Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
If I ventured in the slipstream...
All right, Inside Golf Podcast. My name is Andy Lack. We're bringing on Luke Sweated Out in a second to break down the WGC Match Play Invitational. But before we get to Luke, this podcast is presented by RickRungGood.com. All of the tools, all of the stats that I will be referencing, you can find over there. Specifically, this week is probably the best week to sign up because we have
a DraftKings optimizer up there right now. This is probably the biggest edge that
I believe that we have all year in DraftKings. And I will break down all of that tomorrow in my article as well. But we basically have a tool up there that can actually help you create optimal lineups. I have already found it very useful. So head on over to rickrungood.com-andy or type in coupon code Andy when you sign up. All right, let's bring in Luke.
All right, Luke Sweated Out is here. First guest on the podcast. I told you this is a one-year anniversary of Inside Golf Podcast. So welcome back for the second annual bracket show. How's it going, my man? Dude, couldn't be better. It's a great time of year. We've watched basketball all weekend long. I don't think a lot of us had anything to sweat out in the Valspar, but now we get another bracket and honestly, probably a better bracket. I love match play. I love...
This tournament, I think it's just so much fun. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of it too. I think it's really fun for DraftKings. In terms of viewing, I think the first three days are fucking electric. And then I think it really slows down. And I think the players themselves are really tired by Sunday afternoon. Sure.
Yeah, no, it's, I mean, on that last Sunday, there's four guys playing, right? So it's like how, you know, it's pretty tough to fill the TV time. It's like, we're always talking about, we want more golf shots. Well, four dudes, there just aren't that many golf shots. And then you've got a lot of like lead time or lag time in between when a match finishes up and if they're waiting for the other match to finish. And so, yeah, as far as that goes, yeah.
You know, it's tough, but like, like you said, the first three days, it's kind of reminiscent of the first two rounds of March Madness. Like it's just rapid fire games or matches going all over the place and upsets. And yeah, man, I'm excited. I think that we learned a lot by doing this show last year too. Yeah. Weren't we kind of all in on Bryson and Casey? I didn't listen back. Yeah. I have a memory of that.
Well, being all in on Casey would be very on brand for me. So that sounds about right. I remember us being super chalky. I think like we were maybe afraid to like pick against kind of the number ones and twos in each group just because like, I didn't know up from down at that point. That was my first podcast ever. I, I'm not surprised at all. I didn't have any, I wasn't really on Twitter or anything like that. I didn't have any like sense of the room.
Yeah. I, I, all I remember is that like, I talked up Bob, Bobby Mack in that very first group, he was with DJ and he won and he won and both of, you know, I talked him up and I was like, you know, I'm going to go with DJ. Like who's going to be DJ, how could it possibly ever happen? And I think that last year was very much a, just, you know, it showed us like anything can happen. It's mash play. It's, it's three days of round Robin mash play. Like it can get weird.
All right. Well, we're probably, this is probably gonna be a longer episode because we're probably gonna have a lot of thoughts and spend a lot of time arguing with each other. But do we need to talk about this course at all? Do we care about the course? Does it fucking matter? Well, I think you did a good job on your, on your Sunday show. And I think that it, it only matters a little bit. You know, I think there's a couple of things that are important, right? I think the green agronomy is somewhat important. Sure.
You talked about that as, you know, it's basically the same that we've seen a bunch recently at Valspar players, Phoenix. So it's like, we've seen this a lot. So I think that you can kind of almost just chalk it up to who's, who's recent putting is really good. So that's, you know, and then I think that the length is, is relevant, right? If we're on a 7,500 yard or 7,400 yard golf course,
you probably are going to target different guys than on a basically 7,000 yard golf course. So I think that's relevant. You know, we'll probably get into how we've kind of handicapped this, so to speak. But one thing that both you and I
love in our in our process is like the proximity ranges right so a lot of the proximity ranges are going to be wedges you know guys were good with wedges so those are the only two things that were relevant for me was was like general length of the course and greens but even the greens like yeah yeah i like that they uh put
the most random golf tournament of the year on a course where every single player can compete. You know what I mean? It just amps up the chaos level times 100. I would agree with your sentiment on the course. I don't have a ton to add. I like looking at TBC River Highlands and PGA West, the stadium course, and TBC Sawgrass. I think TBC Louisiana as well. And you look at the guys who have played well at both, like Billy's won at TBC Louisiana.
Louisiana twice. DJ's won the Travelers. Bubba's won the Travelers. Brian Harmon's been great at those courses. Matt Kuchar's been great at those courses. Jason Day's won the players, right? So I think those shorter positional golf courses make a lot of sense. But other than that, anything else you want to add before we get into the groups? No, I mean, I don't know if you want to kind of get, you know, you talked about a lot of this stuff on your Sunday show about
what makes a good match play player and, you know, whether you're looking at historic match play results and, and Ryder cup and all that. And I think you did a really good job. And I was controversial take. Do you think, I think that it's against,
traditional what most people are doing this week right right absolutely because it's what you know people like to draw from something right they like to have something to to hang their their hat on as far as what their approach is right and the I think the most logical approach is like okay who's a good match play player how do we know they're a good match play player based on their match play record right and so you know I think you saw my little
short conversation on Twitter not too long ago about, you know, what makes a good match play player. And I did want to kind of get into, I've got two things. Okay. More so of what I'm looking for for players more so than like, do they statistically model out well, right? Because that's, that's what we always do week to week. We're running these models.
This week I put together a model for like visual convenience just so if I wanted to look at certain stats like visually having it in the model is an easy way to do it. Two things I'm thinking about this week are
Someone who's super elite in a skill set and it can be any skill set. Yeah, I saw that. I saw you tweeted that. I like that. Right. And so like the easy one to point to is Kisner, right? Kisner has been very good here. He's an excellent putter, right? He's just one of the best. And so it's, if you think, if you play a lot of match play, you kind of know, you know, when I play golf, I almost exclusively play match play against buddies and you and I played a match. Like that's the way to play golf with your buddies. First of many.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. But, you know, you see it like if you have played a hole better than your opponent and then they drill a putt on you.
It sucks. Which is what it was like playing you. Exactly. It's demoralizing. That's how I hang into matches, man. It's like I drop putts that you don't expect me to make. And you're thinking, oh, I got this one. All I got to do is two putt here. Now all of a sudden you got to make it. And I think that's a really devastating skill set. The one that I've kind of noticed that's a very devastating skill set for this tournament is off the tee prowess. We've seen Jon Rahm be very good here.
On a couple of occasions, you talked about on Sunday about how his off the tee numbers are just like common. Wild. Yeah, absolutely. Just unbelievably good. Scotty Scheffler is a guy who is prolific off the tee, right? He is.
considered by some to be maybe not statistically the best driver, but he might be the best driver of the ball on the planet. DJ too. DJ has had a lot of success here. So I think that if you are consistently 10, 15, 20 yards longer
than your opponent, they're hitting a, you know, a six iron and you're hitting an eight or whatever up and down through the bag. Like that's got to weigh on you. It's got to really be tiring and demoralizing to be like, I'm hitting first again, like,
I haven't, this guy hasn't hit first on a shot all match. Like, and that's actually what happened in our match. You and I, you eventually just wore me down with your ball striking and eventually the putts didn't, not enough of them fell. And so I think those are kind of the things I'm looking at is a super elite skillset. And then the other thing, and you've touched on this just a little bit, I think fitness is important. Yeah, I agree with that. It's a good take.
Yeah, you know, I mean, shoot, look at the winner last year. Billy Horschel is a fit dude. He's ripped, man. That guy cares about his fitness. You're playing – if you're going to win this thing, you're playing what, seven matches in five days? Yeah, I'm laughing because I'm looking at my finals matchup right now. Well, hopefully it's not Shane Lowry versus – It's definitely not Shane, but they're not exactly the –
picture perfect image of fitness, my two guys. And I think it's relevant. You know, Kisner is a guy who we've seen do a lot of like weird drills. You know, he's a real big balance guy. So I think he's a guy who like cares about his fitness. I think it's relevant. I think you're right. I'm now, now I'm already doubting my pecs. I think you're right about that. All right, well, let's dive in.
So the first group I'm going to go from top down based on the seeds, John Rahm, Patrick Reed, Cameron Young, Sebastian Munoz. Seeing some Cameron Young buzz. We'll alternate groups going first, by the way. I'll go first. I'll lead us off. I'm seeing some Cameron Young buzz. I'm going with John Rahm. I don't see the Young thing as much as people. I don't.
I think Reed, he gained nine strokes putting and still barely finished in the top 25 last week. And Munoz is fine, but I think Rom's going to play really well this week. Yeah. I was disappointed. The only show I've listened to all week is half of Mayo's show with Jeff and
I was like thinking, oh, I'm going to be so sneaky with Cam Young. And then it's like Mayo picks him. Oh, God dang it. Everybody in the world is going to be on Cam Young. I don't know. That's where my pick is going to be Cam Young. Rom is super dangerous. And we just talked about how he's the lead off the tee and can really, you know,
probably just dominate if he shows up with his full game. Cam Young is pretty damn good off the tee himself. I was going to say that. The thing with Rahm is that the putting and the chipping struggles are like
it's been a while now, you know, it's not just like he had a bad week or two. Like it's, it's been a while now that it hasn't been very good. And so can he flip it on a switch? Of course. Absolutely. If it's even, you know, somewhat positive, he probably just crushes everybody, but that's, that's how John Rahm is every week. And I think I'm going to, I'm going to fade it in this group. Um,
you know, Cam Young, if you, if you look at his off the tee numbers for, from farmers to the API, you know, absolutely off the charts, he was gaining like four strokes around. So that's probably the only guy right now with Scotty Scheffler and John Rom is statistically off the tee. Who's who's like in that realm. Um, so I like him. And one other stat that I, that I will lean on a little bit today, um,
And I, you know, this is the one that you had to, I had to pull off of the PGA tour website, not like fantasy national or anything, but it's specifically. We use Rick run good on this podcast. Oh, right. Right. Right. Well, I got to get signed up still. I'll use my, my promo code, Andy. I don't know if Rick run good has par four birdie or better. It does. Yeah. Okay. Keep going. I pulled, I pulled the par four birdie or better stuff off of the PGA website, just because.
you know, I think that a lot of guys like birdie on par fives is going to be having a lot of holes, right? You're not, you will win some on par fives with the birdie, but you're going to have a lot of par fives with birdies. Like people just make par, you know, birdies on par fives where you, I think are going to win a lot of holes is making birdies on the park. Right. You're going to have a lot with pars, but if you make birdies, that's, that's going to be a way to win some matches and Cameron young on the season is
seventh on the PGA tour sixth in this field in par four birdie or better with that mixed with the off the tee mixed with being a young guy. Who's who's probably got some decent fitness. I think that's a good little, good little move right there. All right. So Ron, for me, young for you next group, we've got Brooks, Shane Lowry, Harold Varner, EVR lead us off buddy. Yeah, this was one of the hardest picks to make. I think it's,
So being a big-time Brooks homer, you know, you want to pick Brooks. He's the chalk of the group, and I didn't want to take a ton of chalk. He's gearing up, man. That was pretty good on Sunday at the Valspar. This is the time that he's peaking at the right time. So he has not looked bad in a long time. He looked bad at the Genesis, sure. He missed the playoff by one at Scottsdale. He hates that, of course. So he missed the playoff by one at Scottsdale, went to a course he doesn't like.
Went to the Honda, kind of backdoored a T16 or whatever, but, you know, solid showing. Got the wrong side of the draw players, but, you know, before he got blown off the course, he was three under with a chance to get up and down to get four under. Like, it was looking like his week. And then last week, shit, he shot the best round of the day on Sunday. So I think you're right that he's gearing up.
I don't know that I even want Brooks to play seven rounds, you know? I know, right? I feel the same way about Xander. I don't want him to play well at all. I think that three rounds and look relatively good and maybe, you know, get second in the group would be like the ideal situation for Brooks. Lowry was the next one who it's like, okay, do we have an elite skill set? He's been pretty elite with the iron play. I will never take Harold Varner.
in anything um so i landed on i landed on evr in this group actually i i kind of want a little bit of chaos i want some of the guys who you know i i can't take too much chalk and evr got out of his group last year uh he's a guy who plays short courses really well um
His approach play has been really good lately. And I just... Whatever. I'll take a shot. Yeah, EVR gained 11.5 on approach at the players. I almost took EVR too. I'm going to go with Brooks. I think that...
I think he is geared up, and I think he's going to win one or two of these matches. I think he wants to get out of the group stage, and I think he'll lose in the second round or the Sweet 16. But you look at some of these guys, you can't
You get Brooks's ball striking stats from the Valspar. You get JT's ball striking stats for the Zant ball for the Valspar. You look at Xander's ball striking stats for the, from the Valspar, even DJ and Colin, like these guys are, they're gearing up. Like all those guys hit the ball really, really well at the Valspar. And some of them putted well, and most of them did it. So I think Brooks is in good enough form. I don't know what Lowry's just like playing a lot of golf right now. His stats are great. He makes a lot of sense.
But I'm going with Brooks here. So Brooks for me, EVR for you. This next group is, it's such a crapshoot. We got Bryson, Taylor Gooch, Westwood, Richard Bland. I'll go Bryson. I kind of like Bryson this week. Yeah, this is a weird group. I don't know how, like, I don't know. It almost seems like,
I don't really know how they do the selection, like whether it's just straight up like, okay, these are the guys one through 64 world ranking. And so you're one seat, two seat. It seems like that might be. They split them into four groups of 16. So the top 16 guys are seated one through 16. And then they seat, I think it's like 17 through 32 and so on and so forth. So it just seems like each group has one. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Like somebody should have been flipped with somebody from another group to, to make this. Cause it's just a weird group. It's like, if Bryson didn't have layoff questions, I'm not so much even worried about his injury. Cause I don't think he'd play if he was still dealing with an injury. I agree. I think, I think that the masters is important enough to him to like, if he thought he needed more, another two weeks to rest, he just would. Yeah. Yeah.
But, you know, rust, I think is a real thing. You know, he hasn't played a real competitive round and I don't know what six weeks, two months, something like that. So that's my only lay out, you know, my only fear there. I think Richard Bland would be funny and a cute story. I don't really see it happening. Lee Westwood, you know,
He's in Saudi, man. Were you one of those people that bet Kokrak last week? I did not understand that at all. The press release came out. These guys are gone. What do they care about the Valspar? What is the purse this week? It's like $7 million. They don't give a shit. Yeah. So I went with Gooch in this round or in this little pod. That's what I almost did. Yeah. Right. He's the only one other than Bryce. And I think that
If we're talking about elite skill sets, when he's on, his irons are an elite weapon. He has not been good lately, though. Compared to what we had seen for the last six months or so, he's been a lot worse. But just by default and not wanting to take Bryson off the layoff concerns, I think Cooch is my only option. Next group, we've got DJ, Homa, Matt Wolfe, and Mackenzie Hughes. Lead us off, buddy. Here's another interesting one.
Yeah, really interesting. So DJ, I've bet him a couple weeks in a row and been like thinking that he's kind of maybe there.
It's really weird how he's having such a good start to tournaments and not contending. I thought that was really odd the last two weeks. What did you notice at the Valspar? Because I didn't really track him. I didn't have any exposure to him. The ball striking was solid, but did you track him closely? Not that closely. So I don't know exactly what it was, but...
he's making a lot of mistakes. He's making a lot of bogeys, you know, and we just kind of see him. We've seen him so often as one of those guys where it's like, if he gets off to a good start, he's just there all week, you know, and he just, he did it at the play or at the players too. He had the wrong side of the draw at the players, you know, but he had the, the incredible round four, but it just doesn't seem like it's a hundred percent all there for DJ. So I don't know. I want to,
save my chalk for other other places so I didn't go DJ I don't really see Homa as a super solid match play player I don't know why but it just seems to me that Homa thrives when like he has to you know 72 holes is kind of his thing of like playing really solid golf for 72 holes it doesn't really seem like a match play guy to me Matthew Wolfe I don't
I mean, I guess it would be the really like a buck, the trend or, or, you know, the conventional wisdom pick, man. I don't know. He's might be on the wrong hole. Yeah, exactly. So, so I went with Mac Hughes, man. He got out of his group last week or last year, I believe. And if we're talking about an elite skillset, specifically that elite putting skillset, he's a guy who can drop 40 footers on you multiple times in a round and really, uh,
flip the tide of a match just with his on the green prowess. We are 0 for 4 in terms of agreement. I went with DJ. I went pretty chalky at the top. You are chalk central. Yeah, it gets pretty weird here in a second for me. I
I don't like Mac Hughes. I don't like the way he's playing right now. I've been on him a little bit this year and he is not hitting the ball well at all. And he's not putting well enough in my opinion to compete again. I think a lot of these elite players, I think people put like way too much credence into the fact that last year we had a ton of upsets and I've seen like eight people already tweet. Rom was the only number one seed to make it out. Like I,
Okay, we get it, but that's not always necessarily predictive. And I think a lot of these guys –
They're all trending up. They're all trending in the right direction. I like how DJ is starting to trend. I like how Brooks is starting to trend. Rom is his own thing. I like how Xander's starting to trend. Like I like how JT starting to trend. I think a lot of these guys are going to win one match, win a match, maybe lose in the next round. So I went with DJ here. I like Homa. I probably like Homa a little bit more than you. I may play some Homa and draft Kings, but I went with DJ. So that, that takes us through the first quadrant next group is,
Shuffler, Fitzpatrick, Fleetwood, Poulter. I guess it's my turn to start. I've been pretty heavy on Fleetwood the past couple of weeks. I like the way he's playing. It would be pretty on brand for me to hop off right before the miracle happens with him. But I'm in the same boat with Fitzpatrick. I've been betting these guys every single week, and I think Fitzpatrick's better than Fleetwood.
I don't think either of them are going to win. I think I like them more in situations where they have to make a bunch of pars as opposed to make a bunch of birdies, but I'm going to go with Fitzpatrick here. What about you? So now is the time when it flips and I get real chalky in this region. Yeah. Shuffler's dangerous. I didn't even really give it much thought, man. It's, you know, I did run a model. I did run a model. He's playing like really good golf.
Yeah, but Fitz is a guy who thrives on, you know, difficult scoring, right? And like making no bogeys, which could be valuable in match play. But I want a guy who is aggressive. I think you talked about it on your Phoenix pod of how do you quantify aggressiveness. I still haven't really figured that out, you know, like going for the green percentage and that kind of stuff.
We just know that Scotty Scheffler is an aggressive player, right? He's his driver is an absolute weapon. You know, like I said, I did run a statistical model just to have it. He's number one birdie or better par four percentage. He's fourth in this field. We saw him do the runner up thing last year. His current form is off the charts, you know, two wins recently and,
The green types, all of it matches up for me for Scheffler. I think that he might be the kind of guy who's like, who loves match play, right? We haven't talked about that with any of the guys yet. He beat John Rahm in a match in the Ryder Cup. Completely different. Oh, I remember. Like you said, it's a different setting, the team thing versus not. But like, it's still match play golf and he still beat world number one.
Pretty handily, if I recall it. I was there. I was following the whole time. It was one of the better days of my life, Luke. You know, he's got just that off-the-tee dominance. And I think that against these guys in this group, especially like, you know, Poulter and Fitz, it's like, well, Fitz is decently long. But I just think that he is going to just outclass these dudes and just boat race them.
Next group, we've got Billy Horschel, Thomas Peters, Tom Hoagie, Minwoo Lee. Start us off, buddy. Yeah, last year we talked a lot about these Euro guys. It seemed like there was a lot more of the Euro Tour guys in the field last year. Not as many this year, and then two of them end up in this same little group.
It's because they suck, Luke. I'm so tired. Yeah, it's like I'm so – I was looking at the stuff that like Peters and Minwoo Lee and Kanaya when they get to the U.S. It's like can you guys just show me something in the U.S. first before we get all cute and try and pick these guys that do well on the Asian tour?
You're not wrong at all, man. I'm not going to even fight with you. Minwoo Lee, though, if we get on a Lynx course in match play, I'm going to get some Minwoo going. Thomas Peters has an elite skill set. He has an elite off-the-tee prowess. Man, like you're saying, dude, he sucks when he gets to the U.S. He's actually turned it around and won
on the European tour recently after a huge layoff, he was, you know, becoming the Euro Tony Finau. And now he's like kind of got that off his back, but like, dude, he comes and he plays in these alt field events or whatever, like plays in the Bahamas or whatever the hell he sucks. It's like, I don't know, man. It's so, so I think there's only two choices here and it's, it's one, our boy,
T-Hogues, who has an elite skill set, which is wedges, right? Sure does. Maybe the best in the world with 100 yards to the pin. I would agree. So that's an elite skill set. But I went with my boy Billy Ho. Billy Ho has this like – I think Billy Ho has a chip on his shoulder. I don't know if I'm the only one who like feels that.
No, you're right. He's like bummed he didn't get the Ryder Cup call. I agree with that. Yeah, and he's always fighting with people like the camera people. He's always got something that he's mad about. And he's the defending champ, so we know he can play match play. We know he can play this course. When he's on, he's got a couple of different weapons. He can putt it with the best of them when he's really playing well. And he can go out and get a ton of birdies.
when he needs them. So I like Billy Ho and for more, you know, if nothing else, I really want to see the rematch, right? The Horschel-Sheffler rematch. That just for me is a fun storyline. So I just set it up to get, you know, two of my chalk picks in this region, set up the rematch from the championship last year, Sheffler and Horschel.
I'm going with Hoagie. I think he's good. I think Hoagie is going to stay. I think he is... He leveled up. Yeah, I think he's going to be a top...
50 or 60 guy for a while and play in majors and it wouldn't shock me if he had a coke rack year one of these years where he actually had a couple wins like elite fields i think coke rack is a good comp for what hoagie can be i think he's really good what hoagie would have to do though is learn how to putt because that's why coke rack did that that's a
That's a good point. All of a sudden he was like putting the lights out, right? Yeah. And Hoagie won at Pebble because he had a good putting. We could find there a couple good putting days. But in general, he's just not that good of a putter.
you know, he's liable to miss a four footer from par. And it's like, I think he lost about five at the players, which if he didn't lose five strikes putting, he would have been right in the mix. He put his right out of that tournament. Yeah. And you know, it's like, I was, I was the hoagie back to back guy at Pebble and Scottsdale. And,
Dude, if he didn't chip into the water on Saturday. He's right there too. He might have been, you know. That was the weekend we were at Pasa. Oh, God, what a weekend. Yeah. That was fun, man. But, yeah, no, I think that Hoagie or Horschel are the only two, like, legitimate picks in this one. And I got to go some shock somewhere, so I'm going Horschel.
All right. Next group. We've got Hatton, Berger, Siwu, Bazadenhout. I'm going Siwu. I bet Siwu to win at 80 to one. I think Siwu's a, he's a good pick here and he's, he's not, not a lot of people are talking about him. I think Bazadenhout sucks. Berger's fine. And I like Hatton a lot. Hatton really scares me, but I think Siwu could win. He,
You know, he's one at the players. He's one at the Amex. I like both of those courses. I don't really understand why he hasn't been better here, but I think it's a good spot for him. He's kind of under the radar. I like Siwoo a lot. I'm going Siwoo. So, dude, something happened where we both decided that the same guys suck and don't suck because, man.
Zayden Howe does not get what people think he is. I'm guilty of it myself. Same. I love him, man. I think his story is awesome. He had just like this sick run on the Euro Tour, but dude, it's on the Euro Tour. You got to take it with a grain of salt sometimes. And what he was doing was putting just otherworldly putting for like a pretty long stretch of time, which I think led us all to believe that he is just a really good putter.
you know, and maybe he's not as good as we thought. Maybe he's, he's good, but he's not great. Yeah. Something about it, but dude, he has not been good for a long time now. And I think that, you know, Hatton is, is a, would be a fine pick here. He's playing really good. I really like Hatton when it's hard, you know, I'm looking for birdie guys, guys who can just go out and make a ton of birdies. Cause I think that's, that's how you win match play. Yeah.
Yeah, finally got one the same. Okay, you're Siwoo too. Okay, I love that. So, I mean, we know he's a Pete Dye guy. I don't even think we've mentioned the Pete Dye aspect yet, which we probably set the record for podcasts of longest into the podcast without talking about Pete Dye. I don't think we've talked about lefties or Texas yet either, which I'm really proud of.
Yeah, dude, we're – yeah, we think we just – you know, we're galaxy brainers, dude. We're just smarter than that. No, I think that the Si Wu Pete guy on Bermuda especially is a real thing. Granted, this is the over-steated, but he just won on the same agronomy in Amex last year. It's a real thing. Si Wu is a guy who, when he's on, is just going to fire flagsticks and, you know,
I think it's also surprising that he hasn't been better at this course. I love Si Wu. I think he's a guy who could win probably a number that's actually worth betting too. I bet it. 80 to 1. I think I saw as high as 92, but yeah, I'm all in on Si Wu. Next group. I've got an 80. Yeah. Yeah, take that. I think that's a fair number for him here. He'll win once a year or once every 18 months, right? And his number drops too. It's never a huge investment with him.
And this is, we've talked about ramping up a little bit. Yeah. I don't have the 100% understanding of what gets you out of Korean military service, but I think it's always been that a master's would get you out of Korean military service, right? I did not know that. Maybe. I don't know.
To be honest with you, I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I thought when those guys, the way that people were talking about the Olympics, I thought that if those guys did it metal, they actually wouldn't play the next year. But it, so it's everyone just forgot. I don't think it's that. No, no. I don't think that you just like get sent to the military because it's done on your country. No, I don't think it's that. I think it's, it's, it's a mill. A metal definitely gets you out. I always thought it was a metal or a major.
Yeah. And I, we would have to confirm that. I'll call up, you know, somebody in the Korean government. I don't know, but I feel like a master's gets you out of Korean military service. His days are numbered. Like, I think this is his last year on tour.
Yeah, he's 26. And I think it's 26 is the age. Oh, that makes sense. That's why Sung Jae wouldn't have to go this year. Sung Jae's got plenty of time. Sung Jae's got some time. He'll have another Olympics. Like, Si Woo does not have another Olympics. So hopefully Si Woo, like, you know, is trying to gear up. And this would be a really good way to do it. Next group, Patrick Cantlay, Sung Jae, Seamus Power, Keith Mitchell. I'm seeing a little Mitchell buzz. What do you think here? This is an interesting one.
Yeah, this is kind of interesting. Mitchell's got an elite skill set. Off the tee, he's a pretty elite. I don't see Mitchell's power. He just is kind of leveled out. It seems like his run of hot form is over. I really want to take Sungjae because I love Sungjae, but I also remember really loving Sungjae last year and taking him out of his pod and
I kind of remember him not even being somewhat competitive last year in this. He's actually the one guy that the arrow is kind of trending down if you look at the numbers. Yeah, so our boy PGA splits 101. So Sungjae went one and two last year. It didn't look, his numbers are pretty red. Like he didn't,
do that good. So this is actually a chalk, another chalk one that I'm going to eat. And I think that Cantlay is perfect for this. I think that Cantlay's betting number at 22 is fair. We're not that far removed from him being just like, you know, knock on the door of, Hey, maybe I'm the best player in the world.
I think that Cantlay, you know, he loves Pete Dye. He's got elites. He's got multiple elite skill sets. I think he's a guy who would be annoying to play in match play. I agree with that. Yeah. He never hits a ball off the center of the, like it's always the center of the club face time, you know, his timing of how he plays and shuffling, he's shuffling, he's shuffling. I think that would get super annoying.
I think that he's a great pick. I think he wins this group, no problem. Huh. You know, I have an interesting theory with Cantlay that could be really dumb, but I think this spot in the schedule isn't –
I don't think this is a good spot for him. I was looking back the past couple of years where he dominates the West coast swing and he's so good on, on all those courses. And he plays a lot of golf. He plays way more golf than any of the other elites when he's on the West coast. I think he's the only elite player that plays both the Amex and pebble beach. And then he comes here and, and, and he kind of sucks at the players and hasn't ever had a ton of success here. So I,
I don't know if it's like a scheduling thing for me going for poets or Bermuda, but he, he always seems to like fall a little bit flat at this stage of the schedule. And then he kind of revs it up back again later in the year. I say all that to say, I'm picking Seamus power because I just think like,
I don't like the way Sungjae's playing. I think Seamus is, he's just under the radar enough now where he has leveled out, as you mentioned, from those elite finishes, but it's still a good golf course for him. You know, he's done well at TPC River Highlands, the players and the Amex. He's gained five off the tee at the players. I think he's like a, I may be getting too cute here because I played some chalk at the top, but I think he's like a really good DFS play.
that no one's really going to have their mind on this week. So I'm going with Power, but you're right. Cantlay probably looks at it and says, okay, this is the last gasp before the Masters, right? Yeah, I think so, 100%. No way he plays Valero, right? Not a chance. No, that would be lunacy. So I don't think that's even in the cards. I don't think that Seamus Power has a single professional match play
you know, match to his, his credit. So that's, I think we all love Seamus power, right? He's a guy we all cheer for. So we'd be happy to see him do well, you know, good luck buddy. Colin Morikawa, Jason Kokrak. We're now on the other side of the bracket. Colin Morikawa, Jason Kokrak, Sergio Garcia, Bobby McIntyre,
I think Morikawa is not getting enough buzz this week. I think not. I mean, I haven't really listened to anything. I've just kind of scrolled through Twitter a little bit with, like I said, I, I think Kokrak's dumb at this point and I'm going Sergio. I'm going, I'm going Sergio, but I, I, I think Morikawa is dangerous. I think he's a little bit of a sleeping giant, but with all that said, I'm going Sergio.
Yeah, he's always a sleeping giant. The books are not letting him drift, right? He's still like fourth in the odds. So he's getting respect in the market at least. Kokrak, you know, if you're right, I mean, he did say he like is down to go play in Saudi. I think he's gone, right? So there is a thing though with Kokrak in Texas, right? His last couple wins have been in Texas. That's like seems to be a real thing. Sergio has really good match play.
records both here and Ryder Cup and just, you know, a ton of experience there. He's the kind of guy who has an elite skill set with his irons. He has the opposite of an elite skill set when it comes to putting, but I think he's putted fine here. That was going to be my pick, but you know what? I didn't, I poo-pooed on him last year. I'm not doing it this year. Bobby Mack.
Yeah. You kind of have to, right? I have to a hundred percent. And you know, any, any stats you run Bobby Mac's not going to show up cause he just doesn't play over here. But dude, he's been really good. He, he's got a 13th and ninth and a 15th at the Genesis. So, so he had a 13th and a ninth on the DP world tour, came over and played the Genesis and had a 15th.
we're going to get into lefties now because we've got, we've got them all coming up. We've got a bunch coming up. Yeah. We've seen lefties have success at this course. I don't know what it is about this course. If it's, if it's a thing that like a left to right shot shape might be beneficial. Right. And so drawers of the ball or lefty faders would be, you know, kind of the same thing that we say with Genesis and the mat and Augusta, that might be a thing. I don't know. Um,
You know, Harmon and Bubba have been good here. And he got out of his group last year in a group with Kevin Na and DJ. Give me Bobby Mack. Next group, we've got Abraham Anser, Webb Simpson, Brian Harmon, Bubba Watson. Lead us off here, buddy. Yeah, lefty group. Once again, like, why are we just...
what are we doing putting all these guys in the same group like I don't know I didn't really even think about answer or Simpson too much um answer is a great Pete Dye guy you know he's always just a good player but I don't think that he's got like the I don't know he doesn't strike me as as the kind of guy who would make a deep run in this kind of tournament did you did you listen to his uh no laying up interview I did not was there some some nuggets
I was just going to say, I think there's a chance that he might care more about his business ventures than being the best golfer in the world. It's important. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying it was a vibe that I kind of got when listening to the podcast. The man makes a hell of a tequila. I'll tell you that. I've been drinking that Fletcher Azul lately. It's really good stuff. Is it good? Dude, it's really good, man. And he just brought on Wahlberg. He's a huge investor now.
Yeah, it's good stuff. I've got like a bunch of hats of it too and a couple of bottles that I've been drinking. Webb showed some stuff last week that I did not expect to see. But for me, it was between Harmon and Bubba. Both of them have played well here. Harmon's got some just like sneaky, really good form lately.
He's, he just seems like if we, Oh, another thing we haven't mentioned yet is a bulldog, right? He's kind of got that bulldog mentality, but I went with Bubba. We want to talk about an elite skillset, the elite skillset of off the tee and the ability to work shots and
you know, different types of shots. I think that Bubba's got that. I think there's enough variety in the type of holes at this course that it's important to be able to kind of be a shot maker and Bubba's got that. So I like Bubba. We kind of out on web. I mean, he was, I played him last week because he was like, he was single digit ownership and I wanted to get off the Keegan and Knox chalk, but he was fine. He really faded over the weekend. He looked good the first couple of days though.
Is Webb just like even that good anymore? Is he kind of on the end of his career? Yeah, he might not be. You know, Webb had this thing, and maybe I made this up, but I feel like it's a real thing, where he really wanted to play in a team event again, right? And there was this conversation he had with Tiger about how do I get on the President's Cup team, right? And it was like, play better. Yeah. That was Tiger's answer. And he did. He played better for a long time. He was like insanely good.
And he made that team, and then he's just kind of been like a – just kind of there. I think everyone's going to pick Bubba or Harmon. I think those guys maybe make the most sense on paper. I think I'm going to go with Mr. Fletch Azul. Another thing that I –
Another thing that I learned from that interview is he loves these golf courses. He talked about it. He's like, I, I can really compete on these types of golf courses. And I don't know. I think, I think Harmon and Bubba are going to be the trendy picks. Harmon's been so good here and he's just coming off a, I think like a fourth at the Valspar. Um,
Abe's still better. Abe still does harm everything that Harmon does a little bit better than Harmon. He's been just okay this year. I think this is a good spot for answer. So I've got answer moving on. Next group, a couple of our favorites, Louie. Yeah. Louie, Paul Casey, Connors, Noren. I think it's my turn. Everyone's picking Noren.
No one's picking Louie or Casey. I'm going to pick Corey Connors. I think it's a good golf course for Corey Connors. I think he's flying a little bit under the radar. Anytime you get him on these shorter positional golf courses like Harbor town or saw grass where he gets to hit a bunch of short irons. I think this is a good spot for him. And again,
I get the Noren thing. It's absolutely in play that I bet Noren three weeks in a row. And then I hop off right before he ends up actually cashing a ticket, but he's been good to me, man. He's killed it for me in draft Kings. He's killed it for me in the finishing position markets. And he started to,
The reason why I like Noren so much the past couple of weeks is because he was hitting the ball really well and not really putting well. Well, last week he completely flipped where he went back to being Alex Noren, where he didn't hit the ball well at all and put it out of his mind. That's not the arrow that I want to see Noren trending in. So I'm going to say Corey Connors.
Yeah, I apparently am everybody because I went Norrin here. It makes sense. He's matched by record here. It's great, right? It's really good, you know, and his iron play lately has been phenomenal. Norrin has gone through this kind of weird career arc where he was known for being really good on super difficult golf courses, right? Grinding out tough courses.
pars and all that kind of stuff. Then there was this time where it seemed like he was just torching birdie fests, making a ton of birdies, and now he's had this nice little run through the Florida where it's been hard. I think that it kind of all matches up to be like, this is the kind of guy who's good at match play, right? He can make birdies if he needs to. He can grind out tough pars if he needs to. That's kind of
maybe what makes a good match play player. His match play record proves it out. I wanted to go with Casey because of his irons are so good. Are you going to bet him at the Masters? A thousand percent. A thousand percent. Oh my God, yes. I'm just going to wait for the best number I can get. I hope he has a bad week. I bet him at every major last year. And it makes sense, right? He is the kind of guy who is a major player.
player right he is a tough golf course guy he's not like a go 25 under par to win a tournament guy he's like hey if this is at 8 to 10 to 12 under like i'm gonna be there so so i think he's more in play in a couple weeks i like noren to get out of this group it's it's just kind of a couple guys who seem a little bit uninspired right other than casey but
Xander, Finau, Herbert, Kanaya, you're up first, but I think you're making a grave mistake. I think you're trying to be cute if you go away from my boy here. Yeah, no. So my first thought, I was never going to take Kanaya. He's a good player. He's good. He's
He's not that good. I really did think about Herbert because of these elite skill sets that I'm trying to target. He's got an elite short game. No chance in the world I'm taking Tony Fina right now. That dude is lost as can be. I tried it out at the point. It's kind of sad, honestly. Something's wrong, man. So yeah, Xander Shofflett, baby. This one's too easy.
I really hope he plays like shit this week. I bet him at 28 to one just for my own insurance.
He's a popular bat. People are, people are picking him again. I saw Mayo's bracket on, he posted it on Instagram or Twitter and he picked Xander. And I texted with Jeff this morning and he, the first thing he texted me at 7am was Xander. Just that's the only text. It's a number that makes sense. You know, it's, we're starting to see this like,
He's not getting the pricing in the teens that he was for so long. He's kind of in the 20s, mid-20s now. So I understand why it would be a bet. I'd rather take Cantlay at basically the same number, but to get out of this pod, I think it was a pretty easy pick for me. I actually didn't go into this week –
Zander. Like I didn't talk about him at all on my Sunday show. I didn't really have him circled. I just think his draw is so terrible. Like, I think you're probably a little bit higher on Herbert and Kenia than I am. Um, I,
I really don't like this side of the bracket outside of Morikawa, as I mentioned. So I just think the draw works for him really well, which is kind of the reason why probably a lot of people are on him. Let's move on. Justin Thomas, Kevin Kisner, Mark Leishman, Luke list. It's my turn. I bet Leishman at 80 to one. I think he's a star.
I like this spot for Leishman. I think, you know, not a lot of people are going to talk about him because he's in the same bracket as JT. He almost won the Travelers last year. And he's, I think you're getting a little bit of a break on him because he just, he just missed the cut at the players, but he was playing so great before that. And he was on the wrong side of the draw at the players too. I could just see it with Leish. I could just see he fits that spot.
He's going to be the same odds as Horschel and Kisner and Kuchar and Bubba. He's in that vein of like, he's due. He's a mid tier guy. You don't have to worry about him. Like mine's just completely on Augusta. Like he wants to win. He can get insanely hot with his putter. I don't want to spoil too much with my bracket later, but I'm pretty damn high on Leisman this week. I think he's a really sharp play. Yeah. I don't know.
Man, I didn't really give him that much thought to be honest. I don't think a lot of people are going to, you know, he kind of had that good run, like you said, and he's, he's okay now. And I don't know. I don't know that that Leishman necessarily has an elite skillset. So that, I think that turned me off. I think what he's good at is everything, right? When he's playing well as he does a little bit of everything. Yeah.
you know, list. God, just don't give him anything. I like Luke List here. I think this is a tough group for Leishman. I like all these players. Just don't concede anything to List, though, and he's going to choke it. Kisner, I think, is a lot of people's, you know,
Match play darling and whatever. Kisner sucks. He's so bad. He's not good at golf. If he's not gaining five, six strokes, I think he gets a barstool bump and
I thought the Ryder Cup discussion was reprehensible. I didn't even think we should have entertained it. That was gross. God, he's so, so, so dependent on a short game. I know he gets it done. I know he gets the results, but I never play him. If the putter is not
Red hot. He's got no chance. I went with JT. I really liked a lot of... Smart move, yeah. I liked a lot of what you said on Sunday, man. Honestly, actually, I was listening to it this morning, getting ready for work and on my way to work, and it was like, JT is playing some good golf. He's going to win the Masters. He might. He might, man. This is a course where he's going to have a lot of wedge in hand. When it's all about dialing in a wedge...
to the exact yard right like 105 versus 107 yard wedge like JT has just this uncanny ability to just dial that exact number in and I think he's going to have a lot of that this week you also mentioned with this course that it has some forgiveness off the tee I mean if you can get in some really bad spots like you don't have to be precise so I think that sets up really nicely for JT
Jordan Spieth, Adam Scott, Justin Rose, Keegan Bradley. Lead us off here, buddy. By the way, did you see Spieth's that swing video that surfaced on Twitter like 30 minutes before we went live? No, I did not. It's gross. I can give my pick while you look at it. Well, you've mentioned it before. The rehearsal thing is unwatchable. Yeah, it's gross.
It's just slow. I don't claim to be a swing expert. I've talked to a couple people that are smarter about the golf swing than me just to ask, like, hey, am I seeing, like, am I off with what I'm seeing here? And they're like, no, this is weird. I went with Adam Scott here. Are you talking about this really slow motion, weird swing that he's got? Yeah. Next to Wolf? Yes, that's it. Ryan Baroff posted it.
What is that? That's hard to watch. People are still going to bet him this week, though, because he's Texas and people are like, ah, Spieth, he just figures it out. He finds a way. I like Adam Scott. You want to talk about somebody that's gearing up to peak at the right time? Yeah. I don't think a lot of people are talking about him because he had that miscut at the players. He's won the players. I finished 13th at the Travelers last year. I like Adam Scott.
Yeah, there's an elite skill set of just ball striking in general. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I went with Rosie. There's a guy who may be gearing up to do some stuff. On the season, on the entire PGA Tour, fourth in birdie or better par four percentage. Dude, Rose is – he's not that far removed from being –
the best player in the world, right? It was just a couple of years ago. I think that he went through some equipment changes that like messed them all up and it's still there with Justin Rose. I really, I really like him. And I think that this might be the time of year where he's gearing up. And I think we could see him in this group, right? Like I think that speed,
whatever the hell he's doing with his golf swing, he could go either way. Keegan Bradley's a guy who, you know, you can get 10 different versions of Keegan Bradley. I think it's between Scott and Rose in this group for sure. Next group's interesting. Joaquin Neiman, Kevin Na, Russell Henley, Mav McNeely,
You know how I feel about Henley because you listen to my Sunday show. I couldn't bet Henley. Henley was like 35 to 1 at draft games. Yeah, and I only bet four dudes, and I bet one dude from each quadrant. I figure I'm probably going to have to reload at the Sweet 16, so I'm super underexposed going into the tournament. And I'm already betting Leishman, so I didn't really want to bet Henley at 50 to 1. I think he wins this group, though.
I think that you did mention something right there that we haven't talked about. Maybe we'll get into a little bit later about saving some live bullets, right? But...
This was the most unfortunate group, I thought, from a betting perspective because the two guys I really wanted to look at betting were Neiman and Henley. I like Neiman too. Can I bet two guys from the same pod? It's like Neiman has really good incoming form. He has that ability to
just ball strike with the best of them. And when he's on, he's like hitting it to two feet all day, right? And it's like if you're playing match play against a guy who's hitting it to two feet, good luck, man. Like imagine playing a match against Neiman at Riviera a couple weeks ago. I mean, you would have been dusted. You know, you'd have been done by the 10th hole. And so that's a little bit scary for me.
McNeely is a guy who we we've seen be incredible on short golf courses with tiny greens. I think that's his MO, which is what this is, right? It's a short golf course with real small greens. So I think McNeely is live. But I couldn't get away from Henley either. Same thing, man. It's the irons are stupid good. They're, they're maybe the best in the field, maybe second best in the field. It's like no one's hitting better approaches. Yeah.
Statistically, they're even a little better than Morikawa right now, which is not me saying that he's a better iron player than Morikawa. It's just it kind of goes over the last couple of months. It has been Henley. Final group, Victor Hovland, Zalatoris, Tringali, Straka. Did you see that picture that Tringali posted on Twitter today with the cowboy boots? What the hell?
What's like the angle there is what I'm trying to figure out because I get a guy like Jim Herman tweeting funny stuff for the pep stuff, but I don't really understand what's he going for? I think he just posted a picture of what he was wearing that day, man. I think he's just a weird dude. I think that's just what he dresses like. I don't think there was a joke.
There's no angle. Cameron's not trying to outsmart anyone. No, he's like, hey, look at me. I'm in Texas, guys. Well, I can't do it here. I went hoveling here. I don't know if it was my turn, but I hadn't eaten a lot of chalk in a while. He's going to devastate you with his ball striking. It's got to be tough to keep up. Zalatoris can keep up ball striking-wise.
but I don't want to have to rely on a guy who needs to make five footers, four footers to stay in holes. Fair. I liked Zalatoris a lot. I like this side of the bracket a lot. Before the bracket came out, the four guys that I wanted to bet were Adam Scott,
Will Zalatoris, Russell Henley, and Mark Leishman. And they're all on the same side of the bracket. So I ended up going with Leishman. Yeah, same region. Yeah, same region, which is brutal. So I ended up going with Leishman. Yeah, you know, I had a theory about Hovland not being good on Pete Guy, and he kind of debunked that a little bit by gaining a casual 14-strokes ball striking at the players. Yeah.
Yeah, I had that same kind of thought. And then it was like, oh, well, maybe he just hasn't played him enough. Maybe it's a learned trait. All right, well, let's kind of rapid fire through these. So now we're on to the Sweet 16. I've got Rahm and Brooks. That'd be fun. That would be really fun. I like Rahm. I'd rather it be at the Masters. Yeah, I like Rahm. You've got Cam Young and EVR. I went Cam Young.
Okay, I've got Bryson and DJ. This top bracket's got some real potential. I went with DJ. And you've got Matt Hughes and Taylor Gooch. Yeah, Matt Hughes putts his way to the sweet elite eight. Yeah, elite eight. You went weird in this one. I went weird a little bit lower. Fitz Hoagie for me. I went Hoagie. You've got Scheffler-Billy. Yeah, Scheffler gets redemption.
C. Woo Seamus for me. I've got C. Woo. You've got C. Woo Cantlay. Yeah, Patrick Cantlay. Pete Dye Specialists. Yeah, that's a good one. That'd be a good matchup. That'd be fun. Sergio, answer for me. I'm going to go with Sergio, and you've got Bobby Mac Bubba, the lefty battle. Yep. The more experience of the lefties gets it done. Bobby is 0 for 2 in the round of Sweet 16. So you've Bubba moving on to the quarters. Yeah.
Connor Zander, again, like I promise I did not go into this week thinking I was going to be this high on Zander. I think his draw is weak, man. I think Zander will beat Corey Connors here, so I have him moving on. I'm with Zander as well. I couldn't talk myself into somebody beating him. It just makes sense. Did you see his ball striking numbers at Valspar? He hit the shit out of it. Couldn't make a putt.
And he got, it seems like he got really fucked on. Yeah, it's back. And he got really fucked on the last hole. He got like a plugged lie right on the web and made double, um, which prevented him from finishing like T sex. But now that he's, this is what his schedule is up is for is to peak at this time of year. So I like Xander, even though I hope he does not play well this week. Um,
So I have Leishman and Scott. I like both of these guys a lot. I'm going with Leishman. You have Justin Thomas and Justin Rose. Yep. I'm going with Rosie. He's, I don't know why I just had to get weird. I couldn't bring all the chalk through. I don't even have like a good reason. No, I think the theory that I had where a lot of these elite players are going to maybe win their group and then lose in the knockout stage. I,
I could see that with a lot of these guys. Like I could see... And that would kind of be the ideal situation for them, right? Get three good rounds in and then take whatever, 10 days, 11 days off and then go play the Masters. Henley, Zalatoris for me. Again, this is really tough. I really like Zalatoris. I went with Henley here. You've got Henley Hovland. Yeah, I went with Henley too. I...
I think that the, you cannot overstate how good the irons are, right? It's like, it's a short golf course. He's going to be hitting a hundred and a hundred to 150 yard wedges and irons all day. It's like,
Good luck keeping up, man. Yeah, Henley might be mega chalk in DFS, which is the only thing I'm worried about. But I think it makes too much sense here. All right, so now we're on to the corners. Rom DJ, again, that would be very fun. I'm just trying to will this, like, Rom thing into existence because I think –
If Rom, I mean, the narrative's already, I talked about this all on my podcast, but I just like, it's the pendulum starting to swing with him and he needs, he needs something. He needs something. And I really hope he doesn't go into the masters as the forgotten guy. So I'm, I went with Rom over DJ. You've got Cam Young and Mac Hughes.
Dude, I couldn't stop picking Cameron Young. I don't know why. You and Mayo, man. He's good off the tee. I get it. I know. Dude, he's just good. So I follow the Corn Fairy Tour as well. You know, last year he had a back-to-back on the Corn Fairy Tour. Like Cameron Young is a guy. Is he? Okay. He's a guy. I'll take your word for it. Why? Can I ask you a question then, Luke? Why was when the Corn Fairy Tour started,
when the graduates, why was it Mito that everyone fell in love with? I didn't even know who Cam Young was until he, like, three weeks ago. So a couple differences. One being most important is that Mito is a much cooler name than Cameron. Mito Pereira versus Cameron Young. I think that people just gravitate to that. I think that people love Joaquin Neiman, and they're like, hey, there's another awesome Chilean. I really think that there's something to that.
um the other thing is that Mito actually got the three wins and and got the automatic promotion Cam Young only had the two and they were consecutive weeks but he didn't get that automatic promotion so then it was like he won these two and then he kind of had like a bunch of missed cuts and just kind of was doing nothing I think that he probably was like oh well
I'm in right. As soon as this corn ferry tour season's over, I'm in because two wins I'm solidified in the top 25. So like, I think he just kind of took this time off, but dude, it's like, we've seen him now come on to, to the PGA tour as just like, he's all of a sudden he's there all the time. You know, he almost won the Genesis. I think he's the best.
I think he's really good. I can't even, I don't, I don't have room for, I don't have room to be a cam young guy. Cause I'm already such a sea Heath guy. Yeah. I'm a cam young guy. All right. So Tom Hoagie, see Wu Kim for me, I'm picking see Wu. So I've got Rob and see Wu as the seven. I desperately hope you're right, man. I love, I would love to see, see Wu make a run. And you've got Scheffler and Cantlay. That's a good one.
That'd be a sick matchup. And I, I'm just kind of in on, on Canley this week. I think that's, I think it's his, his week. So I took Canley. Not buzzy. Like from what I've seen, I don't think there's a lot of buzz on him. He's bad at the players and he was on the wrong right side of the draw. So I think a lot of people are going to be like, Oh, he sucks. Um,
Bubba Zander for you. I don't know why I went you first, but Bubba or Zander. I just couldn't stop picking Zander. He's into the final four. Yeah, I have Sergio Zander. I think Sergio is going to play really well this week, and then I think he's going to run out of steam. I'm going to use the fitness thing. I think Sergio is probably in really good shape. He's just a little bit older.
I just liked Xander's draw. I think his draw is really fucking easy. I hope I'm wrong about it, but I think his draw sets up really well for him. JT, or you got out of JT, Rose Henley for you. Yeah, just going to keep riding Henley, man. He's just dangerous with those irons. I think that will be a popular. You went kind of chalk, buddy.
Not really? No, I think Xander Henley is going to be a very popular semi. I mean, that's possibly true, but it's like I had Bubba. No, I know. And Bubba Rose. You know, that's not going to be too chalky. Maybe Bubba, but...
No, and then I think it's just because it's not chalky because Henley's a big underdog. But I think it's like – I think Henley's going to be a really popular pick this week. Well, that's your fault, dude. You talked him up too good. Yeah. I'm going Leishman over Henley. I think Leishman wins. I think Leishman wins this tournament. So our final four is Luke, and we got to do –
I'm kind of kicking myself. I don't love listening to my old podcast, but we should, I'm curious to see like who had the better bracket this year. Cause hopefully we're doing this for the next decade and we could do a running total of who, who wins every year. Yeah, surely we can find them somewhere.
Yeah, we probably, yeah. It would just require me to go back and listen to that episode. But you want to do a head-to-head? What should it be for? Because it's a golf thing because we're playing again soon, right? Yeah, we'll do greens fees. Okay, perfect. Greens fees, whoever. And we'll just do the scoring from however the PGA Tour grades it? Yeah, right. PGA Tour bracket challenge? Okay. So our final fours,
Rom and Siwoo and Xander and Mark Leishman for me. I like that final four a lot. Your final four, sir, is Cam Young, Patrick Cantlay, Xander and Henley. I'll go first. I have Rom beating Siwoo and then I have Xander. I have Leishman beating Xander in the final four. So my finals is John Rom versus Mark Leishman. And I think Mark Leishman wins the match play.
Wow. Yeah, you were right when you said you didn't take the most fit guys to get down to the final. But so, wait, did you say your third place winner? Oh, so it'd be Xander versus C. Will. I'll take Xander, I guess. I guess. Yeah. So I've got Patrick Cantlay taking down Cameron Young. The Cinderella story finally happened.
you know, falters. And then I got Xander over, over Henley. I, I don't know why I just couldn't get away from Xander this week. Napa boys. Yep. And it's, yeah, they're like the boys when it comes to the Ryder cup. Right. So like, I think that it would be kind of a really fun matchup to just elite ball striking bastards to, to borrow a Nagel's term. And man, that would be, that would be a really fun final matchup.
I got Patrick Cantley winning that final and then Cameron Young taking home third place over Henley. I love it. I'll post these to Twitter too when I post the episode because I filled out all of yours. All right. I think that'll do it, man. How'd we do on time? That was pretty good. That could have easily been 90 minutes. Super reasonable. Yeah.
Well, Luke, what else? What do you got? Go ahead. Sorry. Did you make bets? Have you made any bets? Dude, great point. Yeah, I made bets. Of course I made bets. I bet Siwoo at 80 to one. I bet Xander at 28 and I bet Leishman at 80. And I'm figuring out what to do in that first quadrant. And it's going to be either Rom or DJ. I think it's the guy I'm going to bet. It might be Rom.
If there's like a DJ 24, it'll probably be DJ, but the ROM 14, I mean, he was 14 at the players and now we're without Rory and Cam Smith and Sam Burns. I don't think that's a bad number. So one of those guys in that quadrant, but the bets that I have locked in are Xander, Leishman and Seawill. What about you?
So I haven't actually made any yet. I'm almost certainly going to bet Cantlay at 22. I think that's a super fair number. I'm thinking about betting a couple guys that I didn't advance, you know, just kind of as like an emotional hedge and just kind of a hedge of everything. Like Answer at 55 seems like a reasonable bet. Siwu at 80 is certainly a reasonable bet. Cameron Young I've got going deep, so 125 I'm certainly going to take that. Yeah, you got to.
you know, Rose at 90, I think is a, is a worthy, you know, sprinkle. It's the odds are so strange. This 30 to 40 or 30 to 50 range is so compacted with a bunch of guys that, you know, I wish some of them were a little deeper. So I haven't pulled the trigger on anything yet. I will have Cantlay. I will have Cam Young, um,
you know, I've got a 50 on Henley. That might be even worth a little sprinkle, but I think I'm definitely going to save a couple bullets for once we get to the sweet 16, right? It's, it's such a crap shoot to get out of the group stage. I think that once we have some solid 16 dudes, you're going to be taking a cut, you know, a sliced number, but
They're way more alive at that point. There's only 16 guys who can win. That's what I'm planning on doing. I'm going to be underexposed before. I'll probably bet a couple groups, group winners, just to keep me engaged over the first couple of days. I was looking at my phone because I just got a text. Somebody sent me a tweet that Bryson had about swinging his driver for the first time.
Finally swinging my driver again, time to push for the masters. You know, I always like talk my, when I get, see the negative social media stuff or the negative quotes, I'm like, Oh, I'm out. And I just, I don't whatever.
Yeah, that stuff always gets overblown, right? It's like, oh, Victor Hovland doesn't have a driver this week, and then he wins. Morikawa's irons aren't interacting with the turf well. He wins, right? Bryson has his stomach bugged before the St. Jude's, or he's sick, and he's waiting on the line. It's almost like you want to target those guys. But, yeah, I don't know, man. Bryson is such an interesting case study, man. I think you could do a whole –
you know, semi or a multiple episode podcast on like the enigma that is Bryson, right? It's like, he gets obsessed with this speed chasing and he's swinging like crazy and he's hurt. It's like, wow. Yeah. Surprise, surprise, dude. Swinging a hundred times a day, a thousand percent strength. Like, yeah, you're going to get hurt. I'm really glad he he's not, it doesn't seem like at the current moment he's, I like Bryson a lot. Um,
I like the idea of Bryson. I like the idea of a guy who is obsessed with getting better in a different way than everybody else. Yeah, I just – I think golf is fun when he's playing well. He's not one of my, like, favorite, favorite players, but I'm pro Bryson. I think he takes a lot of shit that's a little undeserving sometimes. I just think he lacks some self-awareness, which honestly most guys –
under 27 do, especially when he's grown into the lineup. He's a good ball, but if you watch anybody who's a WWE fan, those guys are important. You can't have an entertaining show without the guy who
everybody hates or is weird or is like, you got to have characters. Right. And he's one of the most fascinating characters that we've seen on professional golf ever maybe. So it's, I agree. It's great. It's good when he's around, I don't cheer for him. I bet against him most of the time. I've never gotten him right. You know, so to speak, but I like when he's around and playing good. You got anything to plug before we get out of here? It's just your Twitter, right? Yeah.
Yeah, man. Just Luke Sweat it out. Follow me. That's all I got to plug, man. I just like being, just interacting with people, man. Interact with me. I will always respond. Aren't you, I don't, I'm going to tease it. I'm going to do a professional tease here. I'm not going to give away too much. You might have something up your sleeve with me and a bunch of other people for the Masters, correct?
This is correct. Yes. And that's all we'll say. And that will do it. Luke, that was a pleasure as always. Good to see you, my friend. We'll talk soon, buddy. All right, buddy. All right. That's it for the show. Special thanks to Luke. We will be back next week on this podcast feed talking Valero, Texas open until then.
♪♪
All of the strategy and why I think this is the best week of the year for DraftKings. And then Scramble, live every Tuesday and Friday on the Rick Run Good YouTube channel. But we're kicking it into crunch time here. Masters is less than two weeks away, which will be a huge week for me, hopefully, in terms of getting some new eyeballs on my work and on the show. So...
If you have the time to share the show, to rate and review the podcast, it really means a lot. I want to try and make a big push in these next couple of weeks leading up to the Masters, which is essentially the Super Bowl for people like me. So really excited for what's to come with that. And until then, best of luck with your bets this weekend, and we'll see you next time. Cheers. ♪ If I ventured in the slipstream ♪
Between the viaducts of your dream Where mobile steel rooms crack And the Dutch and the back roads stop
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 just the beginning. Getting into a crash is another way that your world can be turned upside down. Your vehicle may not be the only thing that gets damaged in that crash. You can face a life altering injury or
or even death. But you're not the only one that can face those consequences. Your decision to drink and drive can permanently impact not just your world, but someone else's world as well. Whether you injure them or leave their loved ones grieving. The next time you're out drinking, call a ride share, a taxi, a sober friend,
or a designated sober driver. The only decision that will change your world for the better is the decision to call for a sober ride. Drive sober or get pulled over. Paid for by NHTSA.