Fairway Rollin' - We Love Jason Kokrak, Plus: The Future of Live TV Golf Gambling With Jason Sobel

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

House and Nathan Hubbard sit down to discuss the latest from the epic showdown between Jason Kokrak and Xander Schauffele at the CJ Cup this past week and what contributed to Kokrak's rise. They are later joined by Jason Sobel of the Action Network to discuss the monumental shift in the world of live TV golf betting, as well as 10 great players to look out for in your next lineup. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Guest: Jason Sobel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

to this golf podcast unlike any other. This is your old pals at Faraway. A podcast on the Ringer podcast network. I am your starter. Joe House on the line as always is our PGA tour correspondent on the ground. Nathan Hubbard we have also joining us this week. We had to check in with our old pal Jason Sobel at Golf bet and the action network, because there is some action going down.

There was a very interesting angle to the broadcast, the telecast of the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek. Nate Dogg and I are going to talk through what's happening this upcoming week as Sherwood because Nate got to play there. Nate was also in Las Vegas. So we've got some real boots on the ground experience. Jason Sowell's going to help us with some picks when we talk about the Zososos. at Sherwood.

Tiger is back. That's exciting. Let's just walk over. The first tee is wide open. Let's throw a peg in the ground and get this thing going. Hey, dog, what's happening? The fall of the forgotten continues house. The old guys, they're winning.

The old guys. Is Jason Coakak old? He's like 35. Yeah. I mean, it fits. It fits the program that we're on. You know what he's not. He's not young.

He's not under 30. He's not one of the young guns. He's not one of the guys that we had penciled in as a potential winner for this contested Shadow Creek. Nate, Doug, you were in Las Vegas this most recent weekend for some professional golf. How was it out there? And I got to tell you, last week and this week are going to be, I think, the two most beautiful condition courses that they're going to play this year outside of Augusta, maybe winged foot. But boy, back to back, it's not going to get any better than this. It was absolutely a stunning piece of

property. And you just never knew you were in Las Vegas except every now and then the stratosphere space needle would peek up over the North Carolina Pines that they somehow managed to keep alive around that golf course. And it is really a, I wish we could play more events there. because the guys loved it. You know, when you really look at the leaderboard in the top 20, we had almost all of the big names hanging around. But Cochrak, I mean, we should have seen this coming. This is a guy who entered the week.

Our boy, Justin Ray, sent out a note. He entered the week with the third most official earnings in PGA tour history by a player who'd never won a tournament. And from the restart, he looked great. He tied for third at the restart, but then he had a bunch of miscuts and withdraws, and we have not been talking about him at all. But then T-15 at the Wyndham, T-13 at the Northern Trust, T-6 at BMW, T-17 at the U.S. Open. So we should have seen this coming. Well, here's the thing that upsets me.

And I really feel like this is kind of an ongoing theme, and I'm glad that we have Jason Sobel on for today's show because he can, help fill in some blanks. I will tell you in my own research as the week arrived, as we looked at how the CJ Cup might play out, a select field, only 78 golfers and invitational, so not a massive field. But when we're trying to split hairs and pick some guys that might have an advantage over others,

I would have really liked to have known that Jason Coak has a long track record of playing money games at this very golf course. And not only that, he has a lot of experience on these greens. And in fact, Jason Cokrack beat the field by over 10 points in terms of strokes gained putting.

His strokes gained putting advantage over the field was like 10.3 or something. A 10 stroke advantage on these screens, and it took me reading the reviews after the fact to understand, to comprehend, to learn that he has been playing this venue in a variety of different money games because of his affiliation with MGM for a number of years. That's important information, Nate, dog. Well, it was interesting.

In the interview afterwards, he really gave his caddy, David Robinson, no affiliation to the admiral. a ton of credit for just reading those lines on Sunday. I think if we had really, and we'll talk to Sobel about the live odds and the betting, but if you'd really push the needle in our arm coming into Sunday, we would have told you, boy, Xander Schaftley's hanging around.

He threw it in reverse on Saturday with a little bit of a bed shit round. He might have gone out to Tao on Friday night. I don't know. But Saturday wasn't his best performance, but he still was hanging around. Russell Henley's been striking the ball really well. Justin Thomas is, you know, he's within range. There are a bunch of ball strikers who were hanging out there.

You just didn't see eight birdies, no bogies, and 10 shots gained putting versus the field, you know, coming. And we say that. On Sunday, he also had 85% of his fairways and 94% of his greens, all but one. So the guy just played lights out on Sunday. And that's how you go win a golf tournament. We've seen a couple of these tournaments. since the beginning of the

wraparound season where it felt like some guys just couldn't grab it by the throat and that's why Stuart Sink was able to win. That's why Sergio Garcia was able to win. But this tournament, Jason Cochrague, after a long time, went out and won it.

Yeah, anytime you have 232 tries at something and you break through on 233, I mean, testament to, tip of the hat, to that tenacity, that persistence, get the job done, Jason Crock. And by the way, he made a nice living in the meantime, right?

Yeah. And this course, I mean, he had the inside knowledge. And again, if we'd had the inside knowledge of his inside knowledge, we might have thought about it differently. But it proved to be what we thought, which is a course in just immaculate condition that was absolutely a second shot golf course because the Greens really firmed up as the week went on. They were tough. You had to place them in the right spots. But I got to say to everybody who is thinking about a guys' golf weekend, guys and girls golf weekend in Vegas, that is a course

you have got to play. You just cannot believe what it is. I mean, I pulled out of there. I made a left. I went about 200 yards and I was in the parking lot of five guys, which by the way, shout out Lanto Griffin, mowing a Friday night five guys, I think. Why wouldn't he? It's delightful. Why not? Well, you wouldn't because the food at Shadow Creek in the clubhouse is apparently so great. You never really need to leave. But... Well, you said apparently. So that means you did not get the taco bar, the nacho bar. You did not get the margarita machine. What are you doing? Why did we send you there? The COVID bubble precluded me from invading the clubhouse to do that. That's not to say that I didn't have a margarita. Okay, good, good, good. Or that I didn't eat well.

Well done. Well done. I had a delightful turkey sandwich on site and so forth, but I think they really had locked down the clubhouse there. But the course is absolutely a destination. And I just hope that we can do a few more of these tournaments for charity that are starting to sprout up everywhere and get to see this course again. Because so much of what's in Vegas feels a little bit contrived, you know, you go and you see the big built inside things, right? A little? A little bit?

Just a little bit. But this was as authentic a golf course as you could ever feel. And so it's the piece of property, it's not Augusta, but it's Augusta-like in that it's in a bowl. And so it's sort of hidden from the strip malls that surround it. They've used the property brilliantly. And every hill and valley and, you know, bit of water, it just feels so real. And also every piece of pine straw is immaculate and in place. So they did a wonderful job this week and can't wait to see what's going to come out of Sherwood next week.

We'll talk about that in a second because I have got to ask you. And we'll ask Sobel this because he picked Zander Shuffley. But should we feel great about Zander? Or should we feel not so great about second place Zander? No, no, no. We feel great. He's a youth. He's a kiddo.

I mean, he keeps having these finishes around the hoop. Most runner-ups in the last four seasons. In these prominent tournaments especially, like, you know, the reason that you jump on Zander's back for this is because he absolutely is spectacular in no-cut events. I mean, his collection of top fives in the no-cut events is unparalleled. And he continues to make bank, like not just a small amount of bank, giant bank. But I have three things that I want to bounce off of you in relation to. to a couple of your observations in the first place, including Shadow Creek on your itinerary

for guys or gals weekend to Las Vegas takes the price tag if you have to pay full freight. Now, this is the thing, right? You might have to figure out a way to negotiate a non-full freight price to get yourself onto Shadow Creek. But the going rate at the moment, Nate Dogg, I believe, is $500 or $550. So if you're going to put that on your list, then you make sure across the board that you cut some corners and save some dollars and dimes in other places. You just win it by betting on golf and not listening to R picks. So that's one thing.

I just want to observe. It's not inexpensive. Now, you are there and your testament makes it clear that you believe that it's worth whatever the price tag is that people that they ask for. because it's immaculate. The experience is wonderful. I, my own self, have been fortunate enough to play there. I play there like four years ago in August, and I was like one of the only two people out there on the golf course,

and it was just me and the caddy, and I had a wonderful time. It was absolutely spectacular. I did not get any margaritas or taco bar, because they didn't offer it to be nach bar. But the other thing I'm interested in talking about with you is the idea of this as a venue, you for future events.

It does feel like a place that could easily host fields of 80 to 100. The only thing that makes it slightly complicated is you really cannot have a big number of fans here. It's not built infrastructure-wise for a giant number. But are we moving to a new normal where there are some golf tournaments where we can have limited field and limited fan kind of events? I think we should be. We should be, right?

Well, it's desirable. A couple weeks ago, we were in Jackson, Mississippi at a great golf course. But, you know, I think for the tour and the guys, we've got 50 events this year, I would love to see us really start to highlight these iconic courses that a bunch of us can go and play. Now, the price tag on this one is pretty ridiculous, to be fair, as you said. but it's so fun the more we get to see golf courses that we can go play. That's what is great about Harding Park, you know, the PGA at Harding Park. And Beth Page, when we saw the PGA and the U.S. Open there, etc. Augusta's gorgeous, but you're never going to get on Augusta.

Shadow Creek, you've got a chance. You've got to have the coin to do it, or you got to lose the coin for them to make it up to you by putting you on the course. But I think we know from the restart that these smaller format charity events are just fun to watch. And if Phil Mickelson and Charles Barkley are going to play a match that we're all going to watch, you know, you got to believe

that they could feature Shadow Creek in some compelling smaller player format, whether it's a 78 guy field or a, you know, eight guy field, I think this is where we're headed. You are right, though. This course is not built for spectators. It just isn't. So it needs to be a special venue for special event kinds of things.

But I will join you in commending it for how well it presented for this week's event. And it was a very seamless transition from South Korea. we would have preferred, I love Nine Bridges. I love watching Nine Bridges on television, but, you know, Shadow Creek is a place that we don't often get to see the best players in the world to compete at. And that was cool. The one last thing that I wanted to just recognize is Jason Coakrak,

in particular with his known skill is hitting the living daylights out of the golf ball. He's always one of the longest off the tee. the thing that distinguished him this week was his putting, but he was also absolutely fearless off the tea. And this is not a golf course where this is another reason why I really wish I'd known that he had this previous experience here because you have to really trust the lines. You your own self were out there. Let me put it in the form of a question rather than offering it as a confirmatory kind of like a,

you know, as a statement. I mean, it feels like a lot of those T-balls are shoots. Like you have to have a view on what you're aiming at, that aiming point off on the horizon, and feel very comfortable and then just take that big swing that you know. Do you agree with that? That is exactly right. A lot of blind finishes, again, a gust alike in the elevation changes within a hole. and the rough this week was not easy. In fact, there was some argument

that maybe they should have trimmed it back to give guys a little bit more of a chance because it would have forced some strategic decisions instead of them just hacking it out, you know, 50 to 100 yards, which is what we mostly saw. But that course, you know, I think driving the ball was at a premium for sure,

obviously, because Cochreck did great, but it really comes down to that second shot. And that golf course really is defined by some tough, tricky pins, some multi-tiered greens. And if you're not in the fairway on that course, you're dead. That said, it wasn't the most impossible driving course. That's something that you're going to see at Sherwood this week, too, which is fun because it means that after some bombing and gouging, and, you know, Bryson wasn't there and DJ had to pull out and Tony Fienow had to pull out so we didn't have three of the biggest sticks in the room.

But after a lot of that, it was fun to see guys have to think strategically this week about placement and shot shape, et cetera. I'm glad that you have mentioned a couple times, Augusta. What is the feedback from top 20 finisher Mark Hubbard in terms of the speed of the greens? I know Marquis played Augusta before. He hasn't played in the Masters, I know. But has he played Augusta National? So the feedback on the speed is that it does, this week those greens were immaculate

because of what you said, you were out there by yourself. The course just doesn't get that much play. And that's another fun part of playing it versus, you know, you go out and you get on Pebble or you go play Harding Park. You know, those greens are going to be, have the crap beaten out of them because they weren't closed for two weeks before the tournament.

These greens were just lightning quick. And I do think it is an important part of the game right now. It's one of those last defenses that we have. I mean, coming in on 18, I saw guys on Thursday hitting shots in over, you know, 25, 30 feet past the hole to the top of a ridge and bringing it back to four inches. the pin placement on Sunday made it impossible to do that. You know, we didn't see a lot of eagles, right? We saw a lot of guys blasting it through the back of the green.

So greens like that that are hard, firm, fast are one of those last defenses when we've got guys who are hitting it just so damn far. And that drive that Cochrak hit on 18. Yes. I mean, that just slammed the door. That's right. 164 yards he had in on his second shot on that par five, which for him, I don't know whether that was,

nine iron, pitching wedge, or eight iron. But he certainly had no problem whatsoever hitting a very high loft and shot in there and making his birdie and being, you know, going on his way. We cannot move on without recognizing the, what the hell happened to Matthew Wolf line of the week, which is that he came out on Thursday and definitely had hit the Margarita machine. and shot an 80 and then he came out on Friday and dropped a 73

and then he came out on Saturday with a 69 and you thought, hey, all right, maybe we're going to see a 64, 65. No, no, no. He dropped a 77 that could have been an 85. I don't know what happened

to Matthew Wolfe, but I got to come back to what we've been talking about over these last three weeks and that is do not trust the young guys in Vegas. Well, I have a sneaking suspicion. He used this as a recharge, the engines.

You know, let me, let me recalibrate my life here. I've been playing competitive golf. There's a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. I'm in a place where we can blow off some steam. There's no danger of me missing a cut. I just finished tied for second in a playoff. Let's just blow off a little steam and have a little fun. I wish I'd known.

I don't begrudge him it, but I just wish I'd known that that was going to be his mindset coming in because I would not have put him in the DFS lineups that I had him in. Four nights of Carbone. I think he talked Xander into coming Friday night based on the Saturday rounds.

But it was a little strange to see a guy who's been kicking ass, kick his own ass through most of the course. But I do think you're right that he's been playing at such a high level. You would not begrudge him a week or two to hit the reset. button and gear up for for augusta because he has been incredibly competitive in these majors but we couldn't let the the vagus bed shit round of the week go without recognizing it was the

Vegas bed shit tournament of the week i mean he basically is like i'm out i'm at tau i'm at carbone i'm going to be at the caesar's tables actually he should not go to the scissors tables because those mother efforts are only paying 65 to 5 on blackjack go to the get off the strip and go to town so you can get the regular blackjack odds. Speaking of, by the way, guys that finished inside the top 40, but that fit this narrative you just mentioned, which is we're revving up a little bit for Augusta. There are two names. Do you know what the two names are that I want to mention to you?

Let me hear it. Brooks Kepka and Jordan Spieth. Yeah. Both guys with interesting things. happening in their golf games at this golf tournament in Las Vegas. Brooks Capka, 74, 68, 68, 73. Now, he did not finish the week the way that he wanted to with that 73, but back-to-back 68's on the scorecard.

And at that point, you know, 74, 68, he still had a chance at maybe sliding in a little backdoor top 10 definitely top 15 the 73 kept them out of that mix because guys are out there scoring low i mean you know the the winner of this golf tournament shot eight under 64 on sundays ander shafley shot six under uh 66 on sunday and tyrell hadden by the way we got that one wrong boy did we 65 seven under now we were just in our defense. We'll go do a very quick side tangent on Terrell Hatton. We had a great concern about the nine-hour time difference between. We were right. Yeah. Well, that's true. We weren't right. The Englishman played horribly. It caught up to him on Saturday. He shot 73 after shooting 65,

68, and then he came back with 65. Yeah, but it took out Fleetwood. It took out Rose. So there were a lot of guys who made that trip. But boy, massive hat tip to this guy for hanging in there. And you got to take a look at his odds for Augusta at this point because he's just playing too well. We're on him. That's a thousand percent right. Everybody listening to this podcast right now. It's the week of October the 19th, 20th, 21st. Look at Terrell Hatton's Masters Odds. That guy, there is a track record of strong track record of outstanding performance by European players. good track record of Brits at this venue, Justin Rose, Danny Willett. I mean, so let's let's little, maybe sprinkle a little on the, on the TY hat.

But we started off by just wanting, I just want to give a little recognition. I want to get your, your feeling for where we might be with Brooks Kepka and Jordan Speeth, Jordan Speeth, who by the way was five under on Sunday, three, under on Saturday, eight under par on the weekend after shooting back to back 74s. But still, is something happening? Are there green shoots? I have over called this, early called this way too many times. You know I'm on the speed train.

I'm always going to be on the speed train. I like what I'm seeing. I really do. It was eye-opening that this guy had to get a sponsor exemption. to play in a tournament with ostensibly the 78 best players playing right now. But he used it well and let's see how the next week looks for him. And Brooks is going to take this week off and pick it back up in Houston to get to the other guy that you talked about. Brooks gave us what I thought he'd give us, which is some moments of strength.

Overall, you know, a top 30 finish is what we'd called for. He looked fine. he's still getting sharp. I think when he plays in Houston, he's going to tune it up, and I think he's going to be competitive at the Masters. Jordan is the one

where when we get these rounds, you know, we sort of stopped looking at him because he shot back-to-back-sevore's to open the thing. But when we get these rounds of brilliance, you see it's in there. And you know that at some point, it's going to come.

Eight under on the weekend was not surpassed by many players. Like, no. That's way better than Danoshoffley shot over the weekend. No, and by the way, his 67 came with four bogeys on the back.

So he really, he's still doing the Jordan Speath train, which is, you know, accelerate and slam the brakes, accelerate and slam the brakes. But the game is in there. There are some other things that are in there between the ears that are in the way,

but you can see him making progress. I just think if he's going to break through, it's going to be at Augusta. So let's see how he does this year. We're kind of now officially in the sprint to Augusta. I mean, this really is the moment, I think. As we commence this event at Sherwood, we have the welcome return of none other than his eminence. Tiger, Tiger Woods, y'all. Tiger Woods is in the field this week, Nate Dogg. Now, I know you have some thoughts on Sherwood. We have our pal, Jason Sobel, coming on shortly,

and Sobel's going to have some picks for us, and I want to hear what Sobel thinks about Tiger, but you were the lucky recipient of a terrific guest opportunity by the outstanding hospitality of our friends at Sherwood Country Club. You as a L.A. resident got to go over there and play a little.

Let's hear about what we might expect Sherwood. Well, you know, I got to play with Rob Oosterhouse, who's the CEO, General Manager Sherwood, and a couple of great members. And they have just done an incredible job getting this course into shape. You said it's the run-up to the Masters. And we're going to have greens this week that are probably starting at 13 on the stint meter. And by Sunday, they're going to be at 14. I like those. Yeah. So we're going to have some beautiful, tiered, undulating greens that are you know, it's bent fairways and greens,

rye in the rough. But these are going to be really fun to watch the guys play. It was absolutely beautiful. As much as Shadow Creek was gorgeous, this course is really going to equal it this week. You know, it's a membership that's sort of like a who's who of Hollywood and sports and entertainment

and some great business minds there. But it's got a lot less of the pretentiousness that gets attributed to Riviera and LACC, where the U.S. Open is going to be held in a couple of years. It's just this amazing piece of property. It's called Sherwood because they filmed everything there back in the day. Robin Hood, the opening helicopter scene in MASH, like the Dukes of Hazard, all the old school TV shows and movies were filmed there. Nicholas took it over in the 80s and turned it into this incredible, beautiful course. And there are just

these gorgeous canyon views. There's a ton of water in play. There's creeks running through the property. Lots of those familiar sycamore trees that we see at Riviera and that you're used to that defend the greens in a lot of ways. But the topography of the canyon that it's in create some really cool agronomic situations. Like there's some coals that don't get the circulation that they need. So the rest of the course is on Bent. They've got a couple of T's that are on Bermuda just to try to keep them alive. So they've got all these challenges there in addition to, you know, the seven weeks that they had to get this tournament ready. But, you know, it is an enormously fun golf course. I played it like absolute crap. And I can tell you all of the places that you don't want to be.

But what I'll say about the course is we're going to see a lot of really interesting strategic choices. We are getting robbed this week by not having DJ, who has the course, by the way, which he, which he shot in a fivesome with Wayne Gretzky and Janet Gretzky and their kids, I guess. So, but it's disappointing that Bryson and D.J. aren't going to play it because they would have made our jaws drop here. There's a couple drivable par fours. And, and, you know, the course is only going to be about 7,100, 7,100 yards this week. And so those guys would have had the opportunity to pick some lines over trees through canyons that we just that we just won't get to see. But hey, there's, you know, we still have 21 in the top 25 players in the world, I think,

this week. So it's going to be amazing to see how they attack this course, which just like Sherwood is going to be a second shot golf course where of the best ball strikers of the week, the guy who has the hot putter is going to win. You said just like Sherwood. I think you meant just like Shadow Creek. Excuse me. So do you know. Do you know that? the answer to this. So it is kind of listed for the, for the members as like just over 7,000 yards from the tips with five par fives and five par threes. Are they going to play it that way or are going to take one of those par fives to make it a par four? No, they are going to play it that way. What they do is they switch the nines, but then they keep nine and 18 the same. And that's largely

because they've got this signature par three, 15th hole that will remind you of the 17th par three that we saw at Shadow Creek last week. They're very similar in this sort of gorgeous water surrounded holes. But yeah, they're going to play this with on the back, tournament back. They're going to be three par fives and three par threes. Ooh, I mean, that's dead sexy, brother. It is. And just to be clear, when DJ shot the course record 61,

Janet Gretzky, I think only played the par fives in two over. So these guys are going to eat them up, I'm guessing. Yes. And, but that's not all because right out of the gate on the first hole that these guys are playing, there's a 350-ish-yard par four that's drivable for many. You know, so there are some getable par-fours out there, too. This is not going to be a whole or a course that's about the length. It's going to be, it's really going to be about the way these guys think around the course.

I think probably you've got to believe the under over this week is something like 23, 24 under. Yeah, even better than Shadow Creek. Cochrak shot 20 under at Shadow Creek. With an 8 under on Sunday. Yes, exactly. Yeah, now, part is just a number, but we're going to see some scores here. I just think that it's not necessarily only going to reward the bombers because you've got a lot of beautifully protected greens that are going to be fast. When did you play?

What time of day did you play? So I played in the morning, and it was. 105 degrees by the time we made the turn. Yeah. And the weather is going to be much, much cooler this week. Right. But it's reflective of what they've been dealing with over the last seven. I mean, they had seven weeks notice to get a course and a club ready to host this thing.

So it's reflective of the kinds of challenges that they've had to just get here to this moment this week. Well, and I asked that question. because I'm interested in whether there is going to be any advantage for the guys that go off in the morning versus the guys that go off in the afternoon. Now, this is another smaller field. I think it's only like 78 again. Yeah, again. So another invitational. And the weather forecast from what I've seen suggests sort of quiet breeze kind of conditions in the morning, slightly cooler.

but then went to sorts of warm up around lunchtime, the breeze picks up, and it can be 10 to 15 miles an hour. And I'm wondering if that might impact the guys that are off in the afternoon. Do you have a view on that? I think it could. We're going to have unseasonably cooler temperatures this week after everything was really baked out. I think that the tea times maybe are going to be less impactful sort of early. late than they normally would. If this tournament had been played last week,

the guys in the morning would have been in pullovers and the guys in the afternoon would have been dying in 105 degrees. There'll be less variability. When those winds come through that canyon, though, and we've seen a lot of the fires over the past few years that indicate what can happen when those winds pick up. When the winds whip through those canyons, they're real, and you can feel them.

The good news for those guys is, you know, you're not dealing with a ton of length that's going to impact you there. Okay. Well, one of the things as we try to prognosticate a little bit about, you know, who's going to be successful at this venue, we do have a track record at Sherwood because Tiger held his, you know, select. Target World Challenge here. That's it. His own select event at this place for over a decade, right? He did.

Yeah. So we have like 12, 13. years worth of professional golf indication of what's going to work at this joint. Jack, this is a Nicholas course, and Jack came back in, I think, 14, 15, and did sort of a refresh. It didn't change a whole lot, put in some bunkers,

you know, did Jack things sprucing it up. I think, you know, I went back and looked. I had, I was at this course in 2006 when Tiger held the event, and I went back, and I found the little sort of whatever pass that I had for it. But that was 2006. A lot has changed since then. And from a technology standpoint, you know,

we've talked about that endlessly, as has the rest of the golf world. Golf's different now. So I'm not totally sure, okay, how much past performance is going to be an indicator of results this week. But I will say this. I feel good about Tiger Woods this week, Joe House. Oh!

All right. Well, let's go ahead and do this week in Tiger Woods. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Wood. Nate Don't feels good about Tiger's chances. Let's hear it. Let me hear the, you know, you've got my attention, my full attention, my brother. Anytime you tell me that we've got a second shot course with fast Augusta-like greens, that isn't too long, and I know the irony and how strange that sounds when we're talking about Tiger. But where Tiger's going to be able to just swing and not have to pound the ball to keep up with guys, protect his back, rely on the quality of his ball striking, and give him a chance

at a course that he's familiar with that he loves clearly to work his way around those greens, I think we're going to have a better performance from Tiger on this course coming back from this break than we would have expected almost anywhere else. Well, we know for sure that he's He's going to be comfortable with the lines, that we know that the yardage is not going to be an impediment, that the rough isn't going to be an impediment, that he's going to be able to get himself around. It'll feel comfortable. It'll feel somewhat second nature. It's a California golf course. We know of his track record on a California golf course.

The greens are a combo of bent grass and poa because they had the overseed with poa for the time of year that they're doing this thing, which I think is. not that different from the way they've been when they hold, you know, when he's hosted his own tournament at this, the greens are big. So there's a lot of things that suggest that Tiger will feel comfortable, will be able to get around the limited field aspect of it. Certainly helps as well. I won't ask you yet. We'll wait for Sobel to come on before I ask you for where you think Tiger might finish because I want to hear Sobel's take on it. as well, but I happen to subscribe to your view on this. It also fits this particular trajectory, which is today is, as we've mentioned, October the 20th, that shows up at the 20th or the 21st,

and we are in the home stretch for Augusta National. And one thing we know about Tiger Woods is this, he's got that tournament, the Masters, circled on his calendar. He had to recalibrate. We think it might have been a good thing for him that he didn't have to compete in April because there was some kind of mysterious physical thing that he was struggling with clearly,

based on his performances and his withdrawals from tournaments at the end of February into March. But I think if we see something exciting out of him this week, it could just build on itself. I mean, that's kind of the mind frame that I have at this moment. I think you're right. Tiger is the defending champion here, and he is defending champion at the Masters.

When you say here, though, it's the tournament that he competed in Japan. It's not physically, not physically sure would. That's right. Let's not forget that he won the tournament a year ago. Different course. I came in this week, absolutely with the conspiracy theory,

that Tiger was heavily influential in which course this went to. Oh. Now, in talking to Rob Boosterhouse, he is the guy who initiated contact with the tour when it was clear over the summer that this thing was not going to happen in Asia.

There was just no way to get the guys over there. He emailed the tour and said, hey, is there anything we can do to be helpful? That said, you got to believe that they were thinking about, hey, Tiger's defending champ, is this a turn and we can get him back at? Somebody must have made a call to help to help nudge this thing and make sure he would be happy to come back. So I think the point of it is this.

This is a course that he has chosen to host events at, so we know he loves it. There is something about Tiger being defending champ at any term, and as we know, he has a history of, you know, when he used to just dominate the Buick, when he crushes Jack's course, Augustus. so on and so forth. So he has some favorite tracks. This is one of them. The weather's going to be okay. You know, the course is going to be in absolutely pristine shape.

You know, there were a lot of ways that this course could have been screwed up over the last seven weeks between the fires and the heat and the team there has done just unbelievable work. But I think Tiger's going to feel good. And that's not to say we're betting him to win this weekhouse. but his odds, you got to think about a good finish from Tiger this week. This is the last time we're going to see him before he plays Augusta. That's exactly right. And I want him to give us our money's worth. So let's let Jason Sobel in on this conversation and see what he has to say.

We had to welcome Sobel in because this most recent event, the C.J. Cup at Shadow Creek, featured something and innovation that the tour has never seen before, which is live betting odds while the tournament occurred. I mean, the broadcast is up and we are seeing not just odds to win the tournament, but who's going to win the next hole? And on the 18th hole, for the first time ever in the history of the PGA tour, you could bet on Xander Shafley head to head against Jason Cochrack to win that hole. Now, that's something that degenerates like myself and Nate could do. You can do that

with your book if your book is offering live odds. But the fact that that was part of the broadcast and there was some indication I think I heard or read that folks were on Shafley. And then Cochrack hit it 397 yards or whatever it was to leave himself a wedge in and whoever bet Schofley lost immediately. But that's a real innovation. It's very interesting and I'm very excited to see sort of where that takes us.

So let's see what Jason Sobel has to say. On the line right now, speaking of Jason Sobel is that guy right from golf bet, right from the Action Network. Sobel, welcome to this. iteration of Fairway Roll. And we had to have you on this week, my friend, because we had this wonderful moment in the telecast of professional golf that featured all these live odds, including Zander Shoffley head to head against Jason Cogreck on the 18th hole. Oh my God. I'm so excited. What's up, boys? First of all, that was glorious to see odds on the screen the

entire week. I thought that was really cool. I almost feel like, because, guys like you and other friends of mine in the industry have called me up saying, wow, isn't that great? Like almost like crediting me like, hey, you cover golf and you cover the golf gambling aspect and great job. And like I had nothing to do with this guys. This is not me. I was not in on this.

But I fully support and endorse everything related to golf and gambling. So I will tell you something that, you know, we may have actually had this conversation on the pod a year ago. if not us, that I had this conversation with some other people. And I'm talking 12 to 18 months ago, you know, when will we have live odds on a PGA tour telecast? Not necessarily the streaming broadcast where they can experiment a little bit, not on digital, but on the actual telecast.

I said, yes, it will absolutely happen. And I set the over under, I believe at the time at probably 2023. Golf does not move that quick. The PGA tour does not move that quick. I figured it would take other sports getting into that frame of mind first. I figured we would need to have the NFL, Major League Baseball, and the NBA, having odds live on the screen before the PGA tour would do it. Frankly, I'm shocked.

I'm ecstatic. I think it's awesome. And I think this is only the tip of the iceberg. I mean, we can only just sort of open our minds from here and see what's going to happen moving forward from this. This is Jason Sobel making a case for the good. parts of COVID, I guess, because that is really what happened here, because golf restarted, and it was all alone, right? And it was just out there. And we clearly were able to bring in a new

audience of people who were just looking for something to do. And when you, when you couple that with fact that you're going to have a lot of municipalities now that are going to need that tax revenue after everything we've been through, you know, the best, the best bet you've made is, is taking this gig and becoming the guy who covers golf and gambling, because you saw this coming. But let's talk about where this can go, because what I realized on Sunday was there's Russell Henley, who's hit his drive, he's three back,

we, you know, he tees off and we've got about, I don't know, four or five minutes until he's going to hit the next shot. Well, if he sinks his second shot, he's going to get into a playoff, right? So it still matters. And of course he wasn't and the odds were super slow or super long on that. But you realize that with the time between shots that happens in golf, not unlike baseball, except there's even more time between the action, that it really opens it up to some real-time odds,

real-time betting as those tense moments come down the stretch. You could see a world in which you're going to be able to bet real-time on every put. Tell us where you see this thing going because you've been on it from the beginning. Okay, so first of all, Nate, yes, it's the perfect activity, the perfect sport for it. Not only is there time in between shots to actually put those bets in, explain what the bets are, but I think it almost feeds into the analysis. I mean, basically the guys who are covering the event, the guys who are doing the TV broadcast are basically speaking in terms of analysis and forecasting anyway.

Hey, do you think this guy's going to make Bertie here? Well, he needs to. What are the odds? Well, you no longer have to say, well, I give him a 10% chance of making this. Well, if you did, then it would be 10 to 1 up on your screen right now. It very infrequently would be 10 to 1 for a guy to get up and down from a tough lie or something like that. That said, moving forward, here's my idea. See what you guys think of this.

And this is the only sort of progression that I can see. And I'm sure there's more to it. but I think that we're going to get to a point in the not too distant future. And I don't think we're five years away. We might not be a year away, but we might not be five years away either, where, okay, you see those odds on the screen. Let's say House, the example you used, Cochrak and Shofley, going to the 18th T, and it says, what was it, Shoffley, probably minus 110 to win the 18th all,

Cochrack plus 1,30, or whatever it might have been. Okay, you see that on the screen. Now, instead of opening up your phone or your laptop and going to your book and placing that bet that you see right there, you've got a remote control in your heads. You've got a smart TV in front of you. You press the remote control, press a button on the remote, aiming at the screen. You hit that plus 130 on Coke rack right there. And all of a sudden, you've got an account that is lined up with your TV somehow. And the technology of this is way beyond me.

It's above my pay grade. But I can see a time and a place in the not too distant future where you basically hit your remote and you have bet 10 bucks, 100 bucks, thousand bucks, whatever you kind of want to bet. Good God, big money from so. I'm Jason Cochrack. Hey, in retrospect, I want Cochrak winning the 18th hole on Sunday, a thousand bucks on that. Will you give me that at plus 130? Well, two things on that point because, you know, it's very exciting. and the aspect of it that I'm particularly enamored of

is the all-in effort by the tour itself. So like the tour could be the book. You know what I mean? Like rather than you having to interface with whatever private entity that you, now the tour will have all these partnerships, it has them now, a whole slew of partnerships that creates the opportunity that takes out a bunch of these,

you know, sort of logistic obstacles, these logistical obstacles, where you could do your remote, you could do your phone, but the tour will be the, you know, the accelerant. They will, they will accommodate you trying to get in on this action because they want that interface. They desire you participating as a live participant in outcomes in golf tournaments, right? I still think there's a little bit of a slippery slope to the tour itself being our book. I don't know that they're going that far. And there's a reason why over the last two months,

they have announced four different official betting operators. I mean, like everybody now, it's Fandle, it's Draft Kings, it's points bet, it's Bet MGM, are all official betting operators with the PGA Tour, which tells you sort of where they're headed, first of all, and what their line of thinking is. And PGA Tour understands you cannot be five seconds behind, you know, whether it's, you know, if it's draft King, they can't be five seconds behind on a bet because it's real easy for me in those five seconds

to go, okay, I'll take Coke rack to make Bertie after he hits it 360 right down the fairway. And I see the ball bouncing down there. It needs to be absolutely to the second live. Who owns all that proprietary data and all that information? PGA Tour does. And so they're getting a little kickback from all of those books as well. So the tour is basically in a win-win situation here. And, you know, as much as I'd like to think, hey, this is good to get fans.

interested. This is a good investment in the game. This is good for engagement. The tour understands where this is going to hit him. It's going to him in the pocketbook. And this is going to be big time money for the PJ tour moving forward. Well, it's an interesting model. And House is not too far off the rails on that. I mean, the Australian Open tennis tournament owns all of that. They own all the data. They function as the book. And they've done that in part because they think that they can maintain the integrity of the game a bit better. And tennis, in particular, has had some problems being as global a sport as it is with with a lot of guys getting some pressure, you know, from, from my cousin Vinny in terms of how they play. So the next question

that I have for you is what's cool, look, what's cool about the in, in round betting is because those circumstances are changing as a natural part of competition, it really preserves the integrity better because these moments sort of arise. But how do you think about golf, which has always been a game of honor, always a game of integrity, maintaining that level of integrity when you really just start to inject a lot of the gambling components. Can we keep it? Can we keep it pure? I have brought this question up to PGA tour VPs who are sort of in charge of overseeing their gambling operations there. And the answer I've gotten is now that it's legalized and regulated, they can get some red flags. You know, if someone puts half a million dollars on a head-to-head

matchup for one guy over another, all of a sudden, that red flag is raised, and they can see that. If it wasn't legalized, if it wasn't regulated, if this was 10 years ago and that bet is being made sort of on the quote unquote black market, well, all of a sudden, the PJA tour doesn't know it's happening, doesn't understand it, and maybe there is some sort of backroom deal on that kind of thing. Now, they believe they can see those red flags and they will be alerted to these types of bets. So I don't know that it's going to happen on the PGA tour. Maybe I'm being naive. I would think, though, that if this gets to the lesser tours, you know, if you can do live betting on, you know, maybe the corn fairy tour, at least PGA Tour Canada, PGA Tour Latino America,

the sort of the minor leagues where guys are, man, this guy wants me to take a flop. This guy wants me to dive and go shoot 78 today. And if I do it, I can make more than the guy who's going to actually win the tournament today, maybe I'll do it. And so I think that's more where their concerns are. And that's probably why you aren't going to see those types of bets available for those types of tours. I think that this is going to be very PGA tour centric for a very long time. Yeah, we're going to wait into it for sure. And that makes a ton of sense, honestly. I mean, that's the way to preserve the integrity. Well, I have an integrity question for you. And speaking of red flags. This is on a topic that you and I, in particular, Jason Sobel, have been discussing

it feels like for over a calendar year, which is the availability of relevant information. And I just want to tell you right now, I'm mad and I might be mad at you because, as you know, I am an avid consumer of all of your hard work every single week. You have terrific insights and observations about as the week sort of lines up, who's in front. You're a good. And form angles to consider. I don't think, of course, I don't think I read anywhere in your work or any of the other work on Action Network. And honestly, to be fair across the board, in any of the other places that I go for

research or information on this, that Jason Coak, speaking of BetMGM, has played this mother-effing venue a couple dozen times, at least in money games and has a real familiarity with. Shadow Creek, the greens there, that would have been helpful information to me last Tuesday. You know what I mean? So Nate mentioned before sort of the benefits of COVID. Well, we've gotten from that. We've got a lot more people gambling. We've gotten a lot more eyes on the game from that perspective over the last six to eight months.

The negatives to this are that, man, I'm not out there. I haven't been in a tournament since they canceled the players championship after the first round. And I had a chance to go this week and, you know, with some stuff at home, I just couldn't make it out to the zozo this week at Sherwood. But, you know, this is one of those things where, and I say this all the time that, you know, and I hate to be one of these guys who's sitting at home prognosticating from home because when I took this job, I said, I am going to be this hybrid of I'm a beat writer. I've been covering this game for a long time. I'm going to be talking to players.

I'm going to be going to tournaments. And I'm going to find out stuff. but I'm also going to cover it and find out this stuff and use it for a betting perspective. And not being out there, this is exactly the kind of stuffhouse that I'm missing out on, that I'm not walking around the range on a Tuesday afternoon, run into Jason Cochrak, who I know fairly well. And I've sat there, had dinner with him before and a really good guy and I like him a lot. Maybe I see Cochrack and go, hey, hey, how you do?

He's like, oh, man, doing well. I love this place. One of my favorite course. Oh, yeah, he played here before. Yeah, I played there 20 times. I always win when I come out here. Oh, really? Yeah, man.

I play really well here. I've got some roots here too, some family. Oh, all of a sudden, that changes the dynamic of how you're thinking. And I have not been out there to be able to do that. It's killing me. Well, I can tell you I was out there. And you're not missing that much only because I saw Harris English on Thursday. And I texted House, I think Harris English has the yips because he was just flapping

wedges, leaving putts 100 feet short. and he finished T-10 by the time it was all over. So I'm not sure being out there. But listen, I do want to ask you, because you're underselling yourself a little bit. Last week, you were all over Xander. And you knew it, and you made a very clear pick of him to win. You also talked about Brennan Steele,

and you have a relationship with Brendan. So any time you talk about Brendan Steele, I always think, okay, he knows and Brendan's going to play well this week. Brendan played in the toilet, but you were on Zander. So talk to us about those. Those are two different outcomes. But you were right on it. Talk to us about how you ended up with Xander in particular,

knowing that he was really going to come through. You know, at some point, you kind of look at the board and you say, okay, well, there's a little bit of value on this guy. He hasn't won it a while. I was looking for a guy last week that was overdue, quite frankly, in retrospect, yeah, a guy that's been on tour for 10 years and hasn't won the golf tournament yet. Yeah, Jason Cochrake was pretty overdue as well.

So Zander is a guy that I probably pick more than I should, more than he wins. You know, the ratio of me picking him to how often he wins is probably a little tilted in my favor as opposed to his favor. And there are a few guys like that. Tony Fienow is a guy that I've picked way too much for a guy that's only won one. Top five, Tony. Yeah, exactly. Top ten, Tony. Top ten, Tony.

I mean, there are certain guys out there that I really like. I really like Neiman. I really like Abraham Answer. Those are guys that on a given week, I usually, if they're in some sort of form, I like them. So I like Xander last week. Nate, you've probably seen this with your brother, where you, I'm sure there's weeks where you talk to your brother, even just text them. And I do this with Brendan Steele as well. He's a good friend of mine.

And so you're right. When I say that Brandon Steele's going to have a good week, there's usually some sort of intel. And the intel I usually get is like on Tuesday, I text him, I go, hey, how's it going out there? And if I get a pretty good, then I'm like, I'm like, I. I'm going to stay away. If I get it, oh, it's going really good. I like it here. Then I'm good. I mean, it's that little. And I don't know if you get that from your brother as well, but like I can tell. And golf is such a ridiculous sport that, you know, some guys come into the week feeling like crap. And then you talk about my brother, there is no way I would have bet him last week. He was feeling tired.

He and a couple of the other golfers who shall not be named went on a bender on like Sunday, night and I was like, you know, I'm going to go out. No big deal. He finished T-17. I mean, he told me he tapped in. He thought he was like high 20. So, you know, that's the mindset he was in any, and he had a top 20. So golf is that game. I get it that that you get some feedback from the players and even that sometimes doesn't help. But, but on the Xander front, I just want to ask you, because this is now a guy who's finishing second a lot. A lot. Big majors second, you know, he was second at Augusta. He was third at Pebble. He, he, He's most, I think second place finishes in the last four years.

Is it just a matter of hanging around the hoop and he's going to break through? Or is there something there that's keeping him from throwing the throttle all the way down and breaking into the class of JT and a few others who were part of that, you know, 14 Corn Ferry Tour class? So this is a question that I've dealt with for a long time now. In fact, I do a segment on Sirius XM with Taylor Zarser on the starter every month. Monday morning. And eventually, Taylor usually asked me about the guy who came close and didn't win. And I've started joking that this needs to be a sponsored segment because I say the same

thing every week, no matter who it is. And I've held on this for years now that basically any title contention is a good title contention. Whether you are in 12th place and shot 63 in the final round and got into a playoff and lost, whether you were leading by five. and blew it on Sunday, shot 78 and lost, I still think that being in the heat of the battle is better than not. And so I will contend that finishing in second place for Xander is a whole lot better than finishing in eighth place all of those times. And so is there a little scar tissue

that builds up over time? Yeah, maybe. Is it bothering him? Yeah, maybe it should bother him a little bit. It should bother him that he's one of the world's best players. And for the last, what, 20 months now hasn't won a PGA tour event. He's come really close. But I think long term, I just don't see it. I don't see that being a negative, that being a deterrent. If a few weeks from now at Augusta National, Xander Schaafle is leading on the back nine, I don't see it being, well, he always comes in second. So someone's going to pass him here because he's not going to win. I see it as he's had so much experience over the last couple of years. coming close, being in the heat of the battle, playing with those experiences that I just think

it's a good thing for him moving forward. It's a good thing for everybody. I mean, I remember going back to Phil Mickelson, you know, having that label of best player to never win a major. Remember that? I mean, we used to talk about, hey, Phil's 30 years old. He's got all these wins. You know, he still doesn't have a major championship. Can he ever break through and win? Is he going to go winless in majors for his entire career? And now we look back at that and laugh and we got, Phil won five times. Phil was a great major player. Phil probably could add 10 wins if the ball, a couple of butts had broken the right way for him over the years. But I still think those experiences, just getting onto the leaderboard, getting into the hunt are almost always positive experiences moving forward.

And for those of us that dabble in the gambling arts, there's a perfect way to cover off that kind of angle, which is you go ahead and bet you have a strong feeling about Zan, is potentially winning this golf tournament. So you can just bet them to win and a top five or you can do an each way bet, depending on where you place your bet. And if your book will honor an each way bet. And so that's the right way to do it because we know as guys that have been paying attention to this for a little while, gambling on somebody to win a golf tournament is ridiculous.

It's impossible to pick the winner any given point in time. You try and pick four or five guys that you have a few. feeling for. But the way to cover off that angle is to go ahead and do it each way bet, which covers through some number of places or you bet them to top five as well. That's the sensible way to do it, right? Is it so strange, House, how this controls the narrative. And I take nothing away from, and Cochrak's going to be the example here just because he was the latest winner on the BGA tour. But you can say this any given week that if the tournament was 69 holes, we might have had a different winner. If it was 74 holes, we might have a different winner. It was

two holes. And so we're sitting here saying, wow, what a great week for Jason Coak. What's wrong with Zander? Why can't he get over that hump? How come he keeps finishing second? And it's just, you know, it doesn't necessarily mean that one player was so much further ahead. I mean, we wouldn't look at it in terms of, well, hey, this guy finished in 27th place. This guy finished in 28th place. How come the guy in 27th had such a better week than the guy in 28th? He'd say, ah, it was about the same. And yet when it comes to the top guys, when it comes to first and second, we said, boy, huge gap. First means everything. Second, oh, nice paycheck. But, you know, sorry, bad luck for you. Yeah. Well, this is a good segue.

And I don't mean to step on you, Nate. But we did talk a little bit about a guy that's very familiar with first place and also a lot of comfort at the venue for this week at the Zozo, which is none other than Eldrick Tiger Woods. Nate and I shared, we compared to some notes. We had some views, but we suspended our judgment because we wanted to hear your input on how you think the tiger lines up this week. Yeah, this is a tough one for me. So we look back on on Tigers form. I don't even know if we can say form because he hasn't played. He's played seven times this calendar year. He started the season with a share of ninth place at Torrey Pines in six events since then, nothing better than 37th place. And then you look at

Sherwood and guys, it would not surprise me whatsoever to learn that Tiger had a hand in, hey, you're the defending champion of the Zozo championship. They have to move it from Japan. Hey, they might want to ask Tiger. Hey, where do you think we should go? We go, well, surewood's pretty cool. See, that was my conspiracy theory. Absolutely. Come on. Yeah, Nate, had that going already. Five wins, five runner up finishes at Sherwood. He loves that place. And so, yeah, there will be a lot of comfort level. That said, First of all, guys, and Nate, I believe you're there this week. Yeah.

They're going to torch this place, are they at 7,000 yards at a par 72? I mean, isn't this going to be like 25 under, 26 under winning this golf tournament? I think you're exactly right. I think that the most fun thing to bet this week is going to be the over under on the finishing score because it could easily get there. We're going to be approaching TPC Boston levels if somebody's on a heater. Yeah, with five par fives out there. And I believe all of them get a ball. I mean, with the way these guys are hitting the ball these days.

So I don't think that sets up well for Tiger anymore. Back in Tiger's prime, Tiger used to say, especially for major championships, yeah, I like it when it's single digits under par, where it's hard but not so hard that you're just battling to make bars, but bogies are really good. And bogies help lift you up the leaderboard a little bit. But really, when Tiger was in his prime,

if you got a birdie fest, if you had an 18 to 20 under type of tournament where the winner would have to shoot that, Tiger's going to make more birdies than anybody else. and that's going to play into his hands. These days, I think Tiger wants a tournament where five under is going to win, where you can grind out bars. You can hit long irons all over the place.

It's not going to play into the hands of the bombers. And yet that's not what this is going to be. So I don't think it's great for Tiger. That said, with sort of the good vibes come down. I got Tiger for, you know, scraping into a top 20 on Sunday afternoon, you know, a T-18 kind of finish, you know, nothing terrible, nothing great. just sort of there, you know, which has been a lot of basically the way I've described Tiger's play over the course of this entire summer, which is, well, wasn't terrible, wasn't great.

It was just sort of, me, which is, I guess, a takeaway when we speak about Tiger because we've never really had that takeaway. I mean, Tiger's been, you know, amazingly good for most of his career. He's been really bad at different times in his career, whether it was injury, whether it was personal things he was going through. but we've never really seen Tiger just be kind of, it's pretty good. And that's kind of what we have right now.

I like that assessment. I got, House and I were talking earlier. I got to play the course a week ago. And the rough is going to be up. It's going to be over three and a half inches. But the fairways are wide enough that I think Tiger is going to have a chance

to hit irons that he's comfortable with into these greens. I think he's going to be hitting a lot of, a lot of irons that he, you know, he doesn't have to go all deep into an iron to get it to the green. Let's put it that way. And he's probably going to be playing a lot out of the fairway. And these greens are going to be fast. And so as a tune-up for Augusta, this isn't that bad. But if Tiger's going to finish in a kind of meh range, maybe upper third we're going to feel good.

We haven't seen a whole lot of play on this course before. And I think people are going to love what they see on TV. But how do you think about handicapped? capping the field and who do you like as you look at a course where we just don't have that much history over the past couple years. Yeah, let's name some names. Come on, Saba, let's name some names. All right. So other than Tiger, I mean, I will take Tiger's course history into account a little bit here based on the fact that he's won so many times, close so many times. Other than that, they haven't played a tournament here since 2013 and, you know, Zach Johnson won that year.

And yeah, you had Graham McDowell the year before. I'm not looking at any sort of course history. I mean, even the guys who have been around for a while and played this course, I'm really not looking at how they've played there. So I'm looking more at recent form. I'm looking at guys who can make birdies on par fives. The name at the top of my list is a guy who, and I base this a little bit on Tiger because this is not the world challenge where they used to play at Sherwood, which was Tiger's event. But it's going to kind of feel like it. It's going to feel like the world challenge is a limited field event. Tiger is the defending champion, even though he's not doing the heavy lifting on a high lifting on a lot.

hosting duties, it's going to kind of feel like it. It's going to kind of feel like it's his event. Nobody likes impressing Tiger Woods more than Patrick Reed. And Patrick Reed has been playing some really good golf lately. I think his number is a little too too high this week. I think that 22 to 25 to 1 is a nice number for Patrick Reed, who's got three finishes of 13th or better in his last three start, starting to fire on all cylinders. He knows Augusta is right around the corner. I like Patrick Reed a lot this week, a few more names. I never pick this guy. We talked about guys earlier, you know, Zander and Fienow and Abraham Answer guys, I pick probably too often. I never like Bubba Watson. Never. I mean, even when he goes to Augusta where he's won a few

times, Riviera, he's won a few times, Hartford, he's won three times. Even those places, I'm like, well, I feel like I'm chasing victories at those places, so I don't want to go after a guy who's one probably more than his allotment already. I love Bubba this week. Led the field and strokes game T-to-Green last week. I thought after the pandemic started and they came back without fans, I thought it was right up Bubba's alley because he likes, he doesn't like playing in front of fans. He doesn't like people. He doesn't like crowds. And so I thought not having fans would really help him more so than anybody else. And yet he missed the cut in four of his first six starts. And I kind of threw out the window. I said, all right, well, I guess that theory doesn't work for me.

The fact that he's playing better right now leading into Augusta, I'm starting like Bubba a lot. And he's not a guy that I ever really like. I'll throw Hideki on there, Hadec. I'll put it this way. If there was an American company that was sponsoring a tournament on the Japan tour and there was one American on the Japan tour, don't you think he'd want to go out there and play his best golf? Just kind of show off for that American company a little bit. Well, it's sort of the opposite this week where the best player from Japan. is playing in a Japanese-based tournament with a Japanese company as the title sponsor, and it's in America. Well, I think Hodecki, and he was second here last year, obviously, on the other side of the

world, but I think Hedekhi is going to be a little more motivated than maybe usual as well. So he's another guy that I like, and we can get deeper, too. I can give you a few more names, but right off the top, those are the guys that I like. I love the Japan angle, and I want to follow it up because there's another Japanese player who people should look at this week. I'd love to get your impression. And that's Takumi Kanaya, who's the top amateur in the world, 22 years old. A little bit of inside info. He's going to be caddied by John Guyberger, who is the son of Al, one of the first guys to shoot a 59 on the PGA

tour. He's coached and caddied at a really high level. He knows the course cold. And he's a catty at Sherwood. So they called and said, we need your best guy. They're giving him a guy who can read every put all over the course. I know this because he did. He did. He's a catty. I know this, because he did it for me on Wednesday. And he's sitting there at, you know, 275 to 1 or something right now. He's not going to win this tournament, but this is a really good young golfer who we haven't really gotten to see a whole lot on the world stage playing in a tournament. As you say, that's being televised back home, had a lot of connections to his home country.

You sold me. I didn't know any of that. I know I know Kanaia. I know he was the number one amateur in the world, but I didn't know anything else besides that. And Nate, you sold me, and I will add to that both last weekend this week. I love top 20 plays in these limited field events. It feels like the markets don't move enough for the top 20 plays because top 20 out of 78 players is a whole lot easier to get to than top 20 out of 156 players. And I feel like they don't cut those prices in half, even though the fields are cut in half.

You beat me right to the punch. So, well, that's exactly the angle that I like the best this week is just top 20 plays. and I also, I'm staring at it right now. I have Bubba on my card. Bubba is definitely getting some action for me. He finished, you know, tied for seventh last week. He's, he's played very well at the U.S. Open where he's traditionally not, you know, the challenge of it. And I'll just, I don't mean to disparage Bubba's mental acuity, but the mental challenge of the U.S. Open has not been a Bubba's forte.

Let's just put it that way. But he's been on a nice string. and look at these numbers over these last, you know, a handful of rounds. Stroke gain off the T, seventh, strokes gained approach, eighth, scoring average 15th. He's in good form. And I'm going to just do this whole slew of guys in form for top 20 plays. And you can look at your book.

You can look at Fandul and get the top 20 numbers for this. Bubba's going to be a top 20. The gentleman that Nate just mentioned, whose name I can't repeat right now is going to be a top 20. Russell Henley. is going to be a top 20, right? Because he's in in form right now. Taylor Gooch, the Thursday, he was on the leaderboard on Thursday at the C.J.

Cup at Shadow Creek, going to be a top 20 for me. And I'm going to just play. I'm going to lean into Colin Morcau this week. Anytime you tell me that I have a second shot golf course, the only thing, Mark Howe, as always, struck the ball beautifully all week at Shadow Creek and he putted for shit. but more cowers at the top of my card. Well, and he's out of Vegas, finally,

so that he doesn't have the distractions, but this is going to feel like home to him. How do you think, Sobel, about these English players who played at Wentworth, they came over, most of them were in the toilet last week, except for Terrell Hatton, who we talked about earlier, who just, you got to take your hat off to that guy. But, you know, Tommy Fleetwood's sitting there at 45 to 1 right now.

At this point, they've gotten over the jet lag, Is there any chance that those odds are a little bit longer than they ought to be just because of their performance last week and some of these guys are going to bounce back? Yeah, absolutely. I think that's one byproduct of so many people betting on golf over the last six months or so, Nate, is that I think the lines are moving based on current form more so than they should. And so if you like a guy who hasn't played well the last couple of weeks, I think you can get a really good bargain on him. You look at Justin Rose's number. I mean, Justin Rose is a world-class player. I know he's not playing well.

I don't want him this week, but if you've got any sort of confidence whatsoever in Justin Rose, you're probably never going to find a better number on him than you would this week in a limited field. So of those players, yeah, Hatton, I mean, you're right. You just got to say, hey, Hatton's been really, really good this year. I mean, he's just been the fact that less than 12 months ago, the guy had wrist surgery, came back like it was nothing. And I believe it was a second start won the Arnold Palmer invitation.

So he's been great. The two names, Fleetwood's one guy that, especially on a ball strikers golf course, I could see. And the one guy I really like out of that contingent that came over from Wentworth is Matthew Fitzpatrick. It's about time that Fitzpatrick won one of these U.S.-based events. I mean, this feels like a really good week. He's played well on the West Coast in the past. It sort of takes me off him just a little bit.

The fact that we could see a big red number on top of the leaderboard. He's a guy that tends to play better golf when it's closer to par. He likes playing tough golf tournaments, but still, it's not like he can't go out there and make some birdies too. Yeah, so I can confirm to you so that Nate and I are going to put a little something as soon as we hang up on this Zoom call on Ty Hatton to win the Masters. The odds are going to be in the 30 to 45 range. I don't have the book open right now, but he's not under 30 to 1 right now. I don't believe. So that's the kind of value that we're looking for.

And, you know, so he's a tiny little play. For this event, any other angles, what are we missed out on for the Zozo as Sherwood? Give us something that's a little bit of a longer shot that we might want to go ahead and dabble in. A couple guys in that lower tier who, for DFS purposes are really cheap this week for top 20s, top tens are really undervalued. Joel Damon is guy that I always think has a very high ceiling, maybe a low floor. He's coming over for dinner, Sobel. So you better be careful on this one. Give me some inside info.

I'm saying that I like him as a long shot. High ceiling, low floor. That's what you want to be on the PGA tour. You don't want to be low ceiling high floor. You'll be Charles Howell your whole life. What do you serve at him, Nate? That might affect the bet. Surf, turf, and about 25 bottles of Cabernet if I can get it in him.

I like it. him after that. So yes, I'm all over Damon this week. I like him. You're going to have some more inside info than I will, Nate. But the other guy, I like look at, there's no one stat. We all know this, you know, this would be a whole lot easier if there was one predictive statistic where we could look at it and say, hey, so-and-so did this well. And so he's going to play well the next week. That would, that would be really nice if we had that. The one thing I do like to look at, especially guys playing on back-to-back weeks, is the strokes game T to Green Leader in the final round when they're playing the previous week. And that guy in Vegas this past week was Danny Lee.

And Danny Lee seems really undervalued to me in the marketplace. I think that based on how he hit the ball last week, he tends to get a little streaky. So if he's on his game still, this could be a good one for him this week. I love that. I love that pick too. Danny Lee has had some fire rounds. He just has not strong all four together yet. But House, you know, when I come back to it, I love your Morikawa He's been sort of lurking and he's out of Vegas. He's super comfortable here. It feels like a home game for him. It's just hard in these events to pick the winner.

I still feel, as I said earlier, Sobel, I wish we had DJ and Bryson on this course just to see the kinds of lines and bombs that they could hit. But without it, it's still going to be a pretty kick-ass field this week. I mean, guys, we've mentioned all these players. We have not mentioned John Rom, who I really like, especially for, If you don't want to bet on him at a single digit odds this week, okay, I get that. But for DFS purposes, John Rom, if you look, he's got five wins over the last two years. Four of them came on the second of back-to-back weeks that he was playing.

He tends to play much better once he's played a week already going into the week that he's playing. So like Rom, we haven't mentioned JT barely at all. We've barely mentioned Rory at all. I mean, this is a world-class field. There's a lot of really good players in any one of these guys is capable of winning this golf. Well, so Sopal, last question for you, for me, which is we're not going to learn much in Bermuda or Houston. And that's what we've got left before the Masters. So as you start to dial in your Master's picks, have you got somebody in mind already? And what between now and

then will change the way you think about who's going to win that tournament? I'm very slowly getting there. I wish I had more right now. People start asking me. I played golf today. My buddies were like, who's going to win the Masters? I'm like, I don't know. oh, let me see the weather, let me see the course. Let me, you know, I like seeing some stuff before I have to make my pick. That said, you know, I always go, well, who's going to win the NFL in week 15? And they go, well, I don't know. Exactly.

Why would I make a pick in the NFL three or four weeks from now? I guess that would be, what, week 10 before I had to, same reason. I wouldn't make a master's pick right now unless I absolutely have to, or unless like you guys said about Hatton, that you can get some value that you think might not be there. when the tournament week comes around. That said, Zander is a guy that I still like a lot. J.T. is a guy that I like a lot.

Those guys are going to be pretty low odds. If you're looking further down the board, I hate to say it. Bubba, I mean, the way Bubba's playing right now, I'm very interested to see how he plays this week. If he puts together another good one,

I could see Bubba. Matthew Wolf is going to get a lot of people talking about him, maybe got people off of him based on that Vegas bed shape round. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I still think tournament. He took the whole tournament off.

Yeah, I still think. I mean, especially, let's see this week. This is a week, this is a course that he said he's played a thousand times before. So let's, let's see him on this one. If you're still struggling here, then maybe you fade him a little bit. But Matthew Wolf's the guy I can see. But no, I don't have that clear picture moving forward that I would like to have, but maybe by the end of this week, I will.

Yeah, you're not supposed to. We're still three weeks out. You made the right point. You know, we're all digesting. The golf is a game of infinite variables. and we have to be able to have a little bit of insight into, you know, narrowing down the variables between now and November the, what is it, the 12th?

Is that the Thursday of the Masters? Yeah. So we'll, we'll get there. But we have an outstanding tournament this week. A lot of big name guys. Another great opportunity to watch the best players in the world at a venue that we haven't seen in, you know, seven or eight years. And we just gave out.

10 great names, my birdie buddies. So you're welcome, as always. Jason Sobel, speaking of you're welcome. Anytime you want to come on, you're always welcome, my brother. Thank you for coming on the Fairway Rolling podcast. I'll never leave if you're telling me that. Thanks, boys. Appreciate you having me. Thanks, So Nate Dog, always a good time. My part saving pals, we shall be back next week with another episode of Fairway Rowling between now and then. Please, hit them straight out there.