Fairway Rollin' - Stat Analysis Leading Up to the PGA Championship With Justin Ray

Episode Date: August 5, 2020

What does TPC Harding Park tell us about who can win the PGA Championship this week? Joe House and Nathan Hubbard break it all down with stats guru Justin Ray of 15th Club (01:26). They also discuss in-depth stat analysis of the championship that determines the best possible gambling outcomes (39:52) Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Justin Ray Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast. Unlike any other, it is Fairway. Roan at the Golf Podcast. On the Ringer Podcast Network, I am your starter. Joe House. It is a very special edition of Fairway Rowland because it's a special week. It's a major week. It is glory's first shot.

And there is only one proper way to help all you birdie buddies out there all you eagle enthusiasts all you par saving pals as you formulate your strategies for allocating a little capital for your dFS for your fantasy and that's with our homeboy justin ray from the 15th club he's back it's been too long of course our pGA tour correspondent on the ground nathan hubbard is here to help us navigate all that there is to talk about at tpc Harding Park. The first tee is open. It's going to be a threesome. Me, J.R. and Nathan, let's get on and talk to those boys. I am excited. I mean, I can't really contain myself. We had a great preview show that went up Monday. We taped with Golf Digest,

Joel Beale. Check that out if you want to hear about some of the storylines. This show, up on Wednesday, which is always the show when I start, you know, my, my deep dive research, we want to try and make up a little bit of a game plan for how to allocate some capital, get some successful DFS lineups, fantasy, what, what have you. This one is really when we start putting the pedal to the metal. And I'm just so happy. We have major golf imminently in our lives. and there is nobody better to talk through some major golf analytics than our guy, Justin Ray.

J.R., how are you, buddy? I'm wonderful. Good to be talking to you again. It's been too long, man. It's been too long. I mean, the golf channel threw up a stat last night in some of their preview coverage, which has been outstanding. I've really been enjoying it about, you know, the amount of time that has lapsed since the

last major in professional golf. And it's, you know, I think the number. I think the number just said too damn long. That's exactly right. Well, JR, head of content at the 15th club. And the thing that I like, this is why you were on this show. This is why you've been doing it for years now here on Fairway Rowland. The 15th club is telling the true story of golf performance.

And that is what we're going to do for all. all of our par saving pals out there. No question. Yes, absolutely. No question. Cut through the clutter, give you the data that matters. That's it. Cut through the clutter and give you the data that matters.

Now, I want to start with a terrific tweet that you threw up earlier in this week. Let's just go ahead and dispense with all of the storyline cliches. You tweeted out that everybody, but by by the time folks will be hearing this you folks will will have heard that bryson de chambot has never finished better than 15th in a major probably 200 times yeah we've also heard uh you know finally people are all catching on glory's first shot we we use that uh on our show that went up monday how about marine layer i think marine layer is on the bingo card this we're going to hear marine layer another 6,000 times.

Although I saw somebody comment that maybe in the northern part, in northern California, it's fog and marine layer is in the side. I'm not from the west coast, so I don't know. My brother lives in San Francisco. Apparently the fog in San Francisco has a name. Oh, they call it Carl. I'm not making this up. Carl with a K.

My brother told me about it, but. Carl with a K, he's got his own Twitter account. We're going to talk about Carl. I think when we try and break down what to expect out of, out of this venue. A couple other cliches. I just want to go ahead and clear it. Rory won the match play event here.

Rory Macaroy won the match play event here in 2015. Rory hasn't won a major in six years. We did mention both of those on our Sunday, Monday pot as well. You wouldn't be doing it justice if you didn't mention these things. Yeah, that's right. We're just get them all out of the way so we don't have to repeat ourselves now. Yeah, absolutely.

Tiger 5 and O at Harding Park in the 09 President's Cup. You'll hear that one. Yeah. And we'll definitely hear about Bryson and however many protein shakes he drinks every day now. There's a whole big list of them. And we'll eventually rattle through all of them. But yeah, hopefully I can give you some information. It goes beyond that.

It helps everybody make a few smarter picks. Well, speaking of trying to make smarter picks, we have a little bit of an interesting challenge in front of us by trying to kind of roadmap this venue because it has not hosted a stroke play event since 2005. Yeah, it's difficult. I mean, there's not a ton of information to glean from. The WC matchplay obviously was there five years ago. Another card on the bingo. Bingo.

Borey McElroy went 7 and O in match play at Harding Park in 2015. You can get a little bit of information from there. But the truth is match play courses are typically set up by the PGA tour for action, for scoring for things to go up and down. It's a different setup than for a PGA championship. So a lot of the data that came from the matchplay that week kind of indicated that this would be a pretty easy course to drive the ball around on.

The rough isn't going to be very penalizing. Tiger, when he won here in 2005, I'll give you an example how I think it'll be a little bit different the setup. When Tiger won here in 2005, he had less than 40% of the fairways. I don't think that's necessarily a recipe for great success this week based on some of the early pictures.

I do think that this course is going to really set up well for the guys who can hit it a long way, even more so than usual on tour. But, you know, the driving distance is a big thing. You look at the guys who finished first and second in those two events, the 05, WGC, and then the match play. Tiger Woods beat John Daly in 05, which, wow, that's a lightning and a bottle time capsule moment there. And in the other instance, Rory beat Gary Woodland. All right, I give you those four guys, Tiger and his prime in those three.

and the one thing that pops into your head is they can crush the ball off the team. So I think there's something to be said for that. Some of our performance analytics indicate that the most significant approach shot this week is going to be between 175 and 200 yards. Brooks Kefka mentioned today in his press conference that he had a few more long irons than he's used to out there. So I think you're going to see that a lot. Some of the guys who rank really high in those proximity stats from that distance are guys like Rory, Justin Rose. Mark Leashman's a really good player with the mid to long irons. So I expect a little bit of that.

And some of our data also suggests, too, that you can probably see, and this tends to come when the approach shots are further away. You're going to see guys have to hit more putts from the 15 to 25 foot range. You might normally see week to week or maybe, you know, last week or the 3M open or something on the PGA tour. Webb Simpson leads the PGA tour and putts made outside 10 feet. Patrick Reed's really good in that stat. Gary Woodland, the guy who I like a lot this week, is sick.

than that statistic. So those are some of the key things I'm looking at. I'm interested to see some of the guys who played in Memphis in air that was much different than they're experiencing in San Francisco. Tony Fienow said in his press conference today that he thinks in Northern California the ball goes shorter there than anywhere else he can remember playing. I think there's something to be said for guys early in the week trying to calibrate some of those distances who were in Memphis at the playfully coined TPC Swampass, you know, where it was. hundred and you know, 105 heat index or whatever it felt like out there.

Big, big difference today where you've got, you know, Tiger Woods already talking about core warmth and stretching and things to get loose. And you're like, all right, this isn't the same Memphis. This is, this is something completely different. So those are a couple of things I'm kind of interested in course-wise going into the week. The temperature out there right now is about 58 degrees. It's, you know, we're recording this in the early afternoon. It looks like the wind has been up pretty heavy this week.

but that things are going to settle a bit come Thursday, Friday, and that we might even get some warmer, slightly warmer temperatures than we've had now. Justin, who do you, I mean, that really means that some of the calibration that's going on right now is going to have to be adjusted, because that Marine layer or Carl the fog, whatever we want to call it,

is hanging out there right now, but maybe giving guys a little bit different read on the course than they're going to see Thursday, Friday. Are there guys who are better at adjusting to those changing conditions that we should be looking out for? This is going to be an easy answer to give you, but it's simply just the guys who are the best players in the world, you know,

who are able to, game travels everywhere. And if you're an elite ball striker, if you're somebody like Justin Thomas, who over the last 18 to 24 months is probably the best iron player on the planet, if you're somebody like John Rom, who didn't have a great week last week, but was excellent T to Green when he won at Muirfield Village a few weeks ago.

Those guys tend to be able to, you know, pick up wherever, wherever they go, the game seems to carry. Somebody was like Bubba Lott's. maybe who's kind of enigmatic and doesn't necessarily, if he doesn't like the way something feels early in the week, he can get derailed quickly. I don't know. Bub is an easy guy to pick on in that department, I guess,

because it's kind of the first guy that comes to mind. But yeah, that's a tough thing to measure, guys who are able to adjust from place to place. But I think a guy like, let's say JT, who's won on all different kinds of surfaces and places everywhere, he's one in Hawaii and Malaysia and Tennessee, and it doesn't matter where it is, like he's been able to be successful.

I don't know. It's a tough thing to kind of measure, but that's who I'd kind of lend having the upper hand there being able to adjust midweek, depending on the climate. Well, let's talk about JT, because House and I were texting offline. You know, when you looked at how he actually won on Sunday, he had a lot of things go his way. I mean, we saw some of the things that got scary down the stretch at workday, which is that it seems like when the pressure's on,

he starts to bring Dr. Blocky on the driver out and start spraying him right. And he almost, I mean, with a little bit of a harder charge from Brooks, he was going to be under some pressure. How do you feel about Justin Thomas coming into this week? Well, and if he doesn't hit that bridge, I forget on which hole it was on that T-shot, I mean, you might have a completely different set of circumstances coming down the stretch. I tend to air on the side instead of maybe thinking about, like you said, Mr. Blocky showing up down the stretch here and there. I tend to err on the side of a guy who's putting himself into situations where he is in,

he has a chance to contend week in and week out. I tend to err towards the positive on that rather than, you know, saying maybe he didn't, you know, things fell apart at workday. Colomorcawa makes that unbelievable putt on top of JT's maker else Thomas might have two wins here in the, uh, since the return to golf. Like I said, statistically, I think he's the best iron player in the world right now. He was second in the field last week in Strokes Kane approach. He leads the tour in Strokes Kane approach to getting the last season.

That tends to carry everywhere you go. JT2, this feels a little bit to me, and I think I tweeted something about this a couple nights ago. It feels a lot like Rory McElroy in 2014 when he headed to Valhalla. Rory entered the final round at Bridgetstone trailing Sergio Garcia that year. He came back, lit it up on Sunday, won by a couple of shots. and then with that win, regain number one in the world, then went to Valhalla and won there, won his second PGA championship.

Justin Thomas this week, he entered final round, different course, but final round, the WGC, a few shots back, regain number one with a big win, and now is headed to the PGA looking for his second PGA championship. So there's a little bit of a feel there, kind of familiar to me, where I think there are guys who are really close to JT,

maybe not the separation Rory had is the best point. in the world at that time, but a guy kind of ascending back into that spot with a big victory and now heading with that momentum to the PGA championship. It feels a little bit like Rory in 2014 in that sense. So I'm obviously a big dummy. I mean, I wasn't going to say it. You have the stats on that. We do have the stats. There are a lot of receipts. I've already crossed JT off my win list, not my top five list, not my top 10 list, but my guys that are going to win. because he won last week. Now, that's overly simple.

That has, you know, no bearing on, you know, exactly what kind of form he's in and so forth. But there is over the last 40 years, lots of evidence that tends to indicate that a guy who wins the week before a major doesn't also win the major, right? From a probability standpoint, yeah, like it's really hard to win two golf tournaments in a row,

and it doesn't happen very often. So from just a sheer odds and numbers standpoint, yeah, it's more likely that a guy that didn't win last week is going to win this week, simply because the numbers are like 98% to 2% or whatever the case may be, unless your name is Eldrick, you know, then it's a little different. So, but yeah, no, I mean, look, in the last 50 years,

only two guys have won on the PGA tour and then won the PGA championship for next week. It was Tiger in 07 and Rory in 2014. It doesn't happen very often, But I think, and look, if that's a reason enough for you to scratch them off the win list, there's lots of other nominees who I think are going to contend to have a really good shot to win. I just don't think that's necessarily a really legitimate reason to cross JT. Well, I started off with the caveat.

I want to touch on something that both you and Nate kind of identified here, where we're trying to like, you know, come up with lines of demarcation around types of players and guys that might have success. And I'm wondering if you've looked at, because a bunch of these names have already come up in our conversation, guys that have had success in California. If there's anything to be made,

we've already talked about Gary Woodland, who won at Pebble Beach last year. We have touched on John Rom, who has a great track record out in California. Tiger obviously has an impeccable record in California. An unmatched record in California. California. And then we have some young guys that also fit some of the things you're talking about. Colin Moracawa, who has a Northern California relationship. Cal Berkeley, his alma mater,

just a hop skip and a jump away from TPC Harding Park. He's played the venue and competed there before. Patrick Cantley from Southern California. Zander Shopley from Southern California. So is there anything to be made of this like California tilt? I would say this week, typically California, Florida, you're able to make that kind of delineation in terms of guys you expect to play well because of grass type. But I would say because the Greens from reports out in San Francisco, they're not POA this week. That's where I tend to, like Brantznetter statistically is the best putter on POA for the last five, six years. That little pop stroke, he's an aggressive putter. It tends to work out in his favor on POA greens. But we don't have that this week at Harding Park.

So I think there's a little bit less significance there. Now, in terms of maybe playing when there is a little bit denser air and your ball being able to cut through some of the heavier air in Northern California, I think you saw that last year at Pebble Beach. Look, Gary Woodland won, Brooks Kept to finish second. John Rahm was right there. These are all guys with piercing ball flights that's able to carry through there. I think that might have a little bit of weight to it.

But in terms of just the California thing, maybe the, I think the grass type really kind of lends itself to where it's not quite as significant as you may think. Justin, I think you gave away the goods in the first few minutes of this podcast because what you told us is that puts from 15 to 25 feet are going to be a huge factor this week. And I've been getting some texts this morning from some people in the middle of their practice rounds out there who are saying that, look, yeah, it's true. This is a bomber's paradise. And it's true that you're going to have to be deadly with your long irons. But the greens are relatively big and flat and they're really pure. And so that feels like, depending on what happens with the rough, that the guys who can drain those 15 to 25 footers are really going to be the ones who can compete.

But so let's talk about the rough because that's going to have a lot to do with how close people get. What we're hearing is it's really patchy that right now on Tuesday, none of it is horrible. but there's some spots where it's maybe seven out of ten hard, and then a foot away, it's two out of ten. So it's Tuesday. That means they've got the option to grow that up a little bit. But how do you feel, if I tell you that that rough is going to get a lot worse, does that change how you think about the bombers and their chances this week?

That's a good question. If the rough does tend to get a little bit worse, I might actually put a little bit more emphasis on those guys who are really good at making putts from 20 to 30 feet. you would think that there's going to be more frequent approach shots that land at that range if the rough is more penalizing, right? It's going to be tougher to get it close. And, you know, it's a stark contrast.

Like last week, six of the last eight winners at TPC Southwind led the field that week and strokes K&T to Green. It is purely a ball striking evaluation on that golf course. I think here you're going to get a little bit more, a little bit more balanced in terms of the statistical profile, the guy who fits it, where depending on how penalizing that rough is, you know, misses around the green could be a little bit more penalizing too. So you look at guys who have really good short games to accompany, you know, being able to be a good power hitter as well. There are two guys on the PGA tour this season who are in the top

10 in both scrambling and strokes gained off the tea. Zander Shafle, one of those California guys, and Bryson DeCambeau are the two that fit that profile. So yeah, the rough is a really interesting part. I mean, like I said, at the match play in 2015 and even in 05, with the WGC at Harding Park, the rough just wasn't that penalizing. And so a lot of the data we're pulling from those two events. If Carrie Haig grows that rough out a little bit, PGA of America makes a little bit tougher, that data is going to have a little bit less weight

in terms of picking what's going to be most significant as the tournament plays out. But that's one of the most interesting things to me early in the week is seeing how penalizing that rough is and seeing which guys are able to keep it out of it or overcome the fact that their T-shot. For anybody's quick break to make sure that you know to get your entries in to the Fairway Roland Doe contests on Fanduel.

There are four events this PGA championship is the first of them. The Fairway Roland Doe Invitational on Fanduel. This is a DFS Daily Fantasy Golf leaderboard series. We enter four contests starting this week with the PGA Championship. The other contest will be the US Open, the Tour Championship, and the Masters, and after each round, they're gathering up the scores, collecting them, and posting them on a leaderboard. For each contest, of course, you can still win thousands of dollars in cash prizes, but we are taking a tally of how you do over each of these four. contests and we've got one hell of a prize package by par saving pals not only is there an exclusive fairway rolling dough championship jacket not only do you get a lifetime supply of bragging rights

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Leaderboard series. Age and location restrictions apply, my birdie buddies. The most compelling storyline since the restart has been Enigma, the Incredible Bulk, Beefy Bryson himself, and his reinvention of his own, his own physique, and his own approach to the game that's carried along with it, a kind of an edge that a lot of us have been, you know, detecting and, you know, is showing kind of an attitude that we were, we're not everybody is sold as is the path to success.

What are you thinking about Bryson's chances this week? So I think the thing that's kind of maybe overshad, like, look, the spectacle is one thing, the fire ants thing last week. the rules official back and forth a few weeks ago at Newfield Village, you know, the Instagram video, weird video with the workout montage. Like, that's one thing. But the truth is, this guy is by far now the best driver of the golf ball in the sport. So I'll give you a statistic here. The first part is a little jargony. The second part's going to give you the context of it. Bryson's averaging one and a quarter shot strokes gained off the tee per round. Okay.

That's not only the, since the restart, since the restarted at Colonial. That's not only the best on tour in that span. The gap between Bryson and number two is the same as the gap between number two, Cameron Champ, and number 26. That's the gap. That's the gap he's created with this protein steak and lifting and swinging really hard driving advantage. He's created a legitimate gap between himself and everyone else in terms of gaining strokes

off the team. Now, whether or not that translates to a major championship setup is yet to be determined. Like I said earlier, the guy has as many top tens and majors as I do. So that's not to say he doesn't have an amazing pedigree. You've got to be a hell of a player to win at the clip he has, to win a USAM and an NCAA in the same year. Like, he's an awesome player with a lot of potential, you know, all the side show stuff aside. But you've got to see whether or not that driving acumen is able to translate into the big championship setting. I think this is the week where he contends in a major championship, simply because driving prowess is so significant on this golf course.

I'm not picking him to win, but I think that that horse fit with Bryson, that skill set, the way he's been playing since the restart, I think he's going to be a force to be reckoned with the harding park. Well, the best thing the PGA did with Bryson this week is they paired him with Adam Scott, who has been in his basement for the last eight months,

and like disconnected from the internet, I don't think Adam Scott's going to recognize him. Adam Scott won at Riviera and then he went surfing. I mean, he hasn't played in months. He's fascinating to me. Do you think he can recognize Bryson on the first team? Like, if Bryson introduces himself as Frank Bubbles,

PGA Tour Pro from Iowa, Adam Scott's going to believe it. Oh, yeah, he's going to have no ideas. You're like, did you eat Bryson? Yeah, it's going to be ridiculous. Who is this person here? But so that, that's one of the sneaky, interesting, pairings that we got this week. Everybody, you know, got euphoric about the JT. Tiger Rory pairing,

which, you know, I think, I think that House and I both would tell you it's a fade JT week for us, but if anything can keep him mentally engaged the next week, it's going to be playing with those two guys. There's another interesting pairing. You mentioned a guy that you should be excited about, not just because he was runner up here, but also because of some of the putting stats. And that's Gary Woodland, who's paired with Brooks. So he's going to be able to, you know, track him through the first couple of days. We got Xander and Daniel Berger playing together. Do you put any stock in the pairings in the first couple days?

Statistically, is there any rhyme or reason to that? Or is it all really for the cameras and it doesn't so much affect the way guys perform? I don't think, not necessarily. You know, one of the things that I've always really liked over the years, especially in recent years, these two guys were huge rivals in their respective primes. But Phil has said in recent years that when I play with Tiger, it makes me better. And like I went through during the pandemic at one point and looked at every time Tiger had played with Phil compared to Phil's rounds with anybody else. And Phil was a shot better throughout his career per round playing with Tiger Woods than he was on every other golf course playing with everyone else.

And they were typically paired together at U.S. Opens when the USGA used to do one, two, and three in the same group. These are difficult golf courses that they'd be paired up together again. So maybe with some guys there could be some validity to that. But in terms of unless it was, honestly, unless it was Brooks and Bryson together, which would have been just grab the popcorn and get ready for rounds one and two, if that's the case.

I mean, hopefully we get to see them in a showdown on the weekend. That would be a fantastic theater on a great golf course and a big setting. But, I mean, maybe there's a few guys here and there where there could be a little bit of a difference. But I think on the whole, when guys are paired together, it doesn't make that one. Yeah, it seems like on that note,

the thing with the pairings that's perhaps more indicative of how things might go down is the time split, right? The guys who have the opportunity to go out early on Thursday and then play late on on Friday and whatever the weather conditions, you know, might kind of deliver under those settings. Do you have a view yet as to which of the time splits might have an advantage or is it too early? It's too early. I don't. I mean, I can invest time in it, but there's just no, there's no bank of accuracy to go with there. It's a tough thing to predict. Now, I will say that, you know, I do expect, there probably will be a split there that makes some kind of difference. And there will be an advantage based on wave. But unfortunately, I can't give you any useful information on which one that's going to be. I was very glad to see Tiger get an early Thursday, late Friday, because that eliminates. the thing hopefully eliminates, I'm knocking on wood here loudly, eliminates the thing that

he encountered at the memorial, which was an afternoon tea time followed up by a morning tea time and he couldn't get himself loose. Yeah, yeah. I do think that when Tiger has a later tea time, especially in a cooler environment, he's spoken at links about his need to give himself multiple hours to get ready, especially for major championship competition, depending on how good his back feels between, which is if anybody with a bad back, myself included, will tell you that any given day, you don't know, sometimes you just don't have it. So he does need that time. And that probably is a positive for Tiger.

We're talking a lot about the weather. And the weather is feeling very European. But we're not talking a lot of Europeans. Is there anybody who, you know, we're not talking about that we should be thinking about? I mean, Matthew Fitzpatrick has been playing some great golf. Hatton's been playing some great golf since he came back. Is there any of those players from across the pond that have snuck beneath the radar here, who you think can do some damage this week?

I'll give you, you mentioned one of the guys I want to talk about, but I'll give you a kind of like a counter to common knowledge going into this week, right? Fitzpatrick's been playing great. He's had a couple of high finishes in a row. 15th Club has a course fit model predictor. I'll get in all the nerd stuff of it. But basically it uses player performance and course data to predict which players are going to fit best or a given course. Matt Fitzpatrick is one of the worst fits this week.

I tend to err on the side of, you know, player profile and years of data rather than the hot hand going into a tournament. Fitzpatrick is somebody who, you know, look, he's not going to hit the ball a whole lot in terms of distance. He's not going to hit it a long way. he's going to win tournaments with his short irons and his short game. I don't see, I mean, I think that's the main reason he hasn't won on the U.S. tour yet. He's won on some shorter courses in Europe, but he hasn't necessarily seen that success translate. He won the U.S. Amateur, but he hasn't seen that success translate on the PGA tour yet,

where distance tends to be a little bit more important. The flip side of that, there's a guy who's missed three cuts in a row. He is a former number one player in the world. he's been working through an equipment change that I think has impacted him more than more. It's one of those things that we don't really talk about because the equipment manufacturers kind of keep it under wraps and who's hitting wood. And I think that's really impacted this guy. He has a top 20 and six of his last eight major championship starts. Justin Rose is one of the players who are course fit model favors very highly this week.

And I know people are going to be wary to pick him because, look, he missed back-to-back cuts at Mearfield Village, a golf course where he's won before. But I have confidence in our course fit model, and I really do believe that Rose is going to bounce back and have a pretty good week this week. I don't think you should shy away from him based on recent results. He has been able to take a little bit of time and maybe get that equipment situation a little bit fixed, get those distances dialed in. He's not hitting the clubs he was hitting the last year or so where you saw him kind of dropping the world rankings off that career peak a few years ago. Rose fits a lot of our analytical models really strongly this week. And he was right there last year at Pebble Beach in the U.S. Open on Sunday. And if you could have got a couple of those putts to fall,

he had an incredible putting day on Saturday and then couldn't replicate it on Sunday. But if you're looking for a guy with a tennis who obviously feels comfortable in Northern California, certainly fits that parameter as well, right? Yeah, definitely. He's won at Tori Pines. Like you said, he, I mean, he, I think he shoots, he shot 63, I think of the first round of the U.S. Open last year at Pebble. You know, he's a look, there's nothing that's going to spook the guy.

Three missed cuts in a row. His confidence is not going to waver. He's done basically everything you can do in the sport of golf in his career. And the course fit, I really have confidence in our new course fit model. All right. Sounds like an infomercial. I'll stop doing that. But can there, can regular people get a look at that?

What do we got to do to get a look at that thing? We're working on it. We're working on making it in public. Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, I know Rose is a guy who, like I said, I think is going to have a bounce back week. Well, so talk to us about some of the guys from JT's vintage who he's overshadowed just a little bit lately.

And maybe the course fit model can shed some insight on that. But there's three guys who, one of whom we've been dancing around not talking about, but we'll name him in a second. The first is Daniel Berger, who in his last seven starts, He's got a first, a T2, a T3, a T4, a T5, a T9. I mean, he is playing terrific golf. He came out of that 2014, 2014 Corn Ferry Tour class with JT. How do we feel about Burger first?

Secondly, House talked about Zander, California guy. He feels like he's ready to break through. This is a tournament where sometimes you see a guy grab his first major. It's a California thing. How about Zander? And then, lastly, we don't want to speak his name. but if this is going to be a putting contest, Jordan Speath is going for the Grand Slam.

Talk about those three guys and how they fit out here this week. Well, Berger might be the most consistent player in golf over the last six months or so. Remember he had that streak where he didn't have a roundover par from like October until a few weeks ago. Now, of course, big block of that there wasn't on golf. But that was a ridiculous streak. One of the longest on tour over the last 30 years or so.

Berger leads the PGA tour since the restart and strokes gain total per round, meaning basically he's been the most consistently good player week in, week out, since the tour has resumed. You know, he's a guy, he's a guy who he held the 54-all co-lead with Tony Fienau at Shinnock a few years ago. We all forget because Sunday was crazy. Saturday, Saturday was crazy too, you know, with the crazy weather conditions of that U.S. Open. But Berger was contending there, too. And he's a, he's a guy. He's a good putter from 10 to 15 feet. He knows what he's doing. He had a great round Sunday at TBC Southwind, you know, a place where he's had a ton of

success, obviously, in his career so far. It's tough to not be bullish on Daniel Berger this week. You know, just the sheer form he's displayed in recent weeks, you've got to be confident in him. Zander is really interesting this week to me, too. Now, all the driving metrics suggest, you know, he's kind of, he's not the biggest guy in stature. He's not DJ Brooks, Bryson, so you don't think this. But Zander's one of the best drivers of the golf ball, the tour. He's top five on tour since the restart and strokes gained off the tee per round. He played really well last week in Tennessee despite one hole. He made a quad and a bogey, and that was it.

Those are the only mistakes he made the entire week, led the field and bogey avoidance. Like I said earlier, one of two guys on tour this season who's in the top 10 in both strokes gained off the tea and scrambling. So you got power and touch. The cliche was Xander, I think, a little bit is the term big game hunter, you know. But I think really he's performed well when elite driving has been rewarded. I think it's some of these major championships,

a couple of the U.S. opens where he's contended. That's been the case. He's played 11 major championships. He's finished sixth or better in five of them. I mean, that is, you say trending towards knocking down the door, maybe kicking it down, a place where, you know, in California, like he said, this

could be a good fit for Zander this week, too. You feel like he's got to win one at some point. Jordan, the last guy you mentioned, can you imagine, let's say we've just left the 2017 open and we say, Okay, three years from now at the PGA, Jordan's going to be going for the Grand Slam, and it's like number 62 on the storyline list.

It's like he's not even there. You know, you wouldn't be able to wrap your brain around it. His course fit, to bring it back from the model, is not good this week. God damn. Coupling that with this kind of inconsistency to green play. He's still, look, he's still a top five putter on the PGA tour. He is since the restart. He is over the last two seasons.

But that Tita Green play, it's just not consistent enough to give a lot of confidence in Jordan being able to finish it this week. He's got a ton of chances left, though, man. He's not going anywhere. He's going to be here for a long time playing a lot of PGA championships. I just don't think that he completes the rectangle of four this week. I just don't think it's his time. Bernie buddies, quick break from this chat with Justin Ray. I want to talk to you about the whoop strap.

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We've covered a lot of the guys that tend to fall in a class that I'll kind of call like, you know, the second tier. I want to get your views on who's going to win. I want to get your views on, you know, long shot sleeper guys to maybe fill out a DFS lineup. And then we're going to talk some Tiger Woods. Don't think that we're going to go through this podcast and not talk about Eldrick Tiger Woods, JR. Absolutely not. I'll give you a super sleeper way off the board. I saw this guy getting 22 to 1 to finish in the top 20.

He, according to the course fit model, he is the best fit of any player relative to their ability in, the field this week. A veteran player finished sixth in Abu Dhabi earlier this year. He's Sean Norris. Journeyman, South African, he hits the ball a mile, can crush it. I think that his skill set fits really well. If you want to take a super sleeper flyer to maybe top 10 or top 20, I think he's a guy to keep an eye on this week. The guy who's a little bit off the beaten path, who I think is going to contend we talked about already, Gary Woodland, I think fits here really well. I think he's going to have a good week. My winner, we have not mentioned yet. And he always gets overlooked because he doesn't have a huge win total yet on the PGA tour. I am picking Patrick

Cantlay to win this golf tournament this week. The guy does not have a weakness statistic. He's in the top 60 in every strokes game denomination this season. He had the same kind of profile last year. He's a really good driver of the ball. He's in the top 40 in there. Elite iron player, fourth and strokes gained approach. Makes a ton of birdies, fifth and birdie average. He's from California, played golf at UCLA.

He's got an incredible amateur pedigree. He's trending towards getting that breakthrough major win. And honestly, I like that a lot of people aren't talking about him right now. He's really talented. He's a hell of a player.

I'm picking Patrick Cantley to win his first major. I love that. That's a great call. I have him on a whole bunch of different cards. He's another guy that's been playing well since the restart. He only has one kind of

outlier bad performance so far. And I think that was really just because of one, one round that he had, if I'm recalling it correctly. But you know all the stats on him. Yeah, remarkably consistent. And our data suggests that he's the third best player entering the tournament this week behind only JT and Rory. So, wow. We really are, our analytics really like Cantlay. I like him from a story perspective with the California stuff too when you, you know, take the numbers lens off of it and look at it. But the guy just doesn't have a weakness in his game. I think that he's going to make enough birdies. He's had enough experience

in major championship golf now. He's my guy. I'm right. So, well, expect, so now it's like 79 on Thursday. You just compared him to another guy that I can't believe we haven't talked about at all. And that's Rory. What's going on with Rory? I asked on Sunday if

Nate and Joel Beal from Golf Digest thought that maybe Rory's been playing possum so far. He's been uncharacteristically off with his irons. You know, usually we talk about the putter not coming through for McElroy whenever he struggles, which isn't that often over the last five or six years. But since the restart, he's played five tournaments. He has not ranked in the top 25 in strokes gained approach in any of them. So right now, something's off with

the iron game, his distances. We talk about his wedge play, you know, not being great. But that's something I think is easily, you know, seen by the naked eye watching TV, watching a guy who we see every one of his shots, right? You don't see every shot Patrick Cantlay hits every week. You see everything Rory does, everything Tiger does, you know. So look, this, like I've been saying, this is, of course, where distance is more beneficial than average. That helps him. But he's really going to need to hit his irons better if he wants to contend this week.

And I got to say he's out there right now playing a practice round with Jason Day, and they're yucking it up. Guess who doesn't play practice rounds with other people? Tiger was out there by himself picking lines and hitting shots yesterday. Brooks always says he never wants to play with anybody else in a practice round because he doesn't want to give away his core strategy. There's just these moments over the past couple of years where I just wonder how deeply invested and focused Rory is on win and major championships. Of course, he wants to win, but is he really doing the work to

peak in those moments? I don't know. Yeah, I can't speak to that, but I can't see how one would garner that impression. Maybe it's part of the reason why, you know, he feels like he'd be, it's a great dude, if you're stuck on a road trip with him, I'd much rather, you know, be stuck in a car for nine hours with Rory McElroy maybe than, you know, a hyper intense Brooks Kepka getting ready for a major, but that's not necessarily, you know, I can see why maybe, you know, from a distance you could think that watching him going into a major. It's been six years. It's time for Rory to step up and win a major. This has been too long. It's been too long. It doesn't feel like it's been that long. You know, he won player

of the year last year. You can debate whether or not Kepka should have won that. I would have good into Brooks, honestly. Yeah, it's, I looked this up, and this is to say, I don't think anyone in their right mind could possibly imagine that Rory's not going to win another major, right? But there's 19 guys to win five majors, okay, in the men's professional game. The longest gap anyone had between wins four and five is four years. No one ever had a gap between major win four and five that was, now obviously, you know, those guys like, the tiger went more than a decade between 14 and 15. And I don't, I can't wrap my brain around the possibility that he wouldn't win another major championship. He's too good, too consistent. We were talking about how he couldn't

finish out of the top 10 before the pandemic. You know, we had like seven worldwide top 10s in a row. But man, it's been six years, right? It's been a long time. And, you know, I go back to the iron thing this week. It's really been uncharacteristic. He really hasn't hit his iron as well. Last month or two, he knows it. He's working on it. And, you know, I just, need to see more. I would have liked to seem better iron play last week in Memphis to put a lot of money on him this week. Well, we've gone all this time. We've talked a little

bit about him. There is a growing buzz. I've been seeing on the social media, the interviews the golf channel. There is a level of excitement that is increasing because Tiger Woods arrived out in San Francisco

early. Somehow got himself a little early access out there to the golf course. maybe ahead of some other players, I don't know. And all of the signs so far this week have been positive, it seems. There is a lot, you know, talk about the approach he's taking with the practice, his tiny entourage that's practicing with him. He's physically talking about how good he feels.

I don't know, JR. I'm not counting him out. Yeah, it's impossible to, to quote a line I've said every time I've, talked about golf since, you know, since college is you can't count out Tiger Woods because you can't. And look, nobody's more familiar going into big events with few reps. This guy's the king of it, you know, with the injuries that he's fought through the last seven, eight, nine years. You know, it's, he's gone into a lot of big events. He knows how to, more so than anybody else, he know how to prepare himself for a major championship, having not played a lot of competitive of golf. But I worry about the cold air. I don't know. I worry about his ability to get himself

warmed up. At 44, no one's won a PGA, 44 older since Lee Trevino in 1984. I do think, too, that, look, he's got to hit his driver straight. And he doesn't necessarily always have to do that. That is not a thing that matters at Augusta National. It doesn't really matter. It's like, like, the places we've seen him had a lot of success, you're able to be wild off the T and it's not necessarily very penalizing. If he hits 39% of his fairways like he did when he won here in 2005, he's not going to win the golf turn. He's got to be straighter off the T if he wants to contend.

I want to believe, man, I've got a hat on right now with his load. Yeah, I was going to ask you, you're wearing the hat. Mainly it's because the Tiger Woods brand hats, this is a sidebar. I have a head the size of a spalding basketball. They actually fit my giant frame, but that's. neither here nor there. No, I want to believe, you know, I want to see him play well. We all do. It's great for the sport whenever he succeeds.

I'm a little worried, though, about the penalizing rough and maybe that cool air getting that back. I'm with you. The thing for me about all the grinding and work he's been putting in this week is it's been fascinating to watch. I mean, he's going up to the greens and snapping balls with the spin rate that he thinks his wedges will come in and watching where they land and putting from those spots. And, you know, he's hitting snappy wedges out of the collection area on that drivable par four, seventh. Great. That's a lot of work. Why? Because he knows that he can't overpower the course. He knows there are probably 25 guys in this competition who probably have their skill set more honed and are just sharper with off the tee and maybe even on the green than he is.

So he's trying to win this tournament with his mind is what it looks like. He's trying to outthink everybody on this course. And it just doesn't look to me like Harding Park is a massively strategic. You have to think your way around the smartest golfer out there's going to win type of course. It feels great. That's the thing that scares me about Tiger this week. I think we're going to get a nice performance out of him. It's going to be fun. But I just feel like there's 20 or 25 guys who are going to be better at this golf course than his mind is going to allow him to be. And we taught, I agree with you. We talked about it earlier. The greens are largely there's not a lot going on with those greens.

That's not a place where strategy and places to miss, I think is going to have a massive impact. I'm with you. I think if I will say this, and I just thought of this, you know, since, you know, the gearing up to the win at the Tour Championship a couple years ago,

his success at the Open, and then finally the win at the Masters, you know, he's known how he's been able to strategize a way where, look, he's not going to outdrive Bryson and DJ and Epka and Rory. It's not going to happen. But he can still.

hit his irons about as good as anybody on the planet. So what he wants to do is put himself in enough positions off the tee where he can give himself scoring opportunities with his approach shots. Now, his approaches might be from, he needs to be better from 175 than Kepka is from 130, then Rory is from 125. That's the game he has to play. Now, he's able to do that at Augusta National. And that's a place where, like I said, driving accuracy isn't exactly paramount. It it really all comes down to strokes gained approach when trying to pick a winner there. This is a little bit different. Like I said, worried about the penalizing rough if he's wild off the T.

I like your point, though, too, Nathan, about the fact that, you know, he may think he's trying to strategize his way around the golf course and this might might not be the right fit for that. Well, let's all agree. Why don't we all just put a little taste on top 20? It's plus odds for him to finish in the top 20. It's plus 150. So if you put 100 and he makes the top. top 20. It's 150. And you can tell everybody that you rooted for Tiger Woods, you know,

in the first major of the season. I mean, that, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a positive thing, right? Yeah, I'd buy that. I'd buy a top 20. Definitely. Let's let's all do it. At the plus odds. J.R. Tell us about what the 15th club has going on, uh, this week. Where, where should we look for, for all your stuff? Uh, check us out at 15th club.com. My Twitter feed is at Justin Ray Golf. Um, we've got, new content up already today as my computer buzzes and makes noises into the microphone. I apologize. We got content up today at the PGATor.com website.

That's one of our partners we work with a lot. We're working with Sky Sports all week so you can find our work there. The PGA of America, we're partners with them this week, helping them out with their content. We're all over the place. So hopefully you get sick of seeing my name and I tweet something that makes you angry and you can reply in a nonsensical fashion somewhere on social media, everyone out there. I mean, it's what we all do, but you can't make me or Nate, Matt. Thanks so much for coming on.

We love talking to you when it's major time, my brother. Thanks for having me, man. Always enjoy joining you guys. Thank you, Justin. All right, my par saving pals, there you have it. I hope everybody has strong ROI this week. Great performances in your fantasy and your DFS. Nate and I will be back Sunday evening

immediately after this PGA championship has wrapped up and a winner has been crowned. We're going to break it all down for you. And Nate is going to have some special insights from his own perspective. He is going up there to TPC Harding Park so he will be walking the grounds. And he'll have some extraordinary thoughts for us

on why it is that the winner did the winning. Until Sunday night, My par saving pals, let's all hit them straight out there.