Genesis Picks & Innovation in Golf Analytics with PGA Splits
01:00:44 Share

We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the

better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash blue wire.

Just go to Indeed.com slash BlueWire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash BlueWire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. ♪♪♪

This episode of Inside Golf Podcast is brought to you by Run Pure Sports. This week is an incredible week to check us out.

Because I love Riviera. Already have a ton of great info in the Discord from caddies. A lot more insight into what's going on with Xander right now. Does he have a wrist injury? What's going on with Hovland? The goal for Run Pure Sports is to give you the best information, the best hang, the best community, my in-depth course breakdowns, my in-depth DraftKings breakdowns.

Non-stop 24 seven golf talk in the discord access to me for any questions. I live in there. I am so proud of what we have built. So run pure sports.com promo code Andy for 15% off, hop in, give it a shot for a week. See if you like it. I promise you will not be disappointed. We care.

Deeply about data, how to interpret data, all while having fun, not taking ourselves too seriously, and developing that edge that we continue to have. Shout out to RPS Premium Show contributor and my very good friend, Kobe DuBose, for winning a casual $100,000 last week on DraftKings, playing nobody over 12% in his lineup. Leverage is...

Leverage is not dead kids. So you can join Kobe and I and our squad at runpeersports.com promo code Andy to get you that 15% off. Speaking of an edge, uh,

Data, golf analytics, the best information. We are bringing on Ron Kloss, PGA Splits 101 on Twitter to discuss our new partnership with The Rabbit Hole, a big presenting sponsor of Inside Golf Podcast, a group that we will be working with a bunch going forward, not just on Inside Golf at Rumpier Sports. They're just...

the best fit for what we're trying to do with this type of stuff. It's, this is the type of data and analytics, innovation and information that I've been yelling about on this podcast for years. So, you know, I already discussed a lot about this partnership on the Sunday show. Ron is going to do a much better job, uh,

of explaining this considering he knows the whole origin story. He was the one who conceived of this idea and why we both believe this new tool is, like I said, the best innovation that golf data has seen in a very, very long time. So without further ado, let's bring on Ron.

All right, Ron Kloss is here, PGA Splits, Betts Spurts Golf. I'm incredibly, I've had, it's been a while since we've talked, we talk a lot on over DMs on Twitter, but it's been a while since I've had you on the podcast and we've talked kind of over Zoom like this. Our conversation today is kind of dovetailed by some exciting news that I announced recently on my podcast. I put it out on Twitter as well.

But a partnership with Betzberts and the rabbit hole would, I believe, to be

maybe the best innovation I've seen in the golf betting daily fantasy data community in quite some time. And I really wanted to have you on to explain to the listeners more about it, talk more about this. I know you've worked incredibly hard on this over the last couple of weeks, months, years. This has been a really long time in the making. So thank you so much for joining me this Monday morning. And I can't wait to

talk some data with you, my friend. Yeah, great to be here. Thanks for having me on. And it sure is a very interesting time in the world of golf. Obviously, everything going on off the course. And then we have six long shot winners to start the year. And then, of course, this week we get Tiger's return here at the Genesis. So lots happening.

Okay, so let's backtrack a little bit and start with the rabbit hole, because this is something, how long, when did the idea first come into your mind for this? And how long have you been conceiving of this? So the origins of the rabbit hole were sparked during the pandemic year when I was born out of my mind. And I don't know how well you remember that time period, but of course, everything was shut down.

And there was literally not a single sporting event to watch. And so I'm locked down with three little ones in the house. And I remember hearing that, you know, the PGA Tour is the first pro sport to return. And so I had dabbled in, you know, DraftKings PGA a little bit before that. But I just kind of decided to take a deep dive into, you know, the analytics of golf because, you know, I'd always kind of built my own model as I've always, you know, ever since DFS kind of arrived on the scene.

you know, mostly football, basketball. But so I just decided to dig into golf and, you know, I've always given him credit, but Josh Culp, who is future fantasy on Twitter, I don't know if you remember, he kind of had his almanac where he had listed, you know, the best players in certain conditions and he had strokes gain performance based on weather, grass type, long courses, short courses, on and on. And I found it to be absolutely fascinating. And so,

I started thinking, you know, are people even looking at, you know, golfers putting splits on Bermuda greens or what about strokes gain approach on horses with tiny greens or what about long courses with penal rough? And so I was convinced and it remains so to this day that, you know, there are edges in this type of data, uh,

because players have different comfort levels, different styles of play, whether it's based on the courses that grew up playing, you know, golfers in the South who grew up on Bermuda grass or players who have a knack for raising their level of play on difficult courses, you know, Will Zalatouris, you know, this week at Riviera comes to mind, you know, his, his performance above his baseline on difficult courses is staggering. And so, you know, just the ability to,

To look at all this and combine all this data together is something that, you know, ever since 2020, you know, I've started a notebook and I just keep filling it. And, you know, there's just more and more ideas that are coming to mind all the time. Well, I agree in terms of the edge. In fact, that edge looking at those types of stats is amazing.

Generally, the only reason that I have a career today in this industry and part of me, as soon as I started talking to you about the rabbit hole and diving into the rabbit hole, I was like, oh no, somebody else is onto this as well. There goes my edge. And the other part of me is like,

wow, thank God there's somebody else that is looking at this stuff that is going to provide this data to the public because a lot of the data that I think the public is looking at is either being misinterpreted, they're not looking at the right things, they don't have access to the right things with other data sites. So talk to me a little bit more about why

What sets the rabbit hole apart from other data sites? Because I certainly have my answer, and I've talked about that a little bit on the podcast that I already put out. But in making the rabbit hole, in the origins of the rabbit hole, in conceiving this product, what were you looking to do differently from other data sites in the past?

All right. So how much time do I have here? As much as you want, man, I'll cut you off. If we go too long, we'll talk a little Riviera at the end, but the whole point of this is to get people comfortable and accumulated and help people understand why this type of innovation is so important to people like you and I. Yeah. So just, you know, the goal was to make this the most comprehensive customizable, which is another keyword, a customizable database with every possible filter and

and condition that a PGA player might face on a golf course. And yeah, I'm proud to say that, you know, the rabbit hole, in my opinion, and I, you know, other people are kind of seeing this as well as pretty much the only place you can find a majority of these metrics and conditions.

Whether it be for modeling or we're, we're, we're already there, like not to cut you off, but you know, I know we're just getting started and what we plan to do with this website, but it's already miles ahead of anything else I've ever seen before.

Yeah. And if you're, if you're into modeling like we are, or if you're just a golf fan who wants to do research, like you can do all that stuff. And like I said, the beautiful thing is if you only want to research the basics, like strokes gain or putting on Bermuda greens, or if you just want to look up the results over the past three months, you can do that. But if you really want to go down the rabbit hole and dig a lot deeper, you have that option as well. So like, for example, there's, there's a lot of little features that,

that other sites don't have. You know, for example, you can, you know, you have a CSV download option where, you know, if you, for example, for some reason didn't want to use our modeling that we have on there, you like to create your own models, which is kind of how I used to do it all the time. I'm pretty sure you did as well, where you just kind of have your own individual, you

splits that you take and you model each and then you put away to them, you know, we have that option. Um, you know, we actually have, you know, if you hover over each metric, you know, it gives you a definition of what does this actually mean? Um, and so there's, there's a lot of little cool things. Uh, there's a minimum rounds feature. So, you know, sample size is obviously an issue, you know, when you're looking at data, but you know, if you wanted to look at only, you know, a player who has at least, you know, 16 rounds over the last year,

You can just put that that that range in there that you want and you can kind of get rid of all those other players and you can even model that way. So you can you know, you have so many options, you know, with whether it be the rounds and all that stuff. And then, you know, if you want to get into, you know, just the courses themselves, you know, so we have course results by region, by state, by country. So if you wanted, you know, the whole Max Homa, California.

You can look at how do every single player, how do they perform in just California? If you want to look in the Midwest, you have that option. You can search by course or environment type. And, you know, we have the, you know, the open championship coming up on Lynx courses. So if you want it to just look at Lynx performance,

Parkland, coastal, desert, only TPC courses. We have course data filters for everything from field strength to the event type. So no cuts, major, small field, full field. If you want to look at season. So for example, right now, Genesis is the last event in the West Coast Swing. So if you wanted to look at, you know, West Coast Swing going back, the Florida Swing, you can search by the number of bunkers, number of water hazards, course elevation,

For the agronomy nerds out there who I know you and me are both in that category, we have every single grass surface used on tour. And unlike some of the other data sites out there, it is 100% accurate and as comprehensive as you can get.

So you mean to tell me that the greens at TPC River Highlands are a little bit different than the greens at Riviera and they're not just all poa? Yes. And Torrey Pines South does not have bent grass. We won't name any other sites on here, but yeah, there's just so many inaccuracies out there.

And I know why, like it takes time to compile all this and it takes the time to put the research in. And so, you know, that's something I've always been committed to doing. And, you know, and just, just going back to the grass, like not just putting surfaces, like we have every single fairway and rough surface as well. So if you wanted to find out the best players approaching the green from Bermuda rough, it's there this week, the Genesis at Riviera, Kikuyu rough.

Now, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there's only one other course that uses Kikuyu. But if you still wanted to just narrow it down to that, we have Kikuyu Rough in there. And that leads me to we have over 25 metrics that cannot be found or customized anywhere else, including separate buckets in each of the approach ranges.

from both the fairway and the rough. Also, total driving, distance from the edge of the fairway, carry distance, going for the green data, which kind of came into play last week in Phoenix, where that kind of measures aggressiveness. Players, when you have drivable par fours, when you have kind of low scoring events where players need to score, and you had these three par fives,

you know, at TPC Scottsdale, which players had to take advantage of, you know, so that going for the green data is really important. And so, you know, scrambling even broken down into both scrambling from the rough and from the short grass. And then things like three putt avoidance from 25 plus feet approach putt performance, which is lag putting,

We even have swing data, apex height, club head speed, ball speed. And you can, you know, you can get some of that on the PGA Tour site, but you can't go back and look at, you know, rankings going back to 2016. So you can kind of look and that's something I haven't even explored yet is, you know, how players, you know, may have progressed over time, you know, with their club head speed, their ball speed.

We have rankings for AM and PM scoring, which can be a little noisy. But when you look at players, if you want to go back eight years, who tends to play better in the mornings? Does that data mean anything? That's for others to decide. But the fact that we have that there, even for showdown lineups, if you've got guys who are going in the morning and you know they're really good players in the morning, that might be a little bit of an edge. And speaking of showdown lineups, I spent...

lot of time working on the floor ceiling filter which is kind of a really neat thing where you can search for the rate of rounds in which a player shows consistency so positive strokes gained or shows immense upside by searching for how often they gain you know one two all the way up to five plus strokes per round and

And so if you've ever wondered, you know, who has the highest rate of spike putting rounds, gaining three plus three plus strokes on the greens. What about if you only want to search on fast POA greens? We have it. Okay. I mean, how about which golfers are gaining the highest rate of four plus strokes in the first round on easy scoring courses? You know, it's right there with just one click. And here's the beautiful thing. Not only can you search fast,

floor ceiling rates for every stroke scan category, but you can combine it with any of those other course filters, you know, that we have on the site. And, and I mean, just to go a little further here, like I haven't even touched on, um,

Some of the other course filters like missed ferry penalty, which I was going to get into that as well, because that's a massive one for me. Yeah. And even club type off the tee, like I have a broken down by driver heavy courses by less than driver courses. You know, people are always asking me.

Oh, it would be so wonderful to see, you know, who gains the most strokes off the tee on less than driver courses. Okay. So one click and you can, you, you have that data right in front of you. And so, you know, it's just, it's just really neat to have all that here and the great news. And you kind of mentioned it earlier, you know, beyond all this is that, you know, this was just the first build.

You know, it's onward and upward from here. You know, we're not going to rest on a little bit of success like some other sites have done. And so, you know, I think being content and never adding and improving is disrespectful to subscribers. And, you know, you will never see that with something I'm involved in. And, you know, as one of my heroes, Jim Harbaugh is famous for saying,

Better today than yesterday, better tomorrow than today. So, you know, I would encourage people send us their ideas, send us additions, improvements, everything. You know, my DMs are open. That's what I said too, because this is basically our passion, right? I mean, that's why the

The fit was so easy for me because this is, like I said, the type of data analysis that I've built my career off of and that I have been preaching and yelling about on the podcast for so long and something that I know you have been preaching and yelling about for so long as well. And now this is something that.

everybody is going to be able to do, right? Everybody is going to be able to look at and something easy, something as simple. I'm glad you brought up the Miss Fairway penalty stuff and the types of courses in terms of what players decide to do off the tee, something like Miss Fairway penalty. I'm just going to give you a good example. And as it pertains to a golf course like Riviera, right?

The way that players attempt to attack a golf course drastically changes based on what is out there in front of them off the tee in terms of hazards, in terms of fairway size, in terms of rough length, all things of that nature. Right. And so, for example, a golf course like Riviera, something that I've noticed is

in breaking down Riviera and going to this golf tournament year after year, it's five minutes away from my house. I go to this golf tournament every year. I know this golf course, like the back of my hand, something I've noticed with Riviera over the years is that it has turned more and more so into a driver heavy course, right? There are a couple of reasons for this, right? Back in the day, 7,300 yards,

went a lot farther than 7,300 yards does as well. And with such narrow, difficult to hit fairways, there was far more of an emphasis on hitting the fairway because you would be having to hack long irons out of rough. Now, because carry distance is much farther, players are hitting the ball a lot farther than they used to. Driver technology, how far the

ball travels, players are able to take a far more driver-heavy approach at a course like Riviera. And even if they miss the fairway, they're still going to be able to generate enough speed to

Take some middle irons and short irons out of the Cuckoo you rough at Riviera, as opposed to having to take long irons 10, 15 years ago. And the stats continue to bear that out, right? Riviera is trending towards an easier golf course off the tee over the past couple of years. And so something like looking at missed fairway penalty. Now I can say to myself, okay,

okay, I know that Riviera is not a golf course with that many hazards, right? There's virtually no water on this golf course. By the way, you can look at courses on the rabbit hole based on water danger as well. And Riviera is a golf course that typically has a low missed fairway penalty. I think it was one of the lowest on tour, right? So now I can say to myself, okay, I know that the optimal strategy at Riviera is

is to hit a bunch of drivers. The fairways are so narrow that even the most accurate players are going to miss them. How can I look at other golf courses? I know podcast listeners hear me repeating myself because I talk about this every single week on my podcast. And now there's a site where you can actually do it. I don't have to do it by hand anymore, but how can I look at the other golf courses where players are going to answer the exact same type of question that they answer on

off the tee at Riviera because the strategy off the tee at Riviera is drastically different than the strategy off the tee at Harbor town or PGA national. Right. And you can't just say, Oh, Riviera is a medium length course. Let me look at all the other medium length courses. Their courses under 7,200 yards that are driver heavy courses, their courses between 72 and 7,400 yards that are not as driver heavy courses. Right. So I think just such a simple example of,

of like missed fairway penalty is something that no other data site is looking at or thinking of at all. And this actually gives you the opportunity to create far more actionable info based on the golf course than, you know, anything I've seen before. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And, you know, I will, you know, there's, there's so many different ways you could look

You know, just using the rabbit hole off the tee. And like you said, it has become more driver heavy, you know, with, you know, whether it's technology, you know, how the course is playing, you know, you do have some dog legs this week, but, you know, I think overall, you know, players being able to, I mean, that's just the way golf is going now. Players are attacking dog legs and this course, like it's, you know, I know we'll get into it more coming up, but, you know, it has the second lowest driving accuracy ever.

green and regulation percentage combination on tour. And so, you know, that's, it's a weird thing because these greens are really big here. They're one of the largest on tour. Um, and yet it's almost like they play much smaller than that. So, you know, yeah, just, you know, just using the rabbit hole, you know, whether you're looking at driver heavy, whether you're looking at miss fairway penalty, um, you know, and I know one problem people always bring up to me, people who, you know, haven't used the site like the rabbit hole before is, um,

Problem people make is they try to combine all these things together. And of course, if you combine too many filters together, you're not going to come up with any results. And so that's where the modeling is to sample size. And, you know, that's where, you know, on the site.

You know, we have a plus button where, you know, you get your, say, driver heavy, you know, you add that to your model and you kind of need to add them individually and then you weigh those out. And so I just wanted to clear that up because that's I get DMs about that all the time where people they look at the specifics of a course and they try to combine them all together. And, you know, you almost have to take one at a time and look at it that way.

Well, my model is already up right now on the rabbit hole. You will be able to find my model there every single week. So if you want to customize and make your own model, you can do that. If you want to just follow and copy mine and actually create a CSV from my model and then use it for your own projections, you can do that as well. So let's talk about as this pertains to Riviera this week. So

The rabbit hole has been incredibly useful already in my research for Revere, and I can talk a little bit more about my model. But

how are you looking at this golf course? Right? What kind of tools are you using? What type of character is Riviera as a golf course? Cause I, I, I think it's an incredibly unique golf course in a lot of ways. And when we have a unique golf course, like Riviera, in my opinion, that actually gives people like you and I more of an edge because I think there's something, I mean, there's a lot of ways to skin the same cat at this golf course. Um,

But there are a lot of different ways that we can look at this. And I think people think of Riviera one way, right? Because it's this course that we've been going to for years. And then you dive into the data with Riviera. And I actually think the formula to success at Riviera, in my opinion, is a little bit different than I think conventional wisdom would suggest.

Yeah. So to me, like the more I've gotten into, you know, digging into these courses, you know, and watching golf over the years, you know, Riviera, you know, it is one of the toughest on tour, but like you said, it has been getting a little bit easier over the years, but still, uh,

I think it's, it's a course where, you know, it demands an all around game, you know, two, two of the greatest golfers of all time, you know, Jack Nicholas and Tiger Woods, you know, have played here so many times and they've never managed to win here. And so, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's got the universal admiration of tour pros because, you know, every quote I read talks about how tough it is, but it's also fair. And, you know, speaking on the challenge, the course presents, you know, I have this Patrick Canley quote that I always come back to here and,

you know, he summed it up pretty good. You know, he says the greens aren't overly firm. It's not crazy long, you know, but the course always defends itself. There's no tricks. There's no water on the entire course. There's no goofiness. I just think it's the best test that we play. And so, yeah, you know, you know, you obviously know this course a lot better than me, but, you know, it just seems to be a course with no specific weaknesses. And so, you know, whether, you know, you get into kind of that dichotomy of,

Second lowest driving accuracy, green and regulation combo. You know, you have, when you kind of look at the intricacies of this course, you

You know, it does have, you know, I think 16 of the last 18 winners have played in at least four previous Genesis Invitationals. And so, you know, even Data Golf List Riviera is having, you know, the third stickiest course in history. So, you know, I just think overall, you know, it's a kind of an engaging place where players, you know, have to think and strategize their way around the course.

You know, I know George Thomas, you know, who you are, you know, probably an expert in as well. You know, he was kind of a master of angular golf. And so you can see it here on so many holes, you know, and, you know, the best angle into the green is almost always the angle off the tee with the most trouble. And so, you know, I think short game matters here. You know, I think that's another angle to attack, you know, especially, you know, in the rabbit hole, you know, there's only 58 bunkers.

But these are some of the deepest and most difficult bunkers on tour. And, you know, you can look at the sand safe percentage and see that. And so like even on the rabbit hole, you know, you can look at, you know, sand saves. We have the option of, you know, easy, average or difficult. And so definitely this would be one you would, you know, look at, you know, obviously the difficult filter there. And so the greens, you know, when you look at the greens, like these are some of the toughest greens to putt on tour.

And, you know, I know you could probably, you know, looking on TV to me, it never seems like they look that tough, but, you know, it just appears like there's a lot of subtle undulations there. Yeah. And Pella as well. Like, I think that even anytime you're on Pella, you're going to have one of the lowest make percentages inside.

five feet inside, 10 feet inside, 15 feet. And that has been the case with all the pure California polo golf courses that we've gone to. Like you look at the make percentage at Torrey pines, look at the make percentage at pebble, look at the make percentage at Riviera. They're all some of the lowest on torque. Now, in my opinion, I,

Riviera actually has the toughest greens compared to Torrey Pines and Pebble Beach. And the statistics break that out as well, or bear that out as well. Part of the reason for that is, I don't know if you notice this, but if you watch Riviera on TV, those are the only three pure California POA golf courses on the PGA Tour, right? Pebble, Torrey South,

And if you look at the hue and the coloration of the greens at Riviera, it's a bit of a lighter green than you see at Pebble and Torrey Pines, despite them having the exact same surface. Now, the reason for that is because Pebble and Torrey are on a coast.

right there, you know, you get a lot of overcast weather, you get a little bit of a marine layer Riviera. I could walk to it from where I'm sitting right now is in the middle of the Santa Monica mountains. Okay. So Riviera is set in the middle of a Canyon. So what happens when you're a golf course in a Canyon versus a golf course on the coast, the sunlight reflects off the Santa Monica mountains and

And that's why you see a little bit of a lighter green than the polar that you see at Torrey and Pebble is because of that sunlight and the climate. And there's not really a marine layer at Riviera. You're getting that sunlight bouncing off the mountains and kind of into the canyons. And I think that's part of the reason why.

the greens at Riviera play so difficult, right. It's because they're a widow. They play a little bit faster, right. Um, there's a little bit more subtle undulation. George Thomas was just a better designer of greens than, you know, the guys who designed Torrey pines and, and pebble beach as well. And, um,

Part of the reason it's played a little bit easier over the last couple of years as well, Ron, is because this is the only time of rainy year at in, in LA, right? Is the only time where we really get a ton of rain in LA is January and February. And we have gotten a lot of rain in the last 10 days. Now,

We're not going to be dealing with preferred lies this week. I don't think there's going to be rain in the forecast between now and tournament start on Thursday. But part of the reason why it's played a little bit more challenging the past couple of years is because it's been impossible to get this golf course super firm and fiery with the amount of rainfall that Los Angeles generally takes in early January and February. So like why?

another one of the beautiful things is, is okay. This golf course is going to play a little bit more sockier, uh,

Let's look at carry distance and apex height, right? Like who are the guys that can hit the ball a long way and get the ball to travel a long way through the air if we know that these fairways aren't going to get a lot of rollout. So the only thing that I would add to your analysis of Riviera, because I agree with it wholeheartedly, is that my only problem with the course is that it's been

becoming a little bit more compromised by power off the tee with the angles, right? I just think there are a lot of dog legs at Riviera that players can cut now that they weren't able to cut in the past. And with the course playing a little bit softer,

I think there's going to be a massive benefit for the guys that are able to cut some of those corners with their carry distance and get those shorter and middle irons out of the rough, even if it's coming from the rough.

Yeah. And, you know, you look, you start talking about some of those off the tee stats, you know, like carry distance and of course, Rory, you know, highest ball flights. Um, I mean, even Ben on, you know, his, his power is just so sneaky and, you know, I thought he would, was a real good fit last week, you know, in Phoenix, you know, and he kind of stumbled down the stretch. Uh, but you know, yeah, him and Rory and, you know, even when Wyndham Clark and,

Of course, Cameron Young is going to be everywhere this week, you know, with his course history here. And, you know, he, you know, kind of did perform pretty well for three of the rounds, you know, last week. So and then, you know, you got Aberg who, man, what can you say about him? You know, I mean, this is I mean, this could be the week he just takes off. So, you know, it's really interesting when you dig into off the TNU. You know, even if you go back and look at the winners here, I mean, you know, Bubba won three times. DJ, you know, John Rahm, you know, Joaquin Neiman, you know, one of the best players.

off the tee players in the world even adam scott in his day like you look at somebody like adam scott i mean he still is one of the longer drivers on tour but when adam scott won here in 2005 he was actually i think the only first time winner at revere in the last two decades was scott in 2005 he was top 10 longest driver on tour right and he's peaking right now too like he is if you look at his last 10 events and some of them have been you know in australia and whatnot but

But, you know, he's really coming into form. And so, you know, he has a one on tour. I can't even remember. I think it was might have been here was the last time I can't remember. Yeah, 2019. Yep. And so, yeah, I mean, he's another interesting guy this week.

We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.

Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the

That's Indeed.com slash BlueWire.

Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much?

I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at midmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. All right, Ron. So let's start talking about some of the players here. You know, I have been building models by hand for the last two years and almost every single week whenever they are in the field, I'm

Zander and Cantlay seem to find their way to the top of my model. I was really hoping that using the rabbit hole tool, things would get different for me and I wouldn't have to deal with this Zander Cantlay dilemma every week from a statistical perspective. Right.

uh... like everybody asked me why do you love xander and can't lay so much every week and i continue said sick will cause i'm a data nerd and the data continues to tell me that these are the two most complete golfers on the p_g_a_ tor not the past the most complete

So I'm looking at my model right now. And once again, my numbers are telling me that Xander is the most complete golfer in this field. And I'm trying to find ways to work around that because he also has not won a golf tournament in 18 months. But I look at the top five here and.

And, or I'll give you the top six and it's, it's pretty chalk at the top for me, Xander Hovland, Rory Scheffler, Homa Cantlay, uh, which is kind of what you'd expect at a golf course like Riviera, but is your data showing you anything different? And is there any case you have to maybe figure out a way to get myself off Xander this week?

I mean, yeah, like, like, like I went kind of started at the beginning, you know, talking about the course, you know, I, I, my thing this week is can each player that I'm choosing to bet on it, you know, I don't even know where to go with outrights anymore, you know, looking at the last six weeks, but, you know, do they have every club in the bag, you know, so whether it's scrambling around the greens, whether it's, you know, and that's the thing for me is, is, you know, when you look at a guy like Scotty,

you know everybody knows his putting issues you know poa you know he's kind of been touch and go a little bit yeah but i mean you know does does a difficult not just your opinion real quick you know you've played this course do you think it kind of neutralizes you know bad putters a little bit and brings them brings them up or you know what is your opinion on you know the difficulty as far as you know putting in general

age old question, right? This is, it's the same question you get every single year at Augusta. It's like, well, Augusta are the most difficult greens on the PGA tour. Why do we have Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia and Scotty Scheffler seeming to win there every year? I think it works both ways, right? I think that, and Hideki, I think that there is a case to be made that because it's so difficult to hole five footers and because there's a lot of randomness, um,

involved with the type of grass that POA is in terms of the fact that you could hit a putt that seems offline and then a thick blade of grass can pull you offline. And that's not necessarily your fault if you're a good putter. So it can kind of frustrate the good putters as well. But the best way that I would talk about POA is

It's a confident surface, right? So I think the flip side to that article, that argument is, is that if you are not a good putter and you don't have a lot of confidence with your putter to begin with,

Poa isn't really a get right spot for you, right? Poa isn't the type of grass or the, this isn't, these aren't the greens where you're going to find it, right? Like you, you, you think about the greens last week in Phoenix and that was a really soft landing for Scotty, right? Those are greens that he's had a ton of success out in the past. He actually putted pretty good by his standards and had a very good opportunity to his putter. Didn't take him out of the tournament. Right? So I think there's two ways to look at it with Poa. Um,

I think that, yes, it does neutralize putting to a certain extent. But I also think that if you are not a good putter and you do not have a lot of confidence with your putter, you can get going in the wrong direction incredibly quickly on those greens and lose your confidence.

That's kind of a long-winded cop-out answer of saying that I value putting on courses like this. I don't think, oh, let's just play team no putt. I looked very closely in my model at players with specific experience on California Pella Greens. And I also looked very specifically at players who are the best on all surfaces from three to 15 feet, right? Because this is a golf course. Rory talked about this in his quotes as well. You're just going to have way more six-footers for par than

on this golf course than generally every golf course on tour. So, you know, it's a part of my calculation this week, but it's not going to get me off Scotty just because these are some of the hardest grades on tour. Yeah, that sounds pretty much like, you know, stuff I've researched and, you know, I guess...

You know, I, you know, Max Homa to me, you know, I've been on him the last, I can't remember two or three weeks and, you know, those courses, you know, he had good course history. He fit them perfectly. And, you know, he's just struggled recently. Um, but you know, his last chance this year in California, um, you know, he's a guy I kind of, you know, I keep waiting for him to, you know, turn it around. And so he's a guy who I think just the improvements he's made, you know, over the last year, year and a half, two years, um,

you know, his all around game has gotten so much better. So he's, you know, he's one of the guys in the top five for me. I do also have Xander. I have Cantlay. I think you said it perfectly. Those guys don't have any weaknesses, really. You know, I really wanted to be on Victor this week.

You know, I know he took some time off. You know, I don't I don't know what's going on with, you know, getting rid of coaches who seemingly have helped him. You know, I don't you know, I don't I'm not going to blame that for him having, you know, one bad week around the greens. But, you know, I think this is a course where, you know, he's had some pretty good history here. And, you know, my thinking is, you know, maybe the week off did him some good. We all know the talent that he has. So he's a guy who, you know, I haven't.

made any outright picks yet. I'm kind of just kind of waiting to see where things settle, but, um, you know, he's a guy who, man, he fits everything for me.

Yeah. The one guy, well, actually there's two guys I want to hit on because there's one guy that we, that rated out a little bit lower for me statistically, but I still want to talk about. And then one guy that I'm sure rated out very well statistically as well for you, but we haven't talked about either. And a lot of that has to do, I'm sure with things like, uh, carry distance and apex site and his general power off the T and course history in general. But the

Does this seem like a Rory golf course to you? Because, you know, he looked, he struggled a lot at pebble beach, um, particularly with his irons. Uh, but prior to that,

He won and finished second in two tournaments in Dubai, and he's played incredibly well at Revere in the past. And I particularly think that although Revere doesn't get talked about as a bomb and gouge course, I think because of the softer conditions and the carry distance and how far the ball travels now that it's trending in that direction. The DFS pricing just kind of came out, I think, 30 minutes, an hour before we went hot on this podcast. We're recording this on Friday.

early Monday in this Rory Scheffler conversation kind of at the top. Do you have a preference between those two? Cause I, I find that to be a pretty difficult decision myself. Yeah, for me, um, I would, I think this course fits Rory perfectly, you know, when you look at his past results here, um, you know, he's got,

A couple top fives, you know, finished 10th here back in 2022. Just never has seemed to put it all together. But like you said, you know, softer conditions, ball flight, you know, that's one of the ways to attack this course.

you know, empire ball flight taking, you know, having shorter lofted irons into the greens or higher lofted irons, I should say into these greens. So yeah, he's a guy, you know, even if you, you know, look at, you know, going for the green, you know, his aggressiveness, which sometimes can hurt him at, you know, different points. But, you know, I think he's someone you, you have to take serious this week. I think even comparing him to Scotty, you know, I just,

Scotty, I've never been comfortable playing with him on pure POA. And so, you know, I think for me, Rory is the pick here. You know, I think, you know, Rory's kind of been laying low, hasn't said a whole lot, you know, obviously he's taken a step back from all the stuff going on outside the course. So I think this is just a really good spot for Rory to, you know, kind of, you know, put himself on the scene again. So for me, I've got him ahead of Scotty this week.

Um, and, and yeah, like, you know, I think Ludwig is, you know, a guy who he hasn't seen these courses and he continues to go out there and, you know, kind of prove that course history doesn't matter to him. And, you know, I think he fits this course, you know, almost very similar to how Rory does. And, um, so he's another guy that, um, you know, I wish he was, you know,

I think, what is he right now? I think he's 22 is the best number. So I wish he was a little bit longer than that, but I mean, he's getting some respect. And so I think we probably need to pay attention to that too. So yeah, it's a stacked field this week. I mean, it's, it's hard to, you know, you can look at course history, you can look at course fit, but there's just so many options and you can see it in the past winners here. Like, you know, going back seven of the last eight winners have been, you know, big name guys. And so, you know, it'd be interesting to see if,

you know, the streak will be broken, you know, of long shots this week, or, you know, I even made a comment to someone earlier, you know, this might be Taylor Montgomery, 150 to one, you know, you just never know today. That was going to be my next question too, was help me decipher between this next range of Morikawa, Cantlay, Ludwig, JT, because I'm going to bet one of those guys, maybe two of them. And if,

It seems like you're leaning towards Ludwig in that argument. Now, the case for Ludwig, in my opinion, I laid this out on the podcast that I recorded on Sunday morning. But if you think that Ludwig is that guy, then this is the spot to play him. Because I think that this golf course favors his particular skill set tremendously, right? He has the power off the tee.

He's developing into a really good long iron player, right? Like there was a couple concerns about his iron play right out of the gates on the PGA tour. He has corrected that and ended those questions quickly. I have no concerns about his iron play, particularly his long iron play whatsoever. He is a great birdie maker, like out of the rough and he's,

His landing on Poa greens has been pretty impressive, right? This is a guy that didn't have a lot of experience whatsoever on Poa outside of the times that he would play college courses on Poa, right? He had no PGA tour experience on Poa whatsoever. And he putts positively gains over struck putting both at Torrey pines and at pebble beach. So for whatever reason, he's,

found himself a lot more comfortable on these Poe greens right out of the gates than I would have expected. I think the only major question with Ludwig is, is he ready? Is it his time now? Right. Is he ready to win this big of an event this early on in his career? And if you think the answer is yes,

Yes, Ludwig is that guy. We're going to look back at the fact that Ludwig was 22 to one at Riviera when he's 12 to one at the Masters and laugh about it. But it's kind of just a litmus test on how good you think he is, because it's not a matter of form. It's not a matter of course fit. This is a perfect.

golf course for him. And I said this earlier, Ron, and I'm sure you probably thought the same way, but I remember watching Ludwig when the RSM classic and thinking to myself, Oh God, this is a problem because this is actually a golf course that does not fit his game at all. In fact, this devalues what Ludwig does best. Just you guys wait till he gets to Torrey Pines and Riviera and Bay Hill golf courses that actually accentuate his driver.

And now we're here. So that would be my best Ludwig argument, counter argument. He would be the first time winner here since 2005. Yeah. And I mean, even, even like the Sony open, like I didn't think, you know, why, why like fit him at all? You know, he still manages to, you know, finish 30th. Um, and, and even, you know, if you go and look at, you know, he had a few, uh,

early on around the green, but he's shown pretty good touch around the green as well, which you need here at Revere. And so, yeah, I'm really high on him this week. But yeah, that second tier...

You know, this is where you have guys in just a similar bucket. And it's like, I don't, it's hard to pick one because, you know, whether you're looking at home or Patrick Cantlay, you know, both of those guys have been struggling, you know, over the past two, three weeks. And so, you know, both tremendous course fits, both have the all around game. And so, yeah, that's just something that I'm going to need to dig in even further to kind of figure out what direction I'm going to head there. Obviously more Kauahu.

We all know he's not one of the longer hitters on tour, but he's played well here. Six last year, second in 2022. You got Willie Z sitting there, who's a little bit lower down the odds board. I keep going back to looking at my numbers on tough courses, on longer courses. This is just...

you know, a really good fit for him. And, you know, fourth here last year and, you know, his last event, you know, he looked really sharp, you know, I don't know if he's all the way back yet, but, you know, he's another real interesting guy. And I mean, you can keep going down the board with, in my opinion, guys who, who just fit here, you know, whether it's Wyndham Clark, Tony Fino, um, even Sahith, you know, was sixth here last year. And so,

You know, yeah, I've got some decisions to make, and so I'm probably not helping you narrow things down at all. But, yeah, that's one thing the rabbit hole is good at is, you know, trying to find these little edges on. You know, if you're not looking at recent form, you know, you're taking, you know, whether it's bunker play, whether it's driver heavy, you know, trying to, you know, weigh these things and, you know, use that to help you kind of narrow down who you want to go with, you know, based on, you know, when you have so many golfers, to me at least, who are kind of packed together here.

One of the guys I was looking at that you haven't mentioned that he's typically not like a statistical darling for me on most weeks, generally because his iron play isn't really at the elite level of some of the guys you just mentioned. But to me, this is a really strong Matt Fitzpatrick course as well. That was actually the only bet that I made this morning at 45 to one.

Obviously, he fits the bill in terms of difficult scoring conditions the way that you talked about it with Will Zalatoris as well. One of the golf courses that I looked at that I've always felt was kind of a sneaky, really good comparison golf course to Riviera, more so from an architectural identity standpoint.

is Southern Hills, just in terms of the way that Southern Hills was designed, the things that I know they're a little bit different agronomically, but the way that Southern Hills was designed by Perry Maxwell, him and George Thomas have a lot in common in terms of their design philosophies. And you look at that Southern Hills leaderboard and it's like, wait, every single one of these guys have been unbelievable at Riviera. It's Cameron Young. It's Justin Thomas. It's Will Zalatouris. Even

Mito Pereira in one finish at Riviera finished top 15 as well. And of course, Matt Fitzpatrick finished top five at Southern Hills and has a top five at Riviera as well. So that's like another, uh,

Beautiful thing that you can look at from the rabbit hole that I've been doing in my models for years. It's like, okay, let me just, even if it's two or 3%, let me just throw in that Southern Hills leaderboard as well and see if there's anybody that I can identify that played well at this golf course that I think has a strong correlation to Riviera and see if we can find some guys that maybe they don't have as much experience at Riviera yet, but I think that's translatable.

Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't, you know, I think I do have that on my course fact sheet. I think, yeah, Southern Hills is up there, but yeah, like just even Justin Thomas is, you know, a guy who obviously won there. And yeah, so I think that's a really good comparison. You know, obviously people make the comparison to Augusta National a lot, which you can definitely see.

some similarities. Yeah, definitely interesting. Yeah. Are you, what's your, what's your thoughts on Tiger this year? As far as I know, it's pretty similar to last year, you know, coming in here, you know, he finished 18th out of 20 at the hero looked really good off the tee was somewhat rusty and other areas, but you know, it's, it's just interesting when you look at his past performances here, you know, he's really struggled with the short game and,

And, you know, you know, I think he's going to be fine ball striking, you know, last year hadn't played in a while and he comes right in and finished 25th on approach. So really excited to see kind of what he can do. And of course he's familiar with, but, you know, I always go back to, you know, he struggles here and, you know, his best finish was seventh back in, you know, 2004, you know, hasn't didn't even play here between, I think it was a whole decade between 2007 and 2017. So just interesting to see, you know, how he'll do here.

I'm glad you hit on this because we can kind of go off on this note as well in terms of discussing a little bit about Tiger's return. I know it was important for us to hit on this as well. And I actually wish I covered it a little bit more on my Sunday podcast because all the questions I've got this morning is, what about Tiger? What about Tiger? What about Tiger? And it's like, well, I don't have like any data on Tiger guys. So he's probably not a play for me. My issue with Tiger this week is,

is that this is such a strong field that a lot of the guys that are going to be at the total bottom of the DFS pricing, uh, total bottom of the odds boards are really good players, right? Like for example, even somebody like Sam Ryder, Sam Ryder is six K flat. Uh,

on the DFS slate, Tiger 6,500, for example. I have a lot of really good actionable data on Sam Ryder. Sam Ryder is like a really excellent iron player who's had a lot of success at Riviera and has played a lot of golf this year. It's really hard for me to take a chance on Tiger in a field where there are proven legitimate guys who

um, that we have a lot of data on that are great iron inform iron players that have played well at Riviera in the past when they are priced better than tiger. So I think kind of the beauty of,

Tiger this week is as a Tiger fan, I'm excited to watch him. My money will not be on him. My money will not be devoted to like directly fading him either. And I don't need to really have a scent on him to be happy if he surprises us. Yeah, agree. Um, and yeah, you, you know, I, I think a lot of people thought this was a no cut event, but there's actually a cut.

And this is one of the four signature events with a cut. And I was under the assumption, I guess, that we're going to have 80 players for sure. But then I look and I say, no, there's only 70, which doesn't make any sense to me. It's so surprising to me too, Ron, because I go to this tournament every single year and the Tiger probably has the highest miscut equity in this entire field. Like he probably right now has the lowest floor statistically in this entire field.

Every the crowds are always around. I mean, you're generating so much more in ticket sales. If you can guarantee that Tiger's going to be here over the weekend. Why are you throwing out the possibility of the guy with the highest miscut equity in the field, giving him the opportunity to not be here on Saturday and Sunday?

And I could be wrong, but I'm trying to remember. I think he might have been one of the ones who wanted this to be. That's sad, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But this is like most of the golfers, they want cut events. Everything I've heard going back over the past year since this has become a huge discussion is,

Players want cut lines. And so I just think it should, I mean, at least make it 100 players. You know, let's expand the field a little bit more than just 70. But yeah, so it's top 50 and ties. But also if you're within the top 10 or if you're within 10 strokes of the leader, you also make it into the weekend. So it just it's a little different this week. I don't really like it, but it is what it is.

All right, Ron, we'll get you out on this. I want you to give me as it stands now. Give me one guy. Give me your official pick to win. And then one guy that is at bare minimum, like above 60, 70 to one, you know, maybe in the low seven K's or sixes in daily fantasy that you think is going to really surprise some people this week.

So, yeah, put me on the spot a little bit here, but I will. I've always had Victor circled for the scores, Victor Hovland. And so, you know, I know it's been a little down recently. I know he had the week off. But if I'm going to pick one guy right now, I'm going to choose Victor. I think Patrick Cantlay's all-around game would probably be my second choice. Looking at, yeah, I just pulled up the DraftKings here. So I think Will Zelotoros.

I think he's going to have a lot of ownership at 7,900. Um, I think that's probably chalk I'm willing to eat. Um, but, but yeah, I mean, I think people might have a bad taste in their mouth from Ben on last week. You know, he's sitting there at 7,600. Um, you know, Hideki is very tempting at 7,400 just because of, you know, he's kind of, you know, fits the mold of, you know, tough course, difficult scoring conditions, but he's, you know, I've been on him every week and he continues to kind of underachieve. And so, uh,

Yeah. Those are, those are three names that I look at from a DFS perspective. Um, even, you know, Luke list, you know, is a guy who, you know, California fits the course 6,600. So yeah, there's, there's some interesting names down there. JJ spawn is a California guy, 6,200, you know, Gary Woodland, you know, I know he kind of rusty still, uh, but, uh, you know, 6,100 kind of bottom of the barrel there. So I think he's another, another name. I'll probably be, uh, probably be a little overweight on, but, uh,

Yeah, I'm excited to kind of dig in more here and obviously, you know, fire up the rabbit hole and, you know, we'll draft Kings prices. I think they should be loaded in there by now, but yeah, we'll, we'll be one thing you can guarantee is, you know, when there's field changes, players withdraw, probably not this week. Cause I'm, I'm not pretty sure everyone's going to stay on this week, but you know, you get down the road here to some of these other tournaments, you know, we will promise you, we'll be the first one to, you know, have the updated fields and all that stuff. So yeah, looking forward to it. And I really appreciate you,

having me on. I really appreciate your partnership as we move forward and hopefully make this the best site possible for everybody to use.

Absolutely, brother. All right. Give me anything else too. You want to let the listeners know before you get out of here in terms of Bettsbert's content this week for you, obviously Bettsbertsgolf.com rabbit hole. You could use code inside golf to get 25% off, which is crazy. I think we're the industry low in pricing too, which is wild to me with, especially with that code. It's like for the week, I think it's like $7.

Um, obviously this is a good week to do it for Riviera cause it's a, it's a course both of us, I think know really well. And of course, I think we both have an edge on, but anything else in terms of your content where they can find you for the rest of the week? Because I believe with the rabbit hole, if you just sign up using my code for the rabbit hole, you get a ton of more premium content from you as well.

Yeah. So, um, bestfirstgolf.com. And so every week, you know, I have a course preview. I know me and you, I would say we probably have, you know, the best two out there in my opinion. So, you know, we have course previews, um, embedding preview DFS. I get into that, you know, with some of my core plays. Um, yeah. One of the big things is that we have a really active discord, uh, where you can, you know, there's, there's constant discussion going on. Um, you know, we get into, you know, the data we get into, you know, first round leader stuff. Um,

Um, and it's, it's a really good site also to, you know, go for news, you know, because, you know, I'm posting stuff, you know, Ryan Noonan, uh, he's always also in there all the time. And so, yeah, we, we're a great team over there. Um, definitely the cheapest by a good margin. Yeah. I don't be any other site out there. So yeah. Um, there's stuff every week, um, each, uh, each day throughout the week going up to Wednesday. And then, you know, even kind of one of the things that's kind of become my specialty is, you know, round, uh,

by round matchups when you get into, you know, second round, third round, fourth round. That's kind of over the last couple of years, we kind of become my niche. And, you know, I have a model for each of those rounds where you can look at matchups, you can look at three balls. And so that's another thing, if you like, you know, round by round matchups, it's a, it's a great resource, obviously totally a hundred percent data driven. So I hope people will go there and check that out as well.

Awesome, Ron. Well, enjoy the golf this week. First of many, first of many podcasts and shows I'm sure we'll do together. I'm excited to do this with you and partner with you on the rabbit hole and all the guys over at Betts Burts. And yeah, enjoy the golf this week, my friend. Thank you for joining me.

All right. That is it for the podcast. Special thanks to run pure sports. Special thanks to Betts, Bert's golf, special thanks to Ron. If you liked what you heard in this podcast, you can go to Betts, Bert's golf.com promo code inside golf for 25% off. Give it a shot for a week. Send us any feedback. We are just getting started over there. So enjoy the golf this weekend. Come say hi. If you're at Riviera, I will be there and best of luck with your bets. Cheers.

If I ventured in the slipstream Between the viaducts of your dream Where mobile steel rims crack And the dead send a back road 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.