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cover of episode 2022 PGA Championship Betting & DFS Preview

2022 PGA Championship Betting & DFS Preview

2022/5/15
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Andy Lack discusses his excitement for the Southern Hills golf course, highlighting its architectural beauty and the potential for an exciting viewing experience for golf fans.

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All right. Welcome in Inside Golf Podcast, PGA Championship, Betting and DFS Preview. My name's Andy Lack. It's probably the most excited I've been for a podcast in quite some time. I'm not going to lie. Not only because I love this golf course. It's one of the best golf courses I've ever played. In my personal rankings, I think I have it at seven. It just absolutely blew me away.

And I think it is going to be, in my opinion, the viewing experience of the year for golf fans, not just for people that love architecture. I think even if you don't care about that stuff at all, you're going to absolutely love this place. And I'll talk about all that stuff and why I believe that in a second. But first, we're presented by RickRungGood.com. I'm going to use a bunch of stats. I'm going to use a bunch of tools.

to talk about Southern Hills in this podcast. And all those stats and tools you can find at rickrungood.com. You can also find written work that I do. I write a Monday article, an in-depth course breakdown. I get even nerdier, believe it or not, in that one than I do on this podcast. And that article that I wrote is

Might be my Mona Lisa. It's probably the longest article I've ever written. There's a lot of really, really good stuff in there. So this is a very good time to sign up for the weekly pass promo code. Andy, it's $7. Not only with that, you get that full article, uh,

You get all of the rich cheat sheets, the holy grails, all the stats, full access to the site. The Slack channel, really good time to be in the Slack channel for majors as well. It's very happening. Got some great weather people in the Slack channel. Really, really smart DFS players in there as well. And speaking of DFS, I do another article on Wednesday, which is my final DFS preview, which...

I use all the information at my disposal, the weather, the updated ownership, where people are going, all that stuff. And I make final call on a lot of these players. And I say who I think are some interesting pivots, where I think the ownership is going to be. I'm working hard at my own ownership projections, work in progress. They're getting there. And yeah,

I enjoy that a lot and people seem to really enjoy that as well. I think it's really good info. Even, you know, even when we don't have good weeks, I always try hard. You can generally gleam a lot of information and crazy theories that I have from that one. So check that out. Rick run good.com promo code Andy. It's a great time to sign up again. Majors are probably the best time to sign up and you could get that for a week for $7.

What else? All right. Major championship. So I said last time I was so humbled by all of the reviews that I got last. I didn't even post this on Twitter or anything. I just wanted it to be for the people that really listened, but I'm absolutely going to do it again for a major. So if you leave a five-star review on Apple podcasts, um,

leave your Twitter handle or email, please, in that review. If you did it last time, do it again because I'm looking for reviews from this week for this specific giveaway. $200 PayPal. I forgot the name of the guy last time who won it, but he can attest. I paid him immediately. I'm a man of my word. So this is probably, these are the biggest weeks in terms of

growth for this podcast and hopefully getting some more people to listen to this pod and stick around for the other non-major weeks. Last time at the Masters, we got a bunch of new listeners and a lot of them stayed and talked about how they were kind of getting into even the non-major golf tournaments. So this is a big one for me. I put a lot of work into this one and I'm really excited for it. So please,

Please help share the show this week. I always want you to do that, but more so than others weeks, this one means a lot to me. What else? I don't think that's anything else. I talked about the review, five-star review on Apple Podcasts with your Twitter handle or email address. Did Rick run good? Byron Nelson, I don't know, kind of on a tight schedule today. We got a lot to get to.

I like where my head was at with the Justin Thomas pick. I really do. I think it's in play that he wins tomorrow. I think it's interesting that him and Spieth are right there, and they're in the same house. Maybe, you know, JT's talked about before...

how, you know, Spieth has had such a better career than him. And I think he measures that by majors. So I don't think that if he wins the Byron Nelson, he's going to feel like now he's got the upper hand on Spieth. That's not what I'm suggesting, but Spieth just won, right? I think JT, I hope he brings it tomorrow. That would be a very nice treat heading into the PGA championship.

But Spee's playing really, really good golf right now. So is Neiman, by the way, too. And we'll talk about those guys in a bit. But I think that's it for the Byron Nelson. I don't like this golf course. I don't think that's a hot take. I don't think a lot of people like this golf course. I know the Dallas people have been offended that people are being critical of the golf course. I don't understand that at all. If

If the PGA tour went to Rancho park and shot 30 under, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't be offended. I don't think that a bad golf course is a representation of Dallas from what I've heard. The golf there's excellent. I've heard some great things about Dallas national where Romo plays and whispering pines, I think is down there in that area too. They just, what's confounding about this golf course is they,

They actually are having it set up easier than it could be. Like they're actually, they're, they're clearly watering the greens in between rounds, which it's, it's hot. I don't think so. You certainly with bent grass, you do need to water it sometimes. But not to this extent. I mean, it's real, real track man golf right now. These screens are not as firm as I would have expected. And again,

They're moving up the tee boxes all over the place. Like this isn't playing 7,400 yards. They're moving up to three tee boxes every single day. It's playing closer to like 72. So I don't know. I mean, I think after a certain point, like when you watch a golf tournament, you want a situation where there is more variance in the sense that it goes in both directions, right? The only variance on this course is, is this guy going to make a birdie or a par or

I think good golf is measured by, okay, this guy has a hole coming up. He could make birdie par bogey, double bogey Eagle. Right. And this golf course, you just, it's basically two options. Like I was, I was sitting here watching JT a little bit today and he got to the clubhouse at 18 under par. And I think Munoz was at 21 and he had a couple of holes left. It's like, okay, I,

I know he's at 21 worst case scenario. Like there's no conceivable scenario where he gets the clubhouse at 18 or 19 or 20 under par because it's, it's really difficult to make a bogey on this course. You have to make a bunch of big mistakes and I don't think that's very fun. I think it's fun when there's a lot more variance and things can go in different directions, at least from a viewing standpoint. Right. I like,

pros hitting good golf shots and seeing golf shots being rewarded. The problem is I don't think this is penalizing any of the bad shots. You could just get away with too much and I don't find that fun, but it's going to be an interesting contrast from what we see this week, but I got nothing more to say in the Byron Nelson. Go JT. All right, let's talk about the PGA Championship. It's the strongest field in golf. This is the third time this tournament is being played in May.

Despite having the strongest field, this always feels like the one major that can be won by kind of an outsider or a first-timer. We've had Y.E. Yang, Martin Keimer, Keegan Bradley, Jason Day, Jason Duffner, Jimmy Walker. It was JT's first major. It was Mark Collar's first PGA. Those guys were all first-time major winners. And then we had Phil win last year at like 200-1. And then the two Brooks Koepke years.

This year, we're traveling to Southern Hills, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Like I said, a golf course that I love, a golf course that I've played before. I did play at Post-Hance Renovation. I played about 16 months ago. And last time we saw it on the PGA Tour was when Tiger Woods won here in 2007. It's a very different golf course now. It was designed in 1936 by Perry Maxwell.

Perry Maxwell is an unbelievable, talented architect, someone I admire a lot. He do a whole separate podcast on Maxwell. I hold him in very high regard. He drew a ton of influence from McKenzie. They both kind of come from a similar school thought in terms of the way that they look at golf course design. They actually work together on crystal downs, which is one of the greatest golf courses in the world.

So there's some Augusta that I think you'll notice in Maxwell's design philosophy when they see this golf course. I mean, just from a visual standpoint, not even getting into the strategic points, but elevated, undulating greens, interesting rolling topography, deep bunkers, elevation changes, and

There's a creek that's been completely restored and kind of meanders through Southern Hills that comes into play on multiple holes. Just aesthetically, I think people are going to notice how much it feels like Augusta. Now, the course has gone through a lot of changes over the years. It was renovated open doctor style by Robert Trent Jones in 1958.

God forbid. It's changed since then, luckily. Keith Foster did some work between the 2001 U.S. Open and the 2007 PGA. There's quite a bit of tree removal. There are some widening of the fairways. But the most significant one was what Hans did, Gil Hans did, starting in 2018, which is what he calls a—there are a lot of words for this—restorative.

He calls it a historic renovation, which I think is the best way to look at it. And it wasn't known when he did this work that this would be the 2022 PGA Championship venue, right? Because we remember Southern Hills was a last-minute sub for Trump-Bedsminster, but I think it worked out pretty well. I think people are going to be very happy when they get to see this golf course again with all the changes.

It is a par 70. I've gotten some questions about the scorecard. You know, I have it on the website is 73.35. Um, a couple of people, I think, think it's going to play 75. Um,

I don't think it's going to play 75. Well, I think it's going to play different every single day. Right. I think just looking at what the wind is like, I don't think they're going to set it up as long as 7,500 yards every day. It can play 75. I think it's going to play closer to like 73. It's going to change every day. There are a lot of options on this golf course. Um, they're going to have teas moved a bunch. If I had to make a guess, um,

There's just a lot of different things that you can do on this golf course, and I don't think it really matters, to be honest with you. I think it's going to play closer to 73. Maybe if we weren't getting 40 mile-per-hour winds, they'd move some of the tee boxes back, but I think you're probably in the right ballpark if you're looking closer to 73 than 75, just based on...

What I've heard from there, from the caddies in terms of what they have to do this golf course with the wind and the tee box options that they have and how PGA setups, how PGA's have set up in the past.

The fairways are Astro Bermuda grass. They're pretty wide now. They're about 40 yard wide on average. The rough is Astro Bermuda with tall fescue, two and a half inches. So like I said, the fairways are pretty wide. The rough is not terrible this time of year. I mean, short Bermuda rough is still very unpredictable and it flummoxes players left and right.

it's really hard to figure out what the Y is going to do. And when you add that into a golf course in Southern Hills, which has all the other aspects of an excellent golf course, big grand rolling topography, uneven lies, elevation changes, interesting and provocative green complexes. Like these are all typically the reasons why the architecture people will be like, here's why Torrey Pines sucks. Here's why this one's really good. Um,

And Southern Hills falls in the latter. It's just a really interesting golf course with legitimate shot values that should make players really uncomfortable. I think we're going to watch golf shots this week that we have never seen pros hit on the PGA Tour. Not never on the PGA Tour courses. There's some major championships like this.

Uh, so I don't think it's just going to appeal to the people like me that, you know, nerd out over watching these guys hit short grass recovery shots and the topography. But I think even if you don't care about any of that stuff, I think it's going to appeal to you as well. And like I said, potentially be the best viewing experience of the year. Like think about, you know, why do we love Augusta? Why is Augusta so good on TV? Well, it's usually because it's firm.

It's got a ton of short grass, which I'll talk about later. And to quote Gil Hance, it eliminates predictable outcomes. So for once, you actually don't know what the ball is going to do when it hits the ground. It's got these big like rolling hills and elevation changes and uneven lies, small targets, much smaller greens in Augusta. And the complexes are undulating and provocative with level off leveled off edges.

And Southern Hills has all of that. It's got all of that, which I think that's why it's going to be the best viewing experience of the year. I mean, I can't predict whether it's going to be an exciting finish. Maybe somebody will win by eight strokes. I don't know. But I'm telling you, even if that's the case, it's not going to be a snooze fest because it's an incredibly interesting golf course that we don't get to see often on the PGA Tour schedule. We never get to see

turf interaction like this in terms of what the golf balls are going to do when they hit the ground because this type of topography is pretty rare. And, you know, add in the fact that there could be 40 mile per hour wind gusts now and it's like, yeah, this might get weird. Anyway, the greens are 5,277 square foot feet on average with pure back grass. They are incredibly pure. They're incredibly fast. I would guess they have them rolling close to 14 and

That was the number one thing that stood out to me when I played it. Super, super fast greens, super fast, super undulating. And they're small and they play even smaller than they look post-hands because of the leveled off edges, which I'll expand upon more soon.

Southern Hills has hosted seven major championships, including the U.S. Open three times, PGA Championship four times. It's also hosted the 2001 Senior PGA Championship last year, won by Alex Chayka, which is the first time we've seen professional competition since the Hans renovation. You know, it's really up there.

That's probably one of the pinnacles of American Parkland golf. I mean, nearly all of the holes are curving. You've got tons of big trees and the green complex are really small for how long this course is. Probably, I don't know, hundreds of maybe thousands of golf courses have probably copied this template. But in contrast to other recent venues like Kiowa and Torrey Pines, the

I've heard some takes already about is a really long golf. I don't Southern Hills does not play like an overly long golf course. That's not really the character of what Southern Hills is. There's essentially only three long par fours, one 16 and 1816. I played as a par five when they play that, but they're going to make that a long par four.

And that's a really small number for a major championship venue. Like if you look back at Torrey and Kiowa, you're dealing with sometimes you've got like five, six, seven, eight really long par fours over like 475. But eight par fours on this course measure under 455, which like I said, is very abnormal for a PGA championship venue.

Trust me, I still think it's going to be really, really difficult. It's interesting to me because most of the yardage on this golf course actually comes through the fact that three of the par threes measure over 220. So you have three really long, brutally hard par threes and two par fives that both measure 630. So two true shot par fives. Two true three shot par fives. They're going to move the tees up, I think a little bit, especially with

13, which should play downwind with wind coming from the south, which is what it looks like now. But that's a great, great golf hole with two little ponds in front. But still, at least two or three of the days, those are all going to be three-shot holes. And this actually leads me down a route that I don't think a lot of people are going to take. But I think inside 150 yards is really, really important on this course.

which I'll expand upon a little bit later. Now, I mentioned the wind. It's a southerly wind, like I said. So 13 will play downwind. A lot of the other holes are going to play crosswind, though.

And there are you add in the two par fives, those shorter par fours. It's the fairways will be firm here. And because they're wider, you can hit more drivers here. Now, I think we're going to see players hit a lot more drivers than we did previously because they widen the fairways and you've got some room off the tee. And there's some quotes from the senior PGL. Talk about this a little bit more. Well, I think we're going to see more drivers here.

but the reason why I say that about the inside one 50, there's like 10 holes where you could have a shorter iron in here. Again, still doesn't mean it's going to be easy. I think the degree of difficulty on the approach shots here, even with the shorter irons is going to be as hard as any golf course that we'll see all year. The 18th hole, for example, is probably going to play closer to a par five in terms of scoring. I wouldn't be surprised if that plays at like 4.5, then a four, but,

It's maybe the hardest par four I think I've ever played in my life. I can't think of another one off the top of my head. It's 500 yards uphill dogleg right with fairway bunkers.

There's a creek that bisects the hole at 315. If you're not in the fairway, you're not hitting the green. There's no shot. And the second shot is all the way uphill with a long iron to a small undulating green surrounded by bunkers with a false front where if you are just a little bit short, you're rolling 50 yards down the hill or you're in one of the green side bunkers, which depending on the pin position, you're dead. You're cooked.

I've played hundreds and hundreds of golf courses. I think the 18th at Southern Hills might be the hardest golf hole I've ever played in my life. There's a couple at Shinnecock maybe that are right up there, but like 18 at Southern Hills on a whim, I cannot think of a harder golf hole that I ever have played that isn't unfair. It's not unfair. It's a fair golf hole. You just need two really good shots and two really good shots will be rewarded.

But coming down the stretch on Sunday, you step up onto 18T. You're going to have to hit two amazing golf shots. So if you've got a one-shot lead on 18T, it's going to be tough. Maybe three amazing golf shots to make par. But it's going to be really, really fun to watch because that is a tough golf hole. It's a good golf hole. It's one of the best finishing holes in golf in America. Last thing I want to say before I get into some of the stuff that Hans did.

So when I first talked about this course in December, I did like a majors preview show in December. I think what I talked about was that I, I talked about Augusta, uh,

a bit but what i talked about was i thought the biggest difference between here and augusta is that southern hills has this pretty gnarly bermuda rough that you know really stood out to me when i played here in september so you know i initially felt like okay there's this real penalty for missing the fairway here uh whereas augusta is not a course where driving accuracy is very crucial

Uh, but I've, I've stayed in touch with my caddy. I've been texting him a lot and he was basically like, well, you know, you played it in early September when it's a lot hotter. The rough is usually worse than, and the caddies that I've spoken to, they actually don't think the rough is going to be as bad this week because it's not as hot. It's not as sticky. Um, just because of kind of the cooler climate in may. I mean, don't get me wrong. It's still gonna be hot, but, uh,

not August and Tulsa hot. So I'm going to be lower on accuracy off the tee this week than I had originally thought in December. The one thing I remember from playing it is it's really all about angles, right? So it's not a super narrow course anymore, but you do want to position yourself on the right side of the fairway here to have the best angle of attack because the greens are super undulating. And that's kind of the way Augusta is too. And the one thing I remember thinking was, okay,

man, I wish I hit more two irons off the tee. I probably would have shot a better score. And that's exactly what Tiger did in 2007. He took a lot of long irons off the tee and he kind of took this course apart tactically because like I said, I don't, it doesn't play as long as I think people think it's going to play. And I know this course has changed a lot since Tiger won in 2007 with all the changes, but

I think this course now actually encourages you to hit driver more now with the widening of the fairways and a lot of the tree removal. But again, there's a lot of medium to short par fours where you don't have to hit driver here. Like I said, a lot of the length from this course is from the par fives. But even the par fives are so long, those are true three-shot holes anyway. Here's a quote from Chayka, who won the senior PGA, that stood out to me.

This course is tricky. You can hit drivers, but

But you take a lot of trouble into play. I want to hit a lot of drivers, but you can get in a lot of trouble. And the question is, is it worth it to be 20, 30 yards further than taking so much trouble on? It's a really tough track. You really have to shape your ball well. It's a good ball striking course. And around the greens, it's tricky too. They're undulated. They're a little bit raised up. The bunkers have deep lips. So you don't want to short side yourself.

I co-sign all of that. So I think it's going to be interesting to see how players approach this course from a strategy standpoint. I'm really curious to see how many drivers that Tiger Woods hits this week, because I could see that going in a couple of different directions with that one, but I'll, I'll expand upon that shortly. One last thing on Maxwell, you know, he is,

He is known so well for creating these really, really interesting green contours. The greens at Southern Hills are incredibly contoured, despite being so small. And luckily, I played there with a caddy, so I putted okay. If I didn't have a caddy, I think I probably would have three-putted every hole, maybe four-putted some of them. And they're not even...

giant greens. You don't have 60 foot long putts on this course. And it makes, because of the undulation that makes chipping really hard as well too. There's so much slope to these greens that if you miss on the wrong side, you're just dead. I remember, you know, getting short sighted in a couple of bunkers. You're, you're dead. Um, so let's talk about Gil Hans briefly. So Gil Hans did a lot of work to this course beginning in 2018, um,

Gil Hans has also done a lot of great work around the country. He's done work on, in terms of courses that we've seen before the PGA tour, aeronomic. He's done restorative work on Plainfield Country Club,

restorative work on shout out CP, New Jersey golf Ridgewood country club, as well as your both New Jersey courses to row, which I played a couple of months ago as well. TPC Boston, which is an original hands winged foot 2020 us open. And of course the country club, which will host the U S open in just a few weeks time. He also co-designed the,

one of the courses that I've played probably 50 times that I believe to be one of the best public golf courses in the country. Certainly one of the best values, at least in rustic Canyon in Moore park, right outside of LA. It's a brilliant, brilliant golf course. And I love what Hans did to wing foot too. And we'll talk about it more with the country club. Cause I think he's done some, some interesting things there's there as well. But what Hans is so good at, in my opinion,

is taking the course back to what Maxwell had originally intended while having a really, really good understanding of modern technology. So,

Bunker styles. The bunkers are way different here now. They used to be like these big saucers. They're a little more rugged now. The edges around the greens and the collection areas were completely restored. The green complexes were rebuilt with pure bank grass. The creeks were restored. Now water sometimes subtly, but it comes into play on 15 of 18 holes. A ton of trees were removed. The fairways were riding. It does not look...

anything like what it looked like in 2007 when Tiger won. And Steve Stricker talked about something about the renovation that I really liked. He said, it's a little more generous off the tee, but it's a little more demanding into the greens. I would agree with that for all intents and purposes. The fairways are now quite wide, but the approach shots that you are going to have to hit into these greens and the recovery shots that you're going to have to hit if you miss a green are much, much harder. So,

Here's a quote from Hans that I loved when asked about this course or courses in general's ability to host a major championship. This is what Hans said. It's all about firm greens. Those players work so hard on their games. I've been harping on this point forever. And technology is now conspiring with them to maximize their swigs.

What they're looking for is a predictable result on every golf shot. Well, if a green's firm, you're not sure if it's going to bounce or check. Bounce twice and check, not check. You have a much harder time controlling it with firm greens.

If that's part of the test, it emphasizes hitting in the fairways. You hit it in the rough and you affirm greens, you're done. So the ability to move water through the greens quicker and provide the opportunity for the superintendent to get the greens firmer and faster is really critical for clubs that aspire to host major championships.

The last thing that I said that he said that I love, and he talks about this more in depth in the fried egg interview, which is excellent. And I would encourage everyone to check out. So I'm paraphrasing here. But Hans talks about the reason why people like me are going to respond so much to this golf course is that he put this really eloquently.

So I'm probably going to butcher it a little bit. But PGA Tour pros, they work so hard. They work their entire life at creating these predictable outcomes that I talked about, which...

where, you know, if I hit a ball off a flat lie on the driving range with a seven iron, it's going to go 189 yards in the air with this ball speed and this launch angle and this spin rate. And it's going to draw three yards and carry 189 yards and roll out three yards. And all these golf pros, they work their entire life at this. They're about creating predictable outcomes, right?

It's what they spent their whole life practicing. Known outcomes, predictable outcomes. And then what you get, what a golf course like Southern Hills does, it eliminates predictable outcomes because of the topography, because of the short grass. You don't know where the ball is going to go at Southern Hills when it hits the ground. You don't know where it's going to stop. And what am I going to be left with? Now, maybe I'm left with a shot where I'm chipping off short grass and

30 yards up a hill to a raised green, right? With a lot of contours in it and internal breaks. God, it's going to be so much fun. All right. A couple of quick more things.

We got to talk about the wind. A lot of the quotes from the senior PGA, and this is something that Caddy talked about too, was that so the winds really swirl here. And you see it in this part of the country this time of year a lot when the PGA Tour goes to Texas. But a lot of the pros talks about how it's really, really difficult to make decisions on club choice.

You know, Stricker talked about how it would kind of lay down and then pick back up and you would just never know what you're going to get. Here's one from Stricker. Any hole can jump up and get you. You have to manage your emotions, your game all the way around this place. I've gone for the green two times on 17 the last two days, which great short par four that I think they'll move up.

and still played the hole and went over par. Even when you think it's a birdie opportunity, it's still difficult. You just need to know how to manage your game. The thing about Tulsa too is that it has such a high spread of

of weather variants. So like in the summer months, it gets really fucking hot. Now in the winter months, it gets really fucking cold. And we're used to seeing this course under the blistering heat of August. And that's why turf conditions are incredibly hard to keep up here. And their superintendent, Russ Myers, Russ Myers, by the way, has been

Has done a lot of work previously at Augusta National. So add that one to the Augusta Cops. He also spent six years at LA Country Club. By the way, he made some incredible improvements to that golf course too. And he's done an incredible job maintaining here from what I've heard. But it's going to be really interesting to see what the weather does this week. I think predicting weather on a Saturday evening for a golf tournament that runs Thursday through Sunday of next week is a fool's errand.

But what we're looking at now, consistent wind speeds of 70 to 20 miles per hour on Thursday with gusts between 28 and 40. Consistent wind speeds of 22 to 24 on Friday with gusts between 37 and 47 mile per hour. That's like almost like 50 mile per hour gusts is like kind of almost unplayable. That's insane. So Friday looks like it is going to be the hardest day. Saturday, no.

consistent wind speeds between 17 and 23 with gusts between 30 and 46 almost equally brutal and then sunday looks to be the only relatively calm day with consistent wind speeds between 6 miles per hour and gusts from 10 to 14 and like i said it looks like the wind is coming from the south except on sunday where it's kind of over the place but that's going to mean a lot of crosswind holes

which is probably harder than if holes are playing straight downwind or straight into the wind. You're going to have to have a lot of control over your golf ball. You're probably going to have to be comfortable working the ball both ways. Speaking of ball flight, the last thing that I want to say before we...

Do some trends is another one. Give another shout out to the fried egg because I think they did such a good job talking about this golf course. It's not a gambling podcast or anything, but if you're into the kind of the other side of it, like me, I think it's really worth a lesson.

And I thought about after he said this, I thought about this a lot and tried to roadmap through the holes and what I remember playing it because it's the shot shape that I hit, too. But he he he gave the theory that this course is a lot better for a draw.

And there are a lot of holes on the front nine that you actually go through them. And it's like, okay, yeah, one is a draw hole. Two is a draw hole. Three is a draw hole. Five is a draw hole. I mean, the par threes, depending on pin position, six and eight are kind of, they're both draw par threes too. Seven kind of too. So that was interesting to me. And that is a holdup that I will talk about with

a couple other golfers down the road about guys that predominantly hit a fade. I still think you can get away with a fade here, of course, especially if you're a guy like Morikawa that the ball moves two, three yards in the air. But I thought it was interesting, and I thought a lot about it, and I kind of agree with it. At first, I wanted to poke holes in it, and then I went back, and I remember every single hole of this golf course. Well, it's just such a good golf course that sticks with you.

even 16 months ago. And I went through some of the images again, and it's like, yeah, there might be something there. I think this is a draw golf course. Anyway, another interesting thing to point out, all seven of the major championship winners here at Southern Hills have led after 36 holes. Same for the two tour championships and senior PGAs. So who's ever leading on Friday night at Southern Hills has gone on to win. Every single time there's been a professional golf tournament at Southern Hills,

The leader on Friday night has won the tournament. Five of the seven leaders after round one went on to win the golf tournament. So you got to get off to a hot start. I don't think this is a chaser's golf course. I don't think you want to be chasing on this golf course. It is a hard golf course to kind of come back on. It's not a golf course where somebody has gotten hot in the last round or two and made a weight charged win.

Now, let's talk about some trends real quickly because I thought these were really interesting. This one is from my good pal Steve Bamford. This really stood out to me. Last 15 winners. Every single one of them made the cut in their prior start. 14 of 15 finished in the top 30. The one guy who didn't was Phil, who breaks every trend. But he finished 69th in his prior start. But he was the first round leader for what it's worth. So it's not like he was playing poorly.

Tiger won in 06 and 07, the start before winning the PGA both years. Rory won the start before winning the PGA in 2012. The last 15 winners of the PGA, those 15 guys in their prior start, they've got three wins, seven top five finishes. So almost 50% of the last 15 PGA winners had a top five heading into the PGA. That spells well for Rory.

That spells well for, you know, whatever the group of Spieth and JT and Neiman and all those guys, however they end up finishing. Cameron Young, I guess, Max Homa, John Rahm, Finau. Now, Tiger skews that a little bit, but it was still kind of crazy to me that even surprise winners...

quote unquote surprise winners like Y.E. Yang, Keegan Bradley, Jason Duffner, Jimmy Walker. They were all coming off a top 20 finish. All of them. So I don't know if you want to fuck around too much with guys that aren't playing well right now. I know it's a Byron Nelson, Birdie Fest, whatever is the most polar opposite golf course too. But you got like 15 years where the guy who plays well in their prior start heading into the PGA wins.

Now, the one caveat I will say to that, many of the years before the PGA, we had the Memphis or Bridgestone event, right? So, you know, smaller field, harder golf course, probably more indicative or closer to what you would get from learning much about the Byron Nelson. But I think you probably gleaned some things from the Wells Fargo, certainly. Yeah.

You also have to be hitting the ball really well, too. Every single one of those players, except Phil Mickelson, was also top 30 in tee to green the week before. So no fraudulence. 2014, Rory first in tee to green. 2018, Brooks first. 2012, Rory second. 2013, Jason Duffner second. 2017, JT third.

You need to be hitting the ball well right now. I think a lot of people are going to say, oh, who cares what he did at the Byron Nelson? It was a tune-up. Well, maybe at least look at the ball striking stats. I'm recording this on a Saturday, so I don't fully know how players have finished at the Byron Nelson. But if they didn't at least hit the ball somewhat well—I don't care how they putted—

I think it's a red flag. I think you want to spend a lot of time this week looking closely at lead in form because these PGA courses, the way they get set up now, they're so tough from tee to green and you just can't fake it. A couple guys that this would eliminate Burns didn't hit the ball very well through two rounds at the Byron Nelson. Gooch didn't either. Both those guys lost ball striking. Gary Woodland hit it terribly through two rounds at the Wells Fargo and

And Zalatoris, though, I know that the missed cut was not good, but Zalatoris actually hit the ball really well through two days at Byron Nelson. Just couldn't make a putt.

And then a couple more trends. These are from Dave Tindall's fantastic article that I want to shout out. Everyone go check those out or that article out. I think it's Dave Tindall on Twitter. I can find that out or put it in the description or something. Anyway, seven of the last 10 winners were American. The only non-Americans were Rory McIlroy and Jason Day, who...

you could argue, have a very American powerful game. Five of the last 10 winners were ranked inside the world's top 10. So like all majors, this is an event generally won by elite players, although Phil won last year 116th in the world. But even Jimmy Walker was 48th. Jimmy Walker, it wasn't as out of left field as you would have thought. It would have been probably the equivalent if he was playing good golf. It probably would have been the equivalent if like

Taylor Gooch or Mark Leishman won, right? Like it's a long shot, but it's not implausible. And this has been the best major for newcomers. So eight of the last 10 winners have not teed it up in more than five previous PGAs. In fact, seven of the last 10 winners have been younger than 30, which I also thought was interesting. Morikawa and Keegan both won on their PGA championship debut. So

So it's not a thing like the Masters where experience is huge. And that's why I think if you're going to take a shot on a guy like Hovland or Burns or Patrick Cantlay or Max Homa, who haven't really done much in majors but are super good players, this is probably the best major to bet them at.

I think we could probably all agree that all those guys are two good players for it to stay like that forever. They're going to play well in majors at some point. And I think their best bet of playing well is probably at a PGA, historically at least. So I'm definitely not weighing major form and major experience as much as others probably. And then the last one, credit to Bamford again on this one. I think this one's really hard to get past. You know, I paused on this one for a while.

All the major winners since 2015, throw out the COVID year because that was weird with the schedule. They've all played in the two weeks before the Masters. All of them. So essentially, if you didn't play in either the Wells Fargo or the Byron Nelson, which would eliminate Cantlay, Morikawa, Cam Smith, Hovland, Berger, Lowry, you haven't won a major in like seven years if you haven't played in the two weeks leading up. Now, I get it. Trends are meant to be broken.

But that's a pretty strong one. I guess logistically, it makes sense too. Like in theory, you look at some of these golf courses, it's probably hard to go from not playing competitive golf in like three weeks to winning a major championship. I'm a little surprised that more players haven't picked this up and still formulate their schedule this way. Like Cam Smith, Lowry, Hovland, Cantlay, Sungjae, Morikawa. We haven't seen any of these guys since the team event.

burger we haven't seen since the heritage so it's certainly something to think about all right let's run through the stats i'm looking at here real quick um off the sea so here's a quote from retief goosen the fairways are about double the width that they were back in 2001 the course is made for bombers they made the fairways really wide the long hitters are going to love it

For what it's worth, the superintendent also said that he believed that he would see far more drivers hit here than in 2007. The seniors talked about, and I definitely fell into this trap when I played, you kind of stand on the tee at Southern Hills, and it's hard not to hit driver because it looks so wide, and you feel like you have to hit driver because it's not really a claustrophobic golf course anymore. Like I said, in 07, when Tiger barely hit any drivers,

Well, now they're not as many trees. He said he thinks Tiger's going to hit more drivers. On 10, for example, that hole used to be like six iron down to the corner and then a wedge. And now players are probably going to consider driver on that hole to get as close as they can to the creek and get a better angle to the green. So,

Yeah, you know, I do think distance will inevitably help on this golf course. I don't think it's like a top five important thing here. I think somebody who has below average distance can absolutely win on this golf course. It's not a deal breaker for me. But I do think enough changes have been made that players will hit driver more and distance will help. I do think you need to be a good total driver of the ball to get around this golf course. But I still think short game and iron plays way more important.

So I'm looking a little bit off the tee, a heavier emphasis on distance and accuracy. But if you're asking me to rank the tee to green skills that I would want my players to have, I would go number one approach, two short game, three off the tee in that order. Speaking of approach, one thing that Hans and his design partner, Jim Wagner, did was, which I love, he completely leveled off the edges of the green, which is awesome because over time...

Edges of greens tend to rise up, right? Like they kind of bulge up because of sand explosions. And it kind of creates this like a bowl where they will collect to the middle and they're not going to roll off the edges as much. But Hans and Wagner, they leveled those off completely. So now you have these crowned greens where it's almost like Pinehurst, where the misses are going to be so exacerbated. So balls are just going to shoot off completely.

to far away places if players miss on their approach or on their approaches. So one thing that is really, really going to be emphasized this week is, yeah, you have to be super, super accurate iron player, but you have to be an accurate iron player from uneven lies. This is not driving range shots. And then recovery shots too, which I'll talk about with short game, like the elimination of these sharp edges is,

are going to make these already small greens play even smaller on average. So that's why it's like, yeah, I think they're going to have more short irons in on this courses, but man, they're going to be some really, really tricky short iron shots. And I think players are still going to miss greens here with wedges. I really do. So like I said, I alluded to this, but you've got those eight par fours that measure under 460, as well as the fact that the par fives are true three shot holes.

I think players are going to have their fair share of approaches inside 150 yards. I think that's kind of an underrated thing that could help me get different. I don't know how many people are going to talk about this week, but I think you absolutely need money. You need to be money from inside 150 yards this week to have any chance on this golf course, like really, really accurate with a short iron in your hand.

So on one hand, you have Morikawa, who doesn't like hitting a draw, who doesn't fit the trend of somebody who's played recently, but he's also the best player in the world over a large sample size inside 150 yards on a course where it probably has the greatest penalty out of any course on tour for not being an accurate iron player because of the recovery shots that you're going to be left with.

Like if you miss a green here by three feet, sometimes you're rolling 30 yards down a hill because of the short grass. So I'm very overweight on iron play this week. I think he, I think if you are asking me for one skill on this golf course, and you could say this about a lot of calls golf courses, but even more so at Southern Hills, because of the penalty, if you're not good at this, I would say if you just want to dumb it down big time, if players are not in good shape,

approach for them, unless they have a downlight or elite short game and you want to like use them in draft Kings. Sure. But in terms of winning it kind of a cross off and you know, I just look at how these greens are and you know, the reason why Augusta gets talked about as a second shot golf course, it's the same deal here where these greens have like these pockets, right? Where if you can get to one of these pockets, you have a makeable putt.

And you're going to see that at Southern Hills too, from a pro coach from uneven lies too. So I think being a good iron player is more important on this golf course, maybe more than any other course that we're going to see all year. Now around the green, second most important skill set that you want to have at Southern Hills is,

Hands down a short game. The short grass around the greens is going to weave the ball to running away. It's going to weave the ball running away from the greens if you're not in the bunkers. So I don't know if you remember that U.S. Open at Shinnecock.

But if you remember watching that, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Balls that roll off the edges of slopes, they're just going to keep rolling. So examples of this would be, you know, right behind one green, left of three green, right of five green. You know, any ball hit on the left side of 10 will likely roll 30 to 40 feet toward the creek, leaving a very difficult recovery. So I was extremely heavy on

on short game at the masters. And I find it to be just as important this week. If anything, short game will be even more important here than it was at the masters because these greens are even smaller than Augusta. Yeah. I would be shocked if we get a greens and regulation percentage higher than 55% here. So I just can't emphasize this enough.

You're going to be hitting recovery shots around the green that you would never have to hit on other golf courses on the PGA Tour schedule, which makes modeling out around the green really difficult this week because the shots around the green that you'd have to hit at Bay Hill or all these courses with Roth are

Instead of short grass, it's a much different type of golf shot here. I think the best we can do is look at how players have done around the green at a course like Augusta. So the leaders in short game at Augusta this year, Rory, Brooks, Spieth, Leishman, Scotty Scheffler, Shane Lowry, Dustin Johnson, Hideki Matsuyama. Corey Connors actually gained 4.5 strokes around the green at the Masters this year.

Best short game performance of his entire career came at the Masters on a course where you could argue has the highest degree of difficulty in terms of recovery shot on any course on the PGA Tour schedule. That's interesting. Maybe it's a like Will Zalatorre situation where he has his best putting performances at the Masters on the most undulating greens on the PGA Tour. Conor's chips really well at the Masters.

But then you have a guy like Hovland, by the way, Hovland this year, minus 4.5 around the green at the Masters. That's going to be an easy no for me. So I can't emphasize enough how good you need to be around the green here, how good of a bunker player you need to be here. I think every single green has at least three bunkers around it.

And I think a lot of players, if they miss a green, I think they'd rather miss in a bunker instead of the short grass where there's a chance their ball may end up 30 yards away or in a creek. But long-term bunker players, scramblers, guys that have been good around the green on courses with a lot of short grass, that's what you want to be looking at. Okay, putting. Ben Crenshaw said, you could putt these greens your entire life and not figure them out.

Maxwell is famous for his green complexes. They are called Maxwell rolls. There's very subtle internal breaks on these greens. So I will be using a very similar model putting model to the one that I deployed at Augusta.

where I'm going to combine long-term bank grass putting with fast green putting as kind of the best way to evaluate players who should be best suited for the task at hand. Again, like players who have putted well at Augusta, the leaders in putting this year answer, Willett, Westwood, Lowry, Gooch, Zalatoris. Again, weird with Zalatoris. It's like two best putting performance of his career have come at Augusta. I think that's more predictive than

of how you're going to putt here than other putting stats. So guys that putt well at Augusta, guys that improve their baseline on bent grass greens, guys that improve their baseline on super fast greens, those are the guys I'm looking for. In terms of scoring stats, like any major championship test, I want to be identifying the guys that raise their baseline on harder courses. Parr will be an incredible score at Southern Hills this week.

And it will be important to identify the players that can mitigate disaster. So I think you want to look at bogey avoidance, scrambling, scoring in difficult scoring conditions. I'm not looking at win stats because I think they're too wonky. But if you want to look at win stats, I don't hate that. Maybe over a large sample size, you can actually glean some good information there. And then comp courses. I think there are going to be a lot of bad comp courses thrown around this week. But here's the ones that I think.

So I can't say enough about the Augusta connection. There's the Mackenzie Maxwell angle. There's the Russ Myers superintendent angle. There's the rolling topography, the elevation changes, the uneven lies, the raised greens, the undulating greens, the short grass, the heavy emphasis on approach play and short game. There are a few key differences between Augusta and Southern Hills. The latter has Bermuda rough, and there's certainly more of a penalty at Southern Hills for missing the fairway.

There's far more of an emphasis on par five scoring at Augusta, whereas par five scoring at Southern Hills is virtually irrelevant. And finally, the greens at Southern Hills are even smaller than the ones at Augusta, placing less of an emphasis on lag putting and more of an emphasis on chipping off short grass. So at Augusta, I looked a little bit at lag putting here. I would rather look a little bit more at how can we simulate situations where players have chipped off of short grass. Still,

August is far and away the best comp and a golf course I will be looking at closely this week. Now here's one that I think is sneaky, really, really good. And maybe I'm biased because I've played this course too. And when I played it, it reminded me a lot. I remember thinking, okay, the last time I remember having to hit shots like this and having this much terror around the greens was at this golf course. And that's Shinnecock, the host of the 2018 U S open. Now,

That course is fucking hard. It also demands precise approach play, swirling wins, and you have to have a really, really good touch around the greens, and you have to hit a lot of 30-yard pitch shots up a hill off short grass. It's the only two courses that I've ever played in my life that I can remember having to hit those types of shots. It's Shinnecock and Southern Hills.

I think it is a very, very underrated comparison here that I'm not sure a lot of people are going to mention. So top 10 at the 2018 US Open at Shinnecock. Brooks, Fleetwood, didn't need to hear that. DJ, Patrick Reed, Tony Finau, Henrik Stenson, Tyrell Hatton, Daniel Berger, Xander Shoffley, didn't need to hear that either. Justin Rose, Webb Simpson.

If you told me that's the leaderboard this week or something very similar, I would not be shocked at all. And then the two others that I don't think are terrible. Colonial was designed by Perry Maxwell. That course is a lot easier than Southern Hills. There's a lot more rough than short grass there. The greens are a little more benign, but it still has some of the subtle nuances. And a couple of the players that have been awesome at Colonial are

Jordan Spieth, Justin Rose, Kevin Na, Daniel Berger. Brooks has a runner-up at Colonial. Xander has a runner-up at Colonial. Finau has a runner-up at Colonial. Webb plays really well at Colonial. What do you know? Those are all the guys that played well at Shinnecock too. Might be something there. And then lastly, I noticed this with Memorial Park too, where they've had the Houston Open the last three years.

That's a pretty difficult golf course with undulating greens and a lot of short grass and swirling winds. That's another one that I don't know if people are going to think of this week, but I think you kind of have to hit, you have to do some of the things similarly. I'll talk to Cody about this on Tuesday. Cause I know he plays that golf course a lot. Um, but I think I might be onto something there too. I guess the biggest difference is the Bermuda greens. Um, but I don't hate that one. Uh, Augusta, I'd say is the strongest, uh,

Shinnecock is a sneaky one that I'm looking a lot at. Colonial and Memorial Park are kind of more second and third tier. And then if you want to look at some of the other hands places, you know, winged foot, I don't love because that course has massive green, super narrow fairways and incredibly thick rough, but like a Ron and Mac, which is a Gil hands where they used to host the BMW championship that Keegan won in 2018. Ready for this one? Justin Rose. Second,

Xander Shoffley, third. Webb Simpson, sixth. Tommy Fleetwood, eighth. Tony Finau, eighth. It's all the same guys. It's all the same guys that are playing well at Colonial, that are playing well at Aronimac, that are playing well at Shinnecock. It's all the same guys. It's Rose, Xander, Webb, Finau, Fleetwood, Berger, Brooks. They just keep popping up.

Interesting. Might be something, might be nothing. All right. Let's look at the model. We're at an hour, so I'm going to keep the early lean segment short. They're not like I'm trying to jip you or anything. I got a lot of content. You're going to have ample opportunity to hear my opinions about some of these guys. I feel great about this model. I put a lot of work into it. I combined all the stuff we talked about, and here's who it shot out.

Number one, Justin Thomas, who, you know, is kind of, kind of starting to do a little bit of what ROM was doing a couple, a couple of weeks, a couple of months ago, where I think this is the third straight week where JT has been number one in my model on completely different golf courses. Like this golf course is polar opposite of Byron Nelson and he's,

He's number one everywhere, which I think just speaks to how well Justin Thomas is playing right now. The results are not as good as the way he's playing right now. Number two, Rory McIlroy, which I have a lot of thoughts on Rory this week. I really do. That I probably won't be able to get to on this podcast, but I'll talk about more on another podcast soon. Three, Scotty Scheffler. Not a surprise. Four, Daniel Berger.

That was a surprise. Daniel Berger tends to rate out as value for me nearly every week. This felt a little high to me for Berger. Five Cameron Smith. Makes sense. Six Sam Burns. Yeah, no problems there. Seven Patrick Cantlay. Eight Xander Shoffley. Nine Taylor Gooch. Ten Hideki. Eleven Shane Lowry.

12, John Rahm. This is the lowest I can remember Rahm being in forever. I don't know if it's, again, different podcast. 13, Sung J.M. 14, Will Zalatouris. 15, Adam Hadwin. Be careful with that one. 16, Paul Casey. Be careful with that one too. 17, Harold Varner. 18, Corey Connors. 19, Gary Woodland. Be careful with that one. 20, Louis Eustace. Be careful with that one too.

So I'll be, I'll be completely transparent with you guys. I have not made any bets. I do not have any idea where I'm going at the top of the board. I want to see what happens on Sunday at the Byron Nelson. I haven't really crossed anyone out outside of, I'm not betting Victor Hovland, but I, I, you know, it's tough with a lot of these guys. Um,

And I want to see what the odds do. I think people get really trigger happy. And I think all these books are in competition with each other. So I want to see what the odds do on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and what booths I could get access to. And the markets haven't reset yet. So,

There are too many guys under 20 to one still. One of those guys under 20, I don't know who it's going to be. I think it depends what JT and Spieth do tomorrow, but someone under 20, maybe it's Rory, maybe it's Cam Smith, maybe it's Morikawa is going to get over 20. I'm sure of that. Now I will say this.

I think the Spieth buzz from what I've heard from Twitter and my group chats, I think that's reached a fever pitch. I think, you know, if you want to bet Spieth, just bet him now. I think there's a very good chance he wins this golf tournament. And even if he doesn't win this golf tournament, I think he's going to be a very, very popular selection this week. Same thing with Cantlay. He's underpriced in DraftKings. I think he's going to be very highly owned in DraftKings. I think a lot of people are on Cantlay. Same thing with Hideki.

I talked to Joe earlier today. I talked to Rick the other day. They're already all in on Hideki. They got 45s. I think there's 35s and 40s out there hanging around with Hideki. I think he's going to be a very popular bet. I think Hideki, Cantlay, and Spieth, if you can fit those three, which I don't know if I can the way that I fit it, it has to be a very, very, very popular card. Very popular card. I'm going to talk about two guys that...

are not the favorites. I'm going to talk about two guys that are in what I hope to be 65 to 1, maybe higher territory. I want to talk about Daniel Berger here. So he's been better in majors than you think. He's played in 23 majors. He's made 17 cuts, six top 25s, four top 10s. He hasn't really contended yet, but 17th at Bellevue, 13th at Harding Park, two PGAs. Two of the last three years, he's been top 15 PGA.

I think there's a lot to like about him here, and I think he could get squeezed in DraftKings too. He's an excellent, excellent iron player. It's still like you look at the numbers, he's very underrated in that sense with how elite he is and how close his numbers actually are to JT and Murakawa. He's a good long iron player. He's good inside 150. The short game, I don't worry about that at all here.

He's one of the best bunker players in the field. So he's already checking like the key box that I care most about. Really, really good short game. Really, really good bunker player and really, really good short iron player. Fourth and scrambling fourth and bogeys avoidance seven and difficult scoring conditions, right? He's actually had a lot of really nice success on harder golf courses, you know, almost winning the Honda, uh,

And then here's where it really kind of kicked into overdrive with me. Berger finished six that Shinnecock. And I think that's the closest that we're going to get in terms of being able to simulate the swirling winds and the type of chip shots that you're going to need to hit around here. Where else did Daniel Berger win? Colonial. Who designed Colonial? Perry Maxwell. So I know we think of him as like a Florida Bermuda guy, but

Well, he's really good on bat. He's one on bat. He's really good on fast greens. I don't think this course is too long for him. I trust him in the wind and he's starting to pop in majors. Now there's two big detractors that I'm very concerned about. Number one, he doesn't fit the trend of he's played in the last two weeks. We haven't seen Daniel Berger since the heritage where he was excellent, by the way.

He gained almost nine strokes ball striking at the heritage. So he was excellent at the heritage. We just haven't seen him in two weeks. And then the one thing that scares me too, is that Daniel Berger hits a low draw or low fade. He doesn't hit a high draw. So that concerns me. But I think if you can hit a, if you can use his ball flight, uh,

At Shinnecock, and maybe you need to flight the ball a little bit lower here now because of the crosswinds. He hits the ball really low, can hold the ball up against the wind. Fifth this year at the Century on a golf course with a ton of undulation and topography and uneven lies. Fourth at the Honda in very windy, difficult conditions. Thirteenth at the Players in a ton of wind. I think it's a really great play.

I don't know if I envision him holding the trophy, but when I see something in a guy like this, I would lose my mind if I don't bet him. And I think that there's a scenario. I'm done doing the thing where he's going to be under the radar. People respect this podcast way too much now. I know he's not... I'm not saying no one's talking about Daniel Berger. I know how it goes now, but...

I still don't think you're going to see him on a lot of betting cards. I still think there's a chance that he drafts, but he's got low-key every single thing that I'm looking for this week. I don't think he'll be highly owned in DraftKings. So, I mean, maybe he will now because I think I just made such a great case, but I think he's a really sharp play this week. It's just the draw thing that worries me. I'd talk to the caddy more about that. That just...

Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The other guy that I want to talk about that comes with risk as well, that again, I don't think this is where I think a lot of people think I was going to go here, but I really, really like Sung J.M. a lot. He's been really good off the tee. The irons have been okay too. He's not the best short iron player, but he doesn't kill you there either.

He's got a really, really elite short game, Sung Jae. He's an excellent bunker player, six in scrambling, first in bogeys avoided. That really stood out to me. He finds a way to make pars, and I think that is really, really going to matter this week. Like who is grinding to not drop shots? And he hits a ton of greens in regulation. He's a good enough iron player. He won the Honda in super difficult conditions, second at the Masters.

and then eighth at the Masters this year, third at the API twice. I know he gets thought of on Bermuda. He's had plenty of success on that. And the big concern is, like Berger, we just haven't seen him since his stupid team event. But last time we did see him, 21st at the Heritage, where he gained 4.6 off the tee, 2.9 on approach, 2.2 around the green, just lost four strokes putting. So he hit the ball amazingly well.

So he checks the box of really good ball striking for him. And prior to that, he finished 14th at the team event or right after that, he finished 14th at the team event with a corn fairy tour player. Right. And he gained strokes in all four categories at the masters right before that 19th at Memorial park this year, where he gained 7.6 strokes, ball striking 22nd at winged foot on Gilhance 10th at colonial 17th at Kiowa last year,

Two top tens already in majors. Now, the one concern is that, according to Rick, he just withdrew from some event in Korea because of COVID. First of all, I don't know why he was in Korea the week before the PGA Championship. I don't understand that at all. But that will suppress ownership. And we haven't seen a lot of Sungjae recently. And he's kind of expensive at 84, I think some people would think. So I don't know if he's healthy.

I'll play him if I hear nothing, but if he's in the field, I'm going to play him and I may even bet him too. All right, that's enough. Once again, let me run through, actually, let me run through all the places that you can find me. So later this week, this podcast is going to be out on, I'm dropping it later this evening, Saturday evening. It'll be out Sunday morning. I'll tweet out Sunday morning.

Would mean a lot if you guys could share the show always on these weeks. It always means a lot. Retweets, quote tweets. This is the biggest growth weeks for my show. This is how new people find the show and hopefully stick around and start loving golf as much as we love golf. So please share the show if it helped you at all in your decision-making process, in your course breakdown, if it helped you narrow down some guys, some of the things you're looking for. And yeah,

leave a five-star review again on apple podcasts i'm even bribing you for that one two hundred dollars um i'll put all the names in the hat again and pick a winner last time we got over a hundred reviews humbled super super humbled and i didn't even tweet it out or anything because i want it to be for the people that actually listen to the show so leave a review five-star review on apple podcast you'll be entered into draw to win two hundred dollars leave your paypal um

Or leave your email or Twitter handle. I'll get in touch. I'll figure out your PayPal when we talk. Anyway, and I'll announce that on next week's show. Anyway, later this week, you know, I was very excited for this week. So I just... Let me run through all the things I'm doing. So I couldn't do the full major report thing with Joe again. I just...

I wanted to do two separate shows on this feed really badly because I had two really good ideas for shows. I wanted to do a separate betting and DFS show, but I did like a 20-minute course breakdown with Joe that I think is a very synthesized version of this that's maybe a little bit more digestible. So check that out. I don't know when he's dropping that. And go support the major part because Joe works super fucking hard on that.

On Monday morning, this will be out Monday evening probably. I'm doing a betting show with Jeff Feinberg. I'm very excited to talk with. We haven't spoken on a podcast together since the third tournament this year. We're going to talk some NFL futures too. That'll be fun. So that'll be up Monday night, Tuesday morning.

Uh, or this will be up Tuesday morning. This will not be on this podcast feed. Um, recording the show again with Twitterless, Steve and, and capper. We're doing the three man weave this time. Uh,

That show is a blast. That show is really off the rails. It's a, we have a lot of great chemistry. I love that show a lot. It's not on this podcast feed, but if you have the time, please check that out too. That's really fun. I always make time for it for the majors. And it's always good when the three of us are together. So that'll probably be out like Tuesday morning, Tuesday morning. I am doing on this podcast feed.

A show that I'm really excited for as well, which is I'm having Cody Dubose on who's one. I don't know. I'd have to get the right number from him, but I don't know, around 500 K and draft Kings over the past couple of months.

um, to do a full separate DraftKings show because sometimes it's hard. I only put out one show with a guest a week and I, I know I kind of like straddled the fence with the DraftKings and the betting talk and it's just hard. So with majors, you know, betting with Feinberg completely DraftKings with Cody completely, right?

And that we're going to record on Tuesday morning. So we'll have some ownership stuff like 3 p.m. Eastern. It'll come out on Tuesday night. So again, not a huge half-life on that one, right? But you'll have Tuesday night and all day Wednesday to listen to that. I think it's going to be really good. I'm really excited for that one. And then all the other regular stuff. The course preview article will be up on Rick Run Good on Monday.

uh, scramble Tuesdays and Fridays with Rick. I'll be on San Diego local television again. Um, I think I'm hopping on Sunday night. Tap and birdie is a special edition of tap and birdie, uh, with a member of Southern Hills that is friends with Kirshner and not me, but I got invited to, uh, Kirshner. I'm going to let him steer the ship. I'm just going to

I'm going to stir the pot a little bit in that three man. It's a, uh, it's a member Kirshner and me. Uh, so I'm just going to be on that podcast for a reason. I don't know, because I want to be, and he wanted me to be on it. That'll be fun. So that's Sunday night. We're talking with a member of Southern Hills, uh, who's probably got a lot of good information on the course as well.

That'll be it. Once again, thank you to all who support the show. I'm really excited for this week. Remember, follow me on Twitter, ADPLackSports.

to the podcast on Apple Podcasts and best of luck with your bets at the Byron Nelson tomorrow and have a great rest of the weekend. Cheers. Drinking and driving is a decision that could change your whole world. Things will never be the same if you ever get a DUI because legal fees and time in court are

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