Farmer’s Insurance Open with Sia Nejad
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All right, welcome in Inside Golf Podcast, Farmers Insurance, open with my good friend Sina Jad. You probably know him from the First Cup podcast. He's been on this show, I think, three times now. But I think you'll really enjoy this conversation. We recorded around midday Monday. It should be posted. It should be posted late tonight.

Scramble 11 a.m. Eastern tomorrow morning with Rick odds checker round one matchups article out tomorrow. I went on San Diego local television to do a quick breakdown of the tournament. You can check that out. It's on my Twitter as well. Apparently I didn't bomb because they want to have me back on Friday to talk about things at the mid way point. So that's a positive sign, but busy week followed by a trip to Torrey over the weekend, which should be quite enjoyable. So yeah,

Without further ado, let's get to the show. All right, Sian Najad of Wynn Daily Sports, the First Cut podcast, is here to break down the farmer's insurance. Open with me. Sian, golf is kind of revving up, right? This is a big one, would you say? I would say this is a big one. It's funny because...

you know, the season starts when it starts, but then it doesn't really officially start until certain tournaments start. And I think a couple of tournaments ago, we were like, all right, well, it's officially starting, but this might be the one, especially considering the strength of field, particularly at the top where it's like, all right, officially now. And because it's a more challenging course to at least the South courses, I think this is where people are like, all right, golf season really is underway. Yeah. I feel like,

I feel like there wasn't much to learn about the state of some of these guys' game from watching what they did at Kapalua or at the American Express. I don't think I learned much about where Rahm and Cantlay are at from watching them play the American Express, right? So I agree with you. I think now we get a real golf course where if you don't have it, you are going to shoot a couple over par.

So I agree. I think there is a couple things we learned, at least from a couple players. One that really comes to mind when you said that phrase, like,

Did we learn like guys who were just not around for a while? Like I was pretty big on Will Zalatouris. I had him on the outright card and I had him in DFS last week. Granted, I'm not really patting myself on the back. I also had a couple of guys that definitely missed the cut. But the point is, I don't think anybody knew where Will Zalatouris was in terms of the state of his game. And, you know, he had been really kind of off with the putter, with the approach play over the last, you know, six months or so. So nobody really knew where he was at.

But I think last week at the very least, and we do have, you know, some strokes gain data from at least the stadium course that

He looked pretty good. Now you're right. It's not a super challenging course, but for guys like that, who have just, their game has either been a little off or they just haven't been around. They haven't played much lately or both. I think we learned a little bit, at least from guys like that, but yeah, it's few and far between in terms of like really gleaning anything, particularly from these elite players. No, but you do bring up a good point. Like I feel a little bit more squeamish about

someone like DJ that hasn't played. Like even, even if you want to, I think the first couple of tournaments were like a little bit of a scrimmage, but I'd rather have them play than make their debut at a course that can really kick you in the ass if you don't have it.

So I'm so glad you brought up DJ because to me, he's kind of like the Will Zalatoris of this tournament. Like to me, in other words, like a guy that I really want to play, but there's so much unknown about him. The difference between DJ and Zalatoris, and I'm not talking about their actual games. I'm talking about in like in my consciousness, like how I'm perceiving them not coming into like, you know, any sort of recent play.

Like DJ, like, I don't know what type of person DJ is. I don't know if he's like honing in on his game. Like my perception would have been with Wills Alatorre says, you know, a young guy and up and comer, like he's really trying to fix some things. He's out on the course, you know, every other day, if not every single day of the week, you know, just really like just crushing it out there.

I don't know. Like, I almost feel like Dustin Johnson has a little like Aaron Rogers in him. And that's just kind of like, I don't, I'm not sure if I care. It's cool not to care. I'm really good anyway. I'll probably crush it. Like, is he practicing? Like, do we know anything about like what, what he's been doing over the last couple of months? So my,

My buddy from college is actually friends with him. They go spearfishing together and they hang out at this place in Idaho, Gaza Ranch. He always tells me about DJ, kind of what everyone thinks, kind of what you said. He doesn't do a lot of practicing. He has other hobbies that he loves. He loves doing things like fishing and he's got two little kids now as well. But he has so much God-given talent. He told me a story recently.

I probably shouldn't say this, but whatever. He was joking that they were going fishing like a month before the Ryder Cup and DJ didn't know what course they were playing. Like a month before the Ryder Cup. He was like, yeah, I got this Ryder Cup thing. I think it's in Wisconsin or something like that. And maybe he's posturing and just trying to be funny and stuff like that. But I really do think he has a very nonchalant, we'll say, approach to golf. But...

he's so good. Some players don't, you know, there are a lot of players that over the course of their career, like you asked them, they'll make, they won't change their swing. They'll make very minor changes to their swing. They're not tinkerers. And then some guys are big tinkerers. And just because you're not a tinkerer doesn't mean that you're not locked

in and a great player, but you're right. Once you get these first couple of tournaments of the year, see it like you're basically playing a guessing game with how some of these guys are spending their off season. And you know, that's the thing with models too, that I tell people to be cautious about. Like you're looking at past 50 rounds, like some of those, some of those stats can be from eight months ago. You know what I mean? Absolutely. I have a question though, about the whole DJ thing and him being talented. Um,

If, and I'm asking you specifically, because I think you're the person to ask this question, no matter how talented you are, if you're not getting the reps in, in this day and age, it's, it was different 20 years ago when like your talent probably was just going to be better than most people's. If you were really that good in this day and age with all these up and comers, you know, and all the new, all the new guys, but also all the kind of new guys, you know, like that have been on the tour for two or three years that are really kind of just like launching themselves up the world golf rankings. And,

If you're not getting the reps in, can you just lean on the talent? Is that still a thing in your opinion? I think this is the best era we've ever seen. I think if that's what you're getting at, I agree with you. Like I think Justin Thomas won five times in 2016.

And I don't think Justin Thomas is going to win five times ever again in a season. Now, that's not because Justin Thomas necessarily got any worse, right? That's just because parity is greater and the guys around him are so good. I mean, Patrick Cantlay basically has this...

absolute ceiling season last year where one of his wins, he gains 15 strokes putting another one of his wins. John Rom has to withdraw because of COVID another one of his wins. John Rom technically beat him on the shadow leaderboard and he wins four times. Right. And it takes like all these ceiling and crazy performances to see it happen. I think you're right. I think this is the hardest era to win in. I think that, um,

A lot of these guys are just going to continue to beat themselves up, if that makes any sense. And all these guys, all these elites will win like once, twice, once every six months or so. So I kind of agree with you. I think maybe that's kind of the question that we're going to have to start asking where some of these guys like DJ and Brooks wear masks.

You look at the pure talent alone and you say, wow, but then you look around and it's like, damn, Sam Burns is playing really good golf right now. Scotty Sheffler is playing really good golf right now. You know what I mean? But that works all the way down the board too, because I think of guys that were like crushing it in the ball striking department last year that I was playing a lot in like daily fantasy and in like some top 20s, top 40s, like Keegan Bradley and Charlie Hoffman.

I feel like at this point, and you know, those guys have their faults, but they're great ball strikers and when the putter is good, short game is good. Like, you know, at least a year or two ago, you could see them in the top 10 in fields, at least on Sunday afternoon. And now I'm thinking like,

I feel like those caliber golfers are starting to be, we're going to start witnessing them get left behind quite a bit because all of these newcomers are so talented that they're just like slowly trickling up the boards and leaving guys like that kind of like middling golfer that has talent like a Keegan Bradley or Charlie Hoffman. I feel like they're all of a sudden just going to like descend lower and lower as each year goes by. Yeah, you might be right. I kind of get what you're saying with, and again,

We should, we'll get to the, we'll get to the odds in the course in a second, but yeah, I agree with you. I think some of these like new guys, like the unknown is very appealing to me, right? Like we know what Keegan Bradley is. We know what Charlie Hoffman is. We don't really know what Mito is. We don't really know what Adam Svensson is. So I agree with you on that. I think that's a really interesting point. Let's,

Let's get into the course though, Sia. I want to, cause there's a lot to talk about here. I think this is a really compelling tournament. I'm really excited to talk to you about it and, and pick your brain on a couple of things. Cause I'm having, I'm having a little bit of a difficult time making some decisions, but we're talking about the farmer's insurance open. There are 156 players in the field. A lot of people are saying,

A lot of good players. We've already mentioned some of them. Rom, JT, Xander, DJ making his first start, as we talked about. Brooks, Berger, Reed is back to defend his controversial title. Sam Burns, Hideki, Finau. I mean, the list goes on. There's a lot of heavy hitters in this field. It's at Torrey Pines, which is a 36-hole public golf facility in La Jolla. So players will rotate there.

Thursday and Friday at the South course and at the South course and North course, and then play the final 36 at the South. The South course is 500 yards longer. It's a lot more difficult. It's got POA greens, which are a handful if you've never played them. Whereas the North course features back greens and we've got Kikuyu rough again,

That rough gives me fits. I think some PGA Tour players feel the same way. And the South Corsia, it's long and it's difficult. The fairways are narrow. They're difficult to hit. The greens are on the smaller side. What are you kind of looking for this week, Sia, before we jump into the odds?

So at first I was thinking, okay, I want guys who can hit it long. Obviously that south course, to your point, it's very difficult and it's also very long. So it's certainly going to be an advantage to get the ball out there. So I was looking at driving accuracy, off the tee, driving distance, but I feel like

everybody's going to be just in the rough here and there. And I feel like everybody's going to need to work the ARG game quite a bit, no matter who you are. So that's sort of where my emphasis ended up being. When I say emphasis, what I really mean is I'm emphasizing that part of the game a little bit more than I normally do.

do. So obviously driving distance matters to me off the tee game matters to me approach play, particularly with the longer proximities, 175 to 200, or if you just want to do it like a catch all 175 to 225 ish plus that matters to me quite a bit par five scoring, but ARG around the green is going to be pretty important, I think in this tournament. So that's the, those are my main focal points.

Yeah. If you're not a good long iron player, you better have an elite short game. Like you, you, in my opinion, you need to be checking at least one of those two boxes. You don't have to be an elite long iron player. Patrick Reed has won here. Snedeker's had a ton of success here, but the thing that all of those guys have in common is that they've had an incredible short game. As you mentioned, let's get into the favorites. So I'm using odds from drafting sports book.

But as you know, throw out whatever numbers you want. So these are the guys that are 30 to one and under. Jon Rahm's plus 650. And these numbers might have moved a little bit. I pulled these for my notes out like,

like 10 a.m. this morning. But Justin Thomas, 12 to one. Zander at 14. Hideki at 18. Sam Burns, 20. Scotty Sheffler, 20. Daniel Berger, 20. Bryson, 22. Dustin Johnson, 22. Tony Finau, 25. Mark Leishman, 25. Who, I don't know what's going on with Mark Leishman on DraftKings because he's like 40 everywhere else. But we'll talk about him, I guess, in this tier. Who, is there anyone that has your attention in this group, Sia?

So, you know, just like anybody else, nobody really likes to play guys that are on the shorter odds or the shorter side of the odds. But in this tournament, it's certainly worth considering. I agree. Andy, I don't know if it was you or somebody else who threw out the stat that...

Man, I think it was nobody that's been 60 to one or shorter has won this tournament in quite some time. So and that makes sense, right? Because this is going to be the South Coast in particular is going to be going to be challenging. You typically see the cream rise to or the cream rise to the top there. There's a couple of guys that interest me in spite of the short odds.

I think Hideki Matsuyama is one of them. I think 18 to one is, is a pretty decent number for a guy who both in draft Kings from an ownership standpoint, and maybe with the odds, he still, he still seems a little like he's getting underappreciated. And I think he has the game to succeed here. Obviously the putter is potentially a problem for Hideki, but,

We know he can – we know the putter can pop for him. We know the short game is actually pretty good. And everything else just kind of checks out. The approach game is good off the tee. The ball striking is elite. Strokes gain par five. All of that, the proximities that we're interested in, he's – last 50 rounds, he's top 20 in those as well. So I think Hideki's interesting, and I think DJ –

is somebody I'd at least consider at 22 to one, just because of that unknown factor. I got to be honest. I don't think I'm betting that one, but of all the shorter odds, I think DJ has the ability, like the ball striking is there for DJ. If, if the putter is good, I think DJ could absolutely contend here. Again, this is all contingent upon him actually like being good right off the bat. But I think DJ and Hideki are the guys I have my eyes on here.

First of all, I love the zag on Hideki. I agree with you. I don't think Hideki is going to get a lot of shine this week. I mean, people are just going to say, well, there's no way he can win three times in six starts, right? But...

that's generally the guy that ends up being in the winning DraftKings lineup. Right. So I don't know if I can get there at 18 to one, but I think a deck, he's probably someone I'm going to look to in DraftKings at the very least. I want to ask you about Daniel Berger. Cause he was kind of the spotlight of my Sunday show. I talked about him a lot on Sunday.

I can't figure out for the life of me why he's 20 to one across the board. See it. Do you, do you, what's your take on burger this week? Because I, I do kind of, I make my own numbers on Sunday and he's really far off from what I thought he would be. He's pretty much uniformly 20 to one across the board at a course where he's missed four cuts and isn't considered like a Daniel burger, short positional Florida Bermuda course.

So it's a good question. We just talked about that on the first cut because in the pricing range, he's in the 10K range. Yeah, he's expensive in DraftKings too. He's a head of Bryson DeChambeau, for example. And I'm not saying Bryson's this king, but you typically see that reverse there. I think it's because the approach game is what it is. I mean, listen, I'm not taking him in DraftKings and I'm not betting on him, but the approach game is...

quite elite and those longer proximities that we think, all right, well, maybe Daniel Berger isn't great there. He kind of is, you know, and he's hitting fairways. It's just when you look at a ball striker like that and a guy who is at least okay with the putter and sort of fits, you know,

I don't think we think of Berger as being the guy who's going to be long, but he hasn't been terrible on these longer courses. He's plenty long. Yeah, he's totally fine off the tee. He's not a bomber. You're right, but his length doesn't hurt him.

Right. So, I mean, I think that's why, I mean, it's very intriguing that he is 20 to one in terms of it almost gives you, it almost makes you want to take a second look like, well, maybe should I be interested in draft Kings or, or in the, maybe the top 10 or top 20 market. But for me, no, I totally agree with you. I think it's too short. I would probably put Bryson DJ and maybe even Tony Finau ahead of him. Yeah. My issue is that,

Cam Smith, I remember, opened at like 16-1 on DraftKings for the Tournament of Champions. And I did the same thing with Cam Smith that I did with Berger this week. I talked all about him on my Sunday show. And then I got to Monday and I said, this number is just way too short. And we know how that turned out. So I'm on the fence. Sometimes I think that...

Sometimes the books, I feel like they're sometimes telling us, they're sometimes saying, hey, we don't want you to bet this guy. We don't want action on this guy. But I don't know. When you have Brooks Koepka at double the odds as Daniel Berger, it's a bit of a squirmy situation. You mentioned Bryson. Bryson was the first bet that I made at 22 to 1. I said on Sunday that of the

JT, Xander, Bryson group that I really liked. One of them was going to have a two next to their name. And it turned out to be Bryson. I just think that this is one of those tournaments, Sia, where he's starting on second base before anyone else tees it up. There are a lot of courses where Bryson's distance advantage gets mitigated. I think this is one of those courses where it gets accentuated.

Yeah. So the only pushback I would give there. I love pushback. Yeah. And I agree with you. I mean, the ball striking is insane. Obviously off the tee is insane. Typically he's just great on approach, although there's some bumps in the road there and we know he can get hot with the putter. The problem is the around the green game. If, if that is going to be an issue and, and,

you know, maybe it's not. Maybe he's so good with the ball striking that it's not. But on the south course, I mean, I think we can pretty much assure, especially with those smaller greens, like people are going to be chipping more often than not, I think. I shouldn't say more often than not. No, they will. Yeah. More often than the typical tournament. And listen, I mean, I'm looking at it now. This is... It's nine in a row. I have it by memory. Yeah, it's nine in a row. So it's like, at what point do we start worrying? Like, 10 in a row? Yeah.

Well, you know, the around the green stat is so kind of finicky. You know, I don't know how bad this is when you put it up against the ball striking and the potential for the putter. So my point being, if you're right, well, you are right. If the ball striking is what it is, and if the putter is either decent or pops, that around the green game gets mitigated quite a bit. So I totally understand what you're saying. But I guess my point is,

I don't know. I'm not so, this is a psychological take. I'm not so sure that Bryson has the mental makeup right now to overcome just like a few bad holes. You know, Bryson's prone to doing that. And if he, if just the around the green game, if it's just not clicking for him and he has a few bad holes, I would rather other people that I'm backing in that camp to overcome that. And I'm not sure Bryson's the guy. I just, I just feel like he hasn't been

good enough lately, but you know, the finishing positions have been good lately. I got to admit. Yeah. And kind of to answer your question about the nature of strokes gain around the green, I tried to do some, some reading on this when I was just first really trying to understand strokes gain, you know, you're right. Like one thing with around the green is a bad chip is going to meet. So like, for example, if you flub a chip into a bunker, you're,

You can lose like a lot more than you would for just hitting a bad approach shot. Like the penalty for a bad chip is really bad. Like you can lose. If you, if you take two in the bunker, you can lose like two and a half strokes around the green on a hole. And I think that's what happens to Bryson sometimes is he has disastrous holes, which that's actually what happened to him at Torrey.

at the US Open where I think he lost a ton around the green last week and the 75% of it came on one hole where he made a triple. So I agree with you. I was kind of having that debate myself because you

you look at his long-term short game, it's fine. It was another, never strength of his game, but you know, coming up, he, it was not really something you worried about. So I kind of had that same question where at what point do you start to worry? Is this, is this like a thing he's thinking about? You know what I mean? Is this, is this psychological? Cause you're right. It's, it's pretty concerning at this point. I mean, this sounds ridiculous, but

this guy is so intoxicated with how he swings it off the tee that is it possible that he just doesn't spend as much time? Well, that's the thing. I'm not saying he's ignoring it. That would be a ridiculous notion. But is he just so intoxicated with that that he's just not dialed in on anything, any of the smaller part of the game? Well, my only pushback to that would be that he's one of the best putters in the world.

Yeah. So, but you could be right. I mean, you could be right. It's so tough to tell with Bryson. You know, it's a real bummer, Sia, that he's not doing that Netflix show. Maybe we could get a peek under the curtain to how much time he's spending on his short game. But thankfully, we have his YouTube channel for that. Well, so, you know, the one day I subbed in for you on The Scramble. See, of course I watched the replay. Come on. Okay, good. Yeah, I listened to it on my drive back from Santa Barbara. I didn't see the video, but I listened to the audio.

So did you hear Rick's explanation? Because that was like the perfect answer. That didn't occur to me for some reason, that he can control the content and that's why he doesn't want to get on a show where the editors are not himself. It's a really good take by Rick. It makes a lot of sense to me, right? Because he already has...

I don't know, a controversial image where there are just a lot of people that don't like him. So why would he put himself in the hands of network executives for Netflix that are just trying to sell the show, right? It's like at least with his YouTube channel, he can at least somewhat control the content that he's putting out.

Right. Netflix is incentivized to basically kind of throw them under the bus here and there to get clicks and to get viewership, obviously. Exactly. Okay. Well, is there anyone else in this range that you want to touch on before we get into this mid-tier? Not really. Only because I don't think I'm going to be laying down my money on anybody else. You stopped at 25 to 1. Am I right? I will say this. Both Rick and Greg made some

pretty compelling arguments for Tony Finau. We do know he has a great core. And I'm almost also speaking to the DFS crowd that's listening too, which obviously we know there's a pretty good overlap there. I didn't consider Tony Finau when pricing came out. And part of the reason is because of my... What's that? Really cheap, really well-priced in DraftKings.

Yeah, he is. And I had him last week. He was actually part of that big Wills-Altores lineup, but he was very underwhelming. But his course history here and just his game in general, I really think in that short game for one, but also the off the tee game. I mean, if you look at his strokes gained it just at the Farmers, it's really compelling. And I know people still think of Tony as like not a winner and that kind of thing, but...

This would be the tournament to me, at least one of the handful of tournaments where he could actually win. And if you're not going to take him outright, maybe you take him top 20 or something like that because it might be worth it. Yeah, I've seen some...

Like we have them 25 here on DraftKings. I've seen some 33s and some people jump on the 33. So yeah, I actually, I have no problem with that. Sung J.M. is 30. Brooks Koepka is 40. Sia Zalatoris is 40. I think that one got hit. I think it's a little bit lower now. I know he's going to be very popular this week. It is.

Jordan Spieth sitting here at 40 to one. And then we've got Matt McNeely, Matthew Wolfe, Corey Connors, Patrick Reed, Taylor Gooch, Justin Rose, Ryan Palmer. I guess we'll stop there. But, you know, you can talk about we can open it up to anyone kind of under 100. There are a lot of interesting names here. Is there anyone is there anyone that is jumping out to you that you want to prioritize?

Yeah, there's a couple here. So one is Sung Jae Im. I like him quite a bit, at least in the outright market. I think that's a pretty good number. But a sexier number that I do want to mention just right off the jump is Taylor Gooch.

So, you know, I have him ranked pretty high on my model. You know, he's not necessarily going to be like the most accurate guy off the tee. The approach game is certainly on point. The putter can be up and down around the green game is elite.

So strokes gain, ball striking, strokes gain par five, those all rate out really well. And the longer proximities, again, he's not elite. This is why he's 50 to one, obviously. It's not like he's going to be elite everywhere. But considering where he is and a lot of the metrics that are important to me, I think he's a guy that potentially could be there on Sunday, or I should say Saturday, excuse me, this is a different start time.

But I think 50 to one is a compelling number. As far as Sungjae is concerned, speaking of models, he rates out extremely well in my model. Ball striking is there. Strokes gain par five elite. Proximity 200 plus elite. Around the green elite. So he's really grading out. The only thing with Sungjae is sometimes the putter doesn't work for him. But I like his recent form. I think he's a pretty solid play.

and the thing with sung jay too is this isn't a you know sung jay is one of those guys i think unfairly a little bit i think he's just a really really good player so i don't really want to typecast him but sung jay is kind of one of those guys where oh this is sung jay course right like it's a florida short bermuda course and i think he's i think he's much better player than that like he's had he's had he's had success on po before he's had success on bent before you know he's

He almost won the Masters, right? So because this isn't a Sungjae course, I think you might be able to get an ownership discount and almost similar with Gooch too. Gooch is interesting to me because he missed the cut at the AMX by two, right?

But it was really just one terrible round on Thursday, which not to tie back into the strokes gain around the green discussion and get too into the weeds with that. But he really just had like a nightmare chipping day. But he rebounded really nicely on Friday and Saturday with back-to-back 68s. And I think you could look at it two ways. There are people that are probably going to say,

he peaked in the fall. Now he's starting to trend in the wrong direction because he was so good in the fall. And I think you'd also look at it and say, well, he's coming off a rare miscut. You're finally getting a dip on the pricing. And the past couple of weeks, he's been so expensive and so popular. And now it seems like you're getting a little fair of a price on him. And this is a fantastic course for him.

So here's the thing about, you're right about sort of the false swing. I know you're talking about people's perception of him. You're right about like the false swing. Like it was a little from a competition standpoint, there wasn't as many elite players there. So, okay. But the ball striking was really great, but you're right. If you, if you do like weighted strokes gained, it probably, he probably falls a little bit in the rankings.

Understandable there, but it's almost like Seamus Power. So I was having this conversation a few weeks ago about Seamus Power, where when you looked at his strokes gain data, it was really good. It was like number two last 50 rounds in the entire field. This would have been, I can't remember which, maybe it was at the century. But the point is when you did the weighted strokes gain data, which obviously Rick Gaiman has that on his website.

it showed him at 19. Okay. Because obviously it's, it's, it's accounting for the competition and that kind of thing. And I'm like, okay, that's 19 is still pretty good. Even in this shortened field at the century. But my, the,

The larger point I wanted to make was, but that's static. That's how it stands right now. We might be in the midst of Seamus Power actually starting, like literally in the middle of this climb, not at the end of it. And so regardless of whether you're weighing those, you know, that strokes game data against a more competitive field or not, we might be seeing Taylor Gooch, who I know, Andy, you loved watching.

last year as well. We might be seeing him in the midst of actually rising and passing those guys that I talked about earlier in the show, like your Keegan Bradley's and Charlie, like obviously he's sort of passed them at this point, but you know what I mean? He's now in the middle of his ascent. It's not, it's not the final destination. So I think that would be the rationale for playing him in,

Indefinitely for the next three, four or five tournaments. The point that you're talking about, about trying to understand strokes gained and trying to kind of figure out what it all means.

I, these are things I could talk about for like eight hours. You're touching on like half the reason me and Rick started a show together, but I agree with you. I think with some of these guys like Gooch and like power, we're going to find out a lot about them in the next two or three months. Right. A guy that I want to ask you about, I want to ask you about Matthew Wolf because Matthew Wolf was very, he was a very popular pick.

last week at 30-1. You can find him at 70-1 this week. Now, I understand it's a much better field, and he just missed the cut at the AMX by eight strokes, but I do think this is a course where he has an advantage over the vast majority of the field because of his driver and his long iron play before he even tees it up, and it's a good number, too. And the other part of me, and this is like another one of those rabbit hole conversations, is

I watched him last week on coverage at the Amex. Shout out ESPN+. And my eyes told me he looks pretty damn lost right now.

Um, and when he loses a sense of place and a sense of timing in his downswing, his swing is a lot more related, uh, on timing, uh, than a swing like Bryson's, which is more connected. It can get ugly really quickly. And that's what I'm having a hard time with because I know these guys can figure it out so quickly, uh,

one little thing on the range on a Friday night can flip. And he's with Gankas cause they're his coach cause they're in California. Um, but I, I just, I I'm having a difficult time with Wolf because I didn't like him last week. And now it seems like everyone is hopping off. And part of me says, I watched him too. I think these people are probably hopping off for a good reason. And, and the other part of me is saying, well, wait a second.

Yeah, I wasn't on him last week either. The question you have to ask yourself, because I think if you wanted to take Matthew Wolfe as like a first round leader, totally get it. But if you think he can put it together for four rounds, and I feel like at this point, I don't think you can really lean on that. And I understand golf is a very volatile sport and anybody can kind of spring up out of nowhere and catch their old form. But to your point, it doesn't seem like

In this list of guys that are between, let's say, 40 to 1, because right now I'm seeing Matthew Wolfe at 50 to 1 as an outright, but in this list of between 40 to 1 and let's say 70 to 1, there are so many other guys that I would, like Jordan Spieth at 40 to 1. I would prefer, I'm not going to bet Jordan Spieth, but I would prefer to take Jordan Spieth at 40 to 1 over a Matthew Wolfe at 50 to 1. So that's where my money is going to go if I'm taking a guy like that.

So no, you're, what about guys like Matt McNeely and Corey Connors and Patrick Reed? What about some of those guys? Justin Rose in there. I want to, I want to get your take on Justin Rose. I was so big on Justin Rose last week. So big. So don't hop off. See it. That's the trick.

I think you're right. No, I think you're right. I liked what I saw from Justin Rose last week. I had him in the outright card. I had him on the first cut one and done. I had him in basically almost all my DraftKings lineups. I do single entry. Yeah. I do single entry. So I'm only doing like 10 or 12 lineups or whatever. And he was, he had to have been in nine or 10 of them. You know, fortunately made the cut because of a nice, a nice Friday, but

Yeah, I think Justin Rose is interesting. Again, that's another guy I don't think can do it for four days. I'd be more inclined to take him like in a showdown lineup or as a first round leader, or maybe in a matchup if the matchup is right, especially, yeah, if the matchup is right. There's other guys though, to your point, I think Aaron Wise at 65 to one is really interesting. I've sort of been a fan of this guy for a while. I think, you know, I don't think he's really elite at anything, particularly like the long irons. If you go back to like, let's say last 50 rounds,

you know, the 200 plus proximities, 175 plus, not super elite, but he does a lot of things really well. He's a score around the green game is, is on point off the tee approach are pretty good. Yeah.

I just think he might be a guy that we're also kind of witnessing in ascent and we're not really sure where he's at. And so it might be a good time to grab a guy like that, maybe in the top 40 market or even as an outright if you're feeling frisky. Yeah, he's another one of those guys that I think was a very –

trendy breakout candidate pick. And I think that's because his ball striking has always been there, right? He's always been a pretty great ball striker, but it finally started to seem like in the fall swing that he started to figure out the putting thing. He switched to the longer putter and he started, and the second he started putting, well, he started piling up like really high finishes. And I also do think about Aaron Wise that he has a,

he has the game that might be better suited for a harder test than an easier test. So I like that a lot. I was looking at Aaron wise too. Yeah. I, I, I'm probably even a little higher on Rose than you are. See, I mean, I, I, the thing that I think that I keep coming back to, and I might be putting too much stock into this, but on Sunday at the Amex, he was third in the entire field and,

on approach and sixth in the entire field off the tee. Now, it's one round of golf. It was his best ball striking round in two years. Might be nothing. It might be something, though. So at the very least, I'll be there in DraftKings again. He's won here before. Tons of success on Poe, which how I've talked about before, it's a real...

confidence surface, right? Like there are certain guys like Brant Snedeker, you read any of the quotes, like they talk about POA. They're like, I go here and I expect to make every cut. And there's certain guys that are like, fuck this. I'm not even playing this tournament because I hate these greens so much. And Rose is a guy who's done it on POA a number of times. So he, I, I'm still in on him. Maybe, maybe even as an outright.

So I like that. So not only has he won here, I mean, he missed the cut two years ago. He didn't play last year, but he won. And then the two starts before that eighth and a fourth. Like when you see that, like clearly, and you see it kind of with Ryan Palmer, right? Where in his defense, his recent form has also been pretty good. I don't think people have really noticed that, but his course history here is like kind of elite. I don't know how else to describe it, frankly, particularly for Ryan Palmer, it's elite. And so when I see course history like that,

I mean, I, it's, I have to, I have to recognize it. I can't just dismiss it because of, you know, recent form or whatever. But to your point, I think the recent form is pretty good. I mean, yeah, 33rd before that he was, he was, his finishing positions have actually been pretty decent. So I think I'm, I think you convinced me. I think I'm back. Oh, did you shift? Did you shift over to Ryan Palmer there for a second? Because I was going to say, we can talk about Palmer too. Like, yeah, last four appearances, second, 13th, 21st, second. Um,

So Palmer sitting right there too. He's also the third best player on the PGA tour over a large sample size from two yards plus. It's strange. It's strange to you. Like there's so many guys in this range that makes so much sense. Like Palmer, Gooch, McNeely makes a ton of sense. We'll get to Luke list in a second. Aaron wise, Patrick Reed kind of gets priced in this range now and he's the defending champion. Like I could see all of these players, uh,

being chalky, right? But they can't all be chalky. So it's going to be interesting to see where the ownership kind of gravitates to.

Yeah, and I think in that sort of range, I think people are going to be impressed enough with Ryan Palmer because of the recent form, because of the court's history, and because of his price point. I think he's probably going to carry a decent amount of ownership, but that's okay. To be honest with you, I'm not sure I'm playing him in DraftKings. I'll have to wait and see because there's other guys in that sort of low 8K range that I think are just as good from an upside standpoint. Yeah.

By the way, Matt McNeely is one of them. I do like Matt McNeely. Yeah. I like Matt a lot too. So you're a stats guy too, Cia. So I assume you're having the same dilemma. Let me read this off to you on Luke's list. He's eighth off the tee. He's 10th in driving distance. His driver is a weapon. I mean, that's inarguable. He's an elite long iron player. Third in proximity, 175 to 200 over a large table. So he's 20th in proximity, 200 yards plus. He's a long iron player.

He's second in this field around the green, surprisingly good on POA, dominates par fives, excellent on long courses, excellent in difficult scoring conditions. Good history here coming off a T22 at the Amex. The course is tailor made for Luke list. If I was in a lab creating a course perfect for Luke list, I would create Torrey Pines. It's long. It's straight. His driver actually matters here. His long irons matter here. POA is the only surface he's been good on.

On one hand, Sia, playing him, not playing him would just be like spitting in the face of all the modeling that I do. And on the other hand, I can't put my finger on it, but it kind of smells like trouble. You know what it smells like? It smells like...

He's going to need to make a nine footer on Thursday night, which of course is day two this week. Yeah. Just to make the cut. Yeah. But I'm hoping that's not the case. Luke list is definitely going to be chalky. I mean, and so that's going to be one of those decisions you have to make. I think most people play tournaments when it comes and I know this isn't necessarily a DFS show, but I think that's just a decision people are going to have to make in terms of whether you want to take Luke list. But I,

I probably will. I mean, he's fourth in my model for some reason, which- Yeah, second in mine. Okay. So, okay. That makes me feel a lot better because I was like, all right, apparently I'm not good at modeling, but okay, good. That's some good confirmation. So to that point though, is he somebody you're going to be betting? I mean, outright he's 70 to one, but I don't even have him in my top 20 and top 40. I just kind of like initially put a few names down. I don't have him in there, should I? I guess I should, right? Yeah.

Maybe. I mean, there are a lot of really good guys in this range. And I think there's a chance I bet two guys in the 20s. So if I was going to go there, it'd probably be top 40 is probably the best exposure I would get to last because like, what's your ownership threshold on on list? Like, what's the ownership that you say? Okay, I'm out.

So this is a pretty big field. So I don't think it's going to get too out of control. And to your point, there's a lot of, there's some good options in the 7k range, but yeah, I think if he is 15% or more, I'm probably out. Yeah. I don't think that's prohibitive. I think you can still play him if you, if you really like him, but I'll probably just find a different guy to play and just, and just hope, you know, I don't, let me, let me say this. I don't mind playing chalk. I'm not the guy that's always going to pivot off chalk.

I'll make it different somehow with my roster construction or just hope and pray that somehow. Or leave money on the table. Like there are a million things you can do if you really like a player. Right. But I just, I don't know that I can come around on Luke. I think he is going to approach like 15, 16%. It's my guess. Maybe 17, maybe that high.

I think you're right. I think Mackenzie Hughes, who's $100 more expensive, is not the worst pivot if list does get really chalky. He led the US Open on Sunday at Torrey Pines. That's right. I forgot about that. Yeah. He hit a ball in a tree and that was the end of him, but he was literally tied for the lead on Sunday at Torrey Pines. Now, we haven't seen him since the fall, which I don't love,

But the last time we saw him, he gained 8.2 strokes ball striking and finished second at the RSM. I remember that really closely because I had an outright on him at the RSM. If Gooch didn't go nuclear on Sunday, Hughes did everything right that day. He did everything right to win that tournament, and Gooch was just better than

I don't know if I've ever seen Hughes hit the ball like that. Now, the problem is, and it was his best approach week of his career. Now, the problem is, I would prefer if that had happened last week instead of two months ago. So I have...

I have one thing to say and one guy to ask you about. So one, the thing I have to say is he has missed three out of the last four cuts here for whatever that's worth. Maybe Mackenzie Hughes modern days is much better than what he was in 2021 and 2020, but I don't know that it's. And the only, sorry to interrupt. The only thing I would add is it, you can, you can,

It depends how much stock you want to put into the US Open. If you're saying it's a different golf course, I don't want to put too much stock into the US Open. I get it. I'm putting some stock into it, but there are probably people out there that say I'm not weighing the US Open at all. I understand that. Torrey Pines in June is different than it is now. What about Lonto Griffin? Any interest there?

Don't you feel like you're kind of buying Lonto at like a high, I don't know. It feels like, it feels like chasing a little bit to me. Like it feels like,

It feels like the Michael Thompson, Lucas Glover of last week, where it's like these guys have this great week and you're just chasing and buying at a high point. I love Lonto. I met him at the Northern Trust. He's a great guy. Lonto is going to have a bad tournament and he'll be like 6,800 and like 0% in like two weeks. And like, that's when I'll be back on Lonto. I don't know if I want to buy in on Lonto now.

No, I totally agree with that. Okay. So I have, I do have one other guy I really truly want to ask you about. Sorry if we're getting like far. No, ask away. And we can, at this point we can kind of open it up because I love ending on what I really like ending on is we'll go back and forth on a couple like super deep guys. And then, yeah. Okay. And by the way, Luke list top 40 is plus 100. I think that's it. You're getting plus money. I think that's a pretty good goal at that. Somebody who's reading out so well in the models. Um,

who was it? Oh, it was Keith Mitchell. I'm trying to look at where his outright odds and top 40 odds are. But Keith Mitchell, so oh, his top 40 is plus 120. That was one of the guys I had written down. So the thing about Keith Mitchell,

So the putter and the approach game, like generally have just been bad for him. But lately, if you look at the recent form, and again, it's a very, very small sample size. But again, I'm looking at kind of guys who might be in the middle of turning their game around. The approach and putter have really kind of rebounded a little bit. And the finishing positions are completely legit. Is this a guy that we're still kind of early on if we buy, you know, and then, you know, this week or in the next couple of weeks?

Maybe. I mean, he's one of those guys where...

you know, the driver is a weapon, right? Like I think, I think that this just happens to be a course. And there are a couple more guys down here that, that I'll talk about that fit this bill, where this happens to be a course where like, if you, if you can drive the ball long and straight, like you just have a really big advantage on this course. I've walked this course a million times. Like you just, it really, really helps. And Mitchell is one of those guys where,

I'm kind of like what makes him better to you than Vegas? Because Vegas is like the same price and Vegas is a little bit of a better iron player. And you know, Vegas actually is, I'm actually curious to see who will be more popular because people really like playing Johnny Vegas. He hits the ball a really long way. He's always going to pop in the models because of the ball striking. I think he's pretty fairly priced this week at 7.4. Um,

but I could see him getting lost in the shuffle or maybe it's Mitchell who gets lost in the shuffle, right? Like these guys are right next to Aaron wise. Tom Hoagie is playing really well right now. Noren's been good here. Snedeker is playing great and has amazing course history. Mito's right there. People love Mito.

Yeah, I think I'm probably at least in a DraftKings spectrum. I'm probably going back to Vegas. That was one of the guys that was on last week a lot and he missed the cut and I was kind of dead in the water at that point. But to your point, you don't come off of a guy just because he had one bad week. If you liked him the week before, he didn't suddenly become a bad golfer, you know, last weekend.

So the thing that holds him back a little bit, I think relative to Keith Mitchell, I think Keith Mitchell's probably, you know, I don't even know that I can say this comfortably. He's a better putter. That's what I was going to say. He's a better putter and around the green, he appears to be a little bit better as well. But I mean, Johnny Vegas, he strikes it well and he can, he has the ability to get hot with

I don't mind Vegas at all. Well, there's one other guy in this exact same price point that I think is going to be a little more controversial. So I want to talk about Gary Woodland for just a second. People know I'm on the record about a Gary Woodland resurgence.

Tough start to that take so far. We're not in panic mode yet, Sia. We're not even remotely in panic mode yet, Sia. I want everyone to forget about last week. He was semi-popular. It takes nothing for me to like Woodland, and even I was like, no, this is not the spot for him, not yet.

I think this is a spot to buy. He's really cheap. No one's going to play him, but he now goes to a course where, as we continue to harp on, see it, his distance and driver actually is a big advantage. And these are greens. He's really putted well on before. Um, he's won the U S open at pebble on Poe. He's actually been good at Riviera too. He's been good here. Um, he goes to this tournament every single year. He's missed the cut only one time in 12 appearances. He's 7,300, probably my favorite 7,300.

sub 7.5 K guy. This is, this is like Woodlands last stand for me. See, this is a state of the union on my prediction. I really think he's going to play this play well this week. And if he doesn't, I probably need to recalibrate.

Yeah, I don't. So I'm not I wasn't on Woodland last week. I don't think I'm going to be on him this week. But you're right. The driver when it's on is certainly a weapon. And, you know, it's just there's there's been so many flaws lately with the putter around the green. It's just like nothing seems to be clicking. Like usually if I can latch on to something like with Jonathan Vegas, like ball striking is great. He's got distance, too. But, you know, this is like but he can rebound here. Like, I just don't.

I don't know, but like, that's the type of guy that has the pedigree that if he's, if he's in the top five on, on Saturday this week, like you're going to be like, okay, yeah, that kind of makes sense, but it's not for me.

I love that. By the way, you are welcome to just shit all over my pics as well too. That's what's so funny about Woodland. I remember when I first started making the case for Woodland, everyone's like, oh yeah, I could see that. And each week passes and it's becoming a more and more difficult case to make. And I see more people are bailing on it, which is completely fair. Let me ask you this. Would you...

I can't believe I'm asking you this because this other guy is not a guy I really like either. But I think in spite of last week, I think his recent play has been actually on an uptick. Gary Woodland at 110 to one or at 150 to one, Ricky Fowler. What's better value is my question. Well, I think you can get Woodland higher, but if you're giving me just to choose from those odds...

God, that's a good question. See, that's tough. I don't like Ricky at this course. I think he has, he, Ricky would have to like, there's a universe where Woodland gains five strokes off the tee. Like he did at the CJ cup a couple of weeks ago. And Ricky would have to have one of those weeks like he did at the PGA championship where he leads the field and around the green and putting. So I, I think it's a little bit of an easier path for Woodland because

but it's close. I mean, we could throw our boy Spencer's Jason Day into that mix, right? Oh, Jesus. Yeah. Can I say something? This is crazy because I was just looking at Gary Woodland at the CJ Cup. It was very impressive off the tee. Right. Yeah. Do you know that this is, am I looking at the right thing? Ricky Fowler gained more strokes off the tee in that very tournament. Did he really? He must've led the field. He gained 5.52 off the tee at the CJ Cup.

So there you go. That may be the crux to my argument. Because Ricky, I'm probably not giving him enough credit. I mean, that was like the one good time. It's pretty much a minefield other than that for the most part.

But I don't know that he's, I've seen like, obviously the upside I think is still there. Even if you go back to June where he truly wasn't playing well, he was gaining in ball striking and like, let's see, one, two, three, four out of five tournaments, he gained ball striking. Then he regressed again. And then the CJ cup came and he gained almost seven strokes, ball striking. And by the way, game two strokes around the green. Anyway, these guys like Gary Woodland, Ricky Fowler, I guess the bigger point is, and I think it's more of like a top 40 or top 20 point.

I think there's some value there because they're pushed so far down the board that you're not just getting plus money. You're getting like significant plus money on guys like that. Well, speaking of farther down the board, see, one of the things that I like to do at the end is I like to do, people have said they really like this. It's really helped with draft Kings, but I really like to kind of go rapid fire back and forth on some, uh,

cheap guys or some guys that are in the 150 to one range. Um, so I have four guys that I want to briefly rapid fire mentioned to you and we can just go back and forth. Is that cool with you? How many, how many, if you have more than four that you want to mention by all means.

So I'm looking at the odds to see if this like matches up with the odds. But instead of doing that, as you go, as, as you're talking right now, I'm actually identifying a few guys that I like and I'm, I'm just like literally writing them down. So I have, I'm going to have four as well. Okay, perfect. All right, well let's go back and forth then. So the first guy I want to mention, Patrick Rogers, shout out Chris Powers. So Patrick Rogers, six appearances here, missed the cup four times. Yeah. But the,

The two times he made the cut, fourth and a ninth. He's a really good driver of the ball. He's really good on Pella. The last time he was at Torrey, he gained over six strokes putting. Loves Pella. He said he loves Pella. West Coast guy. Went to Stanford. Hit the ball fine last week at the Amex.

Everyone knows this about Patrick Rogers, that he's a West Coast guy. So maybe he's chalky, but there are so many guys in the low sevens that I think people are going to want to play kind of like we talked about with like the Vegas Mitchell conversation that I just, I think he's going to get, I think he might get lost in the shuffle. And I think people, you know, even like,

Molinari and hoagie that played so well last week. I'll play Patrick Rogers and set and we'll see what happens.

I like that. I like the upside of Patrick Rogers. Okay. I'm down with that. You want me to give my first one out? Yeah. Give me your first guy. Okay. This guy is very much hit or miss and it's the short game that's really going to give him a problem if you're betting on him in DraftKings in particular, but I do like the ball striking and his ability to get hot. He's also pretty good at the longer proximities. And that's Joel Dahman, who by the way, is 150 to one. Listen, this could be, this could completely go off the rails.

But that's the Joel Dahman experience, though. Of course. Anyone in this price range, yeah. But particularly Joel Dahman. I've noticed even, it was years ago, I can't remember what tournament he was contending with, but it was him and somebody else on Sunday, and it was like one bad tee shot. It was like a J.B. Holmes situation where he just got so frustrated and just like every shot thereafter was terrible. But I do think he has the game. If he can avoid some bad shots,

the around the green game is pretty tough, but outside of that, I actually think he's pretty decent value at 7,200. I like that. Okay. Yeah. Joel Dahman. He, he's played well here before I believe. And he's also played well at Riviera before as well. So we know he's, he's done it before on POA. The next guy, uh, oh man, all these next guys now are above like

like 280 to one. Um, but these are the guys that like when you a ton of money in draft Kings. So I think CT pan is a good play this week. He's 6,900. Um, one of the companies that my friend works for, I had lunch with him the other day. They sponsor CT pan. Um, and they really like where his game is at. This is a very silly anecdotal thing. I promise there's, there's statistical reasons to, um, he's finished second at Torrey before, um,

On two separate occasions here, he's gained over five strokes putting. So I feel pretty good about him on Pella. Pretty good driver of the ball. Pretty good long iron player. I think he'll be 1% and finish T35 and win people a lot of money. Okay. So I got to tell you this.

For Wynn Daily Sports, I do golf content, but I also do what's called a secret weapon, where I pick a guy that is under 7,000 in DraftKings pricing and also under 5% in projected ownership.

Prior to last week, that secret weapon was 47 and 13. And the measuring stick there is actually making the cut, which that record's pretty good considering the ownership and the pricing and all that stuff. Oh, for sure. A couple of them have been in the top 10, you know, whatever. But the point is, last week, it was CT Pan. I loved him going into last week. And so to your point,

There's no reason for me not to. I mean, obviously the course is a little different, but I agree with you. It's a better course. Yeah. It's a good course for him. Yeah. Fair enough. So I think the game has been there for him. So I love that one. So, okay. I'll give you, I'll give you my next one here. This is a guy who, if you actually look up his ball striking,

Not only is it elite, it's like John Rahm elite, but he has the worst putter in the country. It's not, I shouldn't say in the country, excuse me, on the PGA tour. And that's like an actual fact. I'm not like, it's not hyperbole. I'm pretty sure he's the worst putter on the tour. I know. I'm so familiar with the player that you were talking about. Yes. And before you reveal it, his around the green game is also pretty terrible. However,

Okay, so there's two things. One, anybody can find a good putter other than maybe Kyle Stanley. But the thing about, okay, I just gave you the lead there. I think everyone knows though. Yes. Here's the thing. He's finished top 20 here two of the last four years with an 18th and a 14th place finish. So my point is, no, he's not going to find the putter, but he's clearly comfortable here just from an all around standpoint. And I think at his price, at his number, I think you could have guys that are worse here.

I think he's lost in a playoff here, actually. I mean, he's... Or... God, this was a long time ago. He's had... Yeah, he's been very good here. And here's the thing. If you're going to play Kyle Stanley, play him here. Because it's not a tournament where he needs to make a million putts. Right? Like, there's going to be holes where...

par's okay right because kyle stanley will be hitting greens that other people will be missing and so his shitty two-putt might be better than some people who aren't miss making the green and are having to get up and down you know what i mean so this is the this is the spot for him that's a great point i love how you put that because that i should have said what you just said

because that's actually even a more compelling argument than what I was going with. I think this is, if you were going to suck it up and play Kyle Stanley, this would be the tournament to do it.

My next guy, Sia, 300 to one, 6,600. This guy's the lowest priced guy currently in my player pool. I'm not dropping below this guy, but if you want a salary saver, Party Marty Laird, this guy plays here every year. He loves his tournament. He's made the cut eight out of 11 times.

He kind of like surprisingly like rated out pretty well for me. He's a good iron player, particularly a good long iron player. He's had some nice success before on POA. Don't love that it's his first start of the year, but I found the most on him out of the super cheap guys. I like that quite a bit, actually. I wanted to play him, I think a week ago, or maybe it was two weeks ago when he had a withdrawal, right?

He sure did. Yeah, because he was on my radar that week too. I love me some Marty. Yeah, I like that. Okay, so here's a guy I'm kind of a sucker for. He kind of fits in the Kyle Stanley mold here, but he's actually playing maybe a touch better than Kyle Stanley. It's Emiliano Grillo. Okay, so the ball striking is there with him. The problem with him is the around the green game and the putter. However, if you're actually, again, this is a small sample size. If you look at his last five tournaments,

He's lost in two of those five, but one of them was minimally like minus 0.11. The other one was minus 1.51. But in the other three, he actually gained not very significantly, but gained nonetheless. If the ball striking is there for him and the putter is a zero putter, I absolutely think he can pay off his price in DraftKings. And by the way, I have him as a top 40 at plus 240.

You're really going for the team no putt this week. And I, I, maybe there's an argument to be made that when you get on, this could be a reach, but when you get on POA greens, like even the best players are going to struggle. Like maybe I'm, maybe I'm reaching there, but this is a tournament. This is a surface that, um,

it's more inconsistent, right? Like it's harder to get confident and get comfortable. Like you can really get thrown off if you start putting poorly. So maybe that levels the playing field. Who knows? We'll see. My final guy, Sia, and...

Not giving up seems to be a theme of this episode, but I'm not ready to give up on a guy who is pretty popular last week that I liked, who I don't think is going to be popular at all this week. And that's Adam Svensson. Now, I just think people give up too quickly. I loved Hoagie at the Sony Open. Didn't work out. I stayed on for one more week and thank God because he kind of saved me.

I loved Svensson last week, T49, not great, but he's already played well here before. Um, so he had status in 2019 and finished. So he played a lot of these courses actually, like a lot of these guys, um, like Jaeger and Mito and all the rookies have never seen any of these courses. Svensson's actually seen a lot of them cause he had, he's had status before. Um, and he finished 35th here. Um, and he gained strokes in all four more major categories that week. The

The sample size is starting to get a little bigger with him. And I think Svensson's like a really good iron player. Not super sure about the rest of his game, but he's been really good from 175 plus. And I think that can take you a long way at Torrey. Yeah, I like Svensson as well. He's definitely going to be in my player pool and I'm happy to stay on him. I mean, I'm also looking for like some experience on this course if I can get it. But I think Svensson is one of those guys where I'm willing to overlook it considering his price tag. Okay, so here's my last guy.

This is pretty amazing because this guy is such a good ball striker and he's not bad around the green and he's improving with the putter yet. His finishing positions are all kind of garbage. He's either missing the cut or his best case scenario is like a, a top like 25, but it's typically if he's making the cut, he's like in the 40 range. Okay. So this guy has gained ball striking. Okay. He's gained ball striking. I believe I just did a rough count and,

14 of the last 15 tournaments. And some of these gains are like significant gains in ball striking 4.83, 9.34, 2.68, 2.66 around the green is, is a little wishy-washy. The putter is starting to improve. He's 6,400 on draft Kings, Jason Duffner. Nobody likes playing Jason Duffner and I get it, but I can't ignore these numbers. I think he's going to make the cut this week. And I think he could do,

do just enough damage to get your DraftKings team above par. See, you know I love these guys. I play Jason Duffner all the time. I played Duffner last week. He made the cut. So, yeah, no, 100%. That's it for my guys, but since you said 6,400, I was reminded Bronson Bergoon, too, is 6,400. He's like a long iron specialist, like terrible at everything, but if you want to take one guy that

Okay. He's really good from 175 plus. That would be Bronson Bergoon. But yeah, I like Duffner. I always liked Duffner. Okay. See ya. Let's do a quick recap. I have made a bet on Bryson at 22 to one. I'm looking very closely at, at burger. We're, we're monitoring that situation very closely. I have made a bet on Justin Rose at 65 to one.

And we're monitoring the Wolf situation very closely. And then for top 40 guys, we're

We, Svensson, a hundred percent, probably Luke list Woodland for sure. And then probably Patrick Rogers and, and, and, and maybe Vegas and CT pan and layer. Like a lot of these guys, I have to kind of figure out my, my hashtag units, but it's going to be a lot of the guys that we talked about. I think you can find pretty good top 40 prices on them as well. What say you, sir?

I like the card. Okay, so I haven't laid any bets down yet, but this is what I'm considering. Hideki at 18 to 1, DJ at 22 to 1. I'll probably only take one of those and...

I'm starting to lean DJ just because I think that unknown has the price at the right spot. I think if he played one tournament and he was pretty good, this would be 14-1. So I think 22-1 is fine there. Taylor Gooch at 50-1. Aaron Wise at 65-1. And just a dart on Lonto at 80-1. I've got a few top 20s. Sungjae plus 140. Gooch plus 180.

Actually, I was going to say Lanto plus 275, but you know what I think I'm going to do? Don't let me talk you out of Lanto. I love Lanto. We took the ferry back together for the Northern Trust. Oh yeah, you told me. He's a nice guy. He went to VCU, which is... I went to law school at University of Richmond. VCU is right down the way, so...

For some reason, when people say his name, like on TV, they mentioned Virginia Commonwealth University. It's kind of cool. So kind of a hometown thing. But the point is, I'm going to take the outright back on Montauk. I think I just want him in the top 20 at plus 275. That's what I was going to say. I have four top 40 guys. Keith Mitchell, plus 120. C.T. Pan, plus 165.

I should have mentioned Luke List at plus 100. I really do like that one. And Emiliano Grillo at plus 240. That's a large enough plus price for me to be happy about that one. I love it, man. Sia, thank you so much for joining me, man. It is always a pleasure. Before we get out of here, why don't you tell everyone what you got going on this week?

Yeah, so this week, good question. So I just did the first cut with Rick Gaiman, Greg Ducharme. So feel free to check that out. It's the DFS show. First Cut has a show every day, but I'm on their Monday DFS show for the balance of the year. I also do the CBS Fantasy Football Today DFS show. Probably only going to have a couple more shows this season for obvious reasons, but you can always check out that podcast. And then I'm on Sirius XM, Fantasy Sports Radio, Saturday nights with Jason Mizrahi with Winn Daily Sports.

That's 9 Eastern to 11 Eastern. We talk really all sports, probably a heavy football show this week, but we'll get into NBA and of course golf and MLB and if that season goes and all that stuff. So that's basically where you can find me or at Sia Najad on Twitter. Sia, good to see you, my friend. We're going to do it again soon. Sounds good. Thanks for having me, by the way.

All right. That is it for the show. A lot of new visitors to this podcast in the new year. I love that. That is awesome. So do not forget if you have two or three seconds to rate and review on Apple Podcasts, it's a very quick process. That really helps me out more than you know. I really appreciate that stuff. So

Feel free to come say hi or DM me if you'll be at Torrey. I'll be there Friday afternoon and all day Saturday. The Sunday podcast for this week, to be determined, I'll be at Torrey all weekend. I'm going to try and get a lot of research done ahead of time on Wednesday and Thursday, but I don't like half-assing those. So if I don't have enough time...

We'll see. Plus, I kind of want to watch football that day, and it's a pretty crappy tournament anyway because most of the elites are going to Saudi. But anyway, that will do it. Have a great rest of the week. Good luck with your bats. Go Zander. And we'll see you next time. Cheers.

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