Fairway Rollin' - Viktor Clinches the Tour Championship and FedEx Cup, Player of the Year, and Final Ryder Cup Team Predictions

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

House and Hubbard start the podcast with their reactions to the Tour Championship, including Viktor Hovland’s victory and more notable performances from the weekend; they also discuss why changes need to be made to the end of the PGA Tour season (03:57). Then, they talk about the candidates for Player of the Year (33:00) and offer their final predictions for the U.S. Ryder Cup team (44:43). Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producers: Eduardo Ocampo and Tucker Tashijan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, I'm Danny Hyfitz, host of the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Me, Danny Kelly, and Craig Whirlbeck are coming to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday before this NFL season so you can crush your draft and win your league. Or at least make sure you don't come in last place and have to do your league's punishment. Follow the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Friends and welcome to this golf program unlike any other. This, my birdie buddies, is Pearway rolling. some golf content on Fandul TV and on the Ringer podcast network. My Eagle Enthusiast, my part saving pals, I am your starter.

Joe House joined as is our way by my incomparable accomplice, our PGA tour correspondent, Nathan Hubbard. We are ready to talk about a champion of the tour champion. a man who has announced his arrival on the major golf scene. It is a two man for the Nate Dog and I late this Sunday afternoon. The pegs are in the ground, my birdie buddies, and off we go. Nate Dogg, how's your hovelin? Well, we're going to playoff now, right?

What time was the playoff start? He and Zander finished even. over four rounds. So we're going to a playoff, right? No. So how great is that? By the way, let's just start with that. Victor Hovlin, the rare double, low net and low gross, buddy. He's raised right there for both, huh? Yeah. Well, he tied one, but how's, yeah. This is why you listen to Fairway Rowland. This is why you watch the show. What did we give them? We gave them Xander low gross. We gave him Rory top five. We gave them Zand. We gave them Zander top 10. We gave him Russell Henley top 20. I mean, what else do you want house?

Yeah, I mean, I hope folks jumped on Zander every which way. There is just some kind of magical symbiosis between Zander Shafley and East Lake golf course. It's hard to imagine a kid from Southern California having this relationship with Swampass Atlanta and this, you know, home of Bobby Jones, but there it is. The only thing really left to assess as it comes to that particular relationship is what will the Andrew Green renovation, restoration, whatever work he's going to do, will it change the Xander Mojo, Nate Dogg? That's really the only thing that's left to doubt as we look forward to next year.

We got a great Jim Nance, Al Michaels playing golf at Bel Air Country Club and L.A. story out of the discussion of that today on the telecast. Thank you, Nance, for getting a little loose-lipped as you moved deeper into your 60s. I loved everything about that story. But House, I do want to ask you now, Victor graciously accepted the trophy after Monaghan was booed mercilessly by the small crowd in attendance, including Zander's dad up in the window hanging out there like Sam Claus coming down the chimp. Do they show him booing? I'm sure he was. I can tell you. sure he was. They've been pretty critical of all of this.

But are you satisfied with this result? Are you satisfied with how this money has been distributed? Are you satisfied with this championship? Because but for a 23-footer on 14, this was a snoozer house. This was a snoozer. And part of the reason it was a snoozer is because Rom is playing mediocre. And Scotty Sheffler was dead effing last in putting yet again.

basically the summary of his season, a two-time winner who let eight other tournaments go, but still, this was pretty sleepy for being the ultimate conclusion of playing for the impossible. Do we like this? Is there more to do here, House?

Well, there's clearly more to do and lots of smart folks who are devoted to the game of golf. Are not thinking about this at tour headquarters. Well, tour headquarters answers to a different master, right? The tour headquarters and its corporate partners, all of whom we got to meet yesterday, Nathan,

it was wonderful. The CEO of Shithead Inc. And the, oh, hopefully they can bleep that on Fandall TV. It's cable. Maybe we're allowed to say that. The CFO of Ding Dong Corp and the, you know, the CLEO of, you know, the wriggling, ding-dongs, LLC.

I don't know, dude. Well, that's why they could bring us the Back Nine commercial free so that I could take a nap because there was no drama whatsoever to cut away from to go to commercial. This was the time commercials would have been great because I would have been interested in something. Maybe they could have taught me something new or different. There was no golf action to be watched.

Well, no, no, let's be fair. Zander did put a little press on, the back nine. Come on, man. And, and, and there was a tiny bit of drama surrounding the fact that they were two holes behind. Yes. Ander and Victor fell like a hole and a half behind.

Dragging ass. We're asked to like pick it up a little bit, boys. It didn't seem like, you know, under threat of penalty. But they did have a little giddy up in their steps such that, that I think Victor hit it into the bunker on, uh, 12. because he had to go to the bathroom in between 11 and 12, and he rushed over and hit a T-ball right until, but that really,

there wasn't a ton of drama because Xander tried to apply pressure and he just couldn't quite get over the hump. It was that put on 14 by Victor that announced, you know, I'm winning the golf tournament. I'm winning this championship. I'm taking all the money. But that's an awesome putt under those circumstances. It's genuine pressure.

and he went out and did it, right? No, he was not going to lose a three or four shot lead over those last couple of holes. I would have rather they leaned into Wyndham Clark and third, you know, Morikawa at the time and fourth, Rory sitting in fifth, all separated by one stroke. Guess what? Third place, fourth place, fifth place. You win five, four, three million dollars, depending on how to four, three, two, whatever it is.

Like, you've got real drama there, a million dollar difference between how you play through. through the course of that. So I, five, four, and three. So I just, I felt like if we're going to do this house, if we're going to say, because of the PGA tour's nonprofit status, we cannot put the most important guys under contract and pay them a salary. If that's the problem that we're trying to solve by distributing money, I just don't know that this is the way to do it. Or if it's going to be about money, let's lean into the money. And let's talk about the fact that Rory's Bertie on 16, on 17, excuse me, was worth a million dollars. And yes, he also burned 18, which secured it. But let's talk about the pressure or the stakes that are happening there. Forget what Rahm said yesterday

about how the money doesn't matter. I believe him, by the way. He's playing for glory. Well, he shot plus four today. Let me tell you what. Adam Schenk just got paid a million dollars in the Tour Championship more than John Rom. If the purpose of this, and by the way, Adam Schenck is a great guy, wonderful family, he did everything right, he earned it. These were the rules. He deserves it. But does Adam Shank deserve a million dollars more than John Rom made because he's shot three shots better in the Tour Championship? Or should we be rethinking the way that we distribute this money? If the point is to counter an existential threat and to pay the most important guys, the most money. Well, I do think that there is a proper balance between the meritocracy, which has always been the

informing thesis of the tour. It was their best argument against Live. It was what they tried first to convince their guys. Please stay here. There is legacy here. There is golf of significance here.

You can track your performance in this current moment and measure it against the grates of yesteryear. And that comes from the pure meritocracy that has informed the way that we run our competitions for decades here on the PGA tour. That's not sensible.

That's reasonable. And I like very much a format that lets somebody like Adam Schenk go out today and go grab the money. The only instance, I hear your complaint and I don't think it's wrong in terms of the broadcast emphasizing like the real stakes as we come down the stretch and the life changing, we get like a smattering of it. But for Adam Schenk, every hole down the back nine was life altering. He had two double bogies on the back.

The double bogey on 17 cost him a million and a half dollars house. And we didn't talk about it. He still collected, you know, whatever went along with what he finished T8 or T7. Yes, T8. So listen, he finishes roughly with $1.2, $1.3 million. Great. I'm happy for him. is just if we're trying to throw money around to keep the best guys engaged, right now,

if you're drafting, you are now the owner of the PGA tour or the Mark Cuban of whatever team is on the PGA tour. Are you drafting Lucas Glover, Adam Shank, or Justin Thomas? For what? For what purpose? For your team? Like, do you want them in the league? What? The answer is Justin Thomas. Anyway, you don't need the detail on this. You understand the point. I love that the meritocracy piece of it is these guys can go grab some money. My only suggestion is maybe we're putting too much money into who gets hot over these three weeks instead of stacking it a little bit more towards who plays great over the course of the season. And then, hey, big reward in the tour championship and the 30 guys who get there all tee it up on Thursday morning,

even par. And there's a big purse at the end. And Adam Schenk can go grab some money. That's awesome. He made it there because he had a good season. He deserved it. my point is just like John Rom can't be feeling great right now. Like if I'm John Rom, if I'm Justin Thomas, if I'm Adam Scott, if I'm Hedekke, I'm going some of that money, even some of the money that Victor just got, but definitely some of the money that Lucas Glover and Adam Shank went over the last two weeks.

Really? I mean, I love this. This is, you're going full Phil. This is Phil Mickelson's argument, buddy. This is why he thinks he thought. and continues to think that he had a principal basis for challenging the economic structure,

the way that money is spread out on tour. He might have. He didn't do it with principle. He didn't challenge with principle. I'm saying it was his, I believe in his head that this was one of the primary arguments for why he thought,

you know, the challenge was warranted. And if we just sort of left it at that, well, you can get your head around it because you're making a good argument. The answer to me is the thing that looks like is staring us in the face in terms of the renovation of the business of professional golf,

which is, you know, a for-profit entity that gives guys contracts that lets the stars enjoy the, the benefits of being stars, being the persons that we want to see, being the male professional golfers we want to see on TV, right? Yes. You heard a little bit of the,

discontent from Terrell Hatton last week. When he thought he was out, he spoke the truth, which was quadruple points. It just doesn't look good for me. And what that really spoke to is in these playoff events, the first two playoff events, they're four times as many FedEx Cup points as the regular season. And Terl Hatton's point was, I played really well during the regular season, and a couple of donkeys are going to jump me here because of the quadruple points. It doesn't feel as fair. Now, maybe not everybody feels that way. But if Rom feels the way he did, as he expressed on the podium this week, which is, look, don't talk to me about the money. I'm not out there thinking about this being a million dollar put, although Justin Thomas has told us in years past, he thought about it being a million dollar plus. But that's fine. For Rom, there is some nobility, which is what we love about the guy, right? But then let's make this a real competition. And guess what? John Rom would not have won this week. But guess what else? Zander chasing down Victor on the back nine and then Victor chasing down Zander on the last two holes by making Bertie to take it to a playoff at Eastlake.

would have been great television. I wouldn't have fallen asleep house. Well, yeah, sure. As a golf tournament, here's your top five, you know, take away the net strokes. Victor and Zander tied at 19 under. Wyndham Clark was solo third at 12 under. Sam Burns, who we might have to have a conversation.

We're going to have a conversation about, yes. Solo, no, tied for fourth with Colin Warcawa at 10 under. and Patrick, you know, I had a great moment. I didn't get a chance to tweet it. I'm sitting with my child. Well, I'm, you know, sitting with my boy. It's a nice Sunday afternoon. He goes, Dad, do you, do you know Can't Lay?

And I go, I mean, I think so. He says, can't lay a finger on these nuts. He gave me these nuts on Patrick Can't Lay. Well, you deserve it. in that indirect way. Maybe it works. Can't lay a finger on these nuts. Okay.

Yeah. Well, you can't lay a finger on the giant check that he just made either. What I'm saying to you is... For his tie, for his, he tied for six in the,

in the gross event. Yeah. House, you cannot have... Standard can't lay performance. Look, it was, but you cannot have the final round of your tour championship

be the most boring round of the year. And this was it. No, no, no. You missed yesterday then. Well, you're confessing that you didn't watch the Saturday. Because the Saturday was abysmal. I did watch it. I did watch it.

The weather delay. There was a two-hour weather delay today. Well, at least the delay today, you know, just fed into it. It made for the end occurring in prime time. be interested in seeing ratings-wise, you know, where it lands. But I'm not here to apologize for this product. Don't misunderstand. Look, they're going to change it, right? And here's the thing. We've thrown a lot of darts. You heard a lot of darts thrown on that 18th green at Monaghan today, the booze, which maybe they're just, what you can't say is that over the last year, the tour

has not been adapting and changing and willing to listen and make concessions. And now with Eldrick Tiger Woods as the deciding vote on that player council, on the rules council policy board, they will make some changes to this, I believe, before next year. I think they're just going to rethink how they do this, because I think you're right. They're going to get back the ratings. They had a 25-year-old absolute stud crushing it alongside playing against some of the stud Americans who are going to make appearances, whether we want them to or not, on the Ryder Cup team in the next five weeks, going head to head, and the product just wasn't there.

So I'm interested to see, and for as much as we're making fun of it, I do believe in my heart of hearts that they're listening, and they're willing to make rapid and successive change and iterative change. And I think we might see something because as fun as last year was, like this year was a snoozer. It just wasn't interesting. Well, I think I might gently push back on that. And we're going to take a break and come back so that we've,

can give some flowers out to Victor Haldon properly to recognize his ascendance to the tippy top of the game. But let me give you quickly my pushback. I thought the elevated, designated, whatever you want to call them, events had the intended effect. We had the best guys playing against each other far more frequently. And so from that perspective, I personally regard this just completed season as mostly a success. Agreed. Now, we had, you know, it's just this week. Well, it's, it's this vehicle.

It's this product. Last week was awesome. There were fans in the stands pouring out in Chicago. This week it felt like it was like three guys. This just did not have, this had the energy of a wet house post-Italian vacation fart. Whoa. Um,

I can't comment on that, but I will say this. You know exactly why it is because it is a corporate event. It is not an event for the face. It is not, you know, a vehicle to grab the attention of golf fans. It is a series of interviews with the CEO and the CFO and the CLO of Ding Dong Inc. And congratulations. I'm glad all those guys got to be on television and got to say their piece about how happy they are with their partnership with the tour.

But as an entertainment product, which is one of the things. we come back to so often here on the fairway rolling it wasn't very entertaining but let's come back and talk about a performance or two or five that were entertaining night dog okay look we're going to start with victor hoblin because what he did was it's terrifying no no it's terrifying he is going to kick our ass in five weeks in row oh wait wait wait who who who who what do you mean hour let let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's let's Your team hero now? No, here's what I want to say to you.

What? Let's run this back. Let's see Xander and Victor over 18 holes. You're right. On Sunday. You're right. That's going to be juicy, bro. We just set it up, right?

It was tied. It was tied. But look, Victor, first off the T this week, fourth in putting on Sunday, the final round, which, whatever, he had a huge lead. Who cares? Still, first off the T. He was first in putting today. shoot seven under. I mean, there's just not much more you can say than.

I mean, J. Ray, has learned how to close. That's the problem. Happies learned how to close. He says, Jay Ray, this is another Justin Ray nugget, led the field in driving accuracy,

which was, you know, identified as one of the key attributes, tied for the field lead in green, greens and regulation, led the field in scrambling. He is the only player in the last 30 years to win a PGA tour event, leading or co-leading the field in driving accuracy, greens hit, and scrambling.

So yes, it is tighten the rear end time. If you're looking here five weeks out, six weeks out at the Ryder Cup and trying to, you know, four weeks out, gosh, it's coming up quicker than that. How crazy is it that he led the field and all those things and only tied Zander? I mean, that's why you got to step back and go, holy Zander. I mean, we've been sort of waiting. We knew at the beginning of the week, and this is why we talked about it, that this is his course. This is where he thrives.

But, boy, was that a ballsy performance just trying to reel him in. And I think you're exactly right. I don't care. They got to sit down and put these two guys out. They got to go head to head next week or next month. In a month, yeah. We got to see it. We got to see it.

Because we've been talking about we need some dogs. And the thing that's most concerning heading into this rider cup, I know we're going to get there. We got to give some flowers up. But Sheffler is supposed to be our number one by a mile on the point list. And good Lord, the putter is a huge problem. He missed a ton of putts inside five feet this week. This was a tournament. He absolutely should have won.

When we started this, you asked me who had the most to gain, who had the most to lose. And I felt like for Sheffler, this was a huge opportunity. This is two years in a row. He's coming at number one and let it slip. It's happened different ways. Last year he got just reeled in by absolutely rocketing Rory. this time it is the putter and I don't feel comfortable

with it I feel less comfortable I think than he does and that's saying like an enormous amount right now we needed to see a few dogs rise to the surface I think we're going to get Kepka I think we're going to get Thomas but boy do I feel a lot better seeing Xander Schaftly playing like this

yeah let's do really quickly two minutes on who is our top dog and by our I mean the US team as we as we forecast out here. We have a conversation to be had about how this team's going to be rounded out.

Captain Zach is going to announce his team that I believe on Tuesday evening. We will have a podcast here on the fairway rolling, giving all the birdie buddies a reaction to that. But who would you say having

watched what you just watched out of Scotty? Now look, I'll be, if you're going to glass half full, Scotty, you say it could just be this course. It just might not fit his eye. There just might be something about it. The putting performance has been horrendous

at every venue. But that's it. Like this is a match play event in which putts are normally conceded. Are you giving Scotty Schaeffler a three and a half footer right now? Nobody. Nobody. It's going to ratchet up the pressure and the drama

because ostensibly the U.S. best players never going to get conceded. Well, how about this? Did you watch Kalamara Cowell putt today? Did you watch him? Look at those numbers. Look at his, you know, strokes game putting. 28th relative, 28th today, relative to Sheffler's 30th.

I mean, yeah, yeah, you're right. And I think he finished for the tournament 23rd after shooting a 61 on the first day. Like, that takes a lot of hard work to get all the way into the bottom third of putting after you come out and shoot a 61. know what I'm saying? Yeah. So who are our dogs? Happy to see Wyndham Clark, who, by the way, was dead last in Memphis, tied for dead last in Memphis, along with Fitzpatrick and a few others that I might be related to. But I'm happy to see him bounce back. He played great this week is striking the ball really well, putting it well, looks confident. I still wouldn't say he's our dog going into his first real, you know, country competition. I mean, come on. So what do we

next we got max homo feel pretty good about max head-to-head didn't play his best this week for sure but no i i just confess i i spread some money around on some head-to-heads this week one of the head-to-heads i played was rory over scottie which was a fat cash today even with the back injury yeah well i didn't know about the back injury when i put this in in fact i didn't know about the back injury you and i both you know when we offered up our parley to all the birdie buddies out there but I put Max up against Patrick Cantlay and the odds were tremendous. Max was fetching nearly two to one in that head to head. And man, on that back nine, he was right there ready to do it.

And he bogeed 18 today. How do you? He hit it in the bunker and left it in the bunker. And that hurt my feeling. So here's the thing. It's funny. You said the two names of who our dogs are. Yeah.

It's Brooks Kepka and it's Justin Thomas. That's who it is. And that's why they have to be on this team. And with all due respect to the telecast interviewing Kagan, who is delightful, love to see him with his boys. Again, the Hartford win was inspiring. But like, Sam Burns had a better week. Sam Burns had a better week.

Sam Burns had a better playoffs. And nobody's talking about Sam Burns right now. But that's because the team is set. It's baked. I mean, I'm going to be stunned. Absolutely stunned. if it's not Thomas, if we don't get Fowler, if we don't get Kepka. And then I think, you know, I think probably, I mean, you tell me,

are we, are we going to get the Wake Forest kid? Are they going to deliver? He's really the only one who could be on the hot seat, right? He's the one. That's the outlier to me because he didn't really improve his position in, in the playoff over the course of the playoff. He had a good performance at Olympia Fields, but not enough

to push himself up. No real eye catching performances over the last, you know, six weeks, eight weeks or so. Some decent performances, like good at the John Deere. Six under at Olympia Fields is nothing to shake a stick at. But, you know, he had good

major performances, not incredible, you know, Well, listen, Cam Young, we're talking about Cam Young. He's nine on the points. He's ninth on points. You got to take him. He's ahead of Colin Morikawa. He's way ahead of Fowler, who we're just sort of assuming is in because of the ratings, I guess,

and because he can hit the ball and I don't know. Well, no, because of chemistry, because it matters. The reason that there are six captain's picks is for chemistry purposes, for building a team. It's a team competition. It's not just the top. 12 guys in points because if that's what the the way they wanted to engineer it, they could do that. We have the rankings.

We know what they are. But that's not. And I think it's right that we have this ultimate discretion with, you know, wise and old heads like, you know, Fred couples and some of the others. Stricker and, uh, your boy, Stewart sink, you know, all sort of weighing in and helping, helping, uh, Captain Zach, you know, sort of make an assessment. and Ricky played well enough. Yes, he did.

Listen, he deserves it. I think the chemistry argument is what's partly going to get Thomas in is the only thing I'm saying. I just, look, you tell me, do you think, would you draft Sam Burns over Cam Young right now if you were, if you were king? Or do you think that team is locked, as we just said? I might. I might do it.

I might do it. Sam Burns has a relationship with Scotty Sheffler, and we need something. They're boys, like they're boys. They have all of that history in Texas. And what you need is that belief in each other. This is a good argument. Somebody's got to pick up Scotty who is dragging. He looked miserable yesterday, House.

I watched the telecast and his face was as downtrodden as I've ever seen Scotty, who is a optimist, smiler, shake-it-off guy on the golf course. He was crushed, man. And he needs a good birdie buddy to help him get through this tournament. That is a great argument for Sam Burns right now. Well, and, you know, it is, he doesn't cover himself in glory with his performance in the President's Cup. He was 0.3 and 2, right? But I just think if you're looking for...

Who do you pair him with? Who? Who do you pair Scotty with if we're not going to get Sam Burns? Right. Yes, exactly. Maybe Brooks. I think there's, you know, don't they have a thing? I think those two have a thing a little bit. Scott, he needs an alpha. Scott, he needs a DGAF teammate. You know what I mean? He needs somebody. That's why I thought maybe you put him with JT and you put Ricky with Speeith or you put Speeith with it. I don't know. Maybe Spee's too much. But some combination of the Texas thing or an alpha, we got, this is the most important pairing, I think, of the entire turn. the entire competition. We need somebody that's going to drag Scottie along. That's the key.

But I want to make sure that we cover Jordan Speeth. What are we doing? What's going on with Jordan Speeith? We're pretty close to panicking because he was playing. Well, we're talking to the number one, Spieth, truther,

and you're hitting the, you're ready to hit. I'm, like, if you look back at his last 10 events, there's a bunch of miscuts in there. It's not a great, performance, really since Harboretown.

Yeah, well, Harbottown was great, and we thought he was going to come grab that one. It turned out that Matt Fitzpatrick ripped it out from underneath us. Look, it felt at the beginning of the playoffs, like there was something maybe happening. Listen, he was tied for sixth in Memphis. He opened that tournament with a 63. So that was when I was like, here we go. It's coming. And we talked about Speedfield.

feeling like he was on the outside. If you remember, he was 31st hanging right around that tour championship cut line. He did what he had to do to get inside it. And it just, it's like he ran out of gas on the weekend at Olympia Fields and he just didn't get it back. I'm a little bit less concerned about it because I loved what I saw under pressure. I think his goal was not to win the FedEx Cup because he was too far behind. I think his goal was to get to the tour championship. And I like the focus. I just think after those weeks, he just let it go. So, That's the glass half full. The glass half empty is, you know, what we saw this week, which was poop,

caca golf. Like, I mean, he just. It was passive. It was a passive participation. Passive. I mean, he was down at the bottom with the guys who we knew weren't going to play well. Emiliano Grillo, as usual, you know, struck the ball decently well, although for the event, he actually struck it terribly.

He was at least fifth off the tea. But, like, you know, he just, he didn't do anything. He's just happy to be there. Taylor Moore had lost to Victor last week by 35 shots. No surprise that he finished, you know, also DFL. DFL, but Jason Day, I think probably just, I don't know, his season ran out a little gas. He was playing a lot. And is his wife, did they have the baby?

He's got his fifth child either. Exactly. Like on the way, baby the child was born. I lost track of it, but they were talking about him leaving to go see the baby be born. Jay Day's not playing the Rider Cup, obviously. So this was not his thing. Huge win of a season for Jay Day. Huge win.

He did in the same way that this was a huge win of a season for Ricky. I think they both came in here and felt like, hey, we did what we had to do, happy to be here. We're on to the next thing. Jordan Speath, I can be convinced that that was the case. I just feel like there wasn't a day house where you looked at his ball striking stats and went, okay, okay, it's coming. He put all right, you know, on Thursday and Friday. But boy, by the time you just get to the weekend, it's just, it's ugly. And the best we can say is on Saturday, he hit it well off the tea. Other than that, this was not a great performance. And he's got a little

bit to show us, the good news is he's going to get a little bit of a break here, can round it back up, get back to Dallas, and hopefully come back strong. Well, speaking of break, let's take a little break ourselves. And then I want to have a conversation with you on. your gut reaction to who is the golfer of the year. All right, Nate, I want to talk about golfer of the year. And I think, I think, I think it's just two golfers. I believe now we can separate out just about every other pretender. We only have two contenders.

It's John Rom and it's Victor Hovlin. and I think you could make a pretty great argument for Hovland, but it's tough. It's tough. It's tough to say the guy that won the master's, the guy that won a major this year is not the, and for four wins isn't the champion golfer of the year, to borrow a phrase. Here's the argument for, The wins he had at Memorial and at Olympia Fields were, I think, in terms of strength of schedule among the very tippy tops. Now, I don't, if we had Justin Ray sitting here with us, I would have him pump those

numbers out for us. And obviously, it's going to be the case in terms of the strength of the field at the tour championship. the only sort of downside argument with that is those are both small field events. He only had to beat, you know, 49 dudes at the Olympia Fields and the BMW. And he only had to beat 29 dudes at the tour championship. But on the other hand, one of John Rom's wins this year was in Hawaii at, you know, the tournament of champions where it is all guys that won the,

previous year, but it also has a little bit of a hit and giggle kind of vibe to it. It is a very chill thing until the back nine of Sunday in Hawaii with with those guys. It did turn out to be in this particular year important that back nine to one player named Kalamorakawa because I posited on this show that I don't believe he ever really recovered from giving up that six-stroke lead that he had going into the back line. But so John Rom's wins were Maui, Palm Springs,

and the Masters. And I don't think that Palm Springs, you're going to get in like tremendous strength of field numbers out of either one of those events. And the tournament of champions has, you know, a fine strength of a field,

but I don't think it's as good as the top 50 at BMW. or the top 30 at the Tour Championship. It's tough to not give it to the guy who won the Masters, though. The guy between the two of them that won a major this year. Now, Victor, I believe, ended up having the best performance across the majors. His worst performance was 19th at the U.S. Open. He had top tens at both the Masters and at the PGA Championship,

where he finished tied for second. He was seventh at the Masters. So across, if you're looking for consistency in the most important events, I think Victor has a good case. But I just can't get over the Masters thing. So that's how I would break it down. What do you think? But I think I'm furious with you. Okay.

I'm furious with you for pigeonholing me into this being a two-man discussion. If you want to call the Sentry a hit and giggle, the tour championship is. is a hit and giggle. There's fewer guys. Fewer guys. And it's a goofier scoring situation. Like, I can make the case that Victor's last two birdies didn't matter because there was no pressure. Like, it was an easy putt. Who cares? Okay. Okay. Okay. He knew he was going to lose it. Let me tell you who you are being unbelievably dismissive of. And that is Scotty Sheffler, who is going to finish this year, just finished this year, with the second best ball striking statistics

in the history of the recorded stat that is shots gained ball striking. You are dismissing the fact that between October and the first playoff event, Scotty Sheffler never finished worse than 12th. You are dismissing the fact that, yes, at all the majors,

Scotty Sheffler, he won a players, I know it's not a major, he finished 10th at the Masters, he finished tied second at the PGA championship, He finished third at the U.S. Open. He was the number one player in the world for the most part of this season. I think you've got to give some consideration to it. The reason that we're not talking about it as much as we are Victor is because Victor was hot for the last two weeks.

I don't think Victor was even close to being in your conversation before we got to Olympia Fields for Player of the Year. Agree? Absolutely true. Absolutely right. Could not. you're you you are a thousand percent correct i would not have countenanced victor this is why these playoffs are are actually relevant to you know a a and have some significance have some meaning have some uh it's a it's a measuring tape kind of um opportunity at the end of of a season

and you know i i think the the i i know your quibbles with how these these groupings are are culled when you go from you know it used to be 125 to 70 to 30 and now it's 70 to 50 to 30 I understand your your quibble with the way the points are allocated and all the sort of nonsensical machinations that they had to invent it's still pretty goddamn good the guys that are playing well over that stretch I I do think that it's a pretty compelling product that consists of guys that are playing their best at this time of year. Like if you go through that top 30, you're not like, who is this bum? Well, there's a few.

Maybe the two guys who finished 29th and 30th. I can go along with that. I agree that it generally puts up good guys. I think your best counterpunch to my little joking needling of you there is that the last two weeks, Victor chased down Scotty Sheffler. He spotted Scotty a lead at Eastlake. Scotty was beating him last week at Olympia Fields. And Victor reined him in with just an all-world Sunday round of 61, right?

It would have been an awesome argument to argue Scotty against John Rom if Scotty just held serve in over the last four holes in Olympia Fields at the BMW. He played awesome until the last four holes. and Victor went out and grabbed the golf tournament from him. And then he just had the whole serve at Eastlake. Now, we said this earlier in the show. I do think there might be something going on with him in Eastlake. I don't think that it's like a perfect relationship.

And we had an argument. We didn't have an argument. We had a conversation. I'm not sure. I don't know what it is. There's some aspect of it that doesn't fit his eye in the right way. We'll have to go into the numbers. I mean, the putting can't be the thing.

It is the thing that's holding him back, but that's been true across all venues. Yeah, listen, for the event, he was third off the tee. It was 20th on approach, and that has been where he has excelled and been first almost all the time this year. He shot one under for the tournament, right? Yeah, and this was not a difficult set of conditions

with all the rain that we got. This is the thing where if you're really striping the ball, you're going at the hole in the way that Victor did and, you know, in the way that Zander did today. So something was off with his approach play. And the answer may be that it just doesn't fit his eye with the way that the course is set up because he didn't drive the ball at the end of the day that poorly. He was third. If he had held serve at BMW and even a credible performance at this and, you know, somebody other than Victor winning this, then it's a fun conversation about potential because I do think it's fair to look at when with with with rom's four wins it's like

where you know yes they were four wins yes it's the pgatea tour mexico he only beat tony fienhow and right right but and yeah i i do feel like the players carries more weight for me for scottie than winning the memorial does for victor especially with the struggle that mccarthy had sort of coming down the stretch okay the memorial the kind of win for me felt felt felt more quality. But look, I just, we get into a little bit of recency bias with this and who cares? There's nothing really associated with player in the year.

No, I know. Nobody cares. It's nonsense. I think. Well, it's just as we try, you know, we, we are a half hour away from the, the season having finished and we're having a reaction to, okay, you know, let's size up the season. The funny thing is to me, I have a lot more.

losers than winners this year. My card is filled with more losers than winners, Nate, dog. House, that is why I think you're right that Schephler at the end of the day can't be player of the year because player of the year does not give away this many tournaments. He just doesn't. Player of the year goes and grabs it and there were time at Riviera, Rom grabbed that thing by the throat. At the masters, he grabbed it by the throat. Scotty gave away tournaments left and right. He was third at the memorial. That was a tournament he could have and probably should have won if he'd put

half decently. And we could say that about not kidding, almost 10 tournaments this year. And that at the end of the day is why you can't give player the year to the guy who missed a lot of game winning shots this year. That's precisely the case. Okay. I want to make sure that we clarify something. We've been talking through John Rom's season.

And while it is the case that he was in. the final group and putting his arms around Tony Fee now and you know supporting Tony John Rom did did not win the Mexico Open this year he won it last year yeah gave him a lot of credit for playing the Mexico Open yes this year he won it Riviera which is a giant big boy golf course and a giant big boy strength of competition strength of field that is terrific because it's tigers invitational so I just want to make sure that all the birdie buddies the eagle and enthusiasts, the bar saving pals out there, understand we, as we try and measure out these things, are giving proper credence and credit.

For the purposes of the argument of player of the year, it certainly bolsters John Rom's case to have the Riviera performance as opposed to the second place or wherever he ended up in the top five in Mexico. but he was very supportive of Top Gun Tony, which we appreciate and enjoy. So John Rom's the player of the year, Night Dog, that's all. Now let's go ahead and talk about this Ryder Cup. We know the six qualifiers. You and I seem to be in agreement around the next four guys,

which to us, I believe, is Brooks Keppka. it's Jordan Speet yes it's Colin Moracawa yes and I mean is Ricky the next one

yes I do I think so I think so so that's 10 people who are definitely on this team you and I hold two spots

yeah it leaves two spots now I believe we've talked this through enough we've convinced each other we don't know whether that Captain

Zach is convinced but you and I are convinced that Justin Thomas is going to be on this team, which might not be fair in a sense of performance over the course of this year, but that's kind of not the point of this competition. It's not how did guys play in the stroke play tournaments over the course of the year. You do want players that are informed,

which is why you have six slots allocated to the guys that play the best. And there's a whole point system for the guys that play the best. you get in on points and then it's team building time that's why you and i i think are on justin thomas there's only one slot available then and when we had this conversation last week i think you convince me that cam young the young cat from wake forest should be the 12th you know over the course of the season his performance at a couple of the majors um was was was was good enough um but i think revisiting it, it's a three-guy conversation maybe.

It's Cam Young. It is the late charging Sam Burns, who really made, I think, a pretty damn good impression these last two weeks. And then Keegan, who you put on the ex-Twitter machine as a fun question yesterday because Keegan was right there in the early part of the day, threatening, you know, the lead to potentially win this golf tournament. If he won this golf tournament, you can't keep him off. No.

He would have had three wins this year. He, you know, his two wins were the Zoso and the travelers. They're both pretty good. And some of his numbers in some of the metrics that I think are going to end up being important are pretty good. He's like in the top three of, accuracy from 200 yards, which I, from the, from the fairway, which is like, you know, the smart guys, the data analytics, the, um, Justin Ray's of the world and whoever it is that the U.S. team is employing in their own, um, data pursuit.

I imagine have up to the minute numbers and have the categories already laid out that they believe are going to be the most significant, um, categories for success. in Rome. Having played it last week, I think there are going to be a ton, a ton of approaches between 175 and 225 because guys need to find the fairway off the tea. And so I don't think that you're going to see a ton of bombing. There'll be risk reward and some of the team stuff. There are a couple short par fours. Both of them have a big water hazard that's adjacent to the green. So That will sort of play however it plays. But I think that that category, that 175 to 225 from the Fairway approach is going to be pretty important.

And Keegan Bradley scores pretty well on that. But we'll see how the number crunching goes. Out of those three names, we had a decent conversation about St. Burns as a Scotty Whisperer potentially. Who would be your pick? Well, you just said approaches from 175 to 200 yards is what's going to matter. Do you know who's sixth on that list house? Sam Burns? Lucas Glover.

Oh. You know, who's eighth on that list? Was ball striking. Who? Yeah. Cam Young. Yeah. So, look, is that what it's going to come down to?

I don't know. But I think of the guys who are out right now, boy, there's not going to be anybody more passionate overtly about this than Keegan. I can tell you that. And it may be that we need a little bit more spice given you're coming in with Sheffler and then a probably more reserved, Wyndham can get spicy, but he's not going to go lead it being his first time around. I don't expect to see that from Brian Harmon either based on the way we saw him close out.

So then you're leaning on a guy like Max to bring the fire. you're leaning on a guy like Brooks, like Justin Thomas. I don't hate putting Keegan in. But I think in terms of that pick probably given the rest of the team, you've got to go to who is playing the best golf right now. And if you're asking that question, it's Sam Burns. So I think the Keegan thing is interesting because you have to make a decision between team building over the next 10 years, which would absolutely positively

have you choose Cam Young because you want him getting as much seasoning as possible. And you know, you want to win every one of these. But, you know, this is one of those. It's going to be a European, like, classic when you see, when you see this golf course in the way that it plays, the way that they've set this thing up. Like, as soon as you're off the fair where you're and rough and it's, I mean, it's hard. It's a good thing they'll have people out there spotting the golf balls going into this rough. You could have used a few of those having played it too.

I should not have been out there playing by myself. I will say that much. But the thing that came out of all of the extended time we had with Keegan Bradley this week because of the rain delays, he is. He doesn't know these guys. Well, but he has an EQ, right? He's got some emotional intelligence where he is doing some mentoring of a kind, right? He is like trying to.

So you think his interview with Amanda was more positioning himself as the sort of godfather of the locker room instead of I'm a generation removed from these guys. And I wish that I'd been buddies with Furek and Tiger and Vijay, which were sort of my generation. Interesting. I thought he was maybe talking himself out of the team. because it sort of sounded like he felt he was totally disconnected. But you think he was positioning himself as the sage, wise, old owl in the locker room. And the guy who can say, look, I was there for the meltdown. And here is what happened.

And here's how we avoid it. And he's a touchstone, right? He's a stabilizing. Because he's a fighter, right? We know that about him. Yes. He's a battle. He's got that New England.

He's going to mash his teeth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to use some curse words, but I remembered we're on or on the television. I need to find out what the rules are about dropping various bombs on the Fandul TV. But I will say I do love his battle instinct. I don't worry about him showing up with the right like energy to go compete.

He's not going to be cowed. He's not going to be intimidated. He's not going to be afraid of the moment. I just don't know if he's good enough because homie shot what he shoot today? 74? Yeah. It wasn't the best Keegan showing of all time. Yeah, it was three over.

So, 73. 73. House, you've made really compelling cases actually right now. At the end of the day, it's Sam Burns seems to be the hottest player and the guy who can pick up Scotty. who we've determined definitely is going to need a pick-me-up based on the way he's been putting. You've made a super compelling case for Keegan as the sage, you know, player whisper who can connect the generations and, you know, has Michael Jordan's cell phone number. Okay, very interesting. Who else? I mean, Thomas is the bulldog, but we've assumed Thomas is on.

Do you put any credence to Glover or did that just that, that shooting star ran out after two weeks. It was a nice story and you can't put him in. He's, he had a life altering experience over this last month. Awesome. Good for him and his family. Okay. It's tremendous.

But the Ryder Cup is an entirely different animal. It has nothing to do with this last month in terms of, you know, what guys catch lightning in the bottle and, and, and get hot at, at the right moment. And, and,

And I'm not saying that as a means of disqualifying Sam Burns because Sam Burns won the match play. He won the event that is head-to-head matches over several days. So that's pretty good. Now, again, do you know how many wins Cam Young had this year? None. I do know how many. None. None wins.

None wins. And Cam Young is 26. Sam Burns is a little older, but like, he's, He's not the Keegan Bradley generation. So it sort of throws out the, well, we should put the young guy of the next generation on the team. I think you could make that argument for Sam Burns. So then you come back and say, well, what's the argument again for Cam Young? I think his season probably warrants it overall.

You'd say he had five top tens. He made 19 cuts. He had nine top 25s. You know, he performs as usual in some of the – listen, he lost to Sam Burr. in that match play event. So he was second head to head. But look, he got cut from the PGA. He was 32nd at the U.S. Open. Yes, a good performance T7 at the Masters. Yes, a good performance again, two years in a row at the open T8. So there's some sense that maybe he was on the rise, having gone T6 at John Deere, T8 at the open. He cut in Minneapolis fine, but then 31st at FedEx and Memphis and T15

and BMW, but he wasn't exactly setting the world on fire. If I'm Zach Johnson, I'm sitting back right now and saying, these are probably the two guys I've got to pick between if I'm making the young generation argument. And it starts to fall apart a little bit if what you really are looking for is somebody to plug a hole towards the back of the lineup. And the question is who's playing the best right now? I think the answer is Sam Burns. Well, the fun thing will be, and we'll have some opportunity to sort of dive into this between now and Tuesday. When we come back with our immediate reaction here on Fairway Rowland, to the announced assembled U.S. Squad,

there will be some of the information that I'm my own self, you know, I'm interested in trying to grab. It's the conversation around some of these subcategories, some of these data elements, like over the course of the year, you know, under these kinds of conditions. Yeah. You know, it's fairway accuracy. It's accuracy on approach from certain yardages.

It's, you know, there is a lot of like sort of elevation change at this. You think that's how he's going to make the decision between these guys? Only if it tips one way or the other in a dramatic manner. And I don't know the answer to that right now. No, listen, 30,000 feet, Sam Burns had five top tens this year and a win. Yeah. And a win. So you're going to have to dial into a little bit more depth around the statistics, I guess, because I think when you put their seasons head to head, in the majors,

you might say that Cam had a better season because of the Open and because of the Masters versus, you know, I mean, Burns got cut at PGA, too. But it's, they both, they both finished the same at BMW. So it was just that Burns kept going and played, played a little bit tougher coming through. And just finished fourth in the gross play of this golf tournament here in Eastlake. So that, you know. It's more of a decision for ZJ than I think we understood. It just would be a pretty big deal to leave the guy who's eighth in points off this thing.

Ninth and points. Yeah. It's got somebody got to go. And we will know come Tuesday, Nate, dog. As always, my birdie buddies, my par saving pals, my eagle, enthusiast. Thank you for joining us here on Fanduil TV and on the Fairway Rule in Podcast.

We're back Tuesday. We have a tour champion. It's Victor Hovland. He's good. He's good. He's good. He's got a very bright future ahead of him. Unfortunately, we are going to see him opposing the United States squad. I actually am kind of looking forward to it. I can't wait

to see Zander and Victor Hovlin run it back again. But my friends, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to our producer, Eduardo Ocampo. Thank you, thank you to everybody on the ringer and Fandul TV teams for pulling this thing together and making us look, I mean, not good. We look how we look, but thanks to everybody for doing their best to make us look as good we can. And we'll be back Tuesday with immediate reaction to the Ryder Cup announcements. Until then, go play a little golf. It's the end of summer. Get it in before Labor Day. And please,

let's hit them straight out there.