Fairway Rollin' - The PGA Playoffs Continue and Looking to the BMW Championship With Pat Mayo

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

As the PGA playoffs roll on, House and Nathan Hubbard discuss the results of the Northern Trust including Dustin Johnson's historic performance in Boston (01:33). They are then joined by Pat Mayo to talk about the biggest odds that have gone down since the tour resumed, along with some of the best ways to bet smart for this coming tournament (37:40). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Pat Mayo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast. Unlike any other, you've done it. We're back in this fairway. Roll in the golf podcast on the Ringer podcast Network. I am your starter, Joe House. It's another playoff week by par saving buddies. We're getting serious now. We've gone from 125 to 70.

We have two consecutive no-cut events, $15 million is on the line. 70 is going to go to 30 this week. We have, of course, our PGA tour correspondent on the ground. Nathan Hubbard here to take us inside the ropes. And an old friend of ours, Pat Mayo, from the Pat Mayo experience, who's been on an absolutely torrid tear in terms of forecasting winners and top placement. We pulled Pat back on. We talked to him back in March.

He's back to help us think about the restart and what to anticipate coming up in these playoffs and the majors to be. Let's go over to the first tee and check in with the homie, Nathan Hubbard. Yo, Nate, what's happening, my brother?

House, I have great news. Let's hear it. Mark Hubbard was fourth in strokes gained approach this week. That is great news. That we identified ball striking, which loosely, you know, correlates directly to that strokes gained metric, strokes gained approach as a key metric for success at the Northern Trust up there

in Boston. And homeless acquitted himself pretty well, right? Well, do you want to know the bad news? Okay. I guess I have to hear it. He lost by 20. That's the difference Between first and fourth

Was 20 strokes What a week for DJ We have not I really think because We have rolled right into the BMW We have not heard enough About this performance this weekend I think this might have been

The greatest Non-like big event Performance in the history of the people DJ tour. Because all the other strokes, you know, strokes relative to par performances, first of all, they were done in Hawaii. And those are not real tournaments. I have been to that course. I've been to that tournament. Everybody's just drinking mitis. The course is easy. It doesn't matter. Like you can't count anything that happens in Hawaii. It's like Vegas. It just stays in Hawaii. This was an absolute ass kicking from DJ who, as far as we could tell,

We were throwing dirt on him four weeks ago after the double Jerry Rice's or whatever it was. This was an amazing performance that's not going to get the credit that it deserves because we're on to the next one. We're on to Chicago. Well, you know, he's got some credit Sunday night into Monday. There was an effort to identify the historic week. It's the largest margin of victory in a PGA tour event since 2006. He's the third player in the history of the tour to shoot 30 or under, 30 under or better. It is 72-hole official PGA tour event.

He had the lowest total score across 54 holes in the history of the PGA tour. And, you know, it's his 22nd PGA tour victory all coming, you know, since his rookie season of 2008. And he has the most PGA tour titles since 2000. 2008. He broke a tie with Tiger Woods for most in that stretch. 2008 to 2020. Tiger has 21 and DJ now has 22. This is all through our boy Justin Ray at the 15th club. A lot of that that data that our boy J.R lays out there for us. But, you know, I think the golf community is properly celebrating the historic performance. You don't feel like he's getting. enough shine? I think we're going to remember this tournament as an aggregate community of golf watchers more for the fact that he should have shot a 57 than for the fact that he actually absolutely annihilated the field. A guy shot a 59 in this tournament and didn't even sniff DJ. So, you know, it is interesting. There is this sort of natural reflex among sort of the

the deep golf commentariat to look skeptically at scoring like this in what I'll call sort of the modern era because there is now widespread recognition of the impact of the equipment and the ball on the ability of these guys to go low. Now, the players uniformly sang the praises of the Boston venue. They said the greens were immaculate. They were very receptive, obviously, because there'd been some rain. It was soft. You could see it. And if you checked in at any moment and watched guys firing at pins on this golf course, it was clear that they felt comfortable. But, you know, the, there is this, this, we keep, you know, sort of bumping up against this, this tension. Is it still entertaining if a guy goes out and dominates in this way and shoots an astronomically low score? Or does it somehow

diminish the entertainment value of the product. Those are fair questions, but the average score here over the years has been 17 under. And Harris English was second at 19. You had burger at 18, Kiz, Schephler at 17. So this was not,

what was weird about this tournament was DJ's performance. The rest of it seemed to revert to the mean. And the course did what we thought it was going to do. It wasn't the complete laydown track that, you know, we sometimes see out in the desert, you know, at the Amex or, you know, sometimes in Hawaii. This was an historic performance. I mean, he was hitting his irons and doing the DJ thing where, you know, when like Spieth hits a good shot, he'll do his little shuffle back.

When DJ hits a good shot and it's great, he just stops looking at it. It gets up in the air and he stops looking and he just starts walking. Then bang, it lands two feet from the hole. He was doing that for four straight rounds. Now, the question for me that we got to keep thinking about is, why can't this guy do this more often? How did he give up a 54-hole lead four times in a major, including at the PGA? Now, his response is going to be, hey, I shot 68 at the PGA. I played well. Morikawa just played better.

I don't really think about that, which is what we love about DJ. But this is clearly now, clearly one of the best golfers of his generation. generation and a lot of those stats through whatever it is, 271 starts, right? Tiger won a million times, but it's DJ who's next. And so the question just really is how do we look at this guy? And you and I talked about it when he won in Hartford, but how do we look at this guy and his resume is one of the all-time greats? I mean, he's a Hall of Famer and he's going to go in and it would be terrific for him to remove all doubt and win two more majors. Just, just two more puts him in like ultra elite company.

He's already in very elite company because of the number, the sheer number of wins on tour. But like three majors plus 25 wins on tour, give or take, that's, that makes sense to me. And the solace we can take is that Phil at this age had not won a single major yet. So that's it.

And then Phil, you know, has gone on to really, burnish his own major resume and dominate the champions tour well look let's do one little last bit on dj 18 for 18 greens and regulation on sunday and he was either tied or second all time in the history of of greens uh hit in regulation over a 72 two whole uh event so it was just one of those all time epic uh performance And it only feels like him and maybe Rory and maybe that's the entire list of guys who have that ultra high next level gear. Who am I leaving out?

I mean, I don't want to say Tiger in there anymore. No. I mean, we might have said Brooks Kepka, but this was an amazing FU, Brooks Kepka, comeback from the PGA where Brooks called him out. And we had all this nonsense TMZ crap about were they friends, were they not. Brooks withdraws from this tournament after, you know, again, the bed poop at the PGA and then missing the cut in in North Carolina. He withdraws from this tournament. DJ goes out and shoots 30 under very quietly double middle fingers to his old buddy Brooks. Oh, I kind of like it. Now, very quick tangent on Brooks. I'm glad that he withdrew. I'm glad that he just, he said,

you know, this grind. He did the cost benefit because what it sets us up for, is the potential for him having good health at both the U.S. Open and the Masters. And as far as I'm personally concerned, that's where I want my healthy Brooks Kepka. That's what I really, I know the $15 million is a big incentive. And look, he had that way. He had it in his grasp last year. He was, he and Rory played together. And if he had simply beat Rory last year, he would have had that $15 million check in his back pocket.

And Rory took it away from him. and kudos to Rory. But with what we've seen from Brooks since the restart, and it is apparent, it's a combination of physical and a little bit of mental, and he's dealing with fatigue, and he's dealing with genuine stress on his leg. Just get out, clear your head,

and let's see Brooks Kepka at Wingfoot. We want him back in that list of the best players in the world. And what was so weird about this week is, it left us wondering, who is the best player in the world? I mean, we came into this looking at the stats thinking this ought to be Bryson or Morikawa's weak. They missed the cut.

Both of them. They lost by 30 strokes or more. Yes. And, you know, J.T. sort of was middling. You know, Rory was bent over a bunker in frustration. Looked like he was going to vomit. He couldn't figure out his game. He and Tiger were eating burgers.

You know, it's not like those two guys felt like they were contending for the best golfer in the world this weekend. So the next two weeks are going to be fascinating to see, you know, with Brooks recovering, we probably, unless we get a heroic Tiger Woods effort, aren't going to see Tiger in the Tour Championship. But it's going to be an interesting moment to see as the season wraps up, who's really the best player in the world? We've passed this ranking around five times to five guys now.

It's jumped from DJ to ROM to JT and so on and so forth. Like, who is it? This is the time to figure it out. so I'm glad that you mentioned Tiger let's go ahead and do this week in Tiger Woods Tiger Tiger Tiger because I think you are right in the sense that he is not going to

go full pedal to the medal and try and go you know top two or top three in this event he's going to play it on out and you know accept the results that come to him and if he has something that that magically shows up where his putter gets crazy hot or whatever. He'll obviously ride it up.

But I think his game plan, his strategy, what he was anticipating for himself over the next handful of weeks, is getting up to this moment, playing in Chicago, and then having a nice break to get himself ready for the U.S. Open at Wingfoot. You're exactly right.

He's going to look at his round on Thursday and see how he does. And if he's in the mix, then he'll put that pedal down. Otherwise, I think we're going to see a coasting tiger through the weekend. I mean, there were two remarkable things about this last week. One was, along with Rory, Tiger really started to tell us the truth about how the lack of energy out on that course without the fans is affecting the best players.

They are not getting that adrenaline rush that they have trained themselves. They've really become the elite legends that they are on the course because they've learned how to use that energy to make. their game even better. And it's missing. And these guys have not been able to adapt. And I think Tiger and Rory are two who in particular are really struggling to get up and play because part of that fuel has been pleasing that crowd. And that crowd isn't there. It just doesn't feel the same when they're on TV. So that was the first interesting thing. The second interesting thing is that our guy is so, his spine is so completely screwed up that he has literally been. blistering the skin off his back with whatever like hyper icy hot shit he's putting on it.

And it was he's he's conditioned himself to deal with it in his lower back. But he put it on his neck and it was so bad he spent the first part of his round putting ice on the back of his neck because he was burning the skin off his neck. That's never really a good sign that we should feel terrific about the way our guy's going to play four days in a row. Well, you know, I want to cover the the fan point. because we've been wondering aloud and we've been discussing it with the guests that we've had on, including professional golfers, including Joel Damon and Max Homa and your brother Mark Hubbard,

you know, what kind of impact? Is it quantifiable? The sort of difference in tenor, the difference in feel, the difference in vibe at these events, and has it impacted the competition? And you said it. These guys, Rory and... and Tiger, two of the very, very tippy top best of the last 15. I mean, obviously, I don't want to, it's, it's dumb to talk about Tiger is the best. But like, just think of those two guys and the crowds that come together for them all across the entire world.

They are, they are the superstars of golf. I mean, it's Tiger Rory and Phil, I think. Am I, did I leave anybody out? I mean, in terms of appeal, worldwide appeal, guys that, that, that. you would see, you know, big crowds come together in Japan, big, big crowds come together in Northern Ireland, big crowds come together in Mexico. They, those, those are the three that move the needle. And so interesting for both of those two guys, Rory and Tiger to acknowledge that the lack of fans and that, that, that, you know, sort of palpable, um, you know, fan support.

has impacted their mental approach. I think that's right. So as we look forward to this week, I don't know how much those guys are going to play. They sound a little, I mean, they're going to play, how well they're going to do, how much they're going to play in the mix around who's going to actually get to Eastlake.

Obviously, Rory's going to be there. But as we sit here right now, it certainly doesn't appear that he's going to make a big run to get to the top. And you know what? that's exactly what we said about DJ sitting here one week ago today. So if we know something, it's that these guys who have that next level,

like you talked about earlier, they have their moments where they can push through that ceiling and get to an elite level that really only two or three other guys in the game have. The only thing is we have seen it out of DJ, right? I mean, DJ, the third event into the restart went out in one. Yeah. So we have not really seen from, Rory or Tiger, anything sustained that makes you feel like they're sitting right on the brink.

I mean, maybe Rory's slightly better position to have a breakout, breakthrough than Tiger, but there really isn't like strong evidence of either one of them. Now I know, and we're going to talk to Pat Mayo about Rory because Pat happened to give out Rory as his pick for the week for this upcoming BMW championship. Rory had a great ball striking stat. He had great stroke gain approach for the first time since the restart. So maybe that's a trigger. I don't know.

I'm still skeptical. Yeah. I mean, he lost by 35 or whatever. So I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Sorry, he lost by 28. So I don't know.

Ball striking important. But, you know, as we shift the focus to this week, you know, this course house is is a beast based on what I'm hearing out of the practice rounds. And I think, you know, we talked to Pat and he made the good point, which is that it hasn't been messed with too much over the years. And they supposedly gave up on the course as a U.S. Open spot because Furek won it with the low score and VJ shot at 63. But this course, the guys who are out there right now are feeling like it's a monster. And so when we start to think about who can win this week, which is the first question, because that's going to determine

who goes into the Tour Championship with those coveted stroke advantages. But then we also start to think about the really fun, interesting part of this week, which is who's on the bubble and who's going to jump into that top 30, because it is a pretty career-altering achievement, which is to say you get into all the majors, you get a ton of priority going forward. That's going to be, the fun, the two fun things to look at this week. And it's really hard to see guys who aren't hitting the absolute crap out of the ball perform well this week, because this baby is long, almost 7,400 yards, par 70, the par fives are massively long. The rough, the bluegrass rough is apparently four inches, and it's a problem. And guys are going to be looking to bail out

into the bunkers over popping it into the rough around the green. That's how up the rough sounds like it is this week. And seven par fours of 50, 450 yards or longer, which again sort of helps us sort of circle a category where we're looking for for high performers. The venue has not hosted a professional event since 2003. It did host the 2015. US amateur and it does annually host an NCAA invitational. So we have some guys that have performed well at this venue, have some experience here. The 2015 U.S. amateur, Bryson Deschambeau won that.

John Rom was fifth. Maverick McNeeley was tied for ninth. And Robbie Shelton also had a top 10 there. You have to go pretty far back. You have to talk about some old guys to go look at the 2003 U.S. open and find some guys that that competed in that that's tiger who tied for 20th charles hal the third uh was was on there tied for 53rd paul casey missed the cut adam scott missed the cut back in 2003 and then the the young guns uh matthew wolf cameron champ um both those guys have won that nc

a invitational uh competed at this venue and then colomor kawa victor hovlin uh john rom and scottie shepler Sheffler all top 25 in that invitational. So you have guys familiar with the track. I don't have any way of anticipating how the setup will look to the guys

that have competed in the collegiate event against the way that the tour and the FedEx folks are going to imagine it, conceive of it for this week. But do you think, Nathan, on that point, that there will be any effort to rein in scoring after what DJ did in Boston last week.

I don't think the way they've set up the course is a conscious reaction to DJ. I think the course itself is tough, but I do think that guys who can carry their drives 300 yards are at a massive advantage this week. And so in that regard, you know, it's going to play into the hands of DJ. or a guy like Bryson, who, as you said, has won here before. I don't know if that matters, that he won in 2015 when he weighed, you know, 200 pounds less or whatever. But I think, you know, the stat that I look at this week is shots gained off the tea. And when we look in particular at the guys on the bubble, okay, as we come into this week and you look at the FedEx Cup standings, it looks like a thousand FedEx Cup points is what it's going to take or they're about is what it's

going to take to get to Eastlake to keep playing next week well Victor Hovland at 24th Cameron Champ 25th Cam Smith Adam Long Kevin Streelman Tony Feeneau Billy Horshull those are guys 24 to 30th who have less than a thousand points so those are probably the guys who are vulnerable Kisner's at 2030, he's got 1,078 points. He's probably in, almost surely in. So you look at those guys and say, who in that rank of guys, 24 to 30, is potentially vulnerable? Well, we know Cameron Champ is awesome off the T, right? We know Tony Fienow is great off the T.

Victor Hovlin, sneaky great, off the T. Cameron Smith's shots gained off the T, along with that. Adam Long are not good. Cam Smith is 153 shots gained off the T. Adam Long is 114 shots gained off the T. So if we're looking for guys who might potentially be vulnerable and where that fun is this week, because just like Rory says, Rory's making side bets with his caddy to keep it interesting, we got to keep it interesting this week by following who's going to be in and who's going to be out on the bubble. And if you're looking at guys who might be susceptible to a course that's this long, Adam Long and Cam Smith look like, guys who might be susceptible to being passed by guys who are outside that top 30.

Yeah, it is going to be interesting which of the various sort of metrics because, you know, another metric that I'm seeing some folks tout as an important metric for anticipating how guys are going to do is par four scoring average. Now, some of the names that you mentioned, because this is a par 70, only two par five's, par four scoring average is going to play in, you know, it's, It should be an important factor. Webb Simpson is first in that category. Daniel Berger is fourth in that category.

Kiz is 19th in that category. And you mentioned Adam Long, while his off the T measurement is not up to par, he's also inside the top 20 on par four scoring. So which of those two sort of attributes is going to be the prevailing attribute for somebody like Adam Long? an interesting question. Yeah. And so we look at the guys who have a real chance to jump in,

right? Neiman is sitting first outside the bubble right now with about 878 points. He's 31st. Look through that list all the way down to the guy who's at about 700 points. And that's Brendan Steele at 45th. All those guys in between there, Joel Damon, Gary Woodland, Adam Scott, Patrick Cantlay, You know, Mark Hubbard. Matthew Wolf, Mark Hubbard sitting at 34th. Those are the guys who have a realistic chance of jumping in if they do something other than top three. Everybody else is either going to have to top three or better to jump into the top 30 this week, period. So you look at those guys who are sitting out there on the bubble and you go, well, holy crap, Matthew Wolf is awesome off the tea.

He's a little shaky with his irons, but that's a guy who definitely could give a wrong. on Patrick Cantlay. We haven't seen a whole lot from him. But boy, that's a guy who you would expect to see at Eastlake. We know he's tough as nails. He needs about call it a maybe a eighth, maybe a seventh, maybe a sixth to jump in to that top 30, totally doable. Gary Woodland, awesome off the tea. Haven't heard a lot from him since about the memorial.

But that's a guy who can jump in. The point is this. There are a lot of great players who are right on the eight. edge of that bubble who are going to have a chance to do something this week and get to Eastlake. And you know they're watching it. You know it matters. We like this a lot because it's especially appealing to me because I'm such a soft consideration guy. I want to see some fortitude, right? I want to see some mental toughness. I want to see the guys that, you know, it's a no cut event. So there's, it's all upside. There's no downside. You just have to go score the best you can score. You can score.

and some of these guys for sure are going to fit what we described as sort of the tiger dynamic, which is maybe they have their minds on something other than the 15 million bucks at Eastlake. Maybe they're thinking about other things in their lives and they have the U.S. open focus. Who knows what's going on with some of them, but we are going to get some lessons. There's going to be another sort of round of data that applies to the group that all fit that bubble category that you just described. And it's helpful to us in terms of, you know, anticipating, um, sort of that, that, that, that fortitude, that real ability to, to, you know, take stuff out of your, your head, go push down hard now. It's, golf is so stupid in this respect because the venue, the venues change,

the venue changes every single week and, you know, guys that look horrendous the week before come in and, and something magically works for them. But, you know, just in, in terms of that fighter instinct, I know that it's important to me, and that's why what you just described in terms of the bubble group is such an appealing thing to look out for with this weekend.

And look at the guys who are 29th and 30th. It's Tony Fienau and Billy Horshel. People generally think of Billy Horshiel as a fighter. Tony Fienow we've had some questions about. So there's some sneaky, quiet pressure on Tony, if he's really inside his head, to hold up this week. The good news, as you say, it's a no-cut event. So it's hard to see Tony Fienow going four rounds without at least one of them catching fire to do enough to stay there. But, you know, two guys outside the top 30 finish in

the top 10. And Tony doesn't do his job. If he finishes outside the top 30, he's outside looking in at the tour championship. Yeah. And he's a guy that does not seem like he's, you know, he'll be okay with that. I think he intends to make it to Atlanta and earn a gigantic paycheck. He has all those kids to take care of. Speaking of kids to take care of, I want to talk about the extraordinarily interesting development that occurred over the weekend, which is Phil Mickelson announcing that he is going to make his champion's tour debut.

It can't be because he needs the money, but it's, certainly seems like his competitive instincts and and sort of, you know, he confessed to having been mystified by feeling like he was in excellent form and then going to

Boston, a place where he has had success before and missing the cut. He just was not ready to give up competitive golf at this stage of the season, Nate. House, I don't, I completely agree with you that he does not need the money. But I would say he

wants the money. And every single Instagram post that he has been doing this week has been about his goddamn coffee. Oh, I see where you're going with this. Telling you that this guy, God love him, is more of a marketer than a, than an elite golfer at the moment. And LeBron James took his talents to South Beach. Phil Mickelson is taking his coffee to the Champions Tour to appeal to the slightly older demo that follows that and maybe needs a little jolt to keep up their energy through the day. I am pretty sure that this is not so much

about tuning up for winged foot because, by the way, Phil shot a 61 yesterday having missed the cut in Boston. So yeah, he's playing well, but this wasn't a tune-up for wingfoot. This was a tune-up for a cup of Joe in your hands with a Royal loyalty going to Phil.

Well, I love everything about that. I'm always up for a cup of Joe. The, the, what is it, coffee for wellness? Is that the name of the brand? I mean, I don't want to pimp it, but because we're not getting a cut. No free ads. I know wellness is part of it and coffee is part of it.

And you're obviously 100% correct. The bro can't drop off the scene. He's got to be a story over the next handful of weeks, coincident with the launch of the coffee. He is now officially the story of this week because all of the coverage on the golf channel yesterday was Phil 61 and Phil's interviews. And kudos to the Champions Tour for this alternate schedule,

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, go grab it, guys. That's very smart marketing for your product. Why have the Champions Tour events bump up against the women's events or obviously the tour events. Go get, there's nothing, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, we got basketball playoffs and those are all going great. Hockey playoffs. Some teams have already lost, including our goddamn capitals.

And, and, and, you know, so go have a moment. And Phil is the biggest story for, for that tour. It's great. I'm thrilled. God bless Phil Mickelson. By Monday afternoon, he'd shot us, or whatever it was yesterday after. He'd shot a 61 and completely buried that Scotty Sheffler had shot a 59 and DJ had shot 30 under and won by 11. I mean, and he just took all the air out of the room by playing the champions tour in the Ozarks.

Yeah, yes. Sheffler and DJ, those were Sunday stories. Phil is on Monday, bro, and he's out there drinking the coffee and shooting 61. I couldn't enjoy it more. Well, on that note, let's jump on with Pat Mac. I'm sure he has some thoughts about Phil, and he also will have some perspective for us on who he likes this week.

He's been on a real hot streak. So let's get on the line with the homie, Pat Mayo. All right, we're about to get on with Pat Mayo, but first I want to tell you about the Fanduel Sportsbook NBA Playoffs offer for all new customers. It's still running. Listen to this offer. Fandul is giving up 20 to one odds.

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And he's on the line. Mayo, what's happening, brother? The last time I was on, we talked about the player's championship. And then golf went away for three months. So I'm hoping to have a better go this time around. Oh, my God. I forgot. So let's not have a repeat of that. I hope.

I mean, I had Can't lay that week. He was off to a hot start minus five. You knew Decky was going to implode. I feel like I won that. We'll give you one in the W column. So let's start with kind of the restart, right? The big picture, because we haven't talked at all. It's been a pretty fascinating stretch.

We've had 12 events in 11 weeks. We've had super classy wins for the most part. We have two Morikawa's, two DJs, a ROM, a Bryson, a JT, a Webb, Daniel Berger. Everything off. And, you know, Burger, no slouch. Top five and six of his past eight starts. And then we have a couple, you know, a handful of feel good stories. Michael Thompson feel a good story.

Jim Herman feel a good story. That didn't feel good to me. Well, I mean, Mark Hubbard had a front row seat for that, Nate. He did. He did. And the Bryson's win. That's true.

He was there for both. He's bearing witness. Eventually, it's going to be his turn. But Mayo, what's your sentiment here? Now that we're a full, like, 12 weeks in, we're in the middle. We have playoffs.

We have two no-cut events. coming up. How are you feeling about golf at the moment? Could be better to tell you the truth. I'm just glad we've seen this quality of winter. It's always nice to have, you know, the 600 to 1 Herman come through for no one and have Michael Thompson come through. I guess he was only 100 to 1. That was a pretty weak field in Minneapolis. But the guys, the top end guys have been playing every single week. So it's really boosted up colonial heritage. Like the tracks that I love to watch every single year, it was nice to see all of the best players go to those venues and get some shine on those.

Because everyone was going to watch the PGA championship anyway. But now we're back into the FedEx Cup. And this is around the time of year. I mean, I pivot into football at this time of year. It's going to be tough to do for me with U.S. Open in three weeks, then the Masters. And then we still have tournaments every single week. I was just looking like looking ahead, trying to get ahead of the game because I know football is coming. I was looking at Silverado in Napa.

I was just like, I don't think I should be doing this right now. Let's just wait for the week, and I can figure out which, like, random players are playing that week before the U.S. Open and treat it then. But with all of the elite players that ended up playing, and then you had the collection of players, even towards the back end of the field, as we would say, that popping up on these leaderboards, they were so competitive, like, the first six weeks, basically before Bryson got to Detroit, that you had these stacked leaderboards. It came down to the wire every single week. We've seen a few leaderboards where it's been like 17 guys within two shots of the lead on Sunday. You couldn't ask for better marketing for the tour, except for if they actually showed everyone's shots. But I guess that's eventually going to happen maybe.

Someday. The world number one ranking has been getting passed around, like, I don't know what, inappropriate joke here. How do you think about handicapping the guys at the top? It feels like we're in the sort of most top heavy moment in golf that we've ever had. Clearly, maybe the world golf rankings aren't the best measure of who is really the best player because I can't imagine it's changing week by week by week like this. How do you think when you step back and start looking tournament to tournament right now,

how do you handicap these top guys given that they're all playing so well? What are those nuances and subtleties that you're starting to look at to suss out the best guys, you know, from the guys who are maybe not going to, they're at the top, but they're not going to play their absolute best this week? I think you need to make a line of demarcation of, where you think, like, elite ends and then figure out the odds from there. So I look at the field this week, generally in the FedEx Cup playoffs, outside of a few outliers. You get the best guys winning every single tournament.

It's like at WGCs. You've so rare, like, when Shane Lowry won at Bridgetown in 2016, it was like, Shane Lowry, really? And now you look back, he's won a major championship. It makes sense, in hindsight, at the time, it was like, man, this guy came out of nowhere. You ended up winning. Like, you don't normally see guys who are 90 to 1 when at WGC. and the same thing is pretty much true for the FedEx Cup playoffs. So I think when I look at the board this week, I take a look at like, how many guys in my mind,

if I looked at it wouldn't be like, oh, that doesn't make any sense. Even someone like Cameron Champ, who won here in college, it's a longer course. You think you would like them, but then you're like, is he going to get to that level? If we look back in four years, is Cameron Champ going to be on the level that I think we all assume like Morikawa and Horikawa in Holland or even Wolf are going to be. Maybe is the answer to that. But I think you have to go a bit higher than that and go with the class of your players right now. So I just let the odds do the talking for me. And that's been the key to hitting winners during the restart.

I hit both Moracawa wins. I hit the first DJ win. I hit the web win. And the only reason I ended up on any of these guys because I viewed them as elite players, the numbers would tell me that they're elite players, but they were like coming off a bad week. So instead of being 18 to 1, they were 33 to 1. And it's like, okay, if you're going to give me an elite player at 28 or 33, I will take that because I can't distinguish between these guys.

Whoever, if one of them shows up and plays their best golf, they're going to win, just like we saw with DJ last week. And you would think that DJ kind of comes through and says, all right, I've got everything rolling right now. I'm coming off minus 30. I'm at a course that suits me perfectly. But if he brings his, you know, a minus game, he's probably not going to win. Yeah, so Mayo, you just mentioned you've been on a nice streak since the restart.

and I wanted to do a bit of a deeper dive into that. But you mentioned DJ. We have to talk about DJ. He just won by 11 strokes, which does not happen on tour. There are a whole bunch of benchmarks that DJ hit that put him in ultra elite historic company in terms of the performance that he just had up in Boston. and, you know, over the, really since the advent of strokes gained came into existence, the thing that is so curious to me about DJ is he's the same human being as the guy that shot 280s at the memorial six weeks ago or so.

And the same guy that, you know, withdrew from Minneapolis because it was apparent that he couldn't get anything going on the heels of having one in Connecticut at the travelers. which you forecasted. It's strange. Like I, I mean, Nathan, you might know this better than anyone else, just having, like, you know, access to some of the players, even just talking to your brother. But, like, since the restart,

I would think that trying to, like, develop consistency week to week, even though you're playing, just going to different venues, all these weird rules that, like, if you're not in it and you're one of these top guys right away, do you just kind of phone it in? I come back to this. Golf is really hard. And we start expecting, like,

And there's a seven-game series. We know LeBron's going to play well across it. But, like, you don't know in two, three consecutive tournaments that some of these golfers are going to play their best game. I mean, Pat, my sense is you probably understood that DJ was dealing with an injury. And the guys these days treat it like a hockey injury, so they don't talk that much about it. So we're never exactly sure if it's, you know, in between the ears or actually something that's

wrong with the body. but I think we have these expectations right now that just because DJ won in Hartford, he's going to plow through the next couple of weeks and win. Now, he happens to be a guy who shows up after he wins and plays pretty consistently, assuming it's not too long after that victory. But I think about a guy like Thomas who, you know,

I mean, I don't understand, I'm not going to understand if he doesn't win the FedEx Cup. It has looked to me like week over week, he's the best golfer, he's been on a good trend, but he hasn't really shown up in a few tournaments last week, last week included. That was really behind my question to you, Pat. Handicapping these guys coming out of the gate is really, really tough right now.

And probably now more than ever, those guys who make your elite cutoff, that list is longer than it's ever been. Yeah, the gap between, like, that middle tier is gone between the elites. Like, you can have your top five. I think we're all pretty much in agreement that it's DJ, Rom, Rory, Justin Thomas. I think that Bryson and Brooks is kind of like their own weird island, they could very well be the best player in the field any week,

but they lack the consistency of the other guys. But then when you just start dropping down, like, I mean, I love Tyrell Hatton and, like, Webb Simpson. Like, those guys are very close to, I mean, Hatten's 15th in the world. He wins this week. He goes, what, like eighth? And you'd look at it and be like, what? But then you have the Cantway and Fienow and Zander,

all these guys, Burger, like you mentioned, is piling up. Not to mention Morikawa, who, if he wins this week, I think could get back to number one. Pave one finally learned how to put and forgot how to hit his irons all of a sudden. But someone like JT, I agree, has been the most consistent in the thing that I look for when trying to factor everything out, that the ball striking has been immaculate since the return. And this is nothing new for Justin Thomas, but he did win three events ago in Memphis. The BGA championship, eh, in Boston, why?

Well, I did a quick search. He's lost an incredible amount of strokes on the greens the last three weeks. He lost a one in Memphis losing two strokes on the green. It's only gotten worse since then. And this was the exact same thing that happened to him, going into the BMW championship last year. He was coming off the injury. He went to Memorial.

He stuck. At the U.S. Open, he ended up missing the cut at Pebble Beach. And after that, he's striking everything. I almost swore out of the ball. You can swear. It's a lot. We're explicit here at Fairway Rolling, bro.

He was striking the shit out of the ball, and he was losing like six strokes per event on the greens. It's like, well, once this flips, he's going to win by like 100. He goes to BMW, gains like five strokes on the green and shoots like minus 25. So it feels like one of those weeks is coming for him. And it might just be next week at Eastlake and he wins 15 million bucks. So that was funny in your sort of description of the elites and then the second tier. And one name jumped out at me who you included in the elites who has not been elite whatsoever.

and you know Nathan mentioned in his sort of run up of describing the question to you, we don't know whether it's the six inches between the ears or an injury for a guy. You talked about Rory and called him elite. And not only that, I heard what you said. I have the paper right here in front of me. Your entry on Draft Kings National. Your pick for this week is Rory McElroy. All right. Did you, were you smoking this weekend? I mean, it was, but Canada happens. But at the same time, parsing, I mean, like I said, there's, he fits the trend of the guy, the elite player, who were finally getting an odds break on. You can find him as deep as 20 to 1 in some places. Most places, he's 18 to 1, 19 to 1, whatever. He's normally 12 to 1 or 10 to 1. And it's taken like eight bad weeks in a row for him to finally drop down. But if you go and kind of deep dive a little,

bit on what he did last week. And it was strange, like he chipped the ball backwards into the water. Not great. Probably shouldn't do that. But it seemed like he got disengaged with the tournament a little bit, but he lost strokes off the tee in all four rounds. The last time he did that was in 2007. So I would expect him to come back and drive the ball like he normally does. He's one of three players in the world who just absolutely crushes off the tea. It's basically him, Romm, Dustin, and Bryson, those four guys. Week to week to week, consistency, gaining like four strokes against the field with the driver. You're going to need that this week at Olympia Fields. And then you look at the putting. He lost six and a half strokes. I think there was the fourth worst performance on the

Greens in the past 13 years for Rory. But what did he do? He hit his irons, top ten of anyone in the field, five point one strokes game. Now, that could easily revert back to what he's been doing every single event since the restart where he has not been hitting his irons well, driving the ball immaculately. Cutting, okay, the round the green game is like up and down. The iron's been a real problem. It's either losing or gaining two.

The fact that he gained five last week, if that can be sticky, and everything just goes back to normal with what he's doing, he's the guy who ends up winning by seven. And now we're getting the odds break on. So I think value-wise, Rory is still close.

He just hasn't been able to put anything together. But we're seeing different pieces. It's a lot like Dustin at the heritage, where the first two rounds were kind of middling. Then you see it on the weekends. Like, oh, he's driving the ball. well, oh, he's hitting his wedges again. And then the odds never got factored into that.

They didn't catch up in time. And I'd rather be a week early on Rory than be a week late on Rory. Because a week late on Rory, all of a sudden he's back down to eight to one. How do you think about guys, two guys in particular? And that's Zander Shoffley and Daniel Berger, for whom there's a lot of buzz about. Zander still has yet to win a tournament in this restart. He's been so consistent that you haven't been able to get great odds from him.

Burger's kind of the other way around, right? He's had such great finishes. He had one win, but he still feels like that guy who when, you know, you're in the heat of that moment down the stretch, Jordan Chipson or, you know, puts a Sandy in from the bunker on him or something. How do you think about those two guys in this format? Are those guys who you think maybe you can get some value from, or are you fading them because we just got too much buzz about the kids,

but they're not going to come through and win? A burger, most definitely, I think it's a better play than Zander. I don't understand Xander's odds. I don't understand his daily fantasy pricing. Like, he's a bigger favorite in this field than Rory. Now, he's playing better than Rory, but not significantly better. It's not like Xander's been lighten the world on fire the past three weeks. He's been mediocre.

He's been bad. And all of a sudden, it doesn't matter what happens to him. We've seen the same thing with Finao for ages where no matter, at least Fino ends up like top five can never close. But instead of being like the true price of 55 to 1, 60, to one, which he probably should be. He's like 22 to 1. Zander should probably be 35 to 1. The guy's not on the top of leaderboards. He's getting drove down by like bad rounds here and there. He's around the green game has been

running so pure. It's actually been saving him. His irons are garbage. And then all of a sudden, he's 16 to 1 to win a tournament. He's basically the same odds as Bryson and Justin Thomas. Now, I get that three of his four wins have been in no cut events. That's sort of his specialty. And this is the time of year when he plays a little bit better. I just don't see any value in a Burger, you could kind of argue that he should be top five in odds. I mean, he's not one that I would jump to. I'd probably just go back to Morikawa. I believe he has a 100% win rate coming off Ms. Cutson's career, so probably a good time to go back to him. And he got disrespected in the odds this week where he's now behind all of those guys. You just want a major, and he won

a tournament right before that. He won one last year. The guy wins at an exceptionally high rate. I used to have this thing, has that you, I mean, I think I've talked about it with you, where if you just blindly bet Patrick Reed to win every single week he was on tour, you'd be up millions of dollars because he wins far more often than what his odds ever are because people hate his guts and don't want to bet on. That affects the betting market. For whatever reason, people are walking up to the window, they're logging onto their app and betting Xander Shoffley every single week and I don't get it. So let's go ahead and talk a little bit about, you know, this week. We've kind of touched on a whole slew of names. Whereas,

at a venue that hasn't hosted a professional tournament, I think since 2003, although it's in the USGA rotation for had the U.S. Open, but also the amateur back in 2015. And it also hosts these annual collegiate events. So there's a, there's a decent sampling of guys who have performed at this venue. What do you, it has the, the potential to be a venue. It's a, it's a big, big, big ball field from what I understand. But so they have the potential to set it up difficult, like U.S. Open difficult or major championship difficult. But they also have the option of having it kind of fit the uvra of the FedEx Cup playoffs,

which is lots of birdies, right? We want to see scoring. I don't know if we, if what we're 30 underlands in terms of, you know, appeal to golf fans. I don't mind it, but I don't know like design-wise if the guys that are setting up, Olympia Fields will go in that direction. But what are you sort of anticipating in terms of the ballpark? I would expect it to play easy to tell you the truth.

I've seen the rumors that they're growing the rough out to five inches, but it's a lot of tree lines at this course too. So I mean, if you're in the rough, you're in the trees too. So that's not great. So maybe I think the best comp that you can come up with, at least on paper, and this can always fluctuate. Harding Park and Bethpage. They're just looking back at the past two PGA championships. Par 70s, super long courses, a lot of long par fours. I think that tracks pretty well.

And what did we see at Harding Park, farmers, basically, except for Morikawa, who, let me run this bio. Is Morikawa the evolution of Henrik Stenson that instead of he doesn't hit a three wood and hits every fairway? He hits a driver and hits every fairway? I like it. I don't hate it. What do you think, Nate? It could be.

I think, yeah, he doesn't have that. that crazy woodness bag that he just tags. But they both occasionally are shaky putters. We'll see. I think Morikawa's ceiling is a bit higher at this point for sure. Yeah. And I mean, that's saying a lot.

I mean, they're tied in majors at the moment. Maybe Morcao can go get his FedEx Cup too. And hopefully he can keep all the money this time around. But the biggest thing when I think about this course is the BMW championship, despite the different course rotations the past five years, the lowest score, sorry, the highest score has been minus 20.

everyone's getting to minus 20 or better at the BMW championship. So it would lead me to believe that the setup that they want for the FedEx Cup is pure scoring. Maybe they decide, hey, Dustin got to minus 30 last week. Let's ratchet up the difficulties. That doesn't happen again. But it's not like there was eight guys in minus 30. Dustin won by 11. Feel bad for Harris English, by the way.

He finally put all four rounds together to win an event, and he should have won. Except for one guy. He went full on Michael Kim on everyone. That's a dominating performance that we haven't seen since Michael Kim won the John Deere Classic at like minus 28 or whatever it was. Then he went back to missing cuts again. But I just try to think of, do they really want to go minus eight, make this like a major style? It just doesn't feel like that's what the FedEx Cup wants. And it's not like there's been major renovations to this course over time.

It's been the same course for the past 20 years or so. My guy Drew Matthews pointed this out from fade the noise.com that he's, saying that like we've seen a lot of these different events, these historic tracks. Yeah, they used to play hard. And when they're set up by the USGA, they are incredibly hard. But if you don't lengthen them over time, you know, the guys just hit it longer now. The guys are better now, the quality and depth of this field. The guys in like the 60 to 70 range, the last 10 guys in the field probably would have been

top 20 guys if we think 20 years ago just based on their skill sets, how far they drive the ball. But this course may not be equipped to handle these big hitters like a lot of people think. at least that's my read. Well, you mentioned Cameron Champ earlier. And when we look this week, you know, the real game this week is, I guess, twofold. One is how are the very, very top guys at the top of the standings going to adapt and jostle to try to get the stroke advantages coming into the Tour Championship? And that's really about the top five guys or so right now.

But the second thing is, of the people on the bubble, who's actually going to get there? And you've got some folks who are vulnerable in, say, spots, maybe Victor Hovlin down to Billy Horschell at 30. And then you've got some guys who could potentially work their way in off the bubble without, you know, placing third, second, or first. Are there any of those guys inside the bubble right now who look vulnerable to you? And are there any guys outside the bubble who you think might be poised to make a run? I find it really hard because do they know on the course what their standings are? Did Louis know he had to make Bertie to make the guy?

He did. He did. So all the boards, it's a great question. All the boards are showing the leaders, and then they're immediately flipping to the bubble line. And so, yeah, as the guys were going around, they could see Max Homa bouncing between 70th, 71st, down to, you know, wherever he ended up at 68, 67, something like that.

So they will know in real time any place there's a scoreboard where they are. It wasn't long ago that Cantley wasn't. winning tournaments, but he was 18 to 1. Now all of a sudden, everyone's just kind of forgotten about him. I find it kind of strange. His game looks lost at the moment. He can't string anything together, but he's now falling down out of the FedEx Cup, top 30, to get himself to Eastlake.

But I think, like, on paper, this should be a course, which perfectly fits his skill set. So I'm really kind of torn on it. The other thing, too, is if you can find the odds to win the FedEx Cup, it's like they haven't caught up to what the standings are actually telling us. Like someone like Sung Jay, for example. who sucks right now, and he's probably going to play horrible this week. But he is in no danger of missing Eastlake. And we saw last year, guys can come back from the pack,

even if they're down six strokes to start, like that can happen. I don't know whether he's going to find his game at Eastlake or not, but it's a short, par of 70 course on Bermuda, where he tends to always play well. And all of a sudden, his FedEx Cup win odds are like 100 to 1 in like a 30-man field. But when the odds actually come out for Eastlake, he'll be like 50 to 1. So I think that's a weird market that you can try to exploit.

Speaking of markets that you can try to exploit, we touched a bit on your success in forecasting since the restart. And you're spreading your knowledge all over various media. You have the Draft Kings bit that you do. You have a weekly golf digest experts panel. And, you know, he used air quotes for experts. Have you made any money? Yeah, I've been making a ton. Like, this is like the best golf run I've ever been on.

I came this close because I had Brooks and Memphis who just, you know what happened. Yeah, he was there. So I played a what's called a triple. So it was a three event early. I had Furik to win on the seniors tour, Brooks to win on the PGA tour. And I had Mattia Schwab to win in the alternate event at the barracuda. I got one, two, three on it. If they had just come through, my wager would have been worth like $107,000.

thousand bucks. But other than that, I've been doing okay. Well, you still, with that one, two, three, you, you play all each ways, don't you? Yeah. So the each way on that, uh, so if people don't know what in each way is, because I'm in Canada, uh, and like most international books offer what are called each way odds, which means if you bet $20 on something, 10 of your dollars goes to the outright win on golf. And then the other 10 goes towards the top, whatever the book allocates, uh, at like one fourth or one fifth of the odds. So where I generally play its top A lot of these British books get like top nine, top ten for one-fif. Sounds glorious.

Eventually, that will make its way over when people demand it enough. One place offers it that everyone goes over there. And then they're like, oh, man, I guess we should offer this bet too. So you can do that. So they all finish inside the top five. I believe that ended up paying 110 to one. But it wasn't a huge bet, obviously, because it was for fun, but still paid pretty well. Well, since you're betting the Champions Tour, I got to ask you,

what does Phil's 61 yesterday in Missouri due to his odds coming into the U.S. Open? Does that make you more excited that he might get his wing foot redemption? Or does that make you fade the shit out of him? Well, can he drive every green at the U.S. Open like he came on the Champion Store? My guess is no, but I don't know.

I haven't seen the setup yet. I know he can hit it in the hospitality tent. Just stay out of that and stay out of a garbage can and maybe you won't. lose to Ogilvy? Was it Ogilvy? Ogilvy won.

There was a bunch of guys that choked. Montgomery, Fierich, a bunch of guys. We really think Phil's going to win a U.S. Open. The guy can't stop trading birdies for bogeys at a regular event. The birdies are going to be harder to come by at the U.S. Open. What is Wingfoot going to look like in September? I guess is, should I even be thinking about it? Hard.

It's going to be hard as balls. I think that this is going to be akin to Oakmont in terms of, you know, a handful of guys under par. one guy who just goes lights out like DJ did at Oakmont in 2016 and goes like maybe 400 or 500 or 6 under and everybody else is above par. It's going to be hard as a

mother effort. If that's the case, you say Oakmont, I want to bet Andrew Landry. Oh, first name that popped in my head. How about that? Right. I bet there's good odds on Andrew Langeland. Right. As one does. Oakmont, Andrew Landry. I think he was first round leader there for the U.S. Open that year.

I had never heard of the guy before. I was like, who is Andrew Landry? But Andrew Landry's won twice on tour. He's named scrub. And he's a very good driver of the ball, despite not being deep off the tee. But I wanted to give you, I'm betting Rory.

I actually played a Rory and Phil double this week. Because I couldn't bet Phil plus 250 to win. No. I got to throw him on with someone. He got Rory up to 66 for me, so that was nice. But I like Adam Scott this week. He's finally playing two events in a row. That's nice.

On the weekend, he stopped missing three foot putts. that was also nice, but he's finally kind of getting back in the groove. When I talk about like the elite level player that I can see winning this tournament, I think Adam Scott is the cutoff this week. There's like Adam Scott and Paul Casey. I can see Adam Scott winning. I can't see Paul Casey winning. Adam Scott, you can find as deep as 50 to 1.

So I like him a lot here. He's kind of being slept on just because he took so much time off. It's not like he played great in Boston last week. He didn't play poorly. He just couldn't butt, which is, you know, par for the course. But at the PGA championship, in Boston, and three of the four rounds, each of them, the ball striking was Adam Scott levels.

He just hadn't put in those rounds. He had one bad round in each, but the guys playing golf like every six months. Now it's two in a row. I'm just glad we got him out of his basement and got a chance to let him know that golf was actually back. So I'm just happy he's going to play this week. How come I can't look like that when I hang out in my basement for three?

He wasn't in the basement. He's on a surfboard. He's an Adonis. He's a beautiful man. He's a true, glorious representation. of what the human species is capable of. I like that. The other Aussie, too, is playing a lot better

and really under the radar is Camp Smith. The guy's irons are back. And he tends to play these like longer, harder tracks well, which seems to be like not what his profile would suggest, but just when you go back and look at these longer par 70 type courses, it's where he kind of shows up. He was on a nice hot streak.

He had some leaderboard action in Boston. So, you know, we saw him on television for a little bit. bit. You mentioned the in your write-up necessity of being good on par fours that are 450 yards or longer because there are seven of those at this venue. There's there's a handful of names on that list. Let's see that the names seven par four. The best players on holes from this range over the last two months, Tony Fienau, Taylor Gouch, Bryson D. Chambot, Adam Scott, and Mark Hubbard. You're damn right. God damn right. I think we all.

got to put a little taste on homeless this week, right? I use them in daily fantasy every single week. The guy's a cash cow. Actually, the Gooch has been my guy recently, too. So I always try to like, there's a rotation of back end guys that I always bet top 20. And it usually goes between Hubbard, Gooch, and Tyler Duncan. Those are like my three guys. Could you please remove the stink from my brother the one week he's trying to get into the tour of championship?

He's super close, isn't he? Like, what would he need to get in, do you think? It looks like he needs about a top 10. Maybe a 12 could get him in. You know, macro level looks like about a thousand points is the cutoff. He's at 771. T12 will get him the points he'd need to get to a thousand. Well, maybe I'll keep my terrible bets off of him this week so we can get in.

I'll keep the stink off of my promise. We'll all do the best we can. Whatever little gesture we can make. I appreciate it. What do you guys make of like the FedEx Cup momentum? like whether that exists or not like i'm playing a robbie shelton top 20 this week i mean there's only 70 guys but he played here at the amateur in 2015 he was t9 in the match play people don't know bryson won rome was fifth mad mcneely and shelton were both t9 that year denny mccarthy was actually

t9 too but he can qualify uh for this week at least that two of the past three times we've seen him he didn't play well with the pGA but he killed in minneapolis he was great last week and in a no cut event it seems like he's a guy who can go and post like a 63 after he follows that up with like a 76 or something like that. But he's just, he can go low in bunches. And he is at the very back end of this field. I don't think that he gets in, but he could come like T-19.

That'd be nice. It's a lovely T-DFS bottom of the lineup kind of play to me. Yeah, because there's like the guys who are playing well right now that are got themselves and even someone like Louis and Howl and those guys. And then at the other part of the back end, and like Ortiz is still in the field. Like a bunch of guys who haven't played well in like six months but piled up so many points at the beginning of the year

and during the swing season that they're still able to get this point. Like how do you parse that out this week? You just like should I just be betting like Schaeffler and Harris English because they're playing so well? You asked the wrong guy. I'm dumb. So of course that's what I do. I say, oh, Chefler and English, they've been informed.

English has really been in form since the restart. I mean, you mentioned earlier that he finally strung four rounds. together and he just happened to run into a buzzsaw this this week. But, you know, I, I definitely am a form guy. What about you, Nate? I am too. Robbie Shelton's one, I don't trust only because the only reason he's here is because he hold out on like 15 or 14 on the back nine on Sunday and then just went nuts. I also don't totally trust Victor because he got a bunch of coverage on Sunday. but same thing. He holed out on his first two holes

and once it started coming down the stretch, some of the short games started to catch up to him. But that's why I look at guys this week like somebody like Harry Higgs who maybe faded a bit down the stretch but he's not worried about a cut this week. He's had a weird restart,

but the guy can play golf. He's going to get the camera time because he's just fun. So he's that kind of guy along with somebody like Alex Noren, right? Who definitely has a bunch of momentum coming into this tournament, he's sitting 47th, which means he's probably got a top three. We've been waiting for that breakthrough from a guy like that.

I believe that the momentum can carry over, and I don't think it's going to be atypical to see between these two courses. Pat, as you talked about, these are courses where guys who are driving it long, driving it straight are going to thrive. And those guys did that well last week. I worry about someone like knowing, because it feels like he's been all smoking mirrors. It's been chip-ins and 50-foot puts. Basically, the Vick-Vick. strategy on Sunday, which is really bizarre. I bet Dick led the field Tito Green three straight weeks and couldn't make a put to save his life.

And now he can't drive the ball or hit an iron anymore. I don't know what happened to the guy. But if we're doing comps, like he's Rory, he's like the new age Rory, right? Like once he figures it out? I think so. I love Hovlin. I've been on Hovland, the entire restart and I've been disappointed every Sunday. I'm expecting, you know, this, I'm not expecting, but I'm hoping.

I'm saying we check in. We see where he goes off. He's not, you know, at the end of the day because he's not in the, except for the, what event was he at the very end? Workday. Work day. Yeah, with Morikawa won. Yeah, that's right.

But otherwise, it's like go, go shoot a 62. Go validate, you know, who you are coming into this season. The accolades that you, that you properly earned, I entering this season had him on par with Morikawa. I did not think of Morikawa is so far ahead of Holland in terms of the talent and the resume. I thought it would be an interesting competition over the course of this season to see, you know, sort of who was going to come out. It's not, he's three million dollars in earnings behind Morikawa right now. Which, I mean, he doesn't have a major under his belt.

He has, maybe he's suffering from the pheno thing. The curse of the Puerto Rico open. It may be that. It may just be. He suffers from the fact that. at least twice a tournament, he has a what the fuck was that wed shot, where he just absolutely looks like a 16 handicap around the green. And until he solves that problem, he knows it, he talks about it, which is great,

probably means he's going to solve it. But until he does, you got to put the victor tax on him of four strokes that he shouldn't have had every tournament. And that keeps him from winning in the big moments right now. Yeah, and it's a lot like DJ. Like, Rom reminds me of what DJ probably. is now because they're about on par. But when DJ first broke in,

couldn't really put, couldn't really chip. He was just sort of a masher. Every part of his game got progressively better over the next 10 years, where he became an elite player and almost everything. His short game was vastly underrated. I look at someone like Rom,

who, again, does everything well. I remember Torrey Pines this year, just the up and downs that he was making. He's like, you had to drop it within like a half-foot radius. The only rule you're going to get, and Rom had it figured out, hitting it to the precise location. I think that Vic can get there,

but the learning curve might be a lot steeper than it was for someone like Rob. I mean, we are talking about a kid who's been a pro for all of one calendar year, if that. So it is to his credit that we're sort of giving him this rough treatment. Well, hopefully he didn't give you too rough a treatment,

Pat Mayo, the Pat Mayo experience, the Mayo Media Network. Talk about that for a second. Yeah, just launched Mayo Media Network. you can find the flagship show, obviously, the Pat Mayo experience, daily golf, football. We got UFC, all betting related right now. And we're going to branch out into some more content, too. How is you guys over there at the ring or know a bit about basketball?

Maybe I can steal some of your guys. Oh, you look, I'm available at any point in time. I've actually been on a pretty nice run gambling in the bubble. Now, I just ruined it. I'm going to knock on wood, but we- Why would you do that to yourself? We've had a good fee. It's just so rare that I actually see, you know, a green.

plus sign next to my name, really anywhere. So, but Mayo, anytime you want to talk hoops, I'm, I'm your pony. I just don't have the things to say. I need Kyle Lowry to play well and eliminate the Celtics. That's all I really want right now. Well, you make sure he's healthy. Make sure. He's not.

Yeah, go put him in the hyperbaric chamber right now. No, the Raptors will have some guy you've never heard of coming to play point garden like drop 40 or something like that. It is what they do. Pat Mayo for the Pat Mayo experience. Thanks for coming on, buddy. it's good to talk to you again. Thanks for having me back.

Hopefully golf doesn't go away for six months now that we've recorded this. Knock on wood. All right. Talk to you again soon. See you later.