Fairway Rollin' - What Will 2021’s Golf Season Look Like Without Tiger Woods?

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

House and Hubbard discuss Tiger Woods’s accident and how it will affect his career and the golf world at large (1:12). Then they recap Collin Morikawa’s win at Concession Golf Club (19:29) and preview what is going to happen at the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill this weekend (35:33). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

and welcome to this golf podcast. Unlike any other, we have done it. We're back. This is Fairway Rolling. The Golf Podcast on the Ringer podcast Network. I am your starter, Joe House, on the line. As is always the case, is our PGA tour correspondent on the ground. This is our first show since Tiger Woods gotten,

a car accident. And so we're going to spend a little bit of time going through that. Of course, we got to give a shout out to Colin Moracawa for what he did at the concession. And then a little preview of what's going to happen at Bay Hill this weekend. The first tee is open. Nate and I are going out. It's going to be a two ball for us. We should be able to make it around in about an hour and a half or so. It just depends on how close to par we shoot. Let's try it on over there and throw a peg in the ground. Yo, Nate dog, how you doing, buddy? well he's alive so i'm doing better than i was when the news came out uh early last week yeah so let's go ahead and and recap we was kind of minute by minute for us and then for for really

everybody um both the the golf community obviously but also the sporting public worldwide i mean, it was because of Tiger's stature as a legendary sporting figure, a worldwide sporting icon, we all held our breath for, I don't know, it felt like a couple hours before there was confirmation that his injuries were not life-threatening. It took, maybe it was shorter than that, but it felt like two hours to me. How is the news hitting your various feeds? And you're physically out in Los Angeles where this all happens. So maybe you got real-time information faster than I did.

Yeah, well, there's a weird buzz around it because it came so close to the one-year anniversary of Kobe's death. Yeah. And so the sort of channels were kind of a buzz about that. But what really was frightening was some of the reports from people who had driven by the scene said, no, this is really bad. And they were extracting him from the car. And then as soon as they showed the car, well, that's when you really had to be terrified of what was coming. And so there were those few hours

where it was unclear if he'd made it really quickly. The eyewitness reports started to pour out that he certainly was alert and alive, but that he was in big trouble, certainly in his lower body. And that ultimately is what we heard. Now, we should acknowledge this is a guy who prizes his privacy above almost everything else. And you can just see the way that his camp has been handling this, that their initial instinct was to lock everything down. And, you know, you just wonder if, you know, I saw him at the Riviera on Saturday before the accident.

So 10 days ago. Yeah. And his gate, you and I talked about this, his gate wasn't right. He was walking gingerly. You could see. he was favoring his back in all kinds of ways. And then he had the TV appearance on Sunday that I think,

we talked about it last week, the most generous thing you can say is he didn't look great. And he didn't sound great. He didn't sound hugely optimistic. It then looked like from his Instagram feed that he was out having a great time with Jada Pinkett Smith and David Spade and Dwayne Wade and posting videos from Rolling Hills Country Club.

and there was some speculation that maybe even he was swinging a club, which he'd said 24 hours earlier on the telecast that he had not been able to do and had been counseled against doing. Turns out he wasn't swinging a club when he did that. But his team really, I think their initial instinct was to lock down any communication. I can't help but wonder if in the wake of the TV appearance on Sunday, you have no idea how much that was affected by the documentary, but certainly the documentary has been floating around.

and I'm sure they're upset and unhappy with it. You could see the reflexive action was, let's just say nothing. But man, was there a lot of love on social media and the rest of the press for Tiger Woods? I think that took them by surprise. And so they have slowly but surely unveiled a little bit of information for us about how he's doing. And certainly it sounds like it was an awful injury,

and we'll talk more about that. But the good news is that it's something he can recover from and be the dad that, as everyone has said so eloquently, I think none more than Rory, as usual, is the most important thing for him to be. Yeah, that's right. So a couple things to unbundle from your observations there. In the first place, ironically enough, we in the podcast that we taped at this time a week ago, pre-accident, wondered aloud between ourselves, when are we going to see him play golf next? And in fact, I think the headline for our podcast that was published, whatever that Wednesday morning, Tuesday morning.

Tuesday, Tuesday morning was, you know, how many times will we see Tiger play this year? And, you know, between the time of publication of the podcast and the accident, you know, they very nearly coincided. And so there were a lot of responses in the timeline to how many times we might see Tiger play golf. that, you know, lighten the mood. I felt they were funny after it was clear that he hadn't died from the accident. You mentioned his camp, and I thought one aspect of this that was very interesting to me. Once it became clear that his injuries were not life-threatening, we wanted to try and figure out what the hell happened. And there was enough of a resemblance to what happened in 2007. where he was under the influence of, you know,

some combination of over the counter and prescription medication. And he had a car accident and it was not a good car accident. And it was in the early morning hours that, you know, having just seen him in the Sunday Riviera telecast with glassy eyes and a face that was, you know, kind of puffy, we were worried. We were exchanging worried notes that this, that what had befallen him, what happened to him was a repeat or another kind of version of what happened in 2017.

And part of why we decided to not jump right in and do a podcast last week. We talked about it. Yes. Was let's see what comes of the news here. Let's let this. Let's give it 24 hours. see what the story is and then see if there's any reason for us to jump in

with our two cents and it became clear that as the news sort of came out that he survived the accident that he was in a hurry to the photo shoot that you mentioned very dangerous road that's been host to a number of other accidents

exactly and speaking of his camp many affirmative statements that there was no indication that he was under the influence of anything. Yeah, LA County Sheriff came out quickly. Yes, exactly, very quickly. So whether that was a function of communication between Tigers Camp and the Sheriff's Office or the Sheriff's Office taking the initiative to communicate that, either way, that element of the possible how did this happen was taken off the table.

And in many respects, I will tell you, it felt. felt like a relief to have that off the table because, you know, the concern that at least, this is, again, preposterous. Let's just establish the starting point here. You know, you or I having the, like, you know, deep concern about an athlete in the public eye that neither one of us have ever met, but just that we have immense respect and admiration for his talent. it's a little ridiculous. I'm conceding it. But that doesn't diminish the fact that I was worried when

thinking about, you know, the implications of this for him, that there was another version of this prescription drug problem that could be part of the picture. It does not seem like it, right? No. I boycotted the documentary. Okay. Because I'm just angry about it and I felt like we've been through that. But there's no denying that there is an underlying, you know, all people with immense talent and great things have the other side. Life is that way with the yin and the yang. And Tiger has an underlying layer or six of darkness that has always existed underneath him and that he's fought in many ways his whole life, particularly in moments where he's been in extreme emotional or physical pain.

And so with all that we have been let into about his life, against his will, by the way, that's part of what hurts for him is the lack of privacy, right? With all that we've been let in, you know, it was not unreasonable, whether that's a real narrative or not, there is an underlying truth to it.

It was not unreasonable for a bunch of the fans and observers to wonder if, unfortunately, he'd slipped into a bad place. And that's a sad state on the story of Tiger Woods that something like this happens and it's immediately where you go to.

It was 7.12 in the morning, which is a weird time to have an accident. But, you know, in the context that we now understand, it's just another one of those bizarre and you can't write this shit if you try, you know, milestones in an,

just extraordinary life. Yeah. So I want to touch on the privacy element because that ultimately is the thing that we believe was ultimately the culprit in terms of why was Tiger Woods driving his own vehicle at that hour in the morning, seemingly in a rush. And you made the observation when we were comparing notes on this last week. obviously just starting off his day, which means for Tiger Woods,

300 texts, right? At least some unnatural number of communications from the outside world that happened for him between the minute that he goes to bed each night and the minute that he wakes up in the morning because of the various and myriad

responsibilities that he has. And so our best guesstimate of what happened is that it was unfamiliarity with the road that he was on speed and maybe giving a glance at the phone at the exactly the wrong time. But it's the, I kept asking you, why in view of all that doesn't the homeboy drive without driver? Like if you wake up in the morning and you know that you have 20 minutes worth of communications that you have to like just touch base or confirm whatever, that's the perfect time when you're sitting in the back of a SUV if you're tiger. and just knock it all out.

It should be. But Tiger Woods feels like he's been betrayed by everybody in his life, except for about four or five people. And again, I'd boycott of the documentary, but I saw enough of the trailers to know there's a lot of people who were in his past life who came forward, went on camera,

and talked about him, and with varying degrees of familiarity with the guy. And so, you know, I think when you build a cocoon and you build a shell to protect against just how fucking insane it is to be that famous. One of the things you stop doing is trusting people to handle things that you think you can do yourself. It's a way of grabbing control of the world around you. And the control for him is driving himself, putting both hands on the wheel and doing it.

And ironically, that is what got him into trouble on Tuesday morning. Yeah. So the other aspect to this that's too early to tell, But a theme that we've been touching on this entire 2021 calendar year anticipating the golf season over the balance of this year is the impact on the popularity of televised golf as an entertainment product in the absence of Tiger Woods. Now, we over the course of this season, many times you've been talking about, you've been counseling, we, the golf, the golf, fan community need to get in touch with the reality that there ain't going to be much Tiger Woods in 2021. And now we know for sure there ain't going to be no Tiger Woods in 2021 in terms of watching him compete at a high level in professional golf events. I'm interested, we're one week

in on this story. And we've been musing between, ourselves, how do we assess the impact on ratings? What does it mean as an entertainment product for golf? Golf needs to get its act together in terms of the gambling stuff, in terms of the accessibility of the product, our ability to watch it the way we want to watch it. All those kinds of things are all part of the 2021 story. Yes.

Now we know for sure there ain't going to be no tiger. Do you have any reaction? one week in to how this might play out? Well, we saw Sunday at the concession so many players wearing red and all week long people paying tribute to Tiger for everything that he's done for the game. Well, they're right.

He's done a ton for the game. And now it is time for everybody else to do their damn part. Because as a highly competitive professional golfer, it's over for Tiger. And that's okay. Guess who's most okay with that

of all the people in the world? Tiger Woods. Yeah. So he has done a ton for the game. He has brought an unbelievable young crop of players who idolized him into the game to the point where now any week, there are 25 guys who absolutely can win a golf tournament. No questions asked. And another hundred guys who have a chance. So he's done that.

It is now on the players. It is now on the tour. to do the hard work of marketing this product, take the game as he has left it for them, and he'll continue to be a part of the game going forward. But he's not going to be showing up on telecasts every Sunday. That's done. And that's okay because there's so much going for golf.

But the other stakeholders who are not Tiger Woods and who haven't just been drawn along in his slipstream for the last 20 years, now need to step up, and 25 years, by the way, now need to step up and advance the game. game and actually do the work versus sort of talking the talk of doing what's good for the game, right? And that means specifically, PGA Tour has to rethink and advance the way that they market these players. Are we trying to get everybody to know somebody like Max Homa, who, by the way, has been in the featured group the last two weeks after he won and has been a social media star?

But before Max really took things into his own hands to establish his own presence with his online brand, nobody knows who Max Homa was. Are we trying to introduce people to all of these players? How are we doing that? Just today, there's an announcement that the tour's done a deal with Amazon that's going to allow through a new app for you to see every shot by every player. Well, they started that at the players last year. Are they really ready to start doing that at every single golf tournament?

That takes a layer of coverage that hasn't existed before. Awesome. I hope so. But there's a bunch of technology and work that has to do to cover those players. I mean, will the app work? Like, how many times have we been introduced to new apps, you know, in the golf space that have universally been substandard? Yeah. The PGA Tour's digital properties are the best example of great ideas and weak execution.

It's just a fact. They have awesome ideas. They think about it in the right way. But when the leaderboard is freezing up on a Sunday. Exactly. On an act, like something isn't right. There's something at the core that's not right. And I think part of the decision that they've made to move a bunch of data to Amazon is probably recognizing that they need a partner to help them do that. Good on them. That's a smart, wise decision. Because, again, I think some of the ideas and concepts have been really cool. But it's really time to start executing on that because you can't fall back on up. Tiger Woods might be making a run up the leaderboard. Let's all turn. So a whole bunch of decisions to be made about that. Because at the core, if you take Tiger out right now, we do have an

amazing crop of young golfers. We just saw Colin Marcawa battle it out with Victor Hovlin and Bryson DeShambo and Brooks and and and a bunch of guys, none of whom are 30 years old yet, who are going to be for the next 25 years the story in golf if the sport can be presented in the right way. Yeah, and that's the real challenge and the thing that you and I have been curious about in 2021. We know that there are. are lots of interesting guys across the age spectrum from, you know, the Colin Moracawa, the Victor Hodlin, Matthew Wolf kind of age range, all the way up into your Ricky Fowler kind of age range and maybe even beyond, you know, guys like Justin Rose are still

playing competitive golf. Paul Casey won out and, you know, won on the European tour this year. How is the tour going to let us get to know. some of these guys in a way that makes it continually interesting and compelling entertainment product for us, who are our heroes and villains? Now, they've been greatly helped this year by Patrick Reed reappearing in a questionable rules kind of situation, greatly helped from the summer and last fall by Bryson D. Shambos' unbelievable physical transformation. and greatly helped by the reemergence and reappearance of Jordan Speath in the competitive golf scene and a healthy Brooks Keppka who already has a win in 2021 and been right up at the top

of the leaderboard and a handful of other events. So the guys are out there. A huge piece of this, which is why you got into doing this podcast, has been gambling. Yes. And if the tour has done one thing, Right. It's that they have understood that and embraced it. And it going forward is a reason to pay attention every week. That's exactly right. So that also the synergies that are supposed to be emanating from the TOR's relationships with a whole bunch of different properties in the gambling space, we haven't yet, I don't think, scratched the surface of what that might. really translate into. To me, the starting point is a super effective technology that fits what you described, which is the ability to watch every shot of every player in every competitive round. Because that creates the live opportunity, the way to engage in what otherwise would be

perhaps a wonderful Saturday afternoon nap or a nice lunchtime reposte. over the weekend when you're finishing off brunch with your family. Let's get the juices flowing a little bit, Nate, dog. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. It's tis the damn season. It is time to bring this fully to a head. And I do think now is the time for the tour to just throw ideas on the wall.

Like I will not fault them for trying a bunch of wacky concepts, like throw some odds up in real time, you know, on a par five. I have one hole be the odds hole. And every time, you know, players are on it, there's real-time odds for who's going to have the best score.

Whatever it is that they do, in addition to the visualization of the game, which, by the way, the telecasts in 2021 have been great. CBS has absolutely up their game in a number of ways. We're seeing these courses in sort of pictures

that we haven't gotten to see before. NBC did a great job at the concession, I thought. Yep. And now, there is such a treasure trove of data that is available to inform the way that guys are playing

and to help predict the likely outcome of a shot or a hole or a tournament. And it's really time to accelerate bringing that to the forefront. And again, I think if the tour did a smart deal with Amazon that's something more than a press release, Amazon will be able to help them process and present that data in ways that they just don't do a great job of today

even though they certainly mean well. Well, it is the processing and the presenting. You mentioned, you know, the ability to live bet as the guys go from hole to hole on the potential outcome of any given hold. That exists. Like, you can do that, but it's entirely dependent on the quality of the sports book, the international sports book that you are using that you have access to and their internet capacity and your internet capacity.

So some kind of standardization. of that, right? Something that makes that more accessible. That is where the sweet spot sits. I 100% agree with you. Well, we talked about, you know, data processing and trying to do some forecasting. Well, lo and behold, Nate Dogg, speaking of such things, we did mention the winner of this past weekend's WGC Workday Championship at the concession. Colin Warcauer showed up in our dialogue last week.

job by us. We're on a roll house. We continue, we continue to surface the right people. We got out more. Now, the reason that we keyed it on. Burger. Gave out burger. I played, I played burger as the one and done. I know. We're doing, we're doing. Yeah, we're on a little, little heater here. I am going to need your help for this week's one and done. But let's just talk a little bit about what we saw out of Morcao, the thesis for his success at this venue, a venue that had not hosted a

tour event before was his second shot prowess, was his ball striking prowess, which really translates into accuracy from the fairway. And we had a very fun experience with this venue, the concession. We'd never seen it before on television, never seen the pros play it. And from the design features, it was apparent that most of the defense of the golf course resists. resides in the greens and, you know, the trouble that lurks just off the greens. And if you were not a player in control of your irons from the fairway, then you were going to be in trouble at this golf course, right? Yeah.

I mean, the elevation in those greens coupled with, you know, shaved-down sides meant that if you miss the green, you were in big, big trouble. And I think it's a little misleading that Colin won the tournament at 18 under because we just didn't really have a lot of wind until the last day. Yeah. I think under normal windy conditions, this course would have played even more difficult. But what was remarkable for me is we don't get to see a ton of triples and quads from the best players in the world in a tournament. Awesome. Even when they're making birdies.

And that was what was so cool about this one. I mean, you know, coming off the Rive where every hole is a challenge, and yeah, the back nine's tough, in particular, 12, 13 are tough holes at the Rive. But it sort of felt like a constant challenge there. Here it was really feast or famine. And man, was that fun to see. Like, Victor with a just takes a huge dump in one round with a quad and comes all the way back. His final hole on his Friday round.

She shot a quadruple boge and finished tied for second in this in this golf tournament. I mean, just an incredible turn of events. It did bear out the idea that the quad was a pure aberration for him because of how well he was playing. Speaking of ball strikers, I mean, I can't remember whether or not we mentioned Vic, but like he fits that same category when we talk about Morcawa of guys who consistently from the fairway. The challenge that Hovlin in particular has that we saw it in all its glory is short game.

If he ever gets a short game together, he's going to be something. But it was fun to see the guys experiencing this golf course in real time. And we were like along for the ride, right? I mean, Bryson at plus five on Thursday and minus eight on Friday. It just was great.

It was really fun to have a tournament like that. And I'm sad if this is the last, time we get to see the concession because it showed well, the guys seemed to enjoy it. It required a whole lot of mental resilience that we don't normally see in golf courses. We certainly see guys playing hard golf courses. They're going to play a hard golf course this week where the wind's going to be blowing and, you know, they're going to be lucky if the winner is 10 under. But that was a different kind of mental toughness that you had to have on this one where you literally had, you know, if you made a triple, you'd go, okay, on to the next one. I can still

make, you know, eight more birdies. That's exactly right. Part of the thing at the WGC event that sets us up very lovely for this week's event at Bay Hill. In the first place, I had to reacclimate my eyes to the Florida golf because we went right from Riviera with that entire sort of Southern Cal, Barranca and the color of the grass and, you know, no, no water to speak of to like, why I'm right in the face. It was the Florida with where every single shot, there's water in it.

The sheen on the greens is, you know, casting light into the background. And so, you know, the- Was it welcome for you? Was it jarring? Is there something about Florida golf that's off-putting? I wasn't ready for it. I'll just, I'll just put it that way. It took, it took, it took, because it looks manufactured or because it's, well, I mean, I mean, a tiny bit of that.

But I mean, I think that, you know, credit to Jack Nicholas and Tony Jacqueline, the architects of this thing, it fits that sort of Florida Swampland vibe. I just, it was just, I just wasn't ready for it. That's all. All right. Well, you needed a week to warm up. You know who else wasn't ready for it? half the guys in the world rankings who've ginned up, they're ranking high enough to make this thing, but just could not hang. Danny Van Tonder at plus 15 and the like, who got into this thing,

but really couldn't hang with some of the big boys. So you weren't the only one who wasn't ready for this course, that's for sure. I mean, the leaderboard was Colin Markawa and Victor Hovlin, one, two, I mean, with Kepka and Horshaw, right there. And Rory, once again, tied for sixth with a one under par finish on Sunday, but a 66 on Saturday had him right in contention. Again, let's go ahead on that note and start talking about the Arnold Palmer invitational at Bay Hill. 123 golfers. So a limited field at Bay Hill. No, Colin.

Right. Well, I mean, you know, it is on a bad part of the schedule, just the way the schedule played out this year. It is. The players is next week, so guys are taking a week off. Do we think, I mean, just before we jump into API, we should, we won't have Colin to talk about. But can you just, where is Colin Morcow rank right now in terms of world golfers for you? At the very tippy top. I mean, what do you mean? This is, you know, as has been widely reported, just the second player to win a major at a WGC before the age of 25.

He's one of, I mean, I'm just going to do the Justin Ray stats. One of just five players with four or more PGA Tour wins over the last three seasons. The others on that list are Dustin Johnson, Rory Macaroy,

Justin Thomas, and Brooks Kepka. Yeah. So, uh, Kalamor Kawa's right there. He's inside the top five now of the official world golf rankings. And he belongs there.

The interesting thing I encountered in reading some of the stories after the fact with Colin was he confessed losing some focus in the lead up to the Masters. Yeah. After his win in August at the PGA championship, he needed a reset. He needed a refresh. He'd missed some cuts in the latter parts of 2020. And he just needed some time away. he got to work with his coach and they came in with a new attitude

and Nate Dogg he's finished at the top six to three of those four tournaments that he's played in this year. It is pretty good. It is pretty good. What I was going to say to is after PJ we just didn't hear that much from him and I'm,

does that speak to the quality of the fields each week? Yes. But it also felt like he right, he won in Reno then he won at the work day. then he won the PGA. So he sort of, is this a streaky player who gets hot and then goes away, resets, gets hot, and then goes away resets. One of the things this week that he attributed this win to was talking to the old guys,

because he came in with a totally different putting stroke using the saw that he learned from Marco Mira. And literally at the end of the telecast on Sunday, he thanked Paul Asinger, who he said gave him a short game wedge tip that, he said got him around the course. I absolutely love that. Yeah, I did too. I'm glad that you mentioned it. And that is an indication.

So the one thing I always look for out of these kids, and I legitimately can call him a kid based on my status and life now, is the consistency. Because you, I understand the preposterous nature of what I'm about to say, but I'm always looking for the guys who can put the pedal down and go win golf tournaments at a frequency, not like Tiger, because nobody can win it at a frequency like Tiger.

But I want to see the guys at the top all the time. And the last guy to have that was Jordan Speed, to me. Well, that's what scares me about Colin Moracawa. That's exactly what I was going to say, is he's taken over the mantle a little bit of just like graceful, you know, unbelievably charming, endearing, humble, always says the right thing, you know, goes out and wins. It is not the sort of aggressive like alpha Kepka guy.

He's kind of an anti-Kepka in that way. You know, physically he's kind of unassuming, right? But he just has the smoothest swing ever. it's going to be can he continue to do this beyond the age of 24? Can he keep going? And does the attention, does it weigh on him? And we don't know a lot about his mentality yet, right? We haven't really seen him in crazy high pressure situations.

This was maybe, you know, the PGA, he kind of came out and, and I'm not going to, he played a great final round, right? He shot 64 on Sunday to go win it. but he wasn't sort of being hunted down the way that he was this Sunday. So it's very interesting to see how he's going to hold up in these moments. I'm not doing this for any reason other than keeping the record clean. He shot 69 on Sunday. He did shoot a 64.

He shot 64 on Friday, on Friday, on Friday, Sunday, all three, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, all three rounds under par, significantly under par. Yeah, sorry. Sorry, when I said 64 on Sunday, I meant at PGA. Did he not shoot? Yeah. Got it. Got it.

Okay. Which was an indication of... Now I'm understanding. Yeah. Of just his ability in those high pressure moments. But that one felt like he almost, I mean, he chased down DJ. Right. This was the first time where we really saw a bunch of the best golfers in the world with a target on him.

And he won by more than he started the day at. Yeah, that's exactly right. So let's talk a little bit about Bay Hill. You mentioned that we're not going to have Morikawa. We're not going to have Justin Thomas. We're not going to have Dustin Johnson. But we still have. It's still a pretty great field.

We do get to see Jordan Speeth again. We do get to see defending champion Tyrell Hatton. And look, Rory's here, Bryson's here, Patrick Reed's here. So great field, again, squeezed by just where in the, this super schedule that the tours had to comprise for 2021, the tournament falls in between a WGC event and the players. And so there are guys taking a break. And you mentioned earlier the idea that we ought not to put too much stock in the fact that

the concession permitted an 18 under par tournament finish because the wind never really came up. Bay Hill is another venue where guys can shoot 18 or 19 or 20 under or like last year the winner can shoot 4 under. And it just depends on how the wind's blowing and what the weather looks like. The forecast

that I've seen so far suggests potential for rain Tuesday, Wednesday. So maybe softing things up a bit, but I didn't and then Thursday, Friday, 75 and sunny. Yeah. It's going to be nice, but then it's going to get gnarly on the weekend. We're going to see some wind back

come back this weekend, I think. Which is what we want, right? Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about some guys. One interesting thing about this is... You're going to make the international point, aren't you? Of course.

Of course. The last five winners of this event have all been international players, rest of world players. What do we think that means? What does that tell us about this? I think... And folks have drawn a little bit of a corollary correlation to... correlation, not corollary, correlation to Tori.

And I think it's a function of Torrey Pines out in San Diego, of the Bermuda that the European guys are all comfortable with European and Australian. And just those guys less affected by

ordinary weather. And they know the wind. And that's it. I mean, I, you know, it is kind of an anomaly, right? it's obviously a function of who's playing the tournament there have been some

discussion over the last handful of years about the field and guys respectfully telling sending notes to Arnold Palmer I'm sorry I can't come play your tournament and then after he passed guys skipping the event it's one of those that feels like it's going to start to

weaken just because of its place in the schedule but I hope not Yeah, I hope not as well. I just wonder, do you continue? It's a streak, right? Is it a streak that is purposeful, in which case we should double down on it? Or is it a streak that's sort of sitting there made to be broken in your mind? Well, I'm going to continue to ride the streak.

The other facet of this, the attribute of these winners is they're either major winners or guys that have been around the hoop. So it's Rory. it's not Taylor Gooch Yeah, right It's a whole bunch of guys You have three major winners Jason Day's in that mix I'm not pulling them off the top of my head

And then the two non-major winners Were Tyrell Hatton and Leashman But both those guys Leishman made it to the playoffs Of the British Open That Zach Johnson won The Playoff That's what they call it in golf

It's not playoffs And Hatton has been Top 10 leaderboard more than a couple majors. So there's just a real, you know, oh, Frankie Onions. How can I forget Frankie Onions?

He's the other major winner of recent finish. Francesco Moulinard. Our guy. Yeah. So what do we think for this week with all that taken in? I mean, this is a tough one. There's a bunch of guys in form. There's a bunch of guys in form.

They really are. I'm not going to ignore Patrick Reed. He's just been playing too damn well. putting his face off. Yes. That's, that's right. You have to figure out a way to put,

to put Rory in the mix. He has the track record at Bay Hill. He obviously has reverence for Arnold. Playing well enough just still isn't stringing the four powerful rounds together. Look, I feel like we got to work backwards on this one. Help me. Who is not going to win the players?

Well, see, now you're putting me in the position of basically telling you who I want to pick for the one undone and who I want to pick for this week. I just think... Do you know who that answer is? Who you want to pick for the... No, tell me. I want to pick Matthew Fitzpatrick. Yeah. You tell me not.

Tell me why not to. I'll tell you why not to because it's everybody's saying Matthew Fitzpatrick. It's showing up in everybody's bug. And here's why. I know. It's because he played well under... tough conditions at Riviera and because he played well in the wind last week. And we talked about him last week coming in as one of the two guys to pay attention to because of that reason. And listen, he did fine. I just don't know that Matthew Fitzpatrick is at that elite level that you talked

about, which is guys have won majors or who've been around the hoop. It feels like one of those guys who, you know, has been on a little bit of a streak. But, isn't able to keep that up as consistently as the top-tier golfers. I would fade him this week, and I'm probably going to have to swallow my foot, but I would fade him this week just because everybody's jumping on him right now. Yeah, well, because his round, his 69 last year, when everybody else was over par was, it was like one of those, he likes the wind.

Once in a lifetime kind of gigs were right. He was however many strokes better than average for the field that day. I also saw him Sunday at Rive, and it it wasn't great. Okay. Well, if I don't... He made no birdies. He just didn't show.

If I don't, I haven't played Patrick Reed yet. I'm not talking about it. I don't want to play Rory yet. I want to save Rory for a major. Listen, what do you need out of it this week? Do you need a win? What do you need? I'd like a win.

I kind of need a win. I need a win because John Rom, really... Oh, man. Boy, did he poop on your parade? served up some sour paella last week. Well, we figured out why he was hanging out at the Rive, though. What's the answer? Remind me. The answer is he and Tony Fienow have struck up a bromance living in Scottsdale.

So he was hanging out to support Tony, which doesn't really work with like the ROM robot. Maybe that's why he sucked last week at the concession because he's going soft on us. well I'm not playing this week because he's not at the tournament and I already burn him for one and done purposes but I'm just talking about for other Fitzpatrick I can't listen given the other range of guys

I mean what are you holding on to Hatton for right so here are the other contenders Tyrell Hatton and Victor Hovlin and I got a really strong feeling for Hovlin I mean he's so close it's like you know boy, what a way to go out on a limb house, way to go really deep on the card.

All I know is every single week, I open up the leaderboarded, every single week, Victor Halvin's right there. Yeah. So he might be my dog this week. Hatton makes sense for a bunch of obvious reasons. He's clearly comfortable. He played good. He was eighth in putting last week,

10th in approach last week. He was good last week. He was hitting the ball well. Yes, exactly. And maybe he just channels. Maybe he pulls a mat every on us. No. And doubles down.

It doubles down. It's possible. You can't rule it out. Is there any reason you know who has a good track record here, but was all over the goddamn ballpark last week was Bryson. Yeah. Is there any reason? He has a really nice course history at Bay Hill. But you have to save him through the whole spring, right?

I mean, that's, you want to have to have a. available for the masters in the other WGC events, I feel like. And maybe the U.S. Open. Yeah, well, that's what I mean, the majors, yeah. Yeah. So I just don't want you burn and Bryce into Shambo at API when he's probably thinking ahead to the players and the other big championships. So, look, somewhere between Leishman, who was T2 here last year, you know, Frankie

onions, who's got three top tens and seven events. It's just, his putting has just been a. just a cluster. Yeah. But other than that, you know, besides the little top three wood at Pebble, which was awesome, um, everything else. His ball striking has been great. I mean, he's playing well.

I wasn't kidding with Taylor Gooch. You don't go burn Taylor Gooch. But he was T5 at Genesis and he was T13 last year at API. Like he, he's going to be in the mix. So I, wait, that's a great name and that's a helpful to all the birdie buddies out there as they build out the lineups. I'm telling you right now, um, you've talked me into it.

I'm going to include Fitzpatrick. I'm going to play him in some stuff depending on... I'm not going to play him for one and done, though. I'm going to play him on my betting ticket. I'm going to do Hovland. Okay. Well, you're not convinced. Yeah.

You didn't sound convinced. No, he's playing the best of consistently best of anybody coming in. Other than Morcawa. Yeah. But Morcau's not playing, right? I mean, Bryson's the one where you go, holy shit, he was eight under on Friday. Like, he's going to figure it out here at some.

point. I just think he's going to try to peak mentally and with his game for the players and the masters and that this week probably doesn't matter as much and that we're going to have the wind and maybe he goes headcase. This feels more like a yeah, a Victor

Hatton Molinolinarie Leishman type win. I'm playing Victor because he fits one of the things we talked about at the beginning, which is class of player, guy that's going to win a major, guy that has already won the U.S. amateur

out at Pebble Beach. If you said to me, who's going to win a major first, Matthew Fitzpatrick or Victor Hovlin, you have to go Hovlin. So that's it. That's the distinguishing factor for me. You know, is there anybody else, I mean, further down the card, not to win this week, but top 20, top 30,

that you look at. Fitzpatrick, I think you got to ride him there. I'm just not sure he's primed to win yet. I need to see the kid play a great Sunday to believe he's going to win a golf tournament in the next six months. but again, I look forward to him punching me right in the throat on Sunday.

I like the form of a guy like Cameron Davis, you know, Australian guy. We've been talking about Cam Davis. He is a good golfer. Yep, top 15 at Pebble. So, you know, he's in form. You're not worried about ball striking or short game with him.

The only thing with him about this week is it's his first time playing this event. So he has the all-around game. Lots of, in regulation to point to, but do you take a guy the first time he's playing a venue? I also don't hate, I like the form that Sebastian Munoz is in right now. It looks like he lost a little bit of weight. That works, right?

I mean, we need guys at this venue. If you look at some of the analytics and the stats, you're looking at guys who are good from 200 yards or out on approach. and he fits nicely at that. Just finishing the top 25 at the WGC. He was top 20 at the Masters, nice low ball flight for Sebastian Muno. So those are all the reasons why. You put on a down's card, right?

Yeah. He's in the ballpark for me with like a Keegan Bradley, who has had a renaissance of late for sure. He's like sixth and driving, 18th in Green's hit, seventh in strokes gained approach. ninth strokes gain T to Green, and he's made the cut at this event

every year since 2013. So is Keegan going to win? I don't think so, but he's been popping up on leaderboards of late. He's playing decently well. This is a course he likes. And, you know, when you're thinking about top 20, top 30, or to fill out the sort of

you know, two, three, four, five spot in your fantasy team, he's the kind of guy who I think you want to pull in, especially because his odds aren't bad this week. Well, the only thing, make sure you're getting compensated properly for your Keegan Bradley risk. This is a Pat Mayo stat. He did a strokes gained putting per round on, you know, lightning fast Bermuda Greens.

And Keegan does not fare well in that metric. A guy that does fare well in that metric, though, who we haven't mentioned, Patrick Reed does fare well on that metric. He fares well putting on his carpet or pavement or anything. We haven't mentioned Billy Horshaw. And there is something to see Billy Horshiel on Florida golf courses that kind of fits the eye. Yeah, he's a Florida guy. All the Florida stuff, exactly. So that might be another guy worth.

I'm not playing. I might look and see if there's a favorable matchup for Billy Ho-Hoh, something like that. Just be careful. Just be careful. Because last week seemed emotionally to take a lot out of him. I mean, he shot under par every round of the tournament. He was great. But by the back nine, he was throwing.

his balls into the crowd and in the lakes and shit. He was disappointed. I like that fiery competitive instinct out of Billy Ho-ho-ho. I don't mind it. Listen, if you really got to go deep and you're looking at super long odds, I do think Taylor Gooch is a guy to look at. This is a course he likes and he's in good form. And then the guy nobody's looking at who finished top five here last year

and plays really well in the wind and tough conditions is none other than the Denmother, Joel Damon. Okay. Who has not had a great run of late, but certainly feels like the game is close. And I just know that Joel Damon plays really, really well in the wind. And so if he can make it to the weekend,

he is going to top 20. I love it. Let's root for it. The Den mother, Joel Damon, let's get a top 20 out of them. Nate Dogg, it's a beautiful card. We have lots to be thankful for. Tiger Woods is alive.

Colin Warcow is a worthy champion. We are one week closer to the Masters. It's getting warm out here on the East Coast. I'm going to play golf at least once, maybe twice this week. Oh, my God. Things are coming together, buddy. We're going to have our shots and we're going to get to play together before too long. That's it.

That's what we're working on. Things are looking up, Pous. That's it. All right, my eagle enthusiast, my birdie buddies, there we have it. Let's all please try and hit him straight out there. We'll be back next week with another edition of Fairway.