or does one of, you know, is this a moment where one of the guys with pedigree comes in? What's your lean right now?

But Sobel did it. Sobel, I mean, I saw it, Sobel. All everybody else went chalk. You went long this week. Tell us why. Where did everyone else go? I want to know where, like, other people have gone. I fear there'd be a lot of JT.

I fear there'd be some ROM, maybe some Webb Simpson. I see, I see, I see Bryson out there. I think one of your colleagues went Bryson. Yep, yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I, I try to get mine out. Nobody went HV3. I said the great Jason soap.

That's true. You know, like, like you said, House, James Hahn, Derek Ernst. There's one other I'm missing. Max Homa. Max Homa, of course, two years ago. The homie. Big numbers have won at Quail Hollow before. He's not quite that big.

You can find them anywhere from 80 to 1. to 100 to 1. His home golf course coming off a T2 at the RBC Heritage in his last start. I've spoken with some guys who play a lot of golf with him at Quail Hollow and they say he is, first of all, not, he has never hit it better than he's hitting it right now. Secondly, his confidence. I mean, he likes to talk a lot of trash anyway in a fun way, but his confidence has never been higher than it is right now. And so playing his home golf course, I know sometimes like, look, a guy plays it every day and then gets into it in competition. It's like, oh, I've never seen the pin there,

or I've never played it with the green speeds like this, or something a little different, but there should be that familiarity. So I wanted to go down the board. I wanted to pick someone with the big number, and Harold Varner, to me, suits this golf course really well. He's a good driver of the ball,

and he's a good putter. I like it. You know, I didn't love the way he played, because the same narrative was building at the Wyndham when he was in contention, and he didn't play as well as he would have liked to there. But if he's, you've got a little inside scoop that he's playing the best,

that he ever has, that feels good. Can you talk me out of Max this week? I mean, Max, Max had a lead in the desert earlier in the year, and then he kind of pooped the bed on Sunday. He felt terrible, came back, and just grabbed Riviera. I feel like this past week, you know, he shot three over on Sunday. He just, that was a tournament he easily could have won. You wonder if he goes back, kicks his own ass this week,

and comes into Quill Hollow shooting guns. My reason for not taking Max this week is something that doesn't exist mathematically or analytically. And it's called the law of averages. We've all heard of it. We all said, oh, the law of averages, you know, that guy is one X amount of time. So it means he's coming back at regression to the mean. And so that's what I'm looking at from Max this week. Although, if you speak with people who work in analytics, who work in math, the data guys,

there's no such thing. That's not a thing that actually happens. And so I basically look at it and say, I don't know, he's played so well so far this year. He's already won a big one very infrequently to guys back up even, even though it's two years later or not one year later, do they back up having been defending champion? There's going to be just more people trying to pull it his shirt sleeve this week and more people trying to get his attention and things like that, and more media requests and all that kind of stuff that goes around being a defending champion. It's a little bit harder, but I know he does.

I know. Look, I feel like all this energy is only making them stronger right now. Well, that's the question. That's the price of being a PIP, you know, on the PIP leaderboard. You have more obligations. There's more, more polls on your time. Did you see the quote? He gave a quote to Sean Martin with the PGA tour.

We wrote a big piece on him this week. And the quote was fantastic. He said, I love when people say I can't do something. people say that I can't do it, I say, yes, I can and I show. When people don't say anything about me and don't say I can't do it, then I look inward and ask, can I? And so Max almost needs, I feel like people saying, people like me right now saying, come on, I mean, I know he's had a great year, but another Max Homo win and he's going to go back to back at Quail Hollow, he can't do it. So I hope Max is listening right now hearing me say he can't do it because he'll absolutely

kind of puff out of his chest and go, all right, you're saying I can't do it. Great. I'm going to go do it this week. And I'd love to see it. I have two young guys. I want to bounce off of you and get a reaction and their names both came out, you know, in the earlier portion of the conversation about all the young guys. I feel like this is the kind of stage for both Will Zalotaurus and Joaquin Neiman. Both of those guys coming out and grabbing this tournament and, you know, especially in the context of all the great players, all the top guys in the world at the venue and the eyes of golf, I mean, the eyes of the sporting public, you know, on Quail Hall, like, oh, yeah, that's a

place that hosted the major. You know, it's the interest levels higher and they will have fans at the venue, one of these two young guys out and making, you know, having this prestige win at this point in their career. Do you, what's your sense of that? Okay. Really like both of those guys this week. I will say this much, though, and I'll kind of take devil's advocate a little bit.

Joaquin Neiman, absolutely great. I love everything about this kid. The next time he makes a putt over five feet long will be the first time I've seen. It's amazing. Just really amazing. Every time I watch him. I know. And I take him in DFS every week.

And I don't know how many times I'm sitting there like, hey, I'm out and about. And I'm looking at him. Oh, Joaquin Neiman, 147 yards to pin six feet for birdie. And you're like, all right, cool. We got another. Nope, doesn't make it. And he just can't make those mid-range pods. You know who that reminds me of?

That's what's holding him back a little bit. And you know why I ate so much crow? That was Hideki. That was Hideki, the end of calendar year 2020 in the beginning of 2021. The how many six footers. I watched Hideki. I had a nice chunk at great odds on him at Wingfoot. And God damn did he ball strike beautifully at Wingfoot.

I can't give it up. I can't give it up because, you know, I watched him miss so many puts at Wingfoot. And then he rolled them all in beautifully at Augusta and good for him. That's the thing about taking these guys who are great ball strikers that if they put just pretty well, I was all over Keegan Bradley last week. I talked to Brendan Steele who had partnered with him at the Zurich the week before. He goes, dude, Keegan is playing so well. He's going to win something really, really soon.

His putting is better than I've ever seen it before. And so I was all over Keegan now. I cashed the first round leader bet. I cashed the top five ticket. I had him outright though. that would have been a nice cherry on top. Didn't quite get it because the putter left him in the end. I mean, he hit one in the water too, but the putting at the end looked really bad.

But these guys who were ball strikers, if you get them on a week when the putting is, it doesn't have to look like Tiger in his prime knocking in everything inside 20 feet. Doesn't have to look like Jordan Speath when he's putting his best. If they just put pretty well, they put, you know, finish 25th strokes game putting with their kind of ball striking, they're going to be right there. I just, I never see it from Joaquin Neiman. Will Zaltoris is sort of on the same wavelength. I will tell you guys a stat. And I did my podcast for the Action Network last night with Justin Ray, who I know you guys know really well. And Justin's the smartest mind in golf analytics that I know.

And Justin said, look, looking at Quail Hollow, it's less a iron ball strikers type, of course, than you've got to drive it well and you've got to put really. well. And for those reasons, he loves Bryson this week because Bryson hits two clubs in his bag really, really well. One's the driver off the tee. The other one is his putter. And so I look at Zalotaurus and I know, yeah, he drives the ball really well. Okay. But he's really like where he stands out is with his iron game. He might be a top five iron player right now, but the iron game doesn't quite mean as much at Quail Hollow as it means other places, which by the way, guys, I had no idea. I had no I did until he told me that. I would have looked at and said, JT won the 2017 PGA Championship at Quail.

He's the best iron player in the game. So of course you have to be a good iron player. But apparently it's driver and putter. It doesn't mean you have to like you can shank your irons all over the place. But it just doesn't mean as much as other places. Well, and the other thing about Zellatoris is he just got engaged and he bought a house. That dude has not been practicing in the way that he normally would. So that's when you maybe want to cool off this week. Let me ask you about a few sneaky guys who aren't going to win this tournament, but if you're set in DFS lineups, it's something to think about. Vaughn Taylor was T-13 the last time this was played,

and he was T-6 last week. Can we believe in Vaughn Taylor for a top 20 this week? Yeah, I'd be okay with that. I don't hate it. To me, again, you talk about that law of averages, the regression to the mean. And it's a delicate line to walk where it's, hey, this guy's playing well. He's got that intersection of course history and recent form.

And so he should play well. I tend to fall into that trap too often where I say, hey, 13, two years ago, six last week, boom, put him in the lineup. He's going to do really well, as opposed to, well, he was six last week. He doesn't finish in the top 10 that often. So this should be his drop-off week. And I fall into that trap. I like him. Is he in a lot of my lineups right now?

No, but I don't necessarily. I wouldn't talk you out of it. Well, and then the other sneaker for me is we keep forgetting that Brian Harmon's been playing great golf. And last time this tournament, you know, was here, he shot a 75 on Friday, but he had three rounds in the 60s. I really feel like Brian Harmon has had a much better year, maybe even than his results indicate. So I, he's been quiet in the last couple weeks, but boy, I love the way he came into Texas in. in Austin and match play and how he handled himself there. One of my absolute favorite plays this week.

He's been 13th or better in his last four starts. He won this event back in 17 when it was played at Eagle Point, not at Quail. And so you take that off the record, but he still has six of seven made cuts, two top 25s at this golf course, playing really well. He's a guy that he's a momentum type of player when he plays well once. He tends to keep playing well, as we've seen over the last month and a half. So I really like Brian Harmon. And by the way, guys, you want a super long shot this week.

And maybe not to win, but like a top 20 type of guy, top 30 type of guy. Yes. We always want those. Of course. I mean, of course. Thank you, how. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. I told you what I talked about with Justin Ray, where he said, you've got to drive it well, you've got to put well. So I went on Fantasy Labs, which Action Network owns and you can go through and sort of build your own models. And I went through and I put everything else at zero, but I put 25% long, term driving, strokes gained off the T.

25% short term strokes gained off the T, 25% long term putting, 25% short term putting. The guy who was at the top of the model as the greatest value in the entire field is a guy named Vince Whaley. Now I looked at that and said, well, okay, this model is not going to work. This guy's not doing it. And then I went back and looked at what he's done. All he's done is finished top 40 in his last six PGA tour starts.

The guy's pretty good. I wouldn't have known it if I wasn't doing the research and looking him up. But Vince Whaley is a guy that you want a sneaky DFS play, 6400 on Draft Kings. I think he's maybe the minimum right around 7,000 or just over it on Fandul. He could be a really nice play this week in some lineups. That's some deep shit. That is.

I have Eric Van Royan as somebody who's been driving the ball well. You know, so he's showing up in some of the, yeah, EVR is 7,200 on Fandul, I believe, and he's at plus 160 to one odds to win. I don't like EVR to win, but I do like his driving and I like the caliber of performance. He finished inside the top 25 at the Memorial last year, which was a super hard venue, and he was in the top 25 at Wingfoot as well. and he's gaining almost five strokes gained at Valero

where the wind and everything there. So that was my kind of long shot vibe. I didn't know we were going into Vince Whaley territory. Yeah, why not? I mean, especially like for lineups where you can load up on whatever combination of guys you like. I would probably put Rahman JT at the top of my list as far as like the big duns.

They're two favorites this week, not really going out of a limb there. Whether you're like Rahman JT or Rory and Bryson or Zander and Patrick Kately, whatever combination of big names you like, you know, big ones this week. But then there's guys to find lower on that list. I think Vince Whaley could be, I don't know, the model fits. Why not? Yeah.

I mean, we got two majors over the next, you know, five, six weeks. So this feels like a big week in terms of figuring out really who's in form. This is the last really big boy golf course. we're going to see before we get into this stretch of a couple major. So I'm, I'm, I'm keeping my eyes open this week. Why is DJ not playing? Because he's too busy tweeting. He's starting after the pit money.

Nate, Nate saw Paulina doing wedding dresses. I mean, could that be the reason? Is he getting married this weekend? Is he picking out the petty force? Is that what he's working on? I don't know. I don't talk to guys about this guys. I remember asking Dustin.

He's like, dude, the Danish people bought my company. I don't worry about the DJ's wedding. I remember when the first week that Paulina Gretzky, she came out to Capulua, I saw them everywhere, because you're in Capulua and like people, there's not, there's only a finite amount of people that are on property. And so when DJ's walking around with Polina Gretzky all week, like, you happen to see him walking around together. And so I was at ESPN at the time and my editor said, hey, can you ask Dustin about Paulina? I'm like, I'm absolutely not asking him that in the winner's press conference after he wins this golf tournament. So afterwards, I walked up to him. I said,

So what's going on with you and Paulina? He kind of looks at me, he's like, what do you mean? I'm like, I don't know. He's like, what do you want to know? And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. What do you want me to act? Like, are you guys like a thing? He's like, well, she's here.

And I'm like, yeah, I know. I don't know. Like one of those, like I don't need, like someone told me to ask the question. I'm asking the question because I'm supposed to. But I don't even know what I'm asking. I don't know what kind of answer I want. By the way, you guys, speaking of majors, there's a little correlation for you.

And I'm not saying I'm necessarily going with this yet. But so Hideki Matsuyama wasn't playing his best golf before the Masters. We all know. We were watching them. We're like, all right, he's kind of, it's close, it's not close. It's kind of, it's okay, but he hadn't won anything. He wouldn't play the Valero, Texas Open the week before. And reports are he was working his ass off there.

He was practicing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, all day. and then he went out there and he finished 30th or something like that, T-29 maybe. I mean, it was fine. But he used that. He'd never played that event before. And he used that to propel him into a master's win the next week. Patrick Cantley has never before played the World's Formula Championship. He's missed the cut in three of his last four starts.

He's not playing well. At some point, what do we look at? We say, hey, maybe he goes there. Works really hard at a tournament he's never played before, major in two weeks. okay okay food for thought I think that's not food for thought point point taken

well maybe you know a guy who didn't show up on any of my list so far for Kewa so because I think you know there's some Patrick can't lay resentment after he was because he was a hot ticket for the masters

he was one of those guys yeah I'm with this anyway I'm with you on that note Jason Sobel, always a pleasure. Thank you very much for coming on this week. Everybody check out Action Network. See what Sobs has lined up. He gave out.

We shared a lot of his story already, but there's still another half dozen picks inside of these. He's got a top 40 in there. Lucas Glover makes an appearance in the column. I mean, there's a bunch of names to look at every week. That's exactly right. Well, that does it, boys. Thank you very much.

All right, my par saving pals, there you have it. Our big thanks as always to our pal, Jason Sobel, breaking it down for us. We are back next week for the Byron Nelson and also to be catching some of the storylines as we go into another major. And of course, for the PGA championship at Kiowa, if that's the way that we're going to say it, we will be doing our usual Monday show with Storylines, Wednesday show with just a and Ray, maybe a special guest in there. And then Nathan and I will be available Sunday evening for an immediate recap. And in between there, I bet we jump into some kind of live forum.

We were, they renamed locker room. I don't even know what they're calling it. But we were using Spotify's live action thing. We did a Thursday show and a Saturday show with the inimitable Bill Simmons. I bet we run that back. So just keep your eyes and ears open. Pay attention to the socials. And we'll let you know where we're going to be.

Until then, my par saving pals, let's head them straight out there.