Fairway Rollin' - WGC Match Play Bracket Building

Episode Date: March 23, 2021

With the Masters just around the corner, House and Hubbard build their own bracket for the WGC Match Play in Austin, Texas, and decide who their top prospects will be. Hosts: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to this golf podcast, unlike any other. It is springtime, and it is time for Farroway Rowland, the golf podcast. On the Ringer podcast Network, I am your starter, Joe House, my birdie buddies. the Masters is less than an expiration date on a milk jug away. Shouts to Jason Sobel for that one. The Masters starts in about three weeks, and it is officially time to get excited. Everybody is showing up.

Everybody who's anybody showing up for this week, the WGC event, down in Austin, Texas. It's an awesome event. Nate Dogg is here. It's bracken. It's bracket season. How do you say as season?

S-Z-N. How do you say that, Nate, dog? Season. Season. It's bracket season. The first tee is wide open. Nate Dog and I are going to try and take you through a winning bracket.

It's that time of year. Let's walk over and see if we can get a couple of balls in the fairway here. All right, Nate Dog, our PGA tour correspondent on the ground, we are going to very quickly express our admiration for Matt Jones. Old guy season. Old guy season. Old guy season.

Another 40 year old old. With many years between wins on the PGA tour, I think Justin Ray said this. We've had like double the number of old guys who have won this year. We've doubled the previous full season. already on tour. So there's something in the water. Congrats to Matt. He won by five strokes.

Old guys don't win by five strokes. There's another stat in there. But, you know, Hanah National played tough as balls. Did you get to watch some, Nate? I did. I do think we have to acknowledge that the bear trap is not as hard as everybody thinks.

Well, Danny McCarthy hit two in the water. Yeah. I looked at a lot of balls go in the water on that course. but guys were kind of motoring around the bear trap okay. The big takeaway from this week is it seems like the older guys with experience are not choking in these lower profile events. This was really the first one since the start of the year

that was a snoozer though, wasn't it? Well, it was a snoozer, but that's credit to Matt Jones because he just put the pedal down on Sunday. He went out and shot 61 on Thursday and then validated that 61 by, by going out and grabbing the golf tournament and winning it on Sunday. We like that to see that kind of play.

We do. And he was a worthy champion. It was nice to see another guy who has gone through the struggles and worked with his coach in Australia on FaceTime and come out the other side of it, still believing and getting a win as a result. All that. All the above. And we, you know, the old guy theme continued, there was Stuart Sink on the leaderboard.

Stuart was sniffing it. Steve Stricker was T-13. Well, I mean, speaking of T-13, we hit on a couple guys. We mentioned some names. It wasn't exactly rocket science to say that Sung J.M. was going to have a good tournament. He finished inside the top 10. You gave a very nice prognostication on Brendan Steele,

who Sunday moved himself all the way up the leaderboard inside of a top five finish, right? Yeah, it wasn't hard to see. He has had a great history here. this is a course for that horse. That's right. And I was happy to go ahead and live with. I played Adam Scott. I went back and forth at the last minute I was torn between Shane Lowry and Adam Scott and

Keegan Bradley for the Honda event. And I went with Adam Scott and ultimately he did better than everybody, all those other guys. Keegan scared you. He played really well until the last couple of holes down the stretch. he was three over on the back on Sunday and that knocked him all the way down the board. Well, and I actually bet on Kegan and him moving down the board that way

took me out of the money. Yeah. Oh, you bet on him to do well. Yeah, before the tournament started, I bet on Kegan. I bet on Sung J.M. I bet on Adam Scott. And I had two other bets out there. None of them cashed. I got it raw.

Sung J, I bet the top five. He finished top 10. The guy I left out was Brendan Steele. I should have had him in. I would have won money. I mean, Kagan got himself after the first hole on Sunday to T3, or what ended up being T3 at 6 under, and then he had five Kegan-esque bogeys all the way through the rest of the round.

Well, I'll express, you know, the continued tough spot that the Honda occupies on the PGA tour schedule. The ratings were terrible because it's up against March Madness. It's a cool golf course. It's a cool event. I don't have any answers for how they can solve the less than prominent spot on the calendar that it occupies. And the fact that a lot of guys on tour are probably going to continue to, you know, focus their energies on other tournaments as the Masters draws near. That's just where it is right now.

Yeah. And the movement later, a few weeks later, relative to last year, made it even tougher because the best guys are all going to play the WGC event. And there is a lot of affection for the RIV and for API and obviously for the players. So it's in a tough, tough spot. It is officially the bracket sees all. Fortunately for the American sporting public, the NCAA tournament is gone off. It's mostly gone off without too much trouble. And there have been a whole slew of upsets so much.

So I don't, do you do brackets anymore? Do you play brackets on the NCAA? Yes, mostly with my son and we're both completely fucked. Yeah, right. So that's perfect. I mean, that's exactly the way it should be. So this is the opportunity to, you know, to write some wrongs. Although the problem is that this golf tournament also is an enormous crapshoot.

Over the years, it has proven to be very difficult to just pick favorites and ride favorites. Our homie, Justin Ray, once again, a little. that from JR here. Since the WGC match play switch to this format, which is the pool play, these pods, Nate, and maybe I'll get a quick reaction to you as to whether or not you like the pods. But since they moved to this system in 2015, only a third, only 35% of the top-seated players have advanced out of their respective groups into the round of 16. So that means two-thirds, of the not top-seated dudes are the ones who have advanced. We see upsets everywhere in the four years since they've been playing at Austin,

at the Austin Country Club. A player-seeded 50th or lower has reached the quarterfinals or further seven times. So we have to be cognizant as we do this bracket of looking for dudes down the rankings list. It's the difference between matchplay and having four days to clean up a mess that you make, isn't it? So I love this format. I absolutely adore match play. I wish there was an opportunity for the tour to look at its calendar, look at its schedule, and come up with another event that was a good candidate for match play that was attractive to the players.

Some venue, you know, kind of incentive, plus obviously the money incentive always speaks the most to these guys. but I'm very happy to have this on the calendar. Me too. We have a very strong field. And as you say, they made a change to this event in 2015 because they weren't getting all the best players to come out because the data said that a lot of the best players were going to go home on Thursday morning.

After playing only one round. And so they moved to this pool format, which really gave us a chance over the course of a few days to see the best players play, and then guys advance out of the groups, depending on how they do. But it at least gives them a couple of rounds to try to hang in there.

Everybody that shows up is guaranteed three rounds, and where this play takes place on the calendar, it's important to the top players to get these reps, to get, you know, reps on a classic Pete, Pete Dye venue, the Greens will be fast.

It's a good opportunity to start, to start rounding into shape with the master's only three weeks away, as we said at the top. So this thing starts Wednesday. We're going to have this pot up tonight, Tuesday. We're taping Tuesday. We're going to get it right up so that you can sit down and fill out your own bracket. And then Wednesday morning, they are off and playing.

And the only guys not playing in this thing, we have all the top 10 of the official world golf rankings are playing. Tiger ain't playing. Brooks Kepka's not playing because Brooks has the injury. And then Gary Woodland and Justin Rose also have some challenges, physical challenges going on as well. So they're not playing. But we have a very rich group,

which it makes sense because it's a very rich tournament. 1.8 million purse to the ultimate winner. I am excited to see some guys who have faded to the background in the first part of this year as they just have made choices to not play as frequently. I'm also excited to see a few guys who we have some high expectations for the masters. I mean, this is it. There's not going to be a whole lot of people playing the Valero, Texas Open in San Antonio next week. So this is the warm up.

And it's going to give us a really good sense for how to lay a little green on the tournament that gives out the green jacket. Well, let's just dive right in. We have to make a bracket. We're going to do a bracket. We have it sitting here staring us in the face. and, you know, group one, it's Dustin Johnson, the number one player in the world, accompanied by Kevin, now Robert McIntyre, and Adam Long. Now, curious observation with DJ, our good pal, Joel Beal over at the golf

digested, a nice breakdown of all the groups, and I'll mention some nuggets that I gleaned from J.B.'s hard work here. He won this event in 2017. He made the quarterfinals in 2016, but he has also. missed making it out of his pod in 7 of 11 of his starts. So it kind of seems like this is one of those situations where we have to try and guess where DJ's head is at.

Do you have a thought on where DJ's head is at? I do. He finished second in the Seminole member pro on Monday. Oh, okay. Now we're talking. This is the PGA Torx correspondent on the ground shit right here. bro, which was a pretty stacked field of great Bryson played it, a bunch of other guys played it, and DJ was second. So I looked at that

result and thought, okay, he's warming up for the Masters. He also has never been defending Masters Champion two weeks away with his last tune up in advance. So I think we're going to see him bring it. Okay, so we're just going to push DJ on. It's chalk. It's the straight chalk pull. but you know what? If you did that with Gonzaga in the NCAA tournament,

you just pushed them through to 16. You're feeling fine about it. Everything we've seen out of them makes me think in basketball world, Gazaga is the best college basketball team in the country. DJ's the best golfer in the world. Let's just push him in. Who's going to beat him?

Kevin Naa, if he gets super hot with the putter, I don't feel great about Robbie McIntyre, Adam Long. Yeah, I mean, the problem, I would have liked the idea of not, bit more except for his withdrawal from the players with his back injury.

Maybe it's legit. Maybe it was whatever score he made on 17 that was the injury. But I don't like that withdrawal as the lead up to this event out of Kevin Nah. No, not at all. Next group. This is an interesting group. Yeah. The Thomas Oostezen Kisner-Kutcher group.

Right. I mean, do you have any insight? allegedly this was done by ping pong balls. It cannot have been done by ping pong balls. You and I are in the same boat, bro. Because the winner of this group is going to play the winner of a group with Jordan Speath. And Jordan Speath is in the D category because of his world ranking.

And so they are pushing us to a Thomas Speath next round, aren't they? Which is brilliant. I'm here for it. Thank God. I mean, there is a Terrell Hatton, Lee Westwood, Sergio Garcia, Matt Wallace group that feels like, let's put, it's the Euro group of death. It just, there's some suspicious ping pong balls here. We've got the Cal group with Morikawa, Homer. Exactly. Exactly.

There are buddies with J.T. Post and so I don't know about this. This one was not, we didn't see the lottery machine. There's a frozen envelopes. Yeah, we didn't see the ping pong machine on Monday night. I mean, in the years past, they've done this. this whole show with like the selection pod and announcing it and everything. We didn't. Somebody had the thumb on the scale.

A little bit of fat finger on this one. But that's okay. I'm okay with it. Me too. Let's do it this way. I have no problem with it. What are we going to do about this group? I'm inclined to immediately scratch off Matt Coocher because he's nowhere right.

Terrible. I mean, it's his worst. I don't know if it's a number one worst. one of his worst, 179th right now in the FedEx Cup, 151st and strokes gain. He's 42 years old. On the other hand, Matt Coucher was in the final against Kevin Kisner the last time this event was competed. And Matt Cocher is 28, 10, and 2 in this tournament. So write him off at your peril.

But you know what? He's a right off for me. I'm scratching him off. I'm not taking him seriously. Yeah. So how do we feel about Kiz? because Kisner has won this tournament and he's been

runner up another time but his form hasn't been awesome of late. No top 20s in 2021 out of Kiz. Is this an instance where the venue, the experience of it, he'll arrive

on the grounds and immediately something will click for him or is it the form where he's been kind of fighting? You know, he's he's out of sorts so far from what we've seen out of him. I'm inclined to fade kids. Again, proceeding at our own risk. The guy I like out of this one is Ustey.

And Usts who I'm pushing forward. The reason for that, JT has made it out of the round robin play once. And you would think that he would have a better record at this event because we've seen him so prominently feature, play an important role in the President's Cup and the Rider Cup. Yeah, I love this to me. He's been a dog for it. Yeah, he's got it in him.

And we really want JT to play Speed in the next round. So my question to you is, do we go with, because I wrote down DJ in the group one, do we just write down JT because of what we want to see to come next? Like, there's no case to be made against JT. He just won the effing players. He's awesome. It's going to be stunning to me if he doesn't beat Kisner and Coutcher.

Right. I could see Oostezen drawing one or two of those matches. Okay. And that's the only thing is it's a group play. He's not going head to head only with, you know, it's not just JT versus Louis, right? So that's the piece. Look, if Louis is your guy, let's push up. him through. I just want everybody to know

that we're all fucking rooting for a JT. Speath next round. No, I'm a sucker and a sap. So I'm going to put through the guy that fits the outcome that we want and I'm going to push JT through. Okay. I'm fine with it. Because we're really splitting hairs. I mean, you just said it

perfectly. It's like the difference between who's going to win this pot isn't going to come down to somebody losing. It's going to be like there's a draw. The difference will be somebody drew and somebody won. JT went three, JT went three and O. And, or no, JT goes 2 Oon1 and Ustie goes to, you know, 1 Ooste and 2 or something like that.

Something silly. Exactly. There's going to be some weird putt conceded or not conceded in this group. Couther's not going to pay as caddy. Who knows what's going to happen. But I think we got to put, we got to push JT through. So that gets us to the third group. Yes.

Which is highlighted by ROM. This one, I thought. it was just a snoozer. It's Rom, Ryan Palmer, Shane Lowry, Sebastian Munoz. You know, Rahm's about to have a baby. Yeah. I mean, he just called off the dogs on

anybody who was going to bet on him. It doesn't sound like he's going to make the masters. He said that he was going to leave the players in the middle of the tournament if his wife went into labor. And I respect that. Leave the masters. Yeah. He's going to leave

this guy is not one of major tournament. and he's going to have a lot of questions if he doesn't get one under his belt this year. So that's a very admirable and respectable thing to be doing. Good on you, buddy. Yeah, but he's only made it out of the round Robin once,

and that's what he finished as a runner up to DJ. Well, so let's talk about these other guys because Shane Lowry right now, I mean, he only top tens 10% of the time. He has 14 top tens in 118 starts on tour. Do we overrate Shane Lowry a little bit?

Maybe a little? Oh, I just watched him intently over the course of the Honda because I was worried that I was going to have buyer's remorse on rolling with Adam Scott.

And then I felt great about not picking Shane Lowry at the Honda. I think there is, you know, it's not overrating. It's just that like our mind's eye

hasn't it's still fresh. He is and continues to be the British Open champion. until there's another British Open. And he was so dominant at Royal Port Rush, it was such a joy to see. So we're still probably giving him the benefit of...

We're a little drunk on Shane still. Of that shine. We have Shane Shine Shine. We're given on Shane Shine. We're drunk on Shane Shine. By the way, that would be a great... I mean, he could easily team up with somebody. Irish whiskey.

You just gave him a trademark is what you're saying. Shane? But I want him to do some moonshine. I want him to go Southern. anyway. All right. You know, I'm going to do Ryan Palmer out of this group. I'm just telling you right now.

I'm going to push Ryan. He's been quietly formidable this year. Oh, shit. I just used the word that Joel Beal actually used in his article. J.B., shouts to you, brother. Formidable. I'm with you. Well, what's the opposite of formidable?

Unimpressive? Yeah, that's Munoz. So I love this Palmer pick. I mean, Murillo's had a good year last year, really strong year. Yeah. He's got one top 10. this season, not in great form last time we saw him. If you want to bet against Ron, I think Palmer's your choice. That's it. That's how we're going to go at three top four finishes.

I wanted to make sure I got the number right. Three top four finishes for Ryan Palmer in his last seven starts. And third in Bertie average. And the thing in match play you need is guys that can make burgers. Another reason why it feels good to go ahead with JT. All right. Sold. Push him through. Enough. Enough. Push him through that Rom's going to be focused on the baby. So now we get to the Berkeley bracket. You know who resents being in the Berkeley bracket? Billy Horshull. Billy Ho-ho.

He's like, what? Why did y'all put me in this one? Well, J.T. Poston is buddies with Max. Okay. Max and Colin are obviously close. Yeah. They're even closer now than I think they were in college because of their individual success. I think the three friend thing could be an advantage.

for Horshal. Ooh, I love where you're going with this because my lean, indeed, was towards Billy Ho-ho. Yeah. I think Max is going to be caught up in the Collins. Collins is going to be playing with the senior captain and Max, and Poston's going to be in there playing Kenny Chesney lamenting the fact that he canceled the tour for the summer. And Horshiel's just going to be like, I'm moving on, boys. Yeah, I'm here.

I'm about that business. I'm here for you. You buddies can all be your, have your, have your, little buddy world. I'm all about that business. I'm about some Billy Ho-ho business and that's it. I'm okay. We're good. We're in alignment on this. Okay. I like that very much. Moving on to the beefy bracket from the Berkeley bracket, we got a good sneaky bracket here. I want to make a quick observation to you speaking of beefy bracket. There has been this phenomena. I can't remember whether we've talked about it or not. This year, the guys are not afraid to let the girth out.

I mean, we have been seeing some thick T-H-I-C-C-C-C-C-C-C-C. I was thinking about it with Rom. You think Rom is putting on sympathy pregnancy weight? Is that what it is? Because he's always thick, but I love it. I think it's what Rory talked about. I think all these guys are secretly behind the scenes trying to put on some weight. And now, now they just saw that Bryson dropped 15 pounds and stand down.

They're like, what the hell's going on? Well, think about the other guys. guys that have been thickening up. Patrick Reed, zero fucks Patrick. He's out there. Bellies over the belt again. I mean, that's the best version of Patrick Reed. Yeah. And even Phil, Phil went on his kick

with his diet and all the rest of it. He's pudgy Phil. By the way, pudgy Phil is playing golfing his ball. He is golfing his ball. I wanted you just make sure that you saw it. We're going to have some tough. Thank God we don't have to do the head-to-head Tiger Phil this year. I opened, I was on the Bill Simmons podcast three weeks

ago or a month ago. And we, he, put me on the spot and said, we'll Phil Mickelson win this golf tournament. Just as kind of a ha-ha. We looked up the odds we wanted to see. And I think it was like around 125 to 1. And I offered on the Bill Simmons podcast to book anybody who wants to take Phil Mickelson at 125 to 1 odds.

There's no limit on it. I'll personally book those bets. That's why I offered on the Bill Simmons bet. And I, well, look. I was on there with you. Nate dog, see? You were there.

Why didn't you talk me out of this? I put it to you. Come on. I asked you, is he going to fucking play well? It was you. I could do. Yes, come on. This is the thing. At our advanced age and by ours, I mean,

memorable. It was such a memorable. But, you know, that was when I was drinking. I had, that was, that was after the, the, the, over under vodka soda lemonade's of three and a half. That's so, of course I forgot already. I forgot after I got off the phone. It's all good.

Anyway, we're going to do a fairway rolling after a few of those at one point. Fat, fat Phil, fat Patrick, Patrick. Yeah. Thick Bryson, who's lost his weight. Thick John Rom. Who, well, what other fat guys are? I mean, Harry Higgs isn't playing in this golf tournament, but Harry Higgs. Let's get him on here, by the way.

I love Harry Higgs. He's got so much sauce. Yeah. Anyway, that was a diversion. We're on Bryson, Tommy Fleetwood, Cee Woo Kim, and Antoine. on Rosner. All right. Well, we're taking out,

we're taking out Rosner for sure. I want to give you just a little go back. Remember he, well, first of all, Bryson is a hundred and 20th in this season in birdies. Now, there's a function of how many rounds you've played that comes into those stats.

But Bryson has played a lot of hard courses and made a lot of PARs. he's also made some eagles, but he hasn't had a whole lot of just birdie, birdie, birdie, birdie rounds, which is how you win in match play. He lost to Tommy Fleetwood in the Ryder Cup

playing with Tiger Woods. He lost five and four to Fleetwood and Molinari. This is tasty. I am going with Tommy Fleetwood. Oh! So I don't. thought you were going in such a different direction.

I thought this, that whole thing was a buildup to see Woo. Kim. We could go see Woo. We just can't go Bryson. I don't have faith in Bryson. He was not a big part of the last couple of these match play events. I don't think the U.S. team trusts him fully yet. Now, they better get over it because he's going to dominate.

But I have no reason whatsoever to argue against fading Bryson. And we know that the deep analytics tell us, don't be picking chalk. You got to go off the chalk. You got to go down these rankings to find, you know, the real nuggets. The issue with Siwu is always the same issue with him. He is the epitome. If you look up boom or bust on the PGA tour, his picture appears. It is.

It's Sea Woo Boom or Sea Woo Bust. after he won the American Express. He finished tied for ninth at the players. And he also has three missed cuts and a WD and a tie for 50. So proceed with the utmost in caution. I don't want to take Tommy Fleetwood because I don't like all of the Rider Cup. You know, all the, he's the darling. He's a match play stud and all that.

So we're running from the public. I like it. We just want him. That's a tiny bit contrarian. So then it's on to group six, and there's not a whole lot to say. This is a scary group. This is a very scary group. And it's scary for a bunch of reasons. But we got Zander, we got Scotty Sheffler, we got Jay Day, and we got poor Andy Sullivan.

Jason Day is a mess right now. Jason Day has no equipment endorsed when he's playing like multiple clubs in the bag. He's got a bunch of guys working with him on his swing. and yet he's been hanging around. Yeah, I think, you know, he's got four straight finishes inside the top 35. He is a two-time match play champ.

So that's a guy, you know, if it depends on how you want to, you want to be glass half empty or glass half full with Jay Day. Well, we can, I think you have to look at who else he's playing. Sanders here, but he was a missed cut at the players in a bad, way. Like a not even a close. Yeah. Not quite as bad as Rory, but still not good. It was ugly. And Scotty Schaeffler's in this group, which you'd go, all right, well, okay, Scotty Shepard.

A little young stud. He went to Texas. So this is a course that he knows. Knows it well. It's hard. For me, I don't fully trust Jason Day in the mono-e-mano stare-down. Like, we don't have any amazing Jason Day President's Cup moments, right? It's been a while. Let's just put it that way. It's been, my mind's eye hasn't seen Jay Day in any significant match play situation in a bit. Should we just take the hometown boy? We're going to take the hometown boy?

I mean, he finished fifth. He finished fifth at that concession, the previous WGC event. Yeah. And he was top top 10 earlier in tied for. seventh in Phoenix. So he's got a little bit of form. And this is, this is by default. If we actually do this, this is really a bet against Xander's form coming into the Masters. That's scary for a guy who's had a lot of almosts there. Well, it's also us, you know, looking for a way to not do chalk. So we're just because everybody understands our anti-check chalk bias. And if you want to take

Xander, go ahead and take Zander, we aren't doing it. No, we're going to, Jeff. And I are not doing it. We are going with Sheffler, and we are moving on to the seventh group, which is really tough. Super loaded. Crazy loaded. You know who's playing unbelievably well is the Beezer. Beeszenhoit. Bezunhoit. He is really playing good golf right now.

Neiman, I'm really disappointed that he didn't get the win last week. I also thought he was going to play better at the players. So right now, I feel like he is maybe even overrated in this slot. Bubba Watson has won this damn thing before and here's your Patrick Pat Reed is in this group what do we do? Patrick has never

advanced out of the Sweet 16 in this event. So why does everybody talk? Oh, he loves a head-to-head, mono-e-mano. Because he's Captain America.

That's why. No, no, we stripped him of that title. He does President's Cup and he does Rider Cup and he, you know, and he's got a good record in those things. Now, that record did take some hits in the last couple of events. I mean, he hasn't been up to the standard that he set in his early head-to-head career. Do you want to put Patrick in or no?

I'm going to defer to you. I just want you to know that the Beezer was seventh at API. But I will put Patrick through if we have to. I mean, that sets up. Well, we'll see who it sets him up with. I want to put Patrick through because. of the Brian Harmon possibility coming out of the other bracket.

Not only is that a possibility, he is my pick out of that bracket, Brian Harmon. So let's go ahead and do it. Let's just put Patrick through right now. It really does set up in a very lovely way for, again, things that we are rooting for,

outcomes that we desire. Yes. Okay. That's how we're doing this. Is that. So that fits because we already, we put speed through on that group. We're going to go through all these

and give the rationale, but just so you know our leanings. Yeah. I say to the birdie buddies that the Beezer is not a bad play this week. He comes in, and I wouldn't fault you if Bubba is your seed higher than 50 that always gets pushed through. And if you want to go on and look for some odds,

you can bet odds, get good odds on Beeson Hoyt, Bezun Hood. I can't. You say it better than I do. You can go ahead and get him in the top 16, Sweet 16. You can get odds on that. You can get them into the eight.

you can get them into the final four. Great odds on all that stuff. So go ahead and do that. Yeah, go do that. But we have to move on to group eight, which is the Euro group of death. It is hilarious. Why do they do it?

I love that they did it. I mean, the best case scenario here is we have Westwood just missing putts left and right, hadn't getting super pissed and flicking everybody off. You know, Matt Wallace, like, completely intimidated because he can't play against his heroes. and Sergio, you know, walks in with a half-eaten breakfast burrito

that he made in his own kitchen in his house and just sort of cruises through to the next round. He is playing from a city that is famous for the breakfast tacos and the breakfast burritos. You know he'll be eating one that he made at home. And he is going to advance out of this group, but you can argue somebody else with me if you want.

Angry Ty Hatton would be my guy. I like Angry Ty, but I'm going to put Sergio in because I like the story better. Okay. And Sergio did play well. He played great at the players. He looked terrific.

He's got some form. We've seen form out of Sergio. I just think angry tie is hilarious. But Sergio moved on. All right. So it's on to Group 9, which is the nice guy smiley bracket with a host

of very positive, Bonair gentleman Webb Simpson Paul Casey McKenzie Hughes and the maybe just

briefly slightly overrated for the moment Taylor Gooch who we have been talking about a lot on this podcast

and he deserves it because he you know three top fives including the players championship recently

this season out of Taylor Gooch I want to know why Paul Casey is always smiling

Verno I'm sure will have an observation for us with his update as the Masters arrives. He's made the round of 16 and three of the last five years. His record in this is 27, 15, and 2, and he's got two runners up in this event.

Well, what the fuck are we doing? He's playing the best golf. He's played in a long time. We're pushing him through, right? Great. That's it. Because I don't want to put Webb Simpson in. I think Webb Simpson in match play overrated.

So another, hey, Eagle Enthusiast, you hear what I just said? Go bet on Webb Simpson. Go find it. is your best odds on web. I'm shit-talking Webb Simpson. It's not going to go well. I'm taking Paul Casey's smile over Webb Simpson's smile. You know

what to do. Go fade house. Well, so now we whip back to the bracket, the group that is going to play the winner of the Patrick Reed group. You got Cantlay, you got Hadeke, you got Carlos Ortiz, you got Brian Harmon. We can cross off Hedecki and Ortiz.

They are not built for this. Hedecki can't put, and Ortiz is a super nice guy who had a great, you know, attorney in Houston is having a great year, but I don't think he's built for the mono a format that we've got here. So it's really between Cantlay and Harmon. And we just want to advance Harmon because he went to UGA and hates Patrick Reed and we want them to play in the next round. That's a fact. I also know that Brian Harmon has on his resume a little bit of match play stud horse. Brian Harmon, I can't remember the year 2010, 2010, maybe even

further ago long ago than this. The champion of the USGA junior boys at Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland. A place that I'm familiar with. It's a, you know, backyard venue. Me too. I'm on Brian Harmon. Exactly. We're on Brian Harmon.

Drink beers on the 7th Fairway or whatever that is. I've had beers on 7 and 8 and 10 and 12. So yes, Brian Harmon. Also, he was competitive at the players. Tie for third. And so that's the last time we saw him. He didn't play last week. This guy can come in and win this group.

We just don't know what's up with Cantlay, do we? I'm out on him until like, go win. Go do something great. Like maybe he'll go dominate this golf tournament and that'll be terrific, but I'm out on him. Okay. Because he's, he had a stretch there where he was looking pretty dang good. And we were starting to think this could be the year for the math.

So this group is going to be very interesting. All right. We've pushed through Brian Harmon. It's on to group 11, and we just, I mean, the highlight here is Rory and Polter, both in the same group. Rory, we know as a new swing coach and Pete Cowan, we just have not seen the results from Polts that we normally would want to see. So I'm struggling a little bit with how, Lonto Griffin is, he's played great since his win in Houston,

but he's never really threatening to win a golf tournament and he doesn't make a shit ton of birdies. So you have to believe that it's Cam Smith who's going to take down Rory, don't you? It just feels like this one's going to be an absolute bloodbath. Like a whole bunch of 19th hole matches amongst these guys because I don't see a ton. Poulter's the one of the complete unknown.

This could be a shit show. Like they could have, they could all shoot 79s and be in playoffs just trying to see who's the least sucky. But Cam Smith, we've been seeing a lot of. We've been seeing a lot of his beautiful mullet. We've been seeing a ton of his beautiful mustache. His penguin garb has been on point.

And that homeboy looks like he could be very comfortable in Austin, Texas. So if we wanted to do something contrary, it would be to push through Cam Smith. do you want to be contrary or do you want to talk me into doing one of the boys from the UK? I just I think all the talk

this week about Rory's swing the classic Rory move here is to show up and kick ass. He's not that far away and he's so great in match play he loves this shit. What are we doing? I just heard it down. Especially because we pushed Scotty Shephler through in the other bracket

so he's going to play Shephler in the next round. Okay. And that's juicy. I mean, we're here for that. Some striking. There's going to be some ball striking. Okay, group 12. Sneaky tough.

Fee now, top 10 Tony's in here. But he did just lose to Max in a head-to-head, which was kind of like match play at the Rive. He is, or he was, 0-1 and 3 at the President's Cup in 2019. Not exactly a stellar record. But then you got to look at who he's up against. We got Jason Cochrak. Who else is in this group?

Zalotaurus and Dylan Fertelli. Ooh. Yeah. Where are you? I'm off of Tony. Tony doesn't play well in this thing. I don't like it. I don't like it. Yeah.

I'm off of Tony and I'm off of Dylan. And I'm only off of Dylan because he missed the cut. He's been struggling a little bit since he had a little bit of a run. So you got to believe then that Will Zalotaurus is going to go head to head with Cochrack. Who wins that? I'm going to take Cochrack just because of he's got a W in this season. And we saw him on the leaderboard.

Where did we see him in the leaderboard recently? In the last three weeks, he was up the board a bit. Was he on the leaderboard at API? We got to see some prime time of Cochrack. I'm going to play JK just because Zalotaurus unknown quantity. It's interesting. The problem with Freteli is this is Texas. He played a Texas.

backyard. We put Schaffler in for that reason and we're going to leave Fratelli out. But I don't like Fratelli's form. I don't either. Zalotaurus. And Fratellis from South Africa. So come on. Right. Yeah. Zalotaurus gives zero

Fs. So maybe comes out and burns the house down. We just don't know. He needs. Zalotaurus has so many top 20s, but he needs to start getting himself into contention on Sundays. So this is an interesting event to see what he's made of. But I'm with you. Let's put

co-crack there. You know why it sets up that way? Because we get Jaycock against Siwu that way. Okay. And that's fun. That's fun. That is fun. That is fun. So now we got to move to the next group, which is drum roll please. It is Victor Hovland,

Abe Answer, Weisberger, and a sneaky good player in this kind of format. Kevin Streelman, who has the ability to make some runs. He's a grinder. I mean, he's knocking, you're not going to knock him off of his game.

He's not going to come out and triple bogey and be completely disconcerted by it. Yeah, I just would come back to this. If you told me that there was going to be a Mexican player who was doing really well in this season of the PGA tour, we of course would have said it was Abe answer, but it's not. It's Carlos Ortiz. Abe has not shown the flash that we were really fired up on last year. but I turn to you and say, which of these guys are you going to bet?

For me, it's either going to be answer or Hovland. Hovlin has the track record. He won the 2018 U.S.M. at Pebble Beach. So we know he can handle the highest of high pressure match play. Exactly right. It's Victor. Okay.

Well, I mean, answer to speak some good things on his name. That's right. That President's Cup performance was a different animal altogether. Well, let me ask you this. Let me put it to you, I'll ask it in the form of a question.

Which do you think is more impressive? Abe Am's answer, limited sample size performing very well in the President's Cup, asking to play against Tiger Woods, or Victor Hovlin going to Pebble Beach and winning the 2018 U.S. amateur. Which one of those two scenarios is more impressive?

I feel better about Victor because Abe Answers Putter was, unfuego in that event. And it's not something that he's been able to carry over and definitely not of late. So I would love to see Abe make some damage, do some damage through this tournament, but Victor is the guy.

I put him on. I wrote his name down already. Yeah. Vic's the man. The bummer about our Berkeley bracket is that if we'd picked Morikawa, you'd have a Morikawa hovelin next round. Oh, yeah, that could be fun.

You know, but we're going to not go with what we've been doing. So let's put Victor through. That means Victor's going to play with Horshull, but we'll get there. Almost done, my man. We're under group 14, which is the lame duck bracket. I don't know what the hell's going on in this group. Berger himself has said he's only 75%. He pulled out last week. Brendan Todd doesn't have a single top 10. He's losing strokes everywhere, except putting, where he's gaining a full stroke. He's fourth overall. Is it Harris English? He also withdrew with an injury. He won Hawaii. So I don't know.

Is it Eric Van Royan? I mean, I wanted to do Harris English, but then I saw here, he hasn't been in the top 25 and five starts since he won a Capulua. No, and he just withdrew with an injury, like I think a back injury recently. So, I mean, I do want to point out, did we push Louis through? We didn't. We kept him. So if we don't go with EVR here, we have no South Africans advancing. Oh, that's a bad form.

Okay, it might be. Let's just do it then. So there's two picks now where I'm just sort of confessing. We're doing a little off the radar. You know, Siwu is one and EVR is the other. Here's the thing. It's an important pick, though, because we picked Ryan Palmer on the other part of that bracket. So whoever, you know, there's going to be a real underdog in the final eight here.

That's fine. I think that's totally acceptable. That fits the form. I mean, you know, we. EVR is the Oral Roberts. EVR is the Oral Roberts, UMBC of this tournament. So EVR gets into the next round. The only thing with Todd, we haven't seen Brennan Todd finishing high,

but he's still fourth in strokes gained putting. So like if you wanted to do Brennan Todd, Nate and I aren't going to be mad at you. We're not. Group 15 is the group of Speeith, Jordan Speeith playing in Austin. You know he's going to win this group. I mean, I just need to say that Corey Conner's was seventh at the players and third at API. But, like, if you're not betting Jordan Speath to be the underdog, this is like Loyola, Chicago,

who are definitely a top 15 team, but for some reason got the eight seed or whatever they got. And that's why they beat the shit out of Illinois. Well, it's rude to have this bracket. I mean, this particular group include Matt Fitzpatrick, who's been every bit as hot as Corey Connors over the last, you know, three weeks or So we've been seeing a ton of Matt Fitzpatrick on Saturday and Sunday in great golf tournaments. And Matthew Wolfe, who's been injured, but like another young stud, would it surprise you if he came out and kicked the whole bunch of ass? I just, I worry about the injury. I really do.

I know. That's right. And head to head, okay. I mean, this is a weird group, but we're putting speed through. We have to because we need the J-T. Because of next one. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. What we want. That's right. Last, group 16, and then we'll bang our way through to a winner here. I mean, Sung J.M is here. He was T8 last week. He leads the field, the tour in birdies. But boy, did I like Russell Henley, who finished T3 last week,

finally living up to some of the hype that we've been giving him. He also got Victor Perez and Mark Leashman who have a chance here. What do you see? This one's a tough one to call because the winner's going to play DJ. So Leishman has made it to the Sweet 16 of this event three times. So you fade Leishman at your peril, except for his game is out of sorts. Yes. He's 123 degree and 113th in strokes gain.

He fits a little with the fat guy motif that you were talking about earlier. Another fat guy. That's exactly right. But I don't know which way that cuts. Speaking of fat guys, Shane Lowry, we forgot to mention him. when we're talking the fatties that we love. Victor Perez tied for ninth at the players and Henley tied for third at the Honda

and Sungjay, the grinder. So what do you want to do? I need you to make the call on this. This one is a tough one. I had Russell Henley because that was going to be my, you know, 50th or higher because I feel like Russell's in great form. We've been waiting for it. He had a little lull, but then he showed us last week

that he's in the mix. And I feel like he can go head to head with these guys. I'm off him. I like the idea of Henley. I could see him out there in his Nike where, you know, sort of going around that steely look that he gets on his face sometimes. And, okay, I'm good with it because I really do think this is fodder. Yeah.

That's a fodder pod. Okay. Because whatever, we're pushing DJ through on the next one. So let's go to the next round because those are our guys. So we now have a total of 16 guys who have moved through. Well done. And now we are very quickly going to go through and choose some winners of these sweet 16 games. DJ versus Russell Henley.

It's an annihilation. DJs through the grade eight. We have to choose Paul Casey against Sergio Garcia. That's a pretty good match. Awesome. Rider Cup. All that. writer cup legend can Sergio get in in Casey's brain waves I'm going to do Casey because

Casey just he's playing better he's just playing better yeah he's going to smile at Sergio okay and so then in the DJ versus Paul Casey bracket to see who gets to the final four out of this out of this group who do we like well we're just going to say DJ and the reason is because you and I think that he you know I love that intel that you shared with us about how he did the Seminole member guest. The most prominent, you know, competitive two-man tournament on planet.

DJ to the final four. Okay, so DJs through. He vanquishes everybody in this group. All right. Now we have to make a decision between Siwu, who has vanquished both Tommy Fleetwood and Bryce and DeShambo. So absurd.

The Sewu, Jaycock match up. I'm going with some Jaycock. I just, I know, the, to see Wu was already a lark

to put him through out of that pod. And Cochrak, look, he is at the stage of his career at that point where going out and,

and building that bank role because he's, he's like, you know, approach he's 35. He's like, I'm in my 10-year run. Let's go,

let's go bank some checks. Well, so Co-crack sitting there waiting for the winner of Hovland and Horshiel. I love this match. I'm going to go with Billy Ho-ho. Wow. Do you want to talk me out of it? No, let's do it. I mean... I just think like that, you know... The ping pong ball freezers wanted Morikawa Hovland out of this group.

Sure. So if we're not going to get that, let's blow the whole thing up and move Billy Ho all the way through. And does he beat Jaycock? I kind of think he does. So we got Billy Ho coming out of the southwestern bracket. It's the nobody believes in me. He walks in, he's like, fuck all you guys. You have all your buddies and everything like that. And now, you know, I'm here for the right reasons.

All you other guys are here for the wrong reasons. Final four, Billy. Yeah. All right. So here's Billy in the Final Four playing DJ. We'll come back to that. Yes. Because it's time to decide the winner of the JT.

Jordan Spieth. Did you know they were friends face off? It's terrific. It's so dumb and so terrific. Why are we not going to take Spieth? I think we are. Because J.T. is playing the best of anybody in the world not named DJ. Is that why?

Would that be the reason? Besides that. Other than that. Here's why. Yeah. Speath beat Thomas in college in a match play event. at the RIV. Okay.

And so that's, I think, why we, you know, I think he's just, he's raising the ghost. He's going to be highly competitive at the Masters. And maybe J.T. has been having a lot of fun since he won. So let's push Speed through. Smith is the guy that, you know, years and years of talking about the tournament, Dallas's native son, you know, he's got that Texas angle. Everybody's going to be rooting for Jordan. And he's never done it.

Never done it. So maybe this is the year. Okay. So the Texas energy, big, big T energy for Jordan Speath. He beats J.T. moves through.

Now you have to make a decision between the Georgia boys. An old-fashioned spittoon, you know, breathing contest. Forces of evil against forces of good.

What is going to happen between Patrick and Brian Harmon? God damn. Fireworks, we're hoping. I mean, it would be great. Well, what's your vibe?

I was so impressed by Brian Harmon's grind at the players. And, you know, Patrick was a dark horse as a player's pick, but he's sort of been, you know, muddling around to some top 30 kind of finishes. He hasn't been out since he won out of Tori. What do you want to do? Is the tournament more fun if Patrick plays speed than the next round? It is.

So that's where we're going to do. Yes, that's why we're pushing him through. because then you have the two potential teammates who've been split up as a pair because Jordan is not that into it and they're going to be forced to play match play with each other that's what has to happen. It's so, so stupid, cliche,

storybook, exactly what's right up our alley. Let's do it. Rory is going to beat the shit. Oh, no, wait, we have to get the winner. Oh, between Speeth and Patrick? Yeah. I'm on the Speeth Redemption tour.

I like Speedh making it to the final four and then losing. So I'll just tell you right now. Okay. So Spieth is through on the opposite side

of DJ and Billy Ho. And so now Schaeffler is going to get the shit beat out of him by McElroy, right? We agree with that. Okay. So Rory's through to the final eight.

And then we've got the weirdo EVR versus Ryan Palmer Matt. Yeah. Just slight nod to Palmer is Texas guy. Texas guy. We're doing two percent Palmer Texas guy. Palmer is not going to stare down Rory McElroy. No, no. What a so we have McElroy against Beath and Billy Ho against DJ. God. That's really good. We did a great job on this. I'm excited. Me too. Who wins the Billy Ho DJ match? Please dear God let this happen. I'm going to put

DJ in the finals? Because the thing that we know for sure, a thousand percent with DJ is you don't say, oh, if he wins this one, he won't win the next one. Wrong. Wrong. Dead wrong when it comes to DJ. DJ can win them all. If DJ wants to win them all, they'll win them all. And, you know, he's, he's,

if we're going to use the seminal member pro thing as, as our benchmark, and we are, we're going to do it. Let's go ahead. DJ is in the final. Put DJ in the final. because I have nothing, if not a sucker for the chalk. Already declared that Speeth is going to lose to Rory. Yes, because Spieth needs to lose so that he can't win.

Like if he wins this, he is definitely not winning the Masters. And we've got to save. Is he going to play the Valera Texas Open? I don't know, but I mean, it doesn't matter. Who cares? All right. So it's Rory v. DJ. And suddenly the narrative of Rory's swing problems go away.

his new coach gets all this credit for this torrid run through Eric Van Royan and it's a great story though it's a great story. It's a great story. We love the great stories. And who wins? Let's say Rory just because I don't want to, I mean, I just got through saying DJ can win consecutive weeks, but I just don't want to take the number one overall pick and the number one in the world and all the rest of it. Okay. So what you just outlined is Rory Stampede's through a weak bracket beats back Spieth and beats DJ and heads into the Masters.

Yes. As the second favorite on the board? Well, who are the favorites right now? It's J.T. Bryson and DJ. And I think like they all have the same odds. J.T. Bryson, DJ and Jordan.

And Jordan is like, you know, two notches below. Like, you know. That's dumb better. That's ridiculous. Okay. All right. I mean, I wish it wasn't that way. I want him to win and I think he can, but like we can't put money on him if he's that high of.

This is a terrible bracket. We just picked Rory to win this thing. That is awful. Yeah. It's really terrible. But, you know, Eagle enthusiasts, you know who we are. You know how we get down. We picked what we want to see.

Not necessarily. We were clear about where we were taking those heart decisions over the head decisions. Having gone through all of that, I have to make a one and done play in this golf tournament for the Pat Mayo. Where I am, I crack the top 100 because Jordan Speeth, I mean, Justin Thomas won the players. Right, right. So I was like 95th or something out of however 3,000 people. All right. Who are the big guys who we still got left?

I have all the big guys left. The only big guy I used dumb ROM at concession. And I don't have JT because I used them at. the players and I do not regret that one bit. So I mean, I have DJ. I have Rory. I have speed. I have Havlin. I didn't I didn't use him. Fertelli. You haven't used it. Fertelli's available. I did use Fattrick. I can't remember when, but he let me down. I think the week before he won. Okay. Look, do you think Rory's going to win a major this year? You just picked him in this bracket. The problem is if he shows any kind of form whatsoever,

then he has to be the pick for Kiowa. Like, I can't, I have to have Rory available for Kiowa. Why him and not DJ? What if DJ doesn't win the Masters? Because do you remember what Rory did at Kiowa? I mean, he just, he absolutely owned that golf tournament. Nobody was within 50 shots, it felt like. I mean, I know it was closer than that, but I'm just saying.

Okay, so what's the answer, buddy? I mean, you got a, you got kind of a tough decision. make it's $1.8 million. I'm not playing DJ because I want DJ for both the U.S. Open. Okay. You talked yourself out of the Rory. And the Masters. And I want to save Rory for the PGA. Zander. I have to go backwards. Zander. He didn't even make out of the pod. At the first round, it's just a hedge against this bracket. That way you win either way. But I don't know. I mean, well, because the argument for for taking Zander. in this slot is out of that entire bracket,

he has to beat whoever comes out of that Rory bracket. And if he does that, that looks to me like, you know. It's an easy, yes, if Ron doesn't get there, this is the easiest bracket. So I think we focus on this bracket, the southeast bracket here, and you got to pick from. I kind of love this. I am going to play Xander. I love the way you're talking me into this. The only question, I'll put it to you right now, and then we're going to finish this podcast.

Yes. Is Zaner going to win a major this year? No. Okay. There are too many other guys who are playing better who need it more. You and I feel the exact same way on this matter. I am going to play Zander Shafley in my one and done tournament for this thing, even though we don't have him coming out of his pod in our bracket. Hey, dog, we did it. That was fun.

It's absurd. Hey, Bertie buddies, Eagle Enthusiast, Parsing Pals. We're back next week. this is going to be I don't know funny is probably the best way to describe it when we sit down and look back at this bracket and go through it

and we're really going to be revving up for the Masters. We'll talk a little about the Valero, Texas Open and that's fine. But really next week, it's time to start revving up in earnest for the Masters. We have golf that starts

tomorrow Wednesday and runs all the way through Sunday. And there's great golf on Saturday. I love the Saturday. Sweet 16. It's just terrific all day long. Lots to enjoy. And hopefully it's spring wherever you are. Do you be able to get out on the golf course your own self? Nate, are you going to get out on the golf course? I'm going to get the egg salad ready to go. It's almost master's time. That's my boy. All right, there we go. My par saving pals. Another fairway rolling in the books. Proceed with caution.

This tournament is always a crapshoot. We'll be back next week. Until then, my friends, let's hit them straight up. there.