No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 894 - Debating Scottie vs. Xander, Presidents Cup Picks Reaction

Episode Date: September 5, 2024

Soly and DJ open with some thoughts on the Presidents Cup captain's picks before we enter the courtroom of public opinion (17:40) to debate who had the better year between Xander Schauffele, and his two major wins, or the sheer statistical dominance of Scottie Scheffler. If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining The Nest: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at nolayingup.com/join Support Our Partners: Blade and Bow One Bars Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club. Be the right club today. Johnny, that's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Better than most. Expect anything different. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up podcast. Solly here, a little midweek episode with my guy DJ Pye. How are you, buddy?

I'm doing great. I'm feeling joyous this evening. I had a good chance. Every now and again, you get a case that just fills you with joy and reminds you why you got into this evening. You know, I had a good chance every now and again, you get, you get a case that just fills you with joy and reminds you why you got into this business. You know, and my case today is going to be presenting the case for Scotty Scheffler and why we should be over the moon about his season. This year, I finally had some time to dive in and crunch the numbers. And, uh, you know, what I came back with, I think is going to, going to be an infectious happiness for the people out there. Because it's we're witnessing some history right now. So like gosh, I love hearing that and in a shocking twist me as the data guy I have. You're going to be the data guy

and I am going to be defending Xander Shafly just vibes. We're going to court. We're doing eye test mostly on a lot of this stuff, but we are going to court today. How would you frame it? Is it who had the better season? Is it? I think we started talking about this a couple of weeks ago where we're like, you know, it'd be kind of fun. I think maybe after Xander won the open, I think we're like, oh, you know what? This is kind of a fun conversation.

Maybe we should do a little deep dive like who had a better season, Xander or Scotty. I think we can each kind of go into our corner and take some notes and see what we come up with. I think we've got footage of your client just red-handed like paying off the people he's denying. Like this is such an open and shut case. I think especially now that we've gotten through the illustrious tour championship, the most important event of the year as everybody knows, I think it's an open and shut thing,

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Find all one bars at a retailer near you or amazon.com. I know we got an important case to get to DJ. I know we do. We got a little news to get to first. Sure. President's Cup picks came out. The United States, Jim Furyk, they selected Sam Burns, Russell Henley, Max Homa, Brian Harmon, Keegan Bradley, and Big Tone Fee now. What's your reaction to this on the US side? I feel like in a case of bad lawyering here, I'm probably going to talk a little bit out of both sides of my mouth. And I'm guessing you can maybe relate to some of this because we kind of had a little bit of this conversation last week on the podcast when we were talking about like who are your

captain's picks, who you think in. And largely, I think we were both kind of on the same page with a lot of these. I did not have Brian kind of on the same page with a lot of these. I did not have Brian Horman on my squad. I know his record was a little better in Rome than I remember. I still can't shake some of those early round. I think his partner was Max Holman who dragged him along to a couple of those points, I believe. But hey, that's the way it goes. These things turn into Wikipedia records here eventually, and that's the way it is. So yeah, obviously didn't love seeing Akshay left off.

Obviously didn't love seeing, you know, and this is where I think I get to some of the doublespeak here is like, I love the idea of getting young guys on these teams, trying to inject some new blood, trying to use these, as we've always said for the last 10 years as a testing ground for the Ryder Cup, getting these guys team experience, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Other than Occhet, there's not a ton of those young dudes really kicking the door down. I mean, Luke Clanton as an amateur is like, I don't know that you can. Dunlap you could say.

Dunlap you could throw. He hasn't really been great second half. So I'm kind of, that's where I'm kind of like, man, I'm mad as hell. But also I'm like, I don't, I also don't really care. And I think I kind of understand where they're at. I think I'll turn it over to you because I'm sure we feel similarly about JT, which is everybody's on Twitter's kind of favorite person to hate. I think as you and I were talking about, like he's the best recent American team player,

like by a wide, wide margin. He made the tour championship. He's had a better season than I think a lot of people realize. And I don't totally get the logic of leaving him off in favor of Brian Harmon, who I, you tell me, you know, you might've crunched the numbers here. I just don't see him being a big course fit for Bethpage in a couple years. Well, a lot to this. One, I think it's pretty clear with these selections that they don't value this event as a proving grounds for the Ryder Cup. It's just not going to be viewed that way. Jim Furyk is the captain. As I understand it, I don't believe Jim is going to be further involved in the Ryder Cup process.

I don't think he's planning to be an assistant captain. I think kind of that was the goal with going to Keegan Bradley and John Wood and Webb Simpson and what they're doing as a younger crew, cycling some guys out from a different era. So this is Jim's thing. He has, you know, I'm not saying that Jim went rogue here on this, but like I just, they view it separately. It's very clear. It doesn't seem like it's part of a larger scheme.

Exactly, which I thought it was supposed to be the whole task force and all this stuff. And maybe that is because I think I'll start with this where I think how they landed with this team is I think they are going course fit driving accuracy. I think that is, I don't know enough about Roan Montreal to fully state that this is a great course fit. Never been there. Don't really know a whole lot about the golf course, but that's the only lens if I really like squint my eyes and look through to see what they've done here. Other than just the obvious fact that they just went seven through 10 off,

or seven through 12 off the points list, which as I've made, I've been very consistent on since I think back to 2015. I think the points list from both sides on how they do it for the Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup is stupid. It's not how you do it. It's have you looked into how they actually do it by the way? It's, uh, it's been a while. It's FedEx cut points. It's like weighted FedEx cut points, which kind of hilarious in a lot of ways.

It's more of a cumulative stat more than it is like your averages or your expectation or anything like that. And so it's hard for me to get super worked up. I just can't pretend to care about the president's cup that much. Your tweet kind of rang very on the nose for me of like, if it's going to be the U S minus Brooks and Bryson versus the internationals except Cam Smith, except Joaquin Nieman, except all the live dude. Like, I don't really know what this competition is.

Where, where I struggle is I get a lot of flack from people on like, Oh, with this guy, it's all about the data or this guy, it's all the eye test or if this guy, it's all about the record when like, any rational person can come to the conclusion that these are all like focal points of the conversation, right? I do not advocate for printing off the top 12 of the data golf rankings and say, put that on a team. My thing that I've been extremely consistent on is like you are building a team and the effects that your picks are going to have. This is again,

something in the category of benefit of the doubt here is like a Sam Burns pick might make a ton of sense to pair with blank. And maybe that's Scottie Scheffler and maybe that's not just because they're best friends, but they might pair really well because of this. And if picking him is going to mean you're going to need to pick blah, blah, blah, and the downstream effects of all of this coming together into a team is what you want. And something that the US I don't think has done very well in the past and doesn't seem to have gotten right.

Again, backtracking though, do I think it's an extremely wild coincidence that seven through 12 on the points list got picked? And it happens to be the best formulated team the US can have while leaving JT at home, who's 17, seven and four in team events has not, is that a better season than he had for the Ryder Cup last year and got the pick?

And I mean, if you're avoiding a guy who's not playing well, Max Homa does get a pick. Obviously Max has a great record in the two team events that he's played in, but I looked this up. JT has played in six team events, three President's Cups, three Ryder Cups. He's had a winning record. He had been a positive addition to the team five times, and the only time he hasn't was 2023 in Rome where he went one, two, and one. Also, he's like, he's 31. It's not like, like I feel like people are talking about JT like he's like 44

It's like well, he's not part of the picture for the future. It's like no, I think like That yeah, right. That's what I'm saying. It's like what who are we? that's where again I go back to like my first point of kind of talking about both sides of my mouth or I'm like all right, if if Akshay or Dunlap or Clanton or whoever like I don't know. It just seems like those guys are gonna have to Kick the door down a little harder than they did if I'm gonna get really upset about it. But at the same time, yeah, it's not making me feel

super warm and fuzzy. And I'm kinda with you where I'm like, I am down to pick, I mean, obvious Homerism here, that's fine, but I'm down to pick Max based on the fact that he's been the dude at not only the Ryder Cup, but the last two team events, the president's cup as well. Like he thrives on these. We've talked in the past about, you know, Adam Scott redeveloping his, his form at the,

when he got a captain's pick at the president's cup at Harding park or, you know, guys that get a little vote of confidence and they find something at these team events. Like I think he could be in that same vein, But I also understand why people are upset about it. I mean, I guess this is the I don't know. God, I feel so fucking cynical about all this stuff. And I promise I'm not meaning to that is not. It's not the goal of any of this. And I love Jim Furek as a dude, as a player, as a just I love his whole deal. But as far as like team events go, it's like, man, if I cared more about this event, I would have realized he was the captain eight months ago

and probably been upset then. It's like, what are we doing, man? Like, did anybody watch Paris? Did anybody watch like the teams he was involved in? Like I love Jim, love, love, love, love, love Jim Furyk. But like- He's had his shot. Yeah, I don't think that's it, man.

I don't think that's what we're building towards. And so to get that plus kind of a bleh set of captain's picks plus no vision, plus no connectivity to the rider cup is where I'm kind of like, all right, man, I might be, I might be good on this one. Dude, this event is teetering as an entertainment product and like say what you want about JT. You do not have to like him.

Your eyes go towards the screen when he's playing at a team event. Cause he does some dumb shit. He pisses people off. He does some funny shit. He does some, he's an entertainer in this thing. Like Russell Henley, great pick, like makes a ton of sense. Not the biggest entertainer out there.

Brian Harmon, not the biggest entertainment out there. Entertainer out there. And so like, again, like no matter how hard you try to explain it, it does fall apart at some point. Like I'm down for going down the board and taking a guy like Max, who's like, you're picking the dude. Like can he show up and play match play golf

and be one of the best players? Absolutely. But if you're going driving accuracy, Max has had his worst driving year of his career, kind of in his modern, obviously post 2017 era. And that argument falls apart pretty quickly. So it's just a peculiar set of decisions really. And I really do think it's like straight old school, like, no, I just went down the points. Like, you know, if you finished outside the top 12,

you've not made a good enough case to be on this team. And I'd rather not make the decision. But I don't know if that's being generous or if that's being, you know, unfair to say that, but it's just hard to dig. I mean, if you dig into numbers, JT versus Keegan, it's ugly. I, the Keegan one I have the biggest problem with. I mean, not unlike last year. I mean, Keegan's been way worse than he was last year.

Does winning the BMW get you on the team? I know it got into the top 12 of points, but like, I just, I've never understood that that like, Oh, that person won this event. Now that means he's going to the next team event and have to have them like he didn't beat JT at the tour championship the next week, like one and one, the last two weeks and the tour championship is more recent. This is a match play events on stroke. Well, why? I just don't know if I follow. It's the old school logic, right?

It's like the old school way of thinking of it. And that's where I guess my problem lies with it. But does it matter? Probably not. Like, I know, man, on the international side, it's like, I, I feel similarly kind of, kind of bleh about those. I mean, I think a lot of it was was pretty much down the points list. But, but skipping over a couple of the Canadian dudes who have had kind of so so seasons. So it's, I don't know, at least it feels like they have a bit of a process kind of building over there.

They chose Corey Connors, Min Woo Lee, Christian Bezadenhout, Taylor Pendreth, Siwoo Kim, and Mackenzie Hughes. So leaving behind, I thought they were going to take Cam Davis was one and I thought they were going to take that one. Which I don't understand. I don't know, they must have had some reasoning there. Maybe it is a driving accuracy kind of thing, but I don't know, God, Cam Davis is so good. I don't understand that. Only thing I've heard is they're gonna go potentially

full European style, the golf national with the golf course set up. Yeah, maybe. A hint I heard, that is not coming from the international side. That was coming more from the American side, but that was... Yeah. And it, yeah, I don't know.

It just kind of sucks to have, you know, as a proud American, it kind of sucks to have the, the outlook of this event be like, oh, well, it'd be kind of cool if the internationals like won one, you know, maybe like these picks are so mad and there is no process process and like, yeah, maybe they'll pick one off. That would be the most entertaining, you know, outcome by a mile. So I don't know, man. It's all it all kind of filters. This is wildly unfair to the president's cup. And there's a lot of people who work very, very hard to make that event what it is. And it means a lot to the players who are there. I get all of that. But it's hard not to view all of this kind of through the lens of the Ryder Cup, just from where I think both of us are coming from. And from that perspective, I'm like, all right, this kind of seems like the same lost, disconnected

grasping straws American team that we've seen for the last 20 years. Which, and again, if I'm, if I'm bend, if I'm squinting to see the optimism here, it's like, this process was put in place prior to Rome. Right? This is so before the reboot before the Keegan plan or all that, like, the Jim Fuhrer plan is happening and going and so it's kind of late in the game to switch that or impossible to switch that. Right. So most optimistic thing is like, no matter what this is kind of running this one out and then starting 2025 Beth Page is

going to be a new new vibe, new process, all that stuff. Yeah. We'll see. I don't know. I'm still going to watch. I'll be, I'll be, I'll be keen to, but man, it just seems like for an event, really struggling to, to generate some buzz issues. If, if one bad writer cup eliminates you like a one, two, and one writer cup anchored by speed who had just had a baby, his wife just had a baby and played awful. Like sure. The one, two and one record does not look good on JT, but like pretty tough to do when your partner's literally

out in his pocket on most of the four ball holes. Like what is Keegan went one and two in the last like writer cup that he played in 14, 10 years ago. Why does that not look like what if one bad event gets you like kicked out of this thing, it just doesn't really seem to be. Yeah. I don't get like, I honestly would have a lot of, I don't know about respect,

but almost like I would understand it more if they were like, Hey Keegan, like is selling out for the rider cup. He's going to go all in on the captaincy and he wants one more ride as a player because he thinks he can learn about, you know, things from a preparation standpoint or something like that. Maybe I can buy that and see that, but it seems like, again, if that's the way he's going,

like, God, it seems like just being like the most souped up assistant captain ever would be kind of where my head would go, but maybe that's selfish of me as a golf fan. Yeah, I mean, over the last 12 months JT has been the fifth best American and strokes gained Yeah, and gets left at home and 17 7 and 4 in team events and even better in Presidents Cup. So I don't get it It's tough. Anyways, without any further delay. Let's get to let's get to what we're here for

I'm gonna turn it over to you. You're gonna go first. You are the prosecution here. Xander's on the stand. That's just how we're structuring it. Don't ask me to explain it, but that's how it's gonna work. And you're gonna waterboard me, I think, with a whole lot of info and make your case.

Go ahead. So as any good prosecutor would do, I'm gonna try to keep you on your back foot, obviously, because I think you think I have a game plan here that I'm going to just attack Xander. And that's not really what's going to happen. And let me explain why. Scottie Scheffler is not responsible for the division in the game of golf. He is not responsible for these gaudy increases in purses and purse sizes. But those things are on offer currently in the world of professional golf.

And he just took advantage of the moment in a way that I think you could argue no player in the history of the game has ever done. This is a pretty singular moment for somebody to smash all the windows, grab all the bags. And I think Scotty just did that. And when I say like almost no other player

has ever done this, I'm obvious that, it's obvious the comparison we're making here is not to Xander Schauffele, who I honestly don't even think is like in this conversation. We're talking about a comparison to Tiger Woods here. So you can present the Xander case, where we're focused on, my team is focused on, honestly like we're focused on Tiger. We're on to we're on to tiger

We're on to Isleworth at this point and let me just kind of set some historical context for what we're talking about here Sorry, what what do all of these these men have in common? Okay, listen closely to these names Curtis Strange Mark Brooks, Tommy Armour III, John Daly, Bernhard Langer, and Greg Norman. I don't- What those guys have in common

is that you would have to pool together all of their career earnings to equal the amount of money that Scottie Scheffler made just this year. Oh, inflation, though, these inflation off the ass. They played. I think it was I kind of look at it. I think like 3200 combined tour of beds as as a six of their back. That's how much money Scotty Shephler made this year.

Sixty two point two million dollars. That breaks down to twenty nine point two in on course earnings, which we're going to talk about later. $25 million in FedEx Cup bonus money for winning again, the illustrious tour championship and $8 million for winning something called the Comcast business tour top 10. Say what you want about Jay Monahan. Say what you want about whether these purse increases are sustainable or whether they're even a good idea at all. But the main gripe, I think, as golf kind of started to fracture and split apart was that golf superstars were not getting paid in the same way and at the same scale and the same proportions as the stars of other sports right and so none of this is guaranteed money I understand it's

different I understand we're looking at like average you know salaries and kind of contracts that are broken out on like yearly averages but like the 62 million dollars is like almost ohtani money that's like the greatest baseball player that maybe has ever lived. Steph Curry, that's what he got for the five years. He would be tied for the highest paid player in the NBA with Jason Tatum and Steph Curry. He would be the highest paid player in the NFL by more than $11 million. We're talking about a sport that nobody even watches. And that's what happened.

I was going to say, on the NFL, they only play 17 games. How many W's starts did Scottie have this year? 20. 20. Yeah. And counting playoff games, Patrick Mahomes plays like 20 games a year. So I know what you're probably thinking.

No cut events, huge purse increases. Does this number even mean anything? You know, surely everyone on the PJ tour is breaking all kinds of earning records, which I think is partially true. But I think where it gets really fun is when you start to look at this in relation to what his peers did this year. And solid, we're going to use a stat that I know you love. Percent of money, one potential money, one percentage of potential money. One for those that are not familiar with this stat, this basically shows how much money is on offer to you specifically. So if you, Scotty played 19 official PJ Tour events,

if he had won every single one of them, he could have potentially won up to 57.2 million dollars. The reason I think this stat is so fun is because purses are very, very top heavy, right? What is it? 38% or something of the purse goes to the winner. What is it? 18% usually. Oh, OK. Yeah. Well, still the point stands. I've told you, right? So if it's a 20. Yeah, that's true. OK. So I think my my crux here is like the job of pro golf is to win money, right? It's not to finish T8 every week,

even though that helps in kind of deciding like, oh, that guy's, you know, he's pretty close to that guy, blah, blah, blah. Like they still pay a lot for T8, as I'm sure we're gonna hear in the Xander case. But I think this stat just reflects like, how often do you actually get the job done? How much are you smashing the windows

and grabbing the bags? Okay, so every player every players just do a frequently asked question on this, because I tweeted this out. And there were a lot of questions on it, like the person in theory, like the purse size is not going to matter here, right? Right. It's all relative. It's all relative to you specifically in the adjustments, like, so the only thing to note here, I was wrong, it is 20% for these signature events go to the winner, 18% for

a normal PGA tour event. So that's really kind of the only difference in like, yeah, if you play the elevated signature events, all that stuff, it is a higher, 2% higher payment to win it. But basically like- You're also playing against the best players in the world. Correct. It's a little bit harder to earn that, right?

So it's kind of inflation adjusted. Like you don't need to worry about inflation, the oversized purses, you don't have to, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, compared to Tiger, like, you know, half the good players left for live. I was like, no, like four of the top 25 players in the world went to live, whatever. And Tiger also had the European tour back in his day,

all of that to explain like just, this is pretty much one of the best ways to look at like how consistent and how dominant you were. Very happy to hear you say that because I got a lot that relies on this stat. And if you had dismantled that, that would have been really tough for my case. So again, every player has a different number here, right? But they all should be relative to each other.

The average tour player this year, the average person in this stat won 5.3% of the money available to them, right? Scotty won 51% of the money that was available to him. Not counting the tour championship. Not counting bonuses. We're just talking on course. This is pre-Wedding the Tour Championship. Yes, that's what it looks like to win.

That's what it looks like to get the job done. I'm sure I do not need to tell you that's 20% higher than Xander was in this stat. That's significant. This stat is only available on the tour's website going back to 1987. So it's not like it's like super complicated, but I wasn't going to be able to find all the other stuff. So this doesn't count, you know, Hogan and Byron Nelson's crazy season and Jack Nicklaus and whatever. But since 1987, since this stat started being kept, when the tour leader of this stat

is not named Scottie Scheffler or Tiger Woods, they average right about 30% of potential money won. So usually like quote unquote, the best player every year is usually right around 30%. So I will throw you a bone here, even with Scottie hoovering up as much cash, even with him taking all that money out of the economy, Xander was still there at like 29.6.

So like Xander had a fucking great year. Like if I looked at this, Rom never got above 30%. I don't think in any of his seasons. Correct. Like Rory's best was like 36 or 37% or something. I think that's right. I have it pulled up. I can, I can find it. In that span, there are two people with enough starts. So there's like sometimes you have like David Lin who like finished high in the PGA championship

and that was his only event he played, you know? So you have like- You gotta have a minimum in there. Weird ones like that. So like with the DJ Pi adjusted minimum, there are only two people that have ever clocked in north of 40%. That is of course Tiger Woods and Scottie Scheffler.

Technically you could throw Bryson in there this year if you want. He played four events and he won, he was at 48% of the events that he played. Like that's, that's massive. And those were all great. But I think you got to throw out and I'm going to ask you to throw out 2008 for Tiger. It was comical. It was like 78% or something, but he only played like six. Exactly what it was. I just looked at this. So I'm happy to throw that out. I was gonna say, Tiger's the goat of this stat and many other stats, and I think, please don't clip this, okay?

But I think a lot of people like to assume like, oh my God, Tiger had 25 years that were better than anything Scotty even fucking sniffed this year, and that is not true. That's not the case. And so- People had an issue when I tweeted this, that I said Tiger only had three seasons

better than Scotty had just had. When I said only- Or if you throw out 2008. Throw out 2008, yeah. So I said only had three full seasons that were better than Scotty's year this year. People got mad that I said only. It's like, no, no, Tiger's the goat.

But out of 25 year career 25 year career only three of those specific years from this one from scotty like it's crazy man it's crazy so to run down those those four you could throw out 20 2008 if you want worth mentioning he won 78 of the money that was available to him 2000 maybe the greatest year ever. He won 63% 2006. He won 58% 2007. He won 54%. So what does that mean? That means that in this specific stat, this, this stretch that everybody holds up as like the Pantheon 1999 to 2005, Scotty beat them every year except for 2000, which I think is, I think is fascinating, man. Again, that's like,

they're not playing against each other. Like I get it. We're comparing eras and it's kind of clunky, but I think that's worth mentioning and like illustrative of how fucking dominant he was this year. And also worth mentioning that now, like this version of the PGA tour, yeah, they've lost some of the best players to live, but now the best players are all playing together more often than they were in Tiger's era. Like, it was not necessarily all of the top 20 players. Starting his year at Farmers where a bunch of other guys aren't playing. Exactly.

You know, exactly. Which side am I on here? I keep forgetting. I was gonna say, this is gonna be great. We can both just argue the same side. All right. So a couple of like actual golf things like to get away from money a little bit and how he did them. So a lot of these are kind of the basics. You probably know these 20 starts, including the Olympics, eight wins, including the Olympics and the dumb tour championship. You count that if you want. I don't care. Average finish was T about T seven at those 20 starts, which is bananas takeout is two outliers,

kind of the BMW in the U S open where you had kind of clunkers average finish was fourth. Uh, in the other 18 events, that's again, bananas, only finished outside the top 10 three times. Yeah. Do you want me to say that? Again, only finished outside the top 10 three times his winning percentage in official PJ tour events to keep it apples to apples with tiger, uh, almost 37%. Again, since 1983, there are only four seasons that are, have been better than that tiger in 06, 2007 and 99. No one else has ever even sniffed that.

I think Vijay and his 2004 stretch was somewhere around like maybe 30, 30%, 31%, something like that. You know, the only kind of barbs I'm going to throw him and Xander played against each other in 17 tournaments. If you counted those like head to head rounds, so like they're both playing the same tournament on the same Thursday, who played better? Scotty's winning percentage was like 550 against Xander. Like he was, it was, you know, close. But again, like Xander had a player of the year type of year and Scotty was just like markedly better than him on a day to day basis. Cumulative score in those events, Scotty was like almost 30

shots better than Xander across those 17 tournaments. That's honestly closer than I thought it would be. Yeah, same. A lot of that is like, I mean, and you can throw that back in my face later that a lot of those important head to heads were at the majors, but I'm sure we'll get there later. Walking right into my chair. Yeah, exactly. God, I gotta stop trapping myself here.

All right, so let's get just a little bit more granular. I'm gonna try to put this in, I wanted to put this in your language, let's be the data boy here. The PJ Tour tracks 130 stats on their website. I threw out, there's one like scrambling from the fringe or something that gets like wonky, so I threw that out. I hope that's okay. I hope that doesn't ruin my data set. I'll say upfront, probably not the best way to do this because some of these

are like very messy and kind of stupid. You know, it's, it's things like longest putt, longest drive, you know, whatever. But there's also like approaches from 150 to 175 from the fairway, 150 to 175 from the rough, you know, putts per round in round one, putts per round in round two. So like it's very, very, very granular stuff that you could either say is like very noisy or it's like a very comprehensive look at, at the whole season. So 130 stats, Scotty led 26 of them, which is insane considering there's probably what? 250 people in each one of those stats, something like that. He was the solo leader in 26 of

them. He was a top 20 player in more than half of them, 68 of them specifically. And usually there's a bunch of like, again, like weird outliers where you fall like way down the board if you don't have like the long, you know, some like bomb longest putt or longest drive or, you know, you only had one putt from a certain range or whatever. There's like an easy, easy way to fall down the board on a lot of these stuff. But he was a top 125 player in 124 of the 130 stats like that. That's truly dominant stuff. So what I wanted to do was compare this year to last year because he was player of the year last year, amazing season, two wins, 17 top tens, uh, in 23 starts, 33% of potential money won. So like, again,

very, very dominant year last year, right? So let's go back to those, those 130 stats from last year, he got better or stayed the same in 92 of them. 92 of 130, he improved or stayed the same. And a lot of those stayed the same was because he was already leading those and he just was leading them again. So he improved in 92 of 130 of them from his player of the year campaign last year. This year, he improved his rank again over the player of the year. He improved his rank in nine of those by over a hundred places. So like putting from 10 to 15 feet,

he went from 174th to 37th. So like, what does that mean? It means from that 10 to 15 foot range, he made 9% more putts. That's so many. That's so many. Think about how many birdies and pars he's gonna 162nd to like 69th, nice improvement. It was 56% of the time, but he was up to like,

I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but he was up to like, I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but he was up to like, I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but he was up to like, I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but he was up to like, I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but he was up to like, I don't know if it's a good thing, he went from 162nd to like 69th. Nice improvement. It was 56.5% from eight feet. So six and a half percent better than there you go. That's a lot. That's what I was going to say. There's a specific verbiage in here about him being an above average putter. And that's like very much rooted in fact and stats. That's not, that's not the eye test.

That's, that's sinking in there from the haters and losers who are going to want to say so. One thing I thought was interesting is club head speed was down pretty significantly this year. I think he lost like eight yards in his driving distance, but he became a top 20 player on the tour in driving accuracy. That's not fair. It's not fair, truly.

Nobody is matching up how to drive it long and straight better than him, other than maybe Ludwig, who does not hit his irons even close to what Scottie does. So if we go back even farther, we go to the 2021 version of Scottie, who still really, really good player. He top-10 in three of the four majors in 2021. He made the Tour Championship. If we go back to our beloved potential money earned, he was similar to like what Aaron Rye was this year. Just like a good player there every year, makes a ton of cuts, very, very solid. Anybody would be happy with that for the most part.

Since that version of Scotty, this version of Scotty is 1.7 shots better every day. From inside 100 yards, he now hits it five feet closer than that version of Scotty is 1.7 shots better every day. From inside 100 yards, he now hits it five feet closer than that version of himself, five feet. From 100 yards to 125 yards, he now hits it almost seven feet closer than that version of himself. He gets up and down almost 10% more of the time.

In 2021, he made bogey 15% of the time. That's now under 10. Oh my God. And he did all of that while becoming an above average putter. Like it's not fair, man. He completely like, we'll get to it. You wanna hear the Tiger comparisons?

Do I? Okay, so there's only one like really, really great Tiger year that like works with Shotlink, I feel like. Because I think Shotlink came in in 2008 and started to get pretty decent as far as strokes gained and a lot of the measuring stuff. So what I'm measuring him against here is 2009 Tiger. It should be four. 2004 is when Shotlink entered the fray. I was a volunteer doing entering stuff manually at the Memorial tournament.

There was some reason I did not pick those. I would have, maybe it was like number of rounds or something. Anyways, continue, sorry to derail you. That's okay. So I used 2009 as a fairly comparable year. Again, like winning percentage I think was. 2009 he won six times and 17

starts. Tiger did. Okay. So there you go. Fairly, fairly comparable kind of that's worldwide. I don't know if that's all PGA tour. Just glancing at that. But go ahead. So in those 130 categories, Scotty was better in 54. Tiger was better in 58. They were tied in 18. That's like kind of a toss up. I know all of these are not created equal and whatever. Here's the stats they both led. Strokes gained total. Tiger was about a half shot better. So he was like more dominant on the field, which is crazy considering everything we've just laid out the last 15 minutes. Strokes gained tee to green. Scotty was better here. Strokes gained approach. Tiger was a hair better from an iron perspective

Approach from 150 to 175 Scotty hit it a foot closer to him in that right closer than him in that range Scoring average both adjusted and actual tiger was actually like a half shot better, which is a ton That's that's crazy birdie average Scotty has averaged more birdies though than tiger Birdie or better percentage Scotty was way higher here round one scoring average Scotty was more than more birdies though than Tiger. Birdie or better percentage, Scotty was way higher here. Round one scoring average, Scotty was more than a shot better in round one. Par four scoring average, par five scoring average, Scotty's better at both of those and official money, of course.

Scotty was also better putting from 15 to 20 feet. He made almost twice as many of these putts as this year, as Tiger did in that range in 09. This is one of the, like they mentioned it on the, on the broadcast, a ton bounce back stat. So are you making a birdie after the, in the hole, after you make a bogey tiger did that 18% of the time, Scotty did that 32% of the time, 32, 32% of the time after he made, so he's only making bogey.

What did I say? 9.8% of the time, 32% of the time, he's erasing it immediately. A third of the time at that, that bogey just like doesn't exist. It's, it's a really, it's making his bogey rate like 6%. Right. Greens and regulation percentage. I know that's not everybody's favorite stat, but tiger hit 68%. Scotty hit 73% distance from the edge of the fairway. Are you. Are you familiar with this? Yeah, I like this one. I like this one too. So what does this mean? This means like when you miss a fairway, how far are you missing the fairway? Go way right. Go way right. Scotty is almost 10 feet closer.

So he like. Well that's intentional. I mean the better miss is usually a lot of these courses are wide. I will say driver technology from 2009 to 2024. Maybe you can throw that one out if you want. That's fine. Scotty three potted less and Scotty's final round scoring average was a lot better. Biggest difference on the tiger side is just putting inside 10 feet. Tiger was number one. Scotty was number one thirty three or one thirty. I'm sorry. So that's significant. A couple more just to kind of like,

just to kind of bring it home here. I mentioned the distance from the edge of the fairway stat. And again, I know I'm throwing a lot of stats at you, but here they're, they're, they're meant to kind of tell a story here. And again, like I said, this is when you miss a fairway, how much are you missing the fairway by as recently as 2022 Scotty was outside the top 100 on this stat. Like he was, he was dry. He was swinging hard and missing fairways by a lot this year. He led the tour in that stat. So the tour average is like 28 feet. You're missing, when you're missing a fairway, you're missing it by like 28 feet. Scotty's missing it by 18 feet. So he's 10 feet better than tour average in that.

So again, what that means is like, he's figured out six yards, like 18 feet is six yards. It's nothing. Right. It's nuts, man. And so I mean, it's obvious, but like what this means, like he's, he's figured out this optimized combo of how hard do I need to hit it? How straight do I need to hit it? As well as anyone on earth again, except maybe Ludwig. And he's hitting his irons better than anyone on earth as well. And so to drill into those approaches from 150 to 175, probably going to have a lot of those on tour. I would imagine leads to that category on average. He hits it about five feet closer than the average tour player

from that distance, which is think about standing over a five foot putt, like tack that onto on average, every single putt from that range approaches from a hundred to 125. Another one, where your birdie is coming from, probably there, right? Tour average 20 feet, six inches. Scotty's average 14 feet, nine inches. So since on average he's given on average less than 15 foot of her birdie. Yes. So, uh, since shot links started in 2003, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. is. There's no way you're going to guess who this is. Zach Johnson. Close. Similar type of player. Tim Clark. Close. That kind of reminds me of each other. Tim Clark in 2009 beat him by like five inches

or something like that. Jesus. And Tim Clark was 150th in driving distance that year. So it's not like he was nuking the ball the way Scottie was. So I don't know, man. I mean, that's kind of my case is like, he's just improved so dramatically over past versions of himself. And he's improved in pretty much every area. He's figured out how to drive the ball, the perfect combo of long and straight. He's figured out how to make a strength, his iron play even better. And he's turned himself into an above average putter.

And like, again, I know we kind of said a lot of that stuff all year, but when you really dig into the data of like, yeah, no, he hits it seven feet closer from there. He hits it five feet closer from there, four feet closer from there. It just like starts to stack up and become wildly inevitable and just kind of overwhelming.

Well, like this is obvious here, but no one else can do that. Like that's, it's not exciting. It's not especially exciting a lot of the stuff that you went through, but like, literally no one else in the world can do that stuff. Right. Right. It's not done in the sexy way that Tiger did it,

but like that is the comp here. And again, like he's going to fall short to Tiger comps. He's got to do this for a lot longer if we're ever going to get there. He's going to fall short to a few Tiger comps's got to do this for a lot longer. If we're ever going to get to fall short to a few Tiger comps, that's I think maybe my overarching point is like, yeah, man, 2000, like Tiger was a lot better, you know, like 2006, 2007, Tiger Tiger won more Tiger beat the field by more like it was more dominant.

But there are quite a few years in there where it's like, no, he's doing like what Tiger did on some of those, you know, B level years. And that is where I guess that's kind of my closing argument is like, when we got through the Masters this year, we start talking Grand Slam and we start talking like, this is the first X since Tiger, the first Y since Tiger. Like that's where that's coming from. And I truly more than ever, I'm like, dude, we're not off base on that. This is, this is totally legitimate. Can I ask you this? Do you think there's a chance? Can Scotty be the third best player of all time? Yeah, I think so. I think so. Right. I mean, it's like, you have to win a ton of fucking

majors. Yeah, it's true. But again, it's like, it's like we've said with we've said this with Rom, we've said this with Hovland kind of sort of to an extent. It's like a lot of these players do everything well to where it's not like honestly, man, I know we recorded a big Rory pod today. I don't know if that's come out yet or not, but has not like looking back on a lot of those years, it's like, yeah, he was, he had some really good iron play years. He had some really good putting years,

but like the thing was the driver and it's like, okay, that's clearly where, where the, you know, advantages coming from. And it feels like a lot of the rest of golf has kind of caught up to that skill. They don't drive it quite as far. They don't drive it quite as straight, but like they've closed that gap. It's a lot of long drivers. It's like the...

And I'm like, man, Scott... Yeah, selecting the long drivers. Scottie has a gap on like in a lot of these different facets. It's not like he's just like, no, he just drives it farther than everybody. So that's how he keeps winning these things. Shout out like Bryson. I know Bryson does a lot of things well, too, but not quite to this level. So I guess where I'm where I'm coming from is like, whoever that

third best player is going to be is either going to have to be so fucking dominant with the driver, which we kind of thought Bryson, you know, when he won at wing foot is like, God, maybe that's what like modern golf looks like. Maybe somebody will be so dominant that they turn into that person. But I think what's more likely is like, no, it's just gonna be somebody who does everything well and drives it far enough to be the dude. So like, who knows? We haven't really seen him go through any injury stuff. Who knows what goes on with the neck? Who knows what goes on with being a dad? Who knows what, you know, how he handles that stuff? I know we can be prone to hyperbole here, but like, I don't think it's controversial to be like, obviously, of the people doing it right now. like, yeah, he's the guy that has the best chance.

I think Phil is the best, is probably still the better comp, accounting for likely regression in some kind. I don't know if he has a level above this. I'd be surprised if he does. Like, that would be disrespectful to this past year to say, I think he can get even better. But I don't think you're carried away, man.

I'm happy that somebody is on this with me of like, yo, he's fucking believe in this? Cause it's a little tiresome to do the Scotty stats after every week, but like, man, we're witnessing it right here, right in front of us. So, do you have anything else before you bring your case to a conclusion? I got a couple superlatives,

but you want to do those now or later? We can do that later, I think. Okay. Unless you're ready. Now we're gonna talk a lot of majors. We're gonna talk a lot about that. You knew where that was going. Who you know, of course, who could forget the duel between Bryson and Rory down the stretch of the 2024 US Open and who among us is going to want to try Bryson's shot from the bunker to see if they can get up and down. The beauty of Pinehurst is that you can recreate those moments

with a gallery up on the veranda watching you, adding your own pressure. Don't forget, just a couple of months before the US Open reminded everyone what kind of a gem number two is. Pinehurst opened a brand new course, Pinehurst number 10. It opened in the spring of 2024, designed by Tom Doak. It features dramatic elevation changes, natural sandy areas and remnants of an early 20th

century sand mining operation. Just wait till you see the eighth hole which you guys immediately sent pictures of our slack right into as soon as you saw it. Golf Di just said number 10 there are holes out there unlike anything else not just here but anywhere. Piners of course continues to invest in present in the future, making it better and better every year renovations at the Carolina are now complete, offering fresh and inspired takes on its guest rooms,

and Lobby Piners even debuted another new restaurant, the Carolina Vista Lounge, an expanded cocktail bar with a contemporary menu unlike any other at Piners, offering guests a stylish and satisfying respite, befitting its setting in the historic Carolina Hotel. Looking back, just between the two most recent US Opens, 2014 and 2024, it's been a huge era of evolution for Pinehurst. They opened the Cradle short course. It's been wildly popular. They redesigned Pinehurst number four. They got consistent

praise for the Pinehurst Brewing Company. I can keep going. Check out Pinehurst. You guys know all about it. There's so many incredible offerings and they continue to evolve there. It never stops getting better. And that is definitely to be the case in 2025. So get on it, book your trip now. And I think, I think going back to what I was, I was kind of saying the one thing from Scotty's season, you might be able to replicate is his performance at Pinehurst. There you go. You can go out there and hit it all over the joint and try to, you know, try to make some birdies from the pine straw. Like how cool is that? Dej, all right. I played ball. You threw a lot at us there and you're half. I'm going

to do things a little differently on my end, but first I need some participation from you. Obviously I got my clients on trial, but I'm going to put you on the stand as a witness. Okay. So I'm just going to begin this. I'm going to ask, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? So help you God. Nothing would make me happier. Okay. DJ on September 9th, 2007, the New England Patriots opened their season. Do you remember who they played that year? I don't recall. Okay. They played the Jets. They won 38 to 14. Okay. A week later, they returned home to Dillett Stadium for another game. Do you remember who they played in that game? I don't recall. They played the Chargers. They won 38 to 14 again, shockingly.

Same score, back to back weeks. Do you remember what play, we could go week by week if you want, but do you remember what played out for the remainder of that regular season for the Patriots in 2007? Did they go undefeated? They won every game, that is correct. So they go 16 and 0, they get a bye to the divisional game.

Do you remember who they played in the divisional game? No, I don't recall. They play the Jacksonville Jaguars. They beat them 31 to 20. I'm going to assume you also don't remember. They advanced the AFC Championship. You don't remember who they played there? I don't. Okay, they beat the Chargers 21 to 12. But 17 years later, Mr. Pajowski, if I asked you to remind me what happened in Super Bowl 42,

I'll bet you can tell me and remember you are under oath. What happened in Super Bowl 42? I'll bet you can tell me and remember you are under oath. What happened in that Super Bowl? I remember that they lost. I'm not a huge football fan. Who did they lose to? The Giants? They lost to the Giants 17 to 14. That is coming up here in a few questions. So they, the Giants win the Super Bowl. The Giants got rings for winning that, didn't they? Sure. they did. They got a Super Bowl parade. They did. David Tyree, obviously you remember that name. Of course, who could forget?

The Patriots won every game that season, but did not win the game that mattered the most. Would you agree with that statement? Agree. Agree. It's all about the big dance. The 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors. Do you remember what they were known for? Could that possibly be the team that lost the 3-0 lead? They were a team that lost the 3-1 lead, but they won 73-9 that year. It was the most wins,

of course, in NBA history. Did they get a parade that year? I don't believe they did. So you are telling me then with your testimony that after the greatest regular season in the history of the NBA, maybe the greatest team ever assembled, that the fans did not pour into the streets and celebrate with that team the end of that season. That's what I'm telling you. I think that's exactly what happened. That's interesting.

Do you remember what happened to the 2015 Carolina Panthers? What they were known for? Did they go winless? They went 15 and one actually in the last Superbowl. And there must be a reason you don't remember that 1998 Vikings, a similar story. I do remember that one actually. 2001 Seattle Mariners. Do you remember what they're known for?

Well, they're all juicing though. They won 116 games and lost to the Yankees in the ALCS. I'm going to ask you this question, Mr. Pajowski. Consider you somewhat of a sports fan. Some of your testimony is going up against this, but who would you consider to be a greater NFL quarterback? Tom Brady or Peyton Manning? Oh my gosh, well, because of the rings,

I have to say Tom Brady. That's interesting. Would you say that that's a widely held belief shared amongst- I would also say Scotty has the same number of majors as Xander, if that's what you're saying. We're talking 2024 though. That's not what we're talking about here. Would you say it's a widely held belief among sports fans? That's what I think it's commonly referred to as the GOAT. Yeah, I've seen a lot of emojis, things of that nature. By GOAT you mean greatest of all time just for the joke. Okay.

So is it also fair to say that it's a widely held sports belief that the post season is more important than the regular season? I would, and I would add for the jury's benefit that my client won the post season and came out on top. So when it comes to golf, is it fair to say that it is different than a lot of other major American sports and that the most important events

are not played at the end of the season? Is that a fair statement? I don't think it would be for me to decide that. I think you'd have to, you'd have to talk to, you know, a larger fan base. I think, I think I would point to the PGA tour, one of the governing bodies of the sport who I believe calls the tour championship, there's their super bowl. Okay. Right. But would you save amongst a lot of people that follow the game? We could call Tyler the Creator to the stand. We could spend as much time on this as you'd like. And you know what, I was going to do this a little bit later, but I do have Exhibit A that I'm going to ask. You know, I'm going to share here on the screen. This is the cover page because I didn't want you to see this ahead of time. But just if you could please read a few of these quotes. You can stop whenever you'd like here.

There are quotes from Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Rory McIlroy, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka, and Jordan Spieth, but you can start at the top if you don't mind. This is number one, Tiger Woods. The majors are what it's all about. That's where you want to shine. That's where you are measured by

at the end of your career, Jack Nicklaus. I've always said that my career is judged by how I perform in the major championships. Winning majors is what it's all about. Number three, Rory McIlroy. The majors are the pinnacle of the majors is what it's all about. Number three, Roy McElroy. The majors are the pinnacle of the sport. You can win all the regular tour events you want, but the majors are what define your career.

You might want to update that one. Number four, Phil Mickelson. Winning a major is different. It's a dream come true. I'd trade a lot of my wins for another major championship. Make him an offer. I'm sure he would do that. Number five, Brooks Koepka.

The majors are what gets my attention. It's where I focus. It's what drives me. I want to be remembered as a major champion. And finally, number six, Jordan Spieth. Majors are what we're judged on. It is what we practice for. It's what we play for. And that's where you want to peak. I can't believe you left off the Padraig Harrington quote from the initial FedEx Cup promos that said when your career's over, people are going to judge you by how many FedEx cups you won. Remember that? I literally did chat GBT for those things.

Sum up the greatest major champions views. That's what it gave me. That was really, I fact checked those two. Those are real quotes. I didn't know chat GBT had evolved into that. Anyways, so just a few more questions as it relates to this. Are we ready to concede the point that the largest events in golf are the major championships and they do not happen at the

end of the season? Is that for the sake of argument? Yeah, I think. Thank you. Do you remember who won the most PGA Tour events in 1998? Marco Mira. That is incorrect. The answer there was David Duvall.

Do you remember who won the most major championships in 1998? Marco Mira. That is correct. That's interesting that 26 years later, that you have such a fond memory of who won the major championship in that week. So just going back again a little bit here, in the year 2000, big year in golf, obviously Augusta hosts the first major.

Then we go to Beth Page. Then we go to Muir Field, Hazel Teen. Tiger Woods won a lot, five times to be exact. How many of those wins can you name? Well, of course he won a Kapalua in a duel with Ernie Els. In 2002, that is incorrect. Oh, 2002? Yes.

I thought you said 2000. I said 2002. Yep. You know what? That's going to be a tough one. I can remember the Masters solid and I can remember winning at Beth Page. So you remember the two majors in that. He also won the, he won Bay Hill.

He won the Buick open. He won the WGC American Express. Is it fair to say, I don't know if that year was in Ireland, but he did win. I think it was actually, but is it fair to say that it's easier to remember his major championship wins than his PGA tour wins?

I think that's fair to say. Yeah. Okay. So if I gave you a million dollars, all right, to try to for every one you get right for every answer you get of Tiger Woods wins. And as soon as you missed one, you're done. You're out. You got to name the year and the tournament. If you get one wrong, you lose. Could you get to 15 PGA Tour events before naming 15 major wins? Oh, man. What a good question. I think I could probably get close. You would risk the $15 million because you could name all 15 of these. I think I would probably take the sure thing. Now why would you say that is?

Why would you say that is about these majors versus the regular PGA Tour events? I would go back to what your esteemed panel of major champions and the biggest stars in the game said. That's what fans care about. That's where legacies are defined. That's interesting. OK. I'm going to read you. It sounds like we've already made the case,

but I'm going to keep going because I put a lot of work into this. But I'm going to read you a list of players. I want you to tell me what these players have in common. Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Gary Player, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Ernie Els, Nick Fowdo, Greg Norman, Seve Byesteros, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Phil Mickelson, Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Ernie Elsnick, Fouto, Greg Norman, Seve Ballesteros, Arnold Palmer, Peter Thompson, Bobby Locke, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Gene Serres, and Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, Lee Trevino, and Xander Strathley. Do you know what

all of those players have in common? Man, everybody except Xander. I think you could combine all of their career earnings and it'd be less than Scottie's as well. But you know, I think they're all major champions. If I won the Open championship, that's what I was going for. Is Scottie Scheffler's name on that list? It's not, not yet. One of the oldest trophies in sports names etched on them for eternity. Some names etched larger than others. The Claret jug champion golfer of the year, Xander Schauffele's name is on that trophy.

And Scottie's is not. Is that correct? That's correct. How many times have they played it? I wonder. 152 times. No, no, no. The two players. How many times has Xander played it versus how many times has Scottie's is not, is that correct? That's correct. How many times have they played it? I wonder. 152 times. No, no, no, the two players. How many times has Xander played it versus how many times has Scottie played it? I'm the one asking the questions here.

You're on trial. So is it, would you agree that that championship is more prestigious than a championship named after a multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business services in Memphis, Tennessee that begins with a staggered start format? That one specifically, yes. I would rather win the open probably. Do you like data,

Mr. Pajowski? Sure. Who doesn't? Do you trust the folks over at Data Golf to calculate what tournaments are the hardest tournaments to win? There's no one I would trust more. If I told you the hardest tournaments to win this year would have been the US Open Open Championship and PGA Championship, would that sound accurate to you? That would sound accurate. Did your client win any of these tournaments? No, he did not. To be fair, he was in the slammer for one of those. Do you recognize that Xander Schauffele won not one,

but two of those tournaments? I do. Did you intentionally leave the Masters off of this list? It was not ranked as one of the even top four hardest tournaments to win in the past year because I believe Masters has a limited field and a lot of past champions playing in that that are not as competitive. Can you tell me also in this modern era of golf, what makes these major championships

particularly unique compared to say, 2001 and prior? I would say due to the fractured nature of the world of golf, the major championships are the only places where we see all the world's best players playing under the same tournament. Do you consider, as a fan and a traveler yourself, do you consider the Lynx style of golf to be an exacting test of golf

and a worthwhile test of golf? Worthwhile, certainly. I'd say there's a good bit of randomness associated with regards to playing conditions, weather, things of that nature. And you got to have a lot of outside forces that kind of negate talent. But yeah, I would say it's certainly worthwhile. Interesting. Interesting. Would you call it proper? I would say it's proper. Okay. Thank you. I could do the whole charade if you'd

like. Again, I could list the names on the PGA championship as well. Kind of an afterthought in this, you know, one of the strongest fields in golf that also happened this year. I think you kind of get where I'm getting at Mr. Pajowski in terms of- Can I ask you one real quick? Would you rather win the PGA or the Masters twice? Well, we're talking about 2024. So you can't win it twice in one year unless it's 2020. Okay. Yeah. I'm refusing to answer the question. Noted. I think there's a lot more that comes with winning a Masters than compared to a PGA championship, I think would be my answer to that.

Did Xander win the long drive this year at the PGA? Bubba ruined that. I don't think they get to do that anymore. You get a money clip? Just a couple of wrap up questions here. Of Scotty's eight wins this year, how many of those came in full field 156 man events? That's a great question. Gosh. Did any of them?

I'm going to say zero. You are correct. That was zero. And how many of Xander's victories came in 156 man events? I would say two. That is correct. Both majors. Both of his major championships

were full field major championship. Lots of Plumbers and Firemen club pros, qualifiers of guys, some weird qualifiers with 17 guys that have proof proofs. I don't think you want me to fall down. I don't think you want me to read off the stats of these fields. I'm just gonna wrap this,

I think you understand where my line of questioning is headed, Mr. Bihalski. I'm just going to wrap it with this. Did you not yourself say that majors are the only thing that matters? I did say that on multiple occasions. Ladies and gentlemen, the jury, I do rest my case. Andrew Schauffele is your 2024 player of the year. Thank you so much for your time. That was compelling. So, you know, I love it.

I think you really turned over every stone there. I didn't want to go full data route. It is just the, the more I got into, I was like, I'll do Xander for the fun of it. And like the more I got in, I was like, what the, what are we doing here? Like, like seriously, like the PGA tour stuff. What's the stuff that impresses you most data wise about, about Xander? So I don't have as much, you know, as you do, but Zander posted a career high of strokes, gaining of 2.21 in 2023. And he raised that to 2.72 in this past year,

like, 2.2 is insane. It gets really freaking good. And he was already a wildly good golfer, but he kind of looked like he was like plateauing. And I just didn't know that he had this extra gear in him and to gain a half shot off 2.2 you become the number one player in the world almost every other year than this one. I mean, truly. I mean, Rom like did like the 2.7 thing for like a little period of time in 2023. That was I think the start the year and but he did

not sustain it all the way through the year. And like Xander's like the year this year was better than Rom's last year. But in Rom's last year was really freaking good. He doubled his strokes gain off the tee this past year. He was the fifth best driver of the golf ball in strokes gain off the tee in all of golf. Or I'm sorry, when I say all of golf,

that is PJ Tour golf because we don't get strokes gain data by component on the lift tour. He's the third best iron player, the fourth best short game and the third best putter. He's top five in all four components of the game. He averaged 183.25 miles an hour off the tee this year, 10th on tour, faster than Big Tone and Cam Young. That's up four miles an hour from last year alone,

up 5.3 from 2022, up six miles an hour from 2021, and seven and a half miles an hour from the turn of the decade, from 2020, like less than half a decade ago. He's up seven and a half miles an hour in ball speed. Jesus, man. That's nuts. It's just wildly, wildly impressive.

And I think it is like worth, no, again, you add up all of Scotty's components and they are better than Xander's, but like part of me does wonder when it comes to major championship, if this version of Xander Schauffele sustains, which is a big question, like again, same reasons, like I would not expect Scotty to repeat that year next year.

Like hopefully after 10 years of doing this podcast, we've learned our lesson on on the Morikawa thing. It was brief and it's not been the same since then. The speed thing was obviously brief and it's not been the same since then. Rory's had really sustained success, but these huge outlier years do not indicate the same level of success in the next year.

We've seen too much of it come and go. But if that is the case, I wonder if Xander's putting skill being that much better than Scottie's is going to play better in major championships. Because I think that major championships are asked and maybe throw Augusta out of that, right? Obviously, Scottie has shown a great fit for that golf course. And he, you know, that that fits the checks a lot of the different boxes for him all that like when you put a full man field out there, it's just a bigger chance that somebody is going to get hotter with the putter. And it just seems like there's no you know, if there's

any chicken the armor when it comes to Scottie's ball striking, he's not gonna win, right? He doesn't win with less than his best ball striking. Whereas dude, Xander just freaking gets it again, seven tenths of a shot per round with a putter. That's so unfair for a ball striker of that quality. Like Scottie is just barely above average since the mullet. And like Xander is one of the best putters in the world.

He was not far away from switching to a mullet as well. I think for an exorcism on those screens, like he doesn't doesn't, straight up, doesn't ever lose strokes in a single tournament. He went, he lost nine hundredths of a stroke at the Tour Championship. The most recent event before that, that he actually lost strokes on the green, was below average for one single tournament, was Pebble Beach, when he was barely, he was negative 0.14. Which are weird greens, like in the first place. Yes, I mean, farmers, he struggled on the greens and he finished T9 also, but like,

he had four total tournaments this year where he was even negative and only one tournament where he was actually like a bad putter this entire year. Like it's insane on top of like being way above average off the tee, way above average with your iron play and an excellent short game. Like again, he's not super human with the irons like Scottie is, but he is just a kind of a freak. And I just don't want that to be lost in this year. I think there's also something to be said for

all the data stuff makes perfect sense and illustrates exactly what I think both of us have seen this year as far as the leap goes. But I think there's something interesting about when that leap comes just from a vibes and scar tissue and that type of perspective, right? Where like, if you look at the, you know, if I'm moving my hand and like charting Colin's career, like he's the hottest shit in the world in college. He comes out on the tour where he's the hottest shit in the world. He wins two majors and he is here before he finally gets punched in the face. And now has to dig himself out. And it seems like he's doing that and he had another good year and probably will have a

good year next year too. But I think there's something to be said for digging yourself out of that hole after you've already gotten a taste of what it's like to be said for kind of like digging yourself out of that hole after you've already gotten a taste of What it's like to be the best player in the world I think Xander's a little different man where it's like he's kind of gotten punched in the face in some very public spots Hmm over and over and over on the way up and you could kind of see it just at the open, right? where it's like Like the weight being off from winning at Valhalla And coming down the back nine of that golf tournament, like he just looked

lighter than he ever has. He looked like he is, you know, like, okay, I'm, I'm this dude now, like, I'm okay to, I've, I've made my way through the door. It took a really long time. But I'm here and like, I'm much more comfortable than I used to be. And I think that's a very, again, I know that's not quantifiable, but it's very interesting. And I think you say the same thing about like Rory, right? Where we're kind of talking about that on, I mentioned that's a very, again, I know that's not quantifiable, but it's very interesting. And I think you say the same thing about like Rory, right? Where we're kind of talking about that on, I mentioned that other Rory pod that that'll

be coming out, but like winning multiple majors by eight and then struggling is a lot different than like struggling, struggling, struggling and breaking through. Yeah. Well, it's also like, first of all, I just want to show you a quick shot of his profile, of the perfect, if you're watching this on YouTube, like his, just go to his PGA TOUR stats page and it's like a perfect pentagon of just being at the extreme edges of every single skill group.

But there's like, the one place there's room for improvement on is like his iron play from 125 to 200. He's like ranked 63rd, 54, 51 in those little 25 yard buckets. Like that can improve, right? I mean, that's not bad, but like he can be bad. He's driving it as if you're going to drive it into that range, like you could be tighter with your dispersions on

some of that and make a big leap. Which I would love to talk to him or Chris Koma or whoever about it, but like maybe for the last year and a half, like they've just been focusing on nothing but gaining speed with the driver and turning that into like a full blown weapon. Like that's what you talk to players who have played with Xander for, you know, five plus years and they're like, yeah, no, he like used to be long. Now it's like, man, why are people not talking about how freaking long he is? And that's where it's like, maybe they, you know, I know it's not that easy.

You don't solve something and then it's just solved forever, but you know, like they can maybe turn the spotlight on that in the off season. And like, maybe I wouldn't be surprised if that does improve next year. These are talking about five iron players. Like it's not, and look, that PGA tour stats are not the best because they don't, they don't

adjust for field strength. So like it flattens all of all of the events and that's why I use data golf for a lot of that stuff. And like you can even do that for approach buckets and all that. So they might spit out way different numbers than that. I was pulling that off the PGA tour website. But you know, I kind of started this a little bit as a bit of like, I'm going to defend Zander when it's kind of undefendable.

But like I did pull back to think like, Scottie's going to have to win a lot of majors. He really is going to have to win a lot of it, or else this is all not going to get appreciated. And I don't mean to say PJ Tour events don't matter. Like what he did this year was just so wildly impressive. Like everybody out there, still the best players in the world, like 20 of the 25 best players in the world, playing on the course at the same time, all trying to do the same thing. And he's the only one that they don't repeat. That doesn't mean

nothing, right? But like three years from now, even you're going to struggle to list off the events he won specifically this year. Like that's what we think of PGA Tour events. And we're not going to forget that Xander won two majors this year. And it's the biggest thing. It really is the biggest thing. And in the, in, in the moment of the year, you can convince yourself like, add a plus gold medal plus tour championship. Like, yeah, that was a better year, but like now, man, we're going to remember how many majors Xander won this year.

And we've said all along, like, you know, that this is what matters. And I honestly, I think I truly do believe that. Scottie played better golf for the totality of the year. That's not arguable, but unless you really are valuing money in this, I don't know if Scottie's given up a 62 million, you know, compared to both of the 20 million

that Xander won. I don't think he's given up 40 million for an extra major, but maybe he would, I don't know. It's definitely an interesting conversation. It is, it is. I know, I agree. And that's where, in a way, it's like, I don't know, it kind of just makes for the perfect,

like, what do you care about and why do you watch golf? Which is kind of the point of the convo, I guess. Which again, consistent with how we've talked about this, is like that convo changed in 2022. Like it did. It did. And to the point where it's like, do the majors are going to be bigger? Majors are just going to be bigger.

And look, he also got the players gold medal and tour championship, like adds up to greater than just, you know, normal tour win, I think. But still it's like, I don't know. I also don't want to lose sight of the fact like Scotty did win the masters as well. For sure. It's not like we are one of player players, which will probably be a major eventually anyways And it's all retroactively get turned into a to a major victory. That's old news though He did win in very impressive fashion, but Who you taking for more major if you had to bet on who's going to win more majors in 2025?

Like Scotty, but it's close, man. It is close. I know. I know I just got done breathlessly until I was red in the face talking about how good Scotty is, and he is, but you're totally right about Xander, man. What golf course what golf course is that perfect Pentagon of skill sets? Like not going to play, you know, it's like, man, he's, he fits everywhere and he shows up every time. And when the lights are brightest, like he doesn't, you, you have said this a million times, and I totally agree that everybody lumps can't lay in Xander together. When they talk about majors and

when they talk about like these guys come up short these guys don't have it whatever like their major records could not be more different and now obviously that's been laid incredibly bare but even before that it was like man Xander I don't know it's kind of the old suspending all the big tone bits and whatever but like you got to play so well to be's a lot of fun to be able to play a lot of different things. I mean, I think it's a lot of fun to be able to play a lot of different things. I mean, I think it's a lot of fun to be able to play a lot of different things.

I mean, I think it's a lot of fun to be able to play a lot of different things. I mean, I think it's a lot of fun to be able to play a lot of different things. I mean, I think it's a lot of fun to be able to play a lot of different things. I mean, I think it's a lot of fun to be doing it for a long time. So as much as I, my gut is Scotty, Scotty, Scotty, Scotty, Scotty. It is close, man. I don't know.

I'll give you this little trivia question. Uh, Picanoli has played 31 majors Xander 30. So just call it the same. How many top fives do each of them have? I think this can't lay get his first this year. Uh, he got a second this year at the U S and, and Zander has probably had, would you say 30, 31, 30 career major starts? Yeah. 10, eight top fives. Yeah. 15 top tens majors.

Yeah. God, that's not, he's only missed three cuts in majors and one was in 2017 when he was a rookie. Who's your take? Should we just put it on the record now? Get a little, you can, you can make up for your reds losing the season series. We'll let that 50 bucks ride. It's hard. It's hard to, I mean, it's hard to not think that it's Scottie's going to start the year

up one zero, right? That's kind of like, I would still clearly give Scottie the advantage to start the year up one zero, right? That's kind of, I guess I would still clearly give Scottie the advantage at Augusta. Zander's like maybe the best US Open player ever, right? And he hasn't even won that one yet. It's like a weird, like he shows up every year at the US Open. He's gone T5, T6, T3, fifth, T7, T14, T10, T7

in his, all of his US zero. It's a push. I think, I think we should do 50, 50 bucks for, for every major they win. Okay. Okay. I can get down with that handshake. Like that. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one.

I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's a good one. I think that's do 50 bucks for every major they win. Okay.

Okay. I can get down with that handshake on that. What better way to conclude this? I think so. And you got any superlatives? Do you want to get to go ahead? I don't have much. I kind of did them when we were talking about this.

I did it wrong. I have a bunch of like PGA tour superlatives for the year, but we'll have to save those for end of the year. Okay. Well, I just had two very, very, very quick ones and I just these are the best shot of the year for Xander, but go ahead. These are just some some wildly unnecessary drive-bys. These people did nothing wrong. Oh, you're all okay. And they they just are going to get drive-bys here going back to Scotty here, of course. 62.2 million dollars in earnings this. That passes Jason Day's career. Again, obviously that doesn't include Jason Day's bonuses, but every time Jason Day has

gotten on a plane, rented a car, checked into a hotel since he was 17 when he turned pro, Scotty just passed his career earnings in one year. Just for the listener's sake though, the $25 million bonus and $8 million Comcast don't count towards career earnings in one year. Just for the listener's sake, though, the $25 million bonus and $8 million Comcast don't count towards career earnings. Right. But I think it all counts in the same in the bank is what I'm getting at there. If you like the on course earnings, you just want to talk about the 29.2, that's fine. You know the name Andrew Novak? I'm sure. Great tennis player. That's Andrew Novak. He's a listener. He's a listener. Is he really? Yeah. I said, I said that he's a, he sounds more like a tennis player than a golfer. And he was like, I do got a sick back hit. That was a nice response. Well, Andrew probably already knows this then he made 1.53 million dollars on the PJ tour this year. Finished 80 something on the, on the money list. Excellent year. Who's, who's saying that, you know, no to a million and a half bucks. Scotty made $1.54 million per tournament. So, uh, that's, that's tough for that's straight on course to just on course.

That's just cause probably in less events too, I guess you made like 820 K per round, including the bonuses. Glad you said that. Uh, jumping on the next one here, Hayden Springer shot 59 on the PGA tour this year. Finished number 124 on the money list, kept his card, you know, again, who's a rookie? Like who's, I actually, I don't know if he's a rookie or not. I assume so. Uh, you know, who's mad about that finishing 124 on the money list. That used to be a huge, huge deal. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, know if he's a rookie or not. I assume so.

You know, who's mad about that finishing one twenty four on the moneyless. That used to be a huge, huge deal. He made eight hundred and twenty six K on the PGA tour this year. After the bonus money, Scotty made eight hundred and twenty nine K for every single round. So I get again, it's not apples to apples because Hayden Springer got like one hundred and like 150 grand for FedEx Cup bonus money. But if you're taking Hayden Springer's on course earnings this year, okay? Every single day that Scottie teed it up, he made his season over and over and over

and over and over. Think about it, Scottie made more than the presidential salary every nine holes. So yeah, that might be the place to wrap it. Just a historic, historic season. Really, really two historic seasons. I had mine. I couldn't. I was just a little more historic. Yeah. I couldn't think it all the way through, but I was trying to come up with something to say like, Scottie should like, he should say, all right, if J Monahan, Yasser, you guys can work out a deal within the next like two months, I'll donate the whole 25 million. He should say, all right, if J. Monahan, Yasser, you guys can work out a deal within the next like two months, I'll donate the whole 25 million.

And if not, like you guys are the fucking bad guys. You just cost a charity $25 million. I don't think that would actually move the needle, but I feel like Scotty would be the one guy like, I don't want the fucking money, just get this done. Like go get it done, let's get all back together. And maybe he doesn't even care about that because he just seems like playing golf

and just making birdies. I think that's what's so funny about this whole thing. That's kind of where I started bringing the Monahan stuff into this at all. It's like, that was the PJ Tour selling point, right? Is like, listen, things are fractured, fans don't know what to watch, ratings are going down, we're looking for title sponsors,

we're plugging holes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, man, if you go out and play golf right now, like you can really, really, really make some dough. And Scotty kind of seems like the dude who's like, hasn't really weighed in on anything. It doesn't like, I'm sure he cares privately what happens, but I think he's truly like, man, in the meantime, like living's pretty good out here. I could just keep beating these guys. And I'm like, I'm not going to do that. I'm going he cares privately on what, what happens, but I think he's truly like, man, in the meantime, like living's pretty good out here. I could just keep beating these guys and make careers worth of money every time that I step onto the first day.

It's just, it's wild. It's insane. So, all right, that's going to do it for a wrap of the 2024 PGA tour season. Obviously we'll have plenty of fall pause on all the fall events that are and all kinds of stuff, So that's it for the wrap of the 2024 PGA Tour season. Obviously we all have plenty of fall pods on all the fall events and all kinds of stuff. But don't know when we'll see you next on the pie man

on the pod, cause you got some life changes coming in the offing here very soon from, we'll see, hopefully soon. Maybe we'll get another one or two in the can here before we go. Could be, yeah. Well, that's the least part of the plan. Well, I appreciate your case and you making it here tonight, but throw it out.

It's a tie. No, I wouldn't. I want to hear the jury. I want to hear from the jury. We might even do a little poll on, on, uh, I have a feeling you're still going to win just cause people are probably aren't going to listen. It would vote for it, but I think there's enough voter enough single issue voters out there, man. Who just made majors. That's it. Sorry. Two to one. Yep. Which I respect as well. On that note, night, night Crack on and cheers. Cheers. Be the right club today. Better than most. How about him? That is better than most. How about in? That is better than most. Better than most!