Fairway Rollin' - Rory’s win at the Players Championship, the Young Guns Confidence Index, and the Sauce of the Week | Fairway Rollin’

Episode Date: March 19, 2019

Joe House is joined by Chris Vernon to talk about betting regrets from the Players Championship, Brooks Koepka’s diet, and picks for the Valspar Championship (2:10). Then the Ringer’s Megan Schuster stops by to discuss why this year's Players Championship was great for golf, the young golfers she is illogically confident in, and the sauciest moments from the weekend (34:45). Host: Joe House Guest: Chris Vernon, Megan Schuster Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast. Unlike any other, it is glorious. It is wonderful. And oh, yeah, we are here. It is time for some fairways. Roll! Oh, my birdie buddies, my par saving pals. Welcome.

This is the new golf podcast on the Ringar Podcast Network. I am your starter Joe House. This podcast is presented by our good pals and Callaway Golf. who have an incredible deal going on right this second on the ChromeSoft and Chrome Soft X golf balls. You can personalize those suckers. If you buy four dozen of them personalized, it's a perfect time of year. You get one dozen free. So that's four dozen for the price of three dozen.

Personalize them. Do like my buddy, Frankie Molinari, who used that ball last week to win down at the Arnold Palmer invitational. go ahead and throw chipola on there that's that's onion that's the italian word for onion and we're trying to get this nickname for my boy frankie onions to stick chip chipola that's a perfect word to go on there this week's edition of fairway rolling my birdie buddies talking all things to players we got my main man chris vernon on he and i lick some wounds about some bets that we missed some plays that we resent, we regret, but all things considered a glorious players championship.

And of course, a little golf social with my main birdie buddy, Megan Schuster, we talk a little bit about the current young guns confidence index, and we also give out some superlatives for some exquisite sauce that we saw this week at the players championship. Let's get over to the first T.

I see it is open. We're going to let out a little shaft with my boy Chris Vernon. And now on the tea, Chris Vernon. Yo, Verno! Hello, how. Oh, it got dicey for me over the weekend. The fairway rolling listeners were wearing me out over Tommy Fleetwood. If he would have ended up winning, I would have never heard the end of it.

So, you know, I was put in a very precarious situation how I sat there and I was like, he can't win. I can't be. And so typically I'm always rooting for Tommy Fleetwood because I got something on him. Then the one time I didn't, I just knew he was going to win. And I was like, sorry, I'll root for you another time. Like, this can't be. And sure enough, he didn't win.

So I did feel okay at the end. Well, that's right. I mean, we both have some regrets, Verno. And this is part of the price. Now, look, all the Bertie brothers out there, all our par saving pals, we record this show. We try and get it up on a Monday. And so, you know, that's early in the prognostication week. It's not like, you know, we're doing study each day of the week and then giving out our

updated review and consideration. We live with the picks that we give out at the time that we give them out. And so sometimes, you know, there may be change of heart in between, you know, there might be regrets from whenever we give out those recommendations and the actual tournament commences. And, you know, I guess it's, Verna, we can always go on the Twitter and give out some folks if there's any change of heart. But I, you, we talked ourselves out of both Rory and Tommy Fleetwood last week. We were looking for value, but, you know, let's begin with this. It was a totally different golf tournament because of the March playing of it versus what we've seen the past 20 years. And I am just going to have to come right out and say it.

I love it. I loved every minute of it. I couldn't get enough of it. How did you, what was your reaction to the tournament this week? Well, to your point, Dustin, Jared. The other difficulty isn't going to play very well. They move it up to March and all of a sudden, Dust the John's awesome again, right? Yeah.

No, I mean, listen, it's perfect when it was, and it set up on the calendar because you've got the conference tournaments that are going on in college basketball. You can kind of pay attention to. And then you got Selection Sunday, but you know this is going to be able to, right? Like, I have one TV on this, and I had another one that was on the college basketball, the afternoon one, whatever that was. Michigan, Michigan State, right? Yeah, that's right.

Right, and it feeds right into selection Sunday. It ends up making for an awesome Sunday. I was, yeah, I am totally all for it, despite the fact that I had horrible feelings about this player's championship as, who did I have, Zander? Didn't even make the friggin cut. I'm partially to blame for that. We went hunting for value, and I want to follow up on your point.

is a great one. I think this player's championship on the Sunday of Selection Sunday is quite brilliant. I hope the calendar lines up this way going forward because to your point, it really did heighten the sense of the importance of the day. Like the drama of the golf was a perfect lead in to Selection Sunday. It really felt like a great sports day on the calendar. Credit to the dudes, you know what I mean? Yeah, because everybody's paying attention to sports anyway. Yes. And so it's not one of those off, you know, obviously,

with nothing else going on, there's really just college basketball and the NBA. NBA's in total dog days. So people are just kind of waiting. Teams and fans are just counting the days until the playoffs can start. And so there's not a lot of interest in that. But it does feel kind of like, you know how. And then we'll get through the NCAA tournament, and then bam will get to go straight to the masters.

But any time there's a heightened sense of community among sports fans, that there are people on social media that are talking about things that are going on in the world of sports. So now all of a sudden, if you have an awareness of that, now it's popping where people are like, hey, look at this leaderboard. Like, this is going to be great coming down the stretch. And it did end up with some super drama because I think, think there's a lot of people that are sitting there going, all right, Rory's got to get a four in order to walk away with this thing.

What are the chances this isn't going to a playoff? One of the chances that he's going to just, he knows the number, he knows he's got to make a part, and instead he stands right up there on 18 and stripes it. He's got out of no fair way and ends up two putting for his par and gets out of there with the win. now that that put a little bit of the hairs up on the back of my neck i'm not going to lie and that was the second shot inside of an hour that that had that effect because jimmy ferrics and what was that uh uh uh an eight iron or whatever he hit uh from the middle of the fairway 170 whatever

that he hit to to three feet and he started walking after it like basically as soon as he struck it he's walking after it because he knows how good it is and it gets so tight in there for a guy who in a previous kind of cart, now he's at the tail end of his PGA tour career, 48 year old, but it was very inspirational for an old dude like me, but, you know,

he previously had a reputation of being somebody that wasn't necessarily clutched down the stretch because he'd had some moments in his latter portion of his career where, you know, he was near the lead or in the lead and didn't pull out the W. So him being the, there's like the most clutch guy,

and boy, oh boy, did his birdie put on 17 burn the edge. I thought that was going in. It was a hell of a drama. But how about this, Verno? You look at that leaderboard, the top 10 names on that leaderboard, five of them have majors. So it was like a really unprecedented, a complete rewrite of the history of the players championship

where it felt like you were just as likely to get some kind of random dude coming out of left field as you were somebody with, real pedigree that was coming out and win it. And year over year, they make the statistician folks make this a big deal about there hasn't been a repeat. You know, each of the past 17 winners, you know, it was a one-time winner of the event. Rory coming out and doing what he did, that changes the entire narrative. And it just felt like a giant sports moment with a giant figure in the world of golf. And the PGA tour must be still, you know, exhausted.

It must be still smoking cigarettes in bed, if you ask me. Well, there's two things on this. Number one, it kind of sucks that Rory is getting stuck with the whole final group thing that's still going to travel with him because he was in the second to last group. You know, they keep on saying the last nine times he's been in the final group. He hasn't won. As to say, like, he doesn't come through when it's, matters,

both. And he's, he should kind of get credit, right? I mean, I don't give a damn what group he was in yesterday.

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Like, that took all the, that took all the stone. Yeah, that took all the stone.

The other thing is, we talked about this, whatever it was, a week or two ago, mayors last week, about, do you expect to see one-offs, or is,

you know, or is it going to be somebody that's, like, routinely up there winning tournaments, or are we going to see these weird

names that kind of come out of nowhere, like the guy from Georgia, Keith, was it Mitchell? Keith Mitchell, Keith Mitchell, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Keith Mitchell. Right, yeah, and we talked about after, and I said, man, there's just too many good players, right? And I think they're just going to kind of trade off, and it's crazy because you get into a tournament like this, and, like, Alexander didn't make the cut, and Jordan's feet, he's not around there, and Justin Thomas isn't around there. Like, there's a bunch of huge names, like, super accomplished guys.

that either didn't make the cut or they weren't involved. I mean, Sunday morning, I got up and I've got that PGA tour live on Apple TV. Yes. I watched Tiger and Kepka because I knew they weren't going to make, right, they're not going to be in the national TV broadcast. So I watch Tiger and I watch Brooks Kepka on Sunday morning. Like they're teeing off. They're so far done by the time anything's on TV.

But think about that. That's two premier guys. and they're not even, they ain't even close to the mix. Not even close to the mix. I want to do a quick aside on Brooks Kepka. This is one of the things I'm interested that you and I need to pay attention to

as gentlemen that are, you know, we wear the cloth of the wager. We are wagerers of the cloth. It came out, I saw a story this morning when I woke up where Kepka gave a quote about a change in diet in his physical training regime where he's lost either over 20 pounds or nearly 20 pounds in the last four months doing two-a-day workouts and doing some kind of crazy diet, restrictive diet

kind of thing. And he said he also lost between six and 10 yards off the tea, but the diet portion of it is done come Wednesday and he's going to have a cheeseburger. Verno, I would have liked to have known this before I gave out Brooks Kepka and talked about Brooks Kepka as a value pick. I'm not ever going to give out somebody that's not eating the damn cheeseburger, Verno? What are we talking about?

It killed me to see that afterwards. We need to figure out. I don't know how we do this, but, you know, and this is I'm only halfway kidding. the information available to folks that want to allocate a little capital, play a couple of bucks on this. I really might have stayed away from Kepka if I'd known where he was in terms of this. Well, not the diet part, but at least the training regimen, right, and that he's lost weight and that he's lost yards because that tells you something about where he is in his game

preparation, right? He's not showing up at this thing. Like I put some credit in the fact that he'd missed the cut at the Honda after making a bunch. I mean, at Arney tournament, the API, he missed the cut there. And I thought that might have been a blessing in disguise because he'd get some rest because he'd played a number of weeks in a row previously. He was making cuts and stuff. And I thought all that old Brooks Keppka is going to come out.

But I didn't know he's doing two a days and Leah stayed away from cheeseburgers. Damn it. Oh, it's so funny that you say this, too. because I hadn't read this. And yesterday morning, when I was watching him, it was cold. They had on the long sleeve. And so I even remarked to my wife, I was like, oh, look up broke. You ain't get the show off the guns today.

Well, what if he was just covering him up? What if he's got noodles now? I'll tell you this. I was at a tournament. Hey, I was at a tournament where I followed him last year. Yeah. He was, I mean, and this was not long, this before he won that U.S. Open.

I mean, it's always probably a peak of powers, but he was huge house. I'm taught, like, football player big. And I was like, my God, because you walk around and see these other guys, and even you see, like, you know, you even see his training buddy. A guy he lifts with him deals with all time in DJ,

and DJ's just long and lean, right? Yeah. I mean, he's not, he doesn't, he, he is startlingly tall when you're by him, you know, for the first time. But he's not like, he's not like huge, like intimidating. But, yep, I mean, he was, he was a monster. So, I mean, but I had no idea that we're going, we're leaning down. Maybe he's got a competition coming up for bodybuilding competition, you know, those guys. They bulk up and they lean down.

It does. You know, the only, the only knock ever you could put on Kepka is that he has interests in things other than golf. He seems to, like if he had his choice, it feels like he'd be playing professional baseball instead of professional golf. But you always, every time he gets a chance, right? He's always saying, like, you know, like, it always scares me because I do like him a lot and like watching him play, especially when he's at his best. But he always says, you know, it's not golf boring. It bores me. Like, the biggest thing I have to fight is getting bored.

I know. Oh, my, it's very, very, it's always a risk proposition wagering on him. So hopefully folks out there were able to, now I did this. I should have tried to talk you into it. I did live bet Rory at the very bottom of the market. I live bet him Saturday morning when he and time. me fleet were tied at the top at 12 under because I was worried going into Saturday's round that Rory would come out and shoot something like a 64, 65 and get up by six or seven strokes

and that the odds would go negative. I wanted Rory at plus odds going into the weekend. Now, if I'd just stay tight, I could have had odds that were double the odds that I got him at because he and Fleetwood kind of knocked it around a little bit on Saturday. And honestly, have to tell you, Verno, I thought I was very encouraged by Rory having his sort of challenging round on Saturday and him showing some resilience and still finishing under par, even though he seated the lead, even though John Rom jumped up over both him and Fleetwood into the lead. I was really impressed that Rory was able to pull out around two under par on Saturday, I believe it was because he did not have his

A game. He was scuffling out there. Well, I am not going to let you do this on the pod. You were like, oh, I should have told you to do it. You hated yourself for life for a memory, McElroy. That's the third. And if I

would have done it, you would have been like, no, no, don't do this with me. You know who I took life? Tommy Fleetwood in case, right? Yeah. I was coming away. I know. I was coming away empty-handed. if that idiot at once.

And the other one was a, what was it? Oh, Dustin Johnson, the night before. I was like, well, if he goes out there and, you know, he's in, I think he was in eight, so if he gets like a 65 or something, you know, if he throws up a crazy number, which he's capable of, I thought it was at least reasonable value. I mean, it was a super long shot. But I thought, hey, you throw a little bit on it if it hits. It's huge.

I did the same thing. I put a little bit. on Dustin on that exact same principle because I had him, he was available around 20 to 1 at that point. So those are great odds for DJ. And all you need is one round out of him where he, he goes shoot 64, 65, but he ends up like, oh, wow, something just clicked for me. And then he goes off and does DJ things. He can shoot back to back 64s in a heartbeat. And you know what? He shot all four rounds in the 60s and still finish. He finished inside the top 10, but, you know, he wasn't, he never really threatened, uh,

the leaders despite shooting four rounds in the 60s, the first guy to have done that in like 25 years. So, you know, DJ very much in form, I would say, notwithstanding the fact that, that, uh, he wasn't able to jump across the, the goal line with this one. But look, I want to, I want to make sure we have some time here for this week in Tiger Woods. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, war. Because you mentioned it. Now, his whole tournament, this so rarely happens to Tiger, but his whole tournament really ended Friday afternoon on the 17th,

or Friday morning on the 17th T. Take those, like, because he takes up seven. Yeah, that's right. Let's just say pars. I don't know you can't go back and do that, but there's one hole, right? So take four strokes off. Where does he end? Because he was 30th, right?

Where does he end? If he's four lower than what he was. Well, he ended up at six under for the tournament, and it would have put him up at 10 under. But the point to me is, at that moment in the tournament, he was at 7 under par. And the leaders on Friday night ended at 12 under. McElroy and Fleetwood ended at 12 under. If Tiger had made par on 17, he, finishes at seven under, he's five strokes out. He's in the mix. And we know how Tiger, you know,

when he's motivated and in the mix, instead he made that quad on 17, dropped them all the way down to three under. And now he's looking up, now there's a nine stroke difference. When he goes to bed Friday night, he's nine, nine strokes back of the leaders. And he knows he has to make a miracle on Saturday and Sunday. Now, he still played well. He still had, you know, reasonable rounds on Saturday and Sunday, both under par. And he went from 300 to 6 under for the tournament, but he never, you know, seriously threatened. He did hit, I was happy to see this, 12 fairways on Sunday as part of his, yeah, he shot even par on Saturday and three under yesterday. So 12 fairways, three under par yesterday.

So for this week in Tiger Woods, I'm going to tell you I, last week, it said you had no idea how to react. Like I really didn't. And I stand by that where he's coming back from the neck injury. We hadn't seen him play, you know, because he took that week off. Who knows if that's going to be bothersome to him? Who knows what kind of form he's going to be in? And so it was long odds last week and obviously long odds for a reason because he wasn't.

in contention. And in fairness, this year, you know, even as good as he's been some weeks, he hasn't been, I think, eight strokes is the closest he has been to a leader. And yet it feels like he's playing pretty well. Here's why I'm super positive about it. While that is true, and while the end of 30s, he's making these cuts. And the biggest thing was he had that one terrible hole, as we mentioned. But, the big thing from this weekend was he didn't have any three puts this whole weekend and so he had had a ton he had let me get this right six at riviera and at mexico okay so when you're when you're when you're getting to the greens and now you're three putting now i'm now i'm worried right because you really got to have that thing going once upon a time jordan speath buried every friggin put and now he does right? And it feels like everything, you know, they always say, you know, driver show, puffer, dough. But in the end, I need somebody, I want, you know, whoever I'm rooting for being able to

scramble and really put. And so that was what had befell him earlier in the year when he's got those six three putts at two different tournaments. Whereas now, it was weirdly the approach shot, which is the thing I count on the most. I know. You know, if he's 160 out, I just figure he's sticking this thing. That's right. And it was just right or left. And, I mean, it just didn't, that just wasn't locked in this weekend.

But being that, like, that is not something I worry about at all. And that's what kind of troubled him throughout this tournament. That's why I've got super hope. because what I don't need is the guy struggling on green and three puttick. So he didn't have a three putt this entire time. And the other thing else is, dude, he looks so happy all weekend. Can you believe it? He's cut up with Kevin Nah.

He's kind of with Kevin Nah. I don't know. You see that video that was going around the internet today of the guy wearing the t-shirt with his mugshot on it? No, no, I didn't see this. Oh, yeah, it's floating around everywhere. And he walks by the guy. And you can see him starting to laugh as he sees the T-shirt.

Like, there's so many things that are so different about him, but he just seems like it doesn't feel inauthentic at all. It doesn't feel like it's a show at all. Like he really is this guy now, this guy that's like super fun and smiling. And he's very positive after these rounds too. Like he, you know, he's not down on himself. And so, I don't know, given the lack of three puts, I love. love that. And then he looks super happy all weekend.

And obviously, if he gets in a really good place, mentally, it's all counting down for a month from now. So I was happy with the weekend. Burnow, we're counting days. We're 24 days out from the first round of the Masters. And I'm right there with you. That light

that lightness in Tiger's attitude is absolutely. It's so unexpected. But it really added to my overall enjoyment of the whole tournament. That thing between him and Nah, was just priceless. Now, Tiger's taken off this week, which I absolutely applaud.

He's not going to go to Tampa. He's going to play. He says he's going to play in the match play, the WGC match play event down in Austin, which is super cool. And he's guaranteed three rounds in that because of the way that they have their format for the knockout. He'll play at least three rounds head to head.

And then he'll either go on or he'll go home from there. But then he's ready. You know, that's a, that's a perfect place to start to get ready for Augusta. The greens there are lightning quick and Austin. They've been able to do that in years past. And, you know, his juices get flowing in a match play kind of format. We know that.

So I'm thrilled that that's going to be his next stop and his last stop before we get over to Augusta, Georgia. Well, and I think it's fair said, right? He's been good, not great. You've been good. he's been good I mean he's there you know he's making these cuts

and then it's something right like I mean hopefully it's all refined he kept saying there's this timeline to be awesome by the masters

and he's already you know if he could cut down on the three puts on the greens which he did over the weekend that approach shot thing

that's not gonna last he's not gonna be you know flaring him out to the right left and having to scramble back on to the green. I feel good about it. And you take the attitude. And like I said, go look at throughout this

year. I mean, there's a lot of guys that are supposed to be better than Tiger at this point right now that are missing cuts or they're just not in the mix at all. And they're not playing on weekends sometimes. And he's always there. He's making all these cuts and he's playing. All right, Verno. I'm going to let you go. But let's go ahead. And let's go ahead. let's get we have our epic flash pick of the week. Calloway's innovative flash face technology, this beautiful driver that so many folks have in play last week, Frankie Molinari, used it to win down at Arnold Palmer's tournament. They have been promoting faster ball speeds. They use artificial intelligence to run a bunch of simulations. You and I need some artificial intelligence

to help us with this pick right now. It's an incredible field down at the Valspar at Tampa at Copperhead and a really tough venue, a historical tradition of par threes that are super hard and scores that tend to barely break up into double digits. Do you have any thoughts on a potential winner for this week down in Tampa? All right. So given last week getting so colossally burnt by trying to take a long shot in Zander, doesn't even make the cut. I'm done with that.

I am going to go with a couple favorites. Don't have that. I'll give you two that are like high, probably in the top 10 in terms of odds. And now I'll give you one long shot, okay? Okay, good. I like it. Justin Johnson's playing in this,

and if you can kill the ball and you can have a short iron into the green, he demolished his courses like that. And this is exactly what he does. So he's playing this week. obviously came on over the weekend. At one point, we're looking at Sundays on the back nine. He's within two strokes of the lead.

I just think that if you're a guy that can kill the ball and have something short into the green, it just sets up for him. So I know the odds suck, but I'll probably have something on DJ. The other one, and this is probably going to surprise him, because he did not, he did not end up winning that player championship, though he had a great chance at it. But I don't know if you saw this at the end of the round with John Rom when on, like, whatever it was.

I mean, there were, okay, number one, he starts off with all these boats. Yeah. And he's going to explode, right? Like, he's going to explode. It seems like it. You expect it. And he doesn't. And then he gets to the end and that guy screams at him, Rom, your trash, your garbage.

I'm like, oh, my God. There's going to be a fist fight. Yeah. Instead, he like turned around kind of laugh, whatever, and then they asked him all about it afterwards, and he was like, you know, I've really tried to change, you know, my demeanor and everything and the way I think about things, and it's been really good for me. And I, the old John would have melted down. The old John would have freaked out and been a total hothead about it. And I'm like, what in the hell is going on how? I didn't know the tiger could change his stripes. as much. And so by virtue of him not losing his mind when the guy called him trash

and garbage and everything else, I think I'm on the John Ron train. He won me over. I love it. I feel like that's a good omen. And so there's Rom. And then I'll get the last one. If I'm going like a long shot, it would be Bubba. Just because he's

averaging like $3.50. I read this morning off the T second in the PGA. And so, again, if you can kill the ball and then have a long iron, or, I mean, a short iron into the green. Like, it feels like, I don't know, he's like 30 or 40 to 1 or something like that. I see him at 50 to 1. Okay. He would even have a chance just because, even have a chance just because of the way this is. It's one of those courses where if you can kill the ball and give yourself, you know, chances to stick it and he can kill the ball.

So all three of those guys are like, you know, guys that are striping it off the tee. And I think they probably got the best chances if I'm throwing something on this. Yeah. So DJ right now is at a grotesque plus 450, four and a half to one. That's a stay away for me. Rom is available at 9 to 1 because there's going to be a lot of people like you, I think. Vegas is anticipating who just saw ROM shoot 64 on Saturday. And then notwithstanding losing control of his game, he didn't lose control of his brain.

So I bet a lot of people are going to follow your lead on that. 9 to 1 is John Rom. And Bubba's down there at 50 to 1. That just feels like value anytime you can get a past major winner. you know, at 50 to 1 like that, who's not that far out of form. I mean, he finished, he ended up shooting two under for the tournament at Sawgrass,

but it isn't like he missed the cut or anything. Now, my, here's the thing. I know that DJ, the odds are protest, but again, I'm taking the long shot too. So now,

I feel like at least between Johnson and Rahm, I'm going to have somebody with a, like, a good chair on Sunday. And this is all 100%. And this is going to be the wrong thing to do. So I'm saying that off the bat. It's a reaction to Rory burning me. And the fact that I tried to go with long shots.

And then by the time it gets to Sunday, I'm like, what the hell am I doing? Like, just, right? Next thing I know, I'm Joe House and I'm scrambling to throw money on horrible odds for Rory to win. Well, fortunately, that covered my ass because it was going to be a big L. It was going to be a big L. I was going to be one. I had to explain to the wife why she could only have two margaritas on spring break next week. But fortunately, Rory came through and we covered the whole thing.

So who you got? I'm going a little bit off the reservation here. And again, I like my pal, Pat Mayo with Fantasy Sports National. And he's written up a little bit on a guy. here that's kind of caught my attention. And that player is Henrik Stenson. Now, he's been

bad. He's available right now at 33 to 1, which is reflective of the fact that he has indeed been bad. But there are signs of life here. Now, he's improving in strokes gained

approach. He's got a nice sizable chunk of him in advantage. Just over the last couple weeks. We know that he's pretty comfortable playing in Florida, and I particularly like his track record at this venue. Now, he's, uh, he missed the cut last year, but he didn't have a finish worse than 11th in the three previous years. So it's just looking for somebody that might be rounding into form and, you know, has that pedigree of, you know, again, former major winner, but also, I, I still hang my hat on guys who have good track records at venues who are, you know, finding

themselves and comfortable, Henrik Stens is my epic flash pick of the week. 33 to one, huh? 33 to one. He missed the cut last year, but three, three times before, no worse than 11th. So that's really the analytics for me. Surely between two favorites and two long shots, we gave out something's got a hit, right? Something's got a hit. Verno, we'll compare notes again next week.

Thank you, my brother. My man, thanks. Always. All right, thanks, brother. And now on the tea, Megan, Schuster. Yo, Shusty, what's happening? What's up, House? How are you?

I'm spectacular. I'm finally recovered from the incredible drama of the players' championship in March. I just had the chance to cover this a little bit with our boy, Verno, Chris Vernon. what an unbelievable tournament, like the drama inside of it was fine. It was great. But how about the validation of this pivot over to March, putting this thing on selection Sunday of all things? It was such a fun, fun tournament.

And honestly, I think they got maybe a little bit lucky with the leaderboard that we had on Sunday. It was such a fun round seeing Rory kind of gunning for his first win on the year with Tommy Fleetwood in there, Jim Fierick, you know, making a play. It was great. DJ, everyone. It was such a fun Sunday. It was an incredible leaderboard. I mentioned this to Verno that when the top 10 names, when you look at it, had five major winners.

And so we were just speculating a little bit about does this portend a new identity for the players? Does this putting this tournament, you know, at the beginning of the schedule in terms of, you know, big events that are. happening in golf. And the difference in the weather, which is pretty prominent, one of the things that Rory talked about that was really interesting, he gave this great interview to the golf channel set. He went up there after he won and sat with those guys with Brandl and David Duvall and Rich Lerner and Frank Nabilow.

And he said he was walking around with Jason Day during that round yesterday. and they were commenting on the predictability of the rough, that they were able to get repeatable results in their shots out of the rough because of the consistency. There was not a big variation in like the density or texture height that they experienced yesterday. And maybe that's like a key to a repeatable dynamic tournament that takes place in March.

I mean, there's no doubt that the tour validated immediately and resoundingly the notion to reposition this tournament at the beginning of the golf calendar. But in terms of the quality of the play and the quality of the players, because you get five major winners among the top 10 on the board. You did something right, Shusty. Yeah, absolutely. And I know we kind of harped on this last week, the idea of the players' championship. being the quote unquote first major, as it seems like the PGA may be trying to pivot towards branding it that way. But I think they should just let this stand on its own, you know? Like it doesn't need to be a major to get a quality leaderboard and a quality finish. And I think they got that this week.

Like you said, you know, playing it in March is great. And if the conditions are repeatable and are, you know, subject to a great finish like this, then I think hopefully we get this for many years to come. This was so fun. Yeah. And I really do. They hopefully will back down from the M word. They don't need to use it. Fingers crossed.

It's its own standalone, tremendous convening of the best and deepest field in golf. And they can just live with that. And it really does set up a beautiful window into this stretch. We're only 24 days out from the Masters now. I can't believe it. So what a beautiful preview for the Masters. Like what a great setup. What a great appetizer.

And how about this? It had the desired effect of putting golf on the sporting calendar and putting it in the minds of sports fans all across the nation by having it coincide with Selection Sunday. Like, you know, Selection Sunday now to me is mostly boring. The only college basketball of any consequence is the Big Ten tournament. And it's always Michigan State, Michigan or Ohio. Right, right. It's like the least interesting conference tournament championship to me. I just couldn't care less.

So having the golf, like, be the lead in to Selection Sunday, it's really, I mean, like sports fans, you know, consuming, uh, wanting to see the big names out there, you get that with this tournament, you know, Pat's on the backs for the, for the tour. And that's a rarity coming out of me. It's not often that I'm, I'm out here giving out hugs for the PGA tour, but they, they deserve for this one. I thought it was really terrific. They do. And you know, you know, maybe they got a little bit lucky with Rory

being the winner. But yeah, I mean, they seemed to do everything right. It was a blast to watch. You know, we already covered all the big names that finished toward the top. But, I mean, I think coming into this week house, we maybe should have kind of predicted

that Rory may have a finish like this. Oh, I know where you're going with this. Go ahead. Let's talk about it. I think we need to go through a few a few maybe predictive things that happened earlier this week. I came into it pretty, pretty meh on Rory, like sort of just hesitant. He'd been playing so well,

but, you know, had many close calls and hadn't really finished anything. So I needed a little more proof heading into the weekend. But looking back, there were a few signs along the way, a few guide posts that I think I should have picked up on. And if I remember right, you had a bit of money down on Rory this weekend, right?

Well, I didn't end up doing it in advance. I ended up live betting him Saturday morning. When I woke up, I was worried that he was going to go crazy low. And I didn't want to have to buy odds. I didn't want to pay. So I wanted him still available at plus odds. Now, they were not plus very much. And if I'd waited, I would have done, you know, I could have got double the odds that I ended up getting. But I just wanted to get in there and get on him because I thought when I woke up, Saturday morning that the two most likely winners were either Dustin Johnson or Rory. And Dustin Johnson was a little bit of a longer shot. I just thought, you know, if he shoots a 64 today, that being Saturday, he's right back in the mix. And then, you know, all bets are off. When DJ starts going low, you just get out of the way. So I put a little on him, but I went much bigger on Rory because it just felt like there

is that stat out there with Rory that was something. that should have told you and I to pay a little bit more attention. This run that he's on now where he finished sixth or better in six consecutive starts. He did this one other time in his career, although maybe he's done it more than that. But the last time he did it was in 2011. And his sixth start during that streak, he went out and won the tournament. So we're coming into this week, he'd had five straight inside the top six. and this was a sixth event.

Some people were pointing to that as the one for him to come on in and do the exact same thing he did five or I mean eight years ago. And, you know, he went out and did it. Yeah. And I wanted to talk about that stat too because I think it's so amazing how predictive it turned out to be. I know you and I had noted it last week coming into the tournament, how cool that was.

And it's really amazing that it turned out to be true again, you know, eight years later. But I think, you know, coming in. into the tournament, I was a little bit worried about how, you know, quote-unquote clutch Rory would be if he could, you know, actually close things out, especially in a stage like the players. But it seems like he really had an amazing mindset. He had fun out there. He had a couple quotes like over the weekend that, you know, it sounded like playing with Phil on Thursday and Friday had sort of rubbed up on his attitude. He went for it. On 18, I went with like a crazy second shot on Friday. And after his round, I guess he said that he had told NBC, like Roger Malt be a event. NBC on his walk to the green that playing with Phil had inspired that attitude to go for that shot. So I think it's just cool to see him out there enjoying playing with his playing partners and just kind of keeping it loose. Yeah, it helped. He kept talking about patience. He kept talking about perspective. He was using all these P words to get to the W and they're making a

joke about it on the broadcast. So if we're going to talk about the young guys, and the confidence index. Rory's still a young gun because he doesn't turn 30 until May the 4th. By the way, they're making a big deal about this stat. It deserves to be made a big deal of. This stat.

This comes from one of my favorite statisticians, Justin Ray, at the 15th club. Since the first Masters in 1934, only three players have won 15 PGA tour titles, including, and this is a, important inclusion, four majors, before turning 30 years old, those three players, Jack Nicholas, Tiger Woods, and now Rory McElroy. Wow.

Look at that. Huge. Rory at the top of the Young Guns Confidence Index. But what about some of these other fellas? Let's go through it a little bit. So I am going to diverge from you just a little bit on my number one. But let's go through the list of names that we want to include because there are so many that we could use. But let's limit it to some of the bigger ones. I have Ricky, Tony Fee now,

Bryson, Brooks, Kepka, Rory, Jordan Speed, Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood, and John Rom on my list. Okay. Is there anyone else that you want to throw on there or take off? No, no. I'm fine. I'm fine. I mean, I won't take anybody off. I'll just say why I think they're at the bottom of the index. Okay, okay. So my number one is still Brooks, even after this week. And. no. I know. I know. I know. We're going to diverge just a little bit. Did not have the best week, finished just minus two at the players and was pretty much out of contention all weekend. He's had a rough couple of weeks post-Honda where he finished tied for second. Missed the cut last week, tied for 56 this week. But when it comes down to it, this is our confidence rankings. It's all

about a logical gut feel. And if he's in a final round, close to the top, I still think he's going to win. So here's the thing. And this is a bit of news that I wish I'd known before I gave I gave out Brooks Kepka last week, Shusty, as one of my select players for a high finish, perhaps a winner at this player's championship. The news that I encountered this morning is news I wish I had last week. He has been on a four-month training regimen that includes two-a-day workouts and a dietary some kind of restrictive eating regimen. He hasn't had a cheeseburger in four months. He's lost nearly 20 pounds.

I'm telling he's lost nearly 20 pounds and he's lost. He says between six and 10 yards off the tea. Uh-oh. Shusty, do you think that I would give out a guy that doesn't eat a cheeseburger? Never, never. Oh, my goodness. And what are you going to do now?

You have him at the top of your confidence. Wow, wow. He's slipping really fast now. Oh, my goodness. not had a cheeseburger in four months. Brooks. He says he's looking forward to this Wednesday and maybe this fits your index just fine because he's going to come off of the dietary part, I guess, in a couple days.

Okay. All right. Well, then I'll keep with him at number one. Maybe after he gets that cheeseburger back in his system, he'll be all good moving forward. Yeah. He's not at the top of mind. I want to see with all kidding aside, with that change, you. in body weight.

It feels like he's got to, you know, he's got to find something. He looked out of sorts. I watched a fair amount of him on Saturday because he was off early as a guy that barely made the cut. And he was hitting the ball off the T right. He had this right miss that I just,

you never see out of him. Now, he was able to scramble a little bit, but it was, there was clearly something, he's doing something work-wise, you know, trying to find something. Yeah, yeah. Well, hopefully once his training sort of gets sorted out,

he'll figure out how to compensate for that lack of yardage off the tee. But that is disconcerning. It is concerning. Something to monitor moving forward, certainly. Yeah, so I have Rory second on my list, very close behind. He looked amazing. Has looked amazing All-spring. Just really incredible.

And then coming in at number three on my list is my man, Tommy Fleetwood. Sure. Why not? He deserves it. You know, he earned some respect, I believe, from the golfing public by the resilience that he showed over the course of his round yesterday. When there were a couple, he had a real scratchy front nine. And then he and John Rom both hit their second shots, their approach shots on the 11th hole, the par 511th, which was a kind of a pivotal scoring hole for a lot of guys. both of them hit their approaches in the water.

But Tommy Fleetwood hit a ball. He had the closest proximity to the hole on the 16th hole and made, I think he ended up with something that was either just under three feet or right at three feet in terms of the putt because of the brilliant second shot. At that point in his round, he was 12 under. He made the eagle putt to get to 14 under. He knew exactly what he needed to do to get up to Furik and, And, you know, Rory was still out finishing.

So he walked up to the T-box on 17, put his tea in the ground, and tried to hit his golf ball directly at the flag on 17. Now, he missed by a foot because it hit the wood, you know, and bounced 40 feet in the air and then ended up in the water. It was short by just about a foot. And he hit exactly the width of that railroad tie that they used. It was, you know, that was all of eight inches wide or so. Right. And that was it. But, you know, kudos to him for playing himself right back into the mix and trying to win.

He wanted to, he hit the ball. If you're watching the trajectory, it was, it was right at the, at the flagstick. And he still finished. Where did he end up on the, on the tournament here? Hold on. Did he have a top five? T five. T5.

Yep. Top five. So I have no problem at all with putting Tommy where you have them. No. And you know what? It was so exciting to see that from him to see him just going for it, gunning for it. I mean,

you know, obviously he did not have the Sunday round that I wanted for him. He was so, so good over the first three rounds. But I agree. Seeing that resilience from him, seeing him fight back was something new. And I was so impressed.

Me too. Okay. All right. All right. I like where you have Fleetwood. Okay. All right. Who do you have coming next?

Probably Justin Thomas. And I know it's a little funny because he's had some consecutive weeks now of being a little bit under the radar, off the radar. But I feel like he's in a mode where he's working on something also. I want to do a little bit more diligence. And he's not playing this week at Valspar, but he will be playing in Texas. He's a guy that I'm going to be playing close attention to at the WGC. see match play. He's he's done well there in the past. So, and the lead up to, uh, the masters, he's still a dark horse pick of mine for the masters. I agree. He, I have him at number four, too.

I think we just haven't seen enough from him yet this year, but that doesn't mean that it's not coming. And I think with him, I would always feel silly doubting him if we see, you know, something amazing happened for him at Augusta. So I also have him at four. Um, after this week, I have ROM at five, which I don't know if that's a controversial pick or if you're good with that. But he has an edge for me over guys like Ricky, Bryson, and Tony right now. So, uh, Berneau and I spent a good bit of time on John Rom because Verno gave out ROM as one of his picks for this week at Valspar. Oh, wow.

And you know what? Vegas agrees with Verno. He's only available at nine to one. odds, which are terrible odds for winning a golf tournament. That's awesome. So Vegas is taking more notice of the 64 on Saturday. And I think Verno made this point. I agree with it.

And Vegas must be counting on the rest of the betting public to also be subscribing to this point of view. Ram did not go nuts on Sunday temperamentally. And there were many, many occasions for him to go nuts. including when he and his caddy had a noticeable disagreement about the club selection and shot choice on the 11th hole. His approach shot from the bunker where he elected to hit to attempt a 30-yard hook with an 8-iron. His caddy tried vociferously to convince him of a different shot. Kudos, by the way, to the tour for capturing that whole exchange.

I want more of that. It was glorious. Honestly, glorious. That's the drama that we're after, right Tuesday? Absolutely. It was it was just really great to hear that back and forth and kind of see their thought process behind it. And then, you know, following through to him directly plunking it into the water and dropping a couple expletives after. It was just really like the perfect ending to that. But you're right. He he really could have gone off. He could have completely lost it. Could have, you know, had like one of those signature ROM fits and he didn't. And I thought that. that was encouraging to see, maybe a little bit of personal growth on John Rom's end, which was fun. And he's just been playing really, really well lately. I mean, 69, 68, 64 through the first three rounds of the tournament. Yesterday's 76, where he couldn't get anything going at all. You know, he was making his own bad luck a little bit.

16th hole, you know, had a plugged lie because of an approach shot, banged into the trees on the left. 17th hole hit it in the water but still inside the top 15 and three three really good rounds at this tournament so when he's putting four rounds together

that's you know he goes out and burns it down no problem at all with Rom in this lot that you have him cool and then I sort of have a glut of players at the bottom I've kind of grouped Ricky Bryson and Tony together Ricky Stone flashes to me so far this year but no one's really

really stood out And then I have Spieth, obviously, at the bottom. I don't even know what to say about him at this point. It's so, it's so upsetting, just really sad. I would have Bryson's slightly ahead of those other two guys. He shot nine under. He finished inside the top 20 with a pretty steady diet of, he went 70, 69, 69, 71.

Yeah. And I honestly feel like he is biting his time and really just getting ready. for the Masters. He's another one that I'm thinking about, you know, giving long consideration to as a play for the Masters. Ever since his round, the first time he played it,

that Friday when he was tied for the lead and then immediately smashed a ball so far left that he was playing from the walkway area. That has stuck with me that he's got that level of skill and confidence and the fact that Augusta seems to suit his eye. I'm thinking about him. him in a preparation mode for Augusta.

So Bryson's slightly improved, I mean, slightly better position for me, confidence-wise than those other guys. Sure. I like it. I think that sounds great. Okay. Well, let's, uh, so you mentioned Furok. He had an incredible week off the T-Shoasty.

He ranked third in the field in Fairway's hit, which is exactly what you would expect for him to be successful at a tournament, uh, like the players. He's playing Callaway Driver, Calloway continuing to be the number one driver across the major worldwide tour. Number one in PGA Tour driver wins and number one in worldwide wins this year, Calloway. Now, Furek, that was an inspirational tournament,

an inspirational performance. And he is showing up at the Valspar. He's 30 to 1 odds coming in to the Valspar. I mentioned him because I wanted to get your take on this little comparison that I'm going to call sauce of the week. Okay. There was a lot of very saucy moments throughout the entirety of the players' championship, which really did heighten the overall enjoyment of the whole event. It just can't get over how good an event that was from Thursday to Sunday. but Furek on the 18th Fairway after the day before he hit one on a line off the T.

I think he used a three wood that had him standing all precariously on the edge. In fact, my son was watching with me on Saturday afternoon and he couldn't believe that there was a guy standing on the edge of the water on those things. He said, you say, yeah, I was asking me, can he fall in? And I say if he takes a full swing, he is falling in. He and Fluff figured it out. He didn't have to take a full swing or you're smart enough not to take a little swing. He chipped out and played it from there.

Yesterday, he just rips one all the way down. He only had 171 left, seven iron in hand. And he stripes one directly at the pin. And it looked like he started walking after it immediately after the ball was struck. That to me, that was my, that was a. if not the sauciest, the top three sauciest moment of the tournament. That was incredible to see him going up. And there were a lot of jokes made on Twitter on Sunday that it was, you know,

Jim Furek, Ryder Cup captain for the U.S. going up against all the Europeans that he faced off with just a few months ago with, you know, McElroy Fleetwood, Justin Rose and Rahm up at the top of the leaderboard. That was pretty incredible to see him doing that at 48 years old, still walking in putts on Sunday. I also, there was another Furik moment that was, pretty great this weekend. If you were watching on Friday, there was a video of him, you know, taking off his hat

to shake hands at the end of the round. And we have to talk about his tan line because he took off a white hat. And if you blinked at the right time watching that video, it looks like he must have been wearing two different hats because the outline of the head, the head tan line was just so, so perfect. You would think that he would be cognizant of that. And if he wasn't, because he can't see the back of his own head, that's what is. that's what a wife is for.

That's what, you know, the loved ones in your life, the loved ones in your life are supposed to help you with that. You can buy some self-tanner these days. It's not like we're recommending that he go outside and get the top of the dome, you know, crisp up. But you can put some lotion on that thing.

Put some bowel on, put a salve on that thing. Right. You got to do something. Even just maybe playing half of a practice around with the hat off, just to make the contrast slightly less stark. But, yeah,

I want him to practice good. sun health you know good sun protected sun protection health habits but goodness gracious son yeah absolutely and there were lots

of other saucy moments this week house Eddie Pepper all had one he walked in a 50 foot birdie put on 17 on Sunday to take a share of the lead which was just really an iconic move from him

obviously there was you know Rom with his caddy on Sunday directly plunking it into the water after his caddy encouraged him to lay up. Yeah, that was an anti-sauce. I love that. An anti-sauce, yeah. That was pretty great. And then, of course, we have to talk about Tiger Woods and Kevin Nah on Saturday at 17. So that's, to me, is the only one that rivals the Furek sauce. Pepperl sauce was good sauce, but he was walking after that 50-footer, mainly because he was feeling good about the leave

that it seemed like he was, you know, and he confessed this. He knew, he thought it was going to be close enough that he could go tap it in. Yeah. And then he gives a very nonchalant wave of the hand when it actually drops. Like no fist pump. Like Johnny Vegas made the bomb of the year. And it'll always go down as an iconic putt, the longest putt ever made on the 17th hole at sawgrass. And he did the right.

He was doing, he was pumping it up. Right. Both hands up. I think he just left the ground for a minute. He was telling you, I can't hear you. I mean, he did it all. He wanted everybody. to celebrate that put.

A pepperill just gave like the little not. It was a little too nonchalant for me. So that's not quite saucy enough. But Naa and Tiger, go ahead and set the stage. It was too good for words. It was honestly just so beautiful. And I've watched this video probably 25 times

since it got posted on Saturday. But basically the two were playing Saturday round together. They're on 17. Kevin Nau putts first. So he, you know, is sort of tapping, not quite tapping in.

little too long for it to happen. But the ball's inching towards the hole. It's clear it's going in. So Kevin not chases after it and almost picks it up before it hits the hole. Like he comes... I mean, his hand is moving to to the ball as it's falling in. It's hilarious. He comes dangerously close to making contact with the ball before it goes in the hole. And so he, you know, picks it up, gives a little stutter step, just kind of waves, you know, kind of tries to play it off like no big deal. But you can see him kind of smile over a tiger and tiger's laughing at him. So Tiger comes up. lines up his own put and dives after it right as it gets to the hole trying to imitate nah.

And I have to say my initial reaction was this to this was that I was terrified he was going to throw out his back by doing this move because it's quite a drastic approach to the cup. But it was just amazing to see. And I think watching him imitate someone that he is playing with in that round and just cracking up at the end was such a different viewpoint from Tiger. It was great. I mean, there was a lightness to it.

And Merno mentioned the same thing. We just very briefly touched on this exchange between Nah and Tiger. It's hilarious that you talk about the concern about him throwing out his back. That was exactly, that was the in-the-moment reaction in the exchange I was having over text with a couple pals. And now that's the thing. That's what old guys think about. That's my demo. We're all worried about, oh, Tiger, don't throw your back, buddy.

Don't do it. But, you know, him being having that like, present, now in the first place, he knows he needs to make the putt. Right, right. It wasn't a, it wasn't a gimme, gimme. No, not by any means. But, but, you know, he saw enough of it to immediately try and replicate that thing. And it just is like so evocative of a different tiger, a different mindset, a different approach to the game,

a sense of, of where he is and playing to the crowd. It's like, seriously, biggest possible stage just because of the way that amphitheater works and that the way the stadium course is configured there really isn't a much bigger audience in golf that you can sort of surround a venue with and you know he he really played it up and so that presence of mind and the lightness to it it all it made vernon and i both i mean we're we're thinking very good thoughts about tiger come master's time when he's got that sense of humor that presence of mind and it was just just priceless.

I mean, two, who would have thunk that this March tournament was going to produce honestly like three, at least three iconic players moments. Like Furex, a fairway shot on 18 and walking after it after he hit the ball, well, is going to be go down in players lore. Yeah. This tiger and nothing, we're going to see another 100,000 times. Johnny Vegas, you know, celebrating the, the, the, the 70 footer will be a forever thing.

Right. And Eddie Pepperles wave. I mean, you know, these things are all going to be in the lore for the players in perpetuity. What a good event. It was great. It was so great. And I think my biggest takeaway from the whole Tiger Naa thing was just Tiger Tiger almost seemed to be doing it as much for his own humor benefit as anyone else.

Like he was cracking up. He had like literally made himself laugh. And he and now were walking off it. And they just like, you know, couldn't stop laughing at it. And I thought that was just so indicative of the mindset that he's taking in. And I agree with you. I think this is really cool to see heading into the Masters and hopefully it continues.

All right. Well, Shusty, we have the Valspar coming up, the Copperhead venue down in Tampa. Some big names playing in this thing. Dustin Johnson, you mentioned John Rom. Our boy, Furek, gets a chance to try and get across the gold line. Again, he's hot. Maybe we'll see it from him. Patrick Reed, who shot three rounds in the 60s and then shot a disastrous 76 or 77 or 78 on Sunday.

Justine will not stand for that, Shusty. So I expect big things out of Patrick Reed this week. Looking forward to comparing those with you this time next week. Yeah, sounds good. Can't wait. Thanks, Shusty.