Golf is Back, Sentry Picks, & the Year of the Small Circle
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This episode of Inside Golf Podcast is brought to you by Run Pure Sports. Listen, I'm not going to do a major long ad read because I'm bringing on my colleague and friend Matthew Wiley and we talk golf.

a little bit at the top about our vision for the company anyway, and what we plan to do with the company and why you should be a part of that. So we kind of cover that in the first bit of the podcast, but the chunk of this episode is mainly talking about what we are excited about for golf in 2024. The two of us hadn't really gotten a chance to chop it up yet about Rom going to live. So I wanted to get his thoughts on that. We of course discuss our, uh,

opinions as well already on the century tournament of champions, some early lean, some course thoughts. Uh, but we are going to get way more into the nitty gritty of the golf breakdown tomorrow, live on the RPS YouTube channel at 3 PM Eastern. Uh, this was more mainly about

Catching up on all things golf. And at the end, we talked some New Year's resolutions or rather hopped on the in and out trend. So we share a couple of things that we are in slash out on heading into 2024, including the cult of pickleball, cultivating friendships, late night Chick-fil-A. We cover a lot of ground in this one. So there's something for everyone here. Without further ado, let's bring on Wiley.

All right, Matthew Wiley is here. Happy New Year's, my friend. How's your New Year's? You just got back in town. You're doing a little traveling. Yeah. Yeah. I went to the great state of Florida for after Christmas with the kids. Okay. And now I'm back. And so it's great to do a podcast with you. New sort of business partner, Andy Lack versus just podcast friend, right?

Really exciting. And I've been overwhelmed and totally humbled by the outpouring of excitement that we, that I've gotten just from, from that announcement last week. And we are, we kicked it off. Like this is, we'll talk about the century soon, but really big, exciting things ahead for the new year. Maybe. Okay. Talk to me a little bit about, cause I'm sure people, people have had this question before.

for me in the DMs. But from your side, and I've done a lot of answering already, but from your side, what was your vision for the golf product and RPS and why we started talking a little bit? Well, I think that, you know, at this point in my career with RPS, I went from, you know, being very, very...

openly argumentative and defensive about my role with rps to now being so secure with what this company does for people in the community to not even paying any mind to any anything anyone says in social social media about us yeah i mean funny how those people kind of dissipate too after a while yeah i just i mean i honestly don't even

look at replies anymore. It's just, are you going to say something positive or not? I mean, I'm very comfortable in terms of the product that we want to build here and our building and the quality of talent that we're bringing on. And, you know, with Run Pure Sports, it's, and you're a perfect example, is that

you bring a, a certain caliber of dissemination of information about golf and knowledge and background that bring people to a decision point that it would take them a long time to get to that point that you're bringing them to. And that's multi-sport for us. And, you know,

you know, NBA Bobby hairs article tonight, right? I wasn't going to play NBA at all. And then I jumped in our own NBA channel and, and Bobby had a very wonderful article that he put out and some very good insights. And I thought, okay, this is enough information for me to make a quality decision on what I want to do tonight. In addition to the, to the multiple other people we have, you know, JBC, Gary, all the other experts in NBA. And I thought that, you know, golf we've, we've have talent in golf, uh,

But we really need a megastar team.

in terms of someone who not only understands the game, understands course architecture, understands the betting markets, DFS, but then also has a presence, a media presence too, that can bring a lot of exposure to what we're doing. And there are very few people that do that effectively and then do content effectively, right? Because I have a very high standard in terms of the type of content and quality content that I want to do here.

And Andy, I mean, to a man in terms of our leadership group was like, and he's that guy. And, you know, we've wanted to work together for a long time. This wasn't something that we conjured up in December. No, you know, it was just a timing thing. Uh,

But the fact that we were able to get someone of your caliber who understood, and plus you've got some grit too, right? You've got some teeth to you. I will work my ass off. I have been known to grind. Right. But you can also, you're also not afraid to tell people to fuck off, which you have to have. Very true.

Right. In this industry, not our members, mind you, our members love you. But, but that's, that is really sort of the vision is like, okay, how do we bring the highest quality? Because people just, you know, people understand the discord and RPS and you're experiencing it now. It's your like day three for you, but.

It's extremely active. Yes. It's vibrant. There's a lot of people who just love engaging with people like you. And, you know, they didn't believe that when we brought Saul on for NHL, but it's true. I mean, he solves a winner in hockey and people just want to engage with him and talk to him and say, okay, can I pick your brain for a few questions? And they'll do the same for you. So, you know, it's great to have you on. That's the vision for us is be very good at content.

be engaging, entertaining, and then deliver a tremendous amount of value and utility in terms of the content we produce. Okay. You hit on the big thing that I wanted to, that I didn't talk about as much in the first podcast when I, when I talked about why I came over. But the question I've gotten from a lot of people is,

is, and don't worry, we have this coming quite soon where there will be a golf only option for the golf hardos that do not care whatsoever about NBA, NFL, NHL, even though I would argue that

Having that information and that tool is on the other sports side of things at RPS is one of the biggest assets of why I was interested in being part of the company in a vacuum at large.

But a lot of people have been asking me like, okay, well, you know, why should I come here? What is different about this place? Why did, why did you make this move? What is going to be different about the things that you're doing here versus what you did at Rick run good. Right. And I think because,

Because a lot of people already pay for data, right? And obviously the dirty little secret is that – which I've been wanting to say and I think is really important to keep in mind too is like if you have a pretty basic fundamental understanding –

of the free tools at DataGolf and Microsoft Excel, you don't really need to pay for data. So what is it that people want? What is it that we can provide that's different for people that they aren't able to find anywhere else? And you hit on that with the Discord. And I think that's the key piece here that intrigued me because I popped in there a little bit before I signed on to kind of see what the community was like. And the way that I phrased it to a couple of people is like, imagine if you had

all of the information that I spend hours every day compiling with golf data. But I was just in a group chat with you 24-7, right? And I think that is the future of where Daily Fantasy is going. I think that's more important and I think that's more worthwhile than data because you can get data for free on DataGolf. You can get data anywhere. There's a lot of good data out there. And in

In terms of picks and winners, it's like, okay, there are a lot of people that are going to tell you, here's the nuts plays. You can win.

On this every single day, like it's, it's easy to win. I think most people with DFS realize that, Hey, if you really understand this sport, like it's pretty hard to win. Like you, you, you really like, are you really going to trust a guy for a single slate and like pay a guy for a single slate? That's going to promise you to glory. Like that's not really a smart endeavor. What you're paying for. What's most important. What makes the DFS industry go and run is the community.

right? Is the sweating. Like that is what, that is why DFS has been able to thrive is because of the sweat equity and the community. And honestly, it sounds kind of cheesy, but like the friends that you kind of make along the way. Right. And I think that is what I wanted to do differently here that I wasn't really able to do at previous employers is like,

Let's all be in this together every single slate. Let's all sweat Eric Cole making a bogey on one. Let's all have this be an interactive group chat where any question you have, no matter what time of the day, I will respond to you and I will answer and I will give you my in-depth thoughts and feedback.

That to me is the future of where daily fantasy is going. And I think that is what, that is what drew me to DFS myself. Apologies for being long winded here on this. I just wanted to get it all out there. But like the reason why I fell in love with DFS was not because I hit a bunch of big scores super early, but because of the group chats and the community and that sweat equity of how much fun it was.

to sweat a 6,200 guy on Thursday morning with my buddies and what the enjoyment that that gave me every single Thursday to Sunday for 43 weeks of the year. And I think that is,

That aspect of the discord that, that you mentioned and the community, like to me, that is what was so appealing to me. And I think that is like the future of DFS sites is like, okay, yeah, we want the best information. We want the best projections, but I'm sorry, above those on both of those lessons, you have to have the best community. Yes. And that's the thing with that's the thing with our run pure sports is that you're, you hit it exactly. Yeah.

is that you get a lot of real-time interaction pregame in terms of questions being answered, thoughts. Because a lot of people don't invest the amount of time that we do in certain sports.

And, you know, what we see as some questions as being trivial, it's really important to them to help just help me make this final decision based on expertise and getting that access. It's like a very, very giant text group. But then again, these people become sort of like a family member and you'll find this right. You'll remember names. They're all very kind and they respect you. And you get a lot of people think this is hokey or you're a fucking Boy Scout. But.

You do get a lot of satisfaction from helping people out and winning them money, even if it's a small amount of money in terms of your ability to help them answer questions, then DMing you and saying, hey, man, I really appreciate everything you've done, et cetera. So, yeah, that's the big part of the game with DFS. But the difference is, is that you can't invent a personality.

In life, like you're either you either got one or you don't. And so if you have a discord based on people who are very good at content or have a personality, which is what we want to do, that's that's that's very hard, almost impossible to compete with because you make you make the discord entertaining. Right. I mean, that's why people come and stay. I mean, this is way more interactive than big DFS sites are.

Discords. Far more. Far more. Yeah, it's wild. Plus, while we've never done single sport and we're doing it for golf...

just to test it out, but we've always done all sports in terms of a package, is that you do find yourself dancing in other channels and saying, maybe I will go look at baseball or NFL or NBA or NHL. I was chopping it up. I'm big into the NFL betting, and I was chopping it up in the NFL bets. That's what you're getting, too. You're going to get all my NFL information. Yes, yes. And you are a yellow tag coordinator. You're a very important person to RPS, but...

you know, these people become very connected to you. And this may not be believable to any one of the trolls or people who are negative about DFS websites. And believe me, I've been down that road before. And as I said on your previous pod is that I had a contact high from being negative and being, you know, one of those people.

But I get it now. And, you know, and I get it. I get why the value here at RPS is so important to people. And, you know, you're a key cog in that now. The point, yeah. The main point is, is it's not fun to sit in your room alone and not have this be a collaborative process and, you know, sit on the sidelines and attempt to digest everything. A lot of these guys, this is their family. Literally. Yeah.

And, you know, hanging out with people in Discord every day, they don't necessarily want to meet you face to face. But chatting with people at all hours, it's a big part of their life and day. Right. Although I will, if you hop into the RPS Discord and invite me to play golf in your city, I will come and play golf with you. There you go. I do a lot of travel. You've already had multiple offers because I'm going to Discord right now. Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway, we don't want to give, we don't want to, we don't want to talk about this for the whole time. Um, but I, I want to, I got a couple of questions on like what, what makes it different and why it was so important for you. And that's what I was craving in terms of my content. That's what I didn't feel like I was able to really provide or get my foot in with that

super interactive community and that's also how I think I provide the best value is like wait till you do your first live show tomorrow Tuesday Tuesday 3 p.m. Eastern time there we go is that this discord is then going to come to life in the comment section now they will bust your balls a lot good

I deserve it. Like that, that, that's, that's how it should be. But I think what's, what's cool about it too, is, you know, I could spend hours writing this article, but what happens? And that's what I kind of did in the past. Like I would write the article and then I would kind of turn my brain off and I would go do other things. Right. Yeah. But with this, it's like, okay, well, what happens if somebody has a follow-up question on the article? Like what happens if somebody,

sees your article and it makes them think of something else. And they want to ask you about, Hey, you know, I saw you talk about this specific stat in this article or, or, you know, I saw that this player didn't show up in your model, but it made me think of this guy because he checks kind of all of the boxes of the things that you're writing about. Like, what do you think about him? Can we talk about it?

like that is kind of the new commitment that I have to cultivate is like that follow-up interactive experience. And I think that's ultimately what we're trying to cultivate and create is the community. Anyway. Okay. So are you excited for golf in 2024? You know, I was talking with my friend, Jeff Feinberg this morning,

Um, and, and my other, uh, Kyle Porter also put out a tweet about like, you know, Rom's presence for me is going to be missed at the century. And he's a guy I talk, talk golf with.

All the time. And he, you know, he's, he's not a live. Rom or Rom or Porter. Porter. Not Rom. Although, you know, Rom, my buddy. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Do you miss how much do you miss the live guys is where I'm going to make you tune in to live because last time we spoke a massive domino fell with Ron and we haven't really gotten a chance to chop it up about that. But here we are week one of golf season heading to Hawaii. I still don't think I still don't you know, I know I know I was going to reply to Kyle Porter's tweet, but in my

in my we'll get to this later the ins and outs of what we're going to do in the new year out for me is uh is is starting an argument with anyone on twitter so uh no i like kyle porter a lot my my thing is still even the caliber of player that rom is i really don't think it's going to move any meter for live at all i still believe the product is getting listen they've done a fantastic job of acquiring talent

using their pressure in terms of their purse to get this talent. Exposing the PGA top brass as being incompetent, in my opinion, in terms of challenging this from a business standpoint. But the fact that Rahm is there, I don't believe is going to move any meter in terms of talent.

major visibility for the live tour or, and as I've said this all along, is not rectifying that the live product has been an utter failure from both their team events, their live events,

and and just tell me the flash mob didn't work for you yeah yeah that that was so irritating in terms of then saying that was spontaneous flash mob these people just started up and started dancing that was so uh irritating and and but yeah but the the reason is that

In golf, unlike watching Michigan, Alabama right now, or the NFL, or particularly the NBA, is that those players do things that are extraordinary on fields we never play on. I mean, they do things in the court, on the ice, in the NHL, Conor McDavid, LeBron James, Christian McCaffrey. That is so untouchable to us.

I mean, that is something extraordinary that you have to stop. It's like Houdini on the pier in 19-whatever, 1910. People just stopped and looked at it because it was so fascinating, right? So what is fascinating? Who and what is fascinating about players in golf at this point in 2024 in a post-Tiger world, right? Because you play on major courses. You play on exclusive places.

You can shoot a good round. There are a lot of caddies like at Willie Wilcox in Hawaii. I played with him here in Lexington. He's M's caddy. That fucker can shoot 65, right? All right. So, I mean, he could top 10 on a tour event.

You aren't rushing for 100 yards in an NFL game at any point soon or scoring 30. So that's the comparative. So Rom did nothing extraordinary. If he's winning every tournament, if he's winning every major, it'd be like, fuck, I got to see this guy continue to do this. It's like Tiger. All eyeballs on, he's winning all the time. He does things that no one else can do.

That's the difference. It's like even Ron leaving, I don't think it's going to change the market for live. What, what golf fans want is a competitive playing field on, on, on real competition, real tournaments that determine a real winner. And I think the PGA tour right now, as long as the PGA tour doesn't fuck this up is still the playing field.

for that. It is still the determiner of who is the best player that week, week to week in golf tournaments. I don't think it's believable in live. I don't think people take that seriously. The money's paid out in advance. So there is that negative to that business model that will never succeed regardless of what talent they bring over. So I think the PG, so I'm excited for the fact that

You know, the PGA still has an amazing core of players. Yeah. I'm extremely surprised and actually...

I feel good about the fact that guys like Cantlay stayed. And he was actually very negative today about the people who left. Did you see that shot he took at them? I read the article. I think he's going to win this week, too, for what it's worth. Yeah, he said something pretty biting. He's like, there's a common, something like a common. There's a type of player that went to live, right? Right. What is that supposed to mean?

I was wondering about that too, because I actually thought... Yeah, maybe. I mean, I actually thought Cantlay would have been the type of guy that would... That's what I thought! I would have gone to live. So I was curious what he meant by that. Not a serial killer? I don't know. Right.

Because Liv, I will say, to Liv's credit, they've gotten some good villains. And I think that Cantlay has a good opportunity to step into that villain role still on the PGA Tour. And I think he's kind of already there. And I think that the hat gate at the Ryder Cup, I think, galvanized and kind of...

kind of formulated this presence of this guy's a bit of a curmudgeon, but he also wants the ball, right? Like he was, he had everybody in Rome cheering against him, waving hats against him. And that's actually when he started to play his best golf. And he ended up being maybe outside of Homa, the most valuable American. That's the Brooks model, right? Right. And I think if, and I, and I think that is maybe what the PGA tour is.

has going for itself and that that's a talent pool that is going to continue to hopefully replenish itself. Like it's an open shop live as a closed shop, right? I mean, they had that qualifying event, but you saw the names that were heading over to that qualifying event on the PGA tour. Like if Chris got her up,

is really good or Minwoo Lee is really good or the Cootie twins are really good. You're going to forget really quickly about a lot of those guys that have gone to live because they're still able to poach a lot of the best guys from the collegiate ranks. Right. And we are, you know, potentially a couple months away from realizing a superstar that, you know, like,

Is Ludwig a couple months away from being the best golfer in the world, hands down? It's not out of the realm of possibility. He could be, right? And he kind of talked openly about why he wanted to stay. So I think ultimately, I will tell you this. I'm maybe a little bit more...

more intrigued to watch what rom does on live than you are just because i'm a total golf nerd history sycophant and i think that rom you hate america i guess i wrote it america and eli hates america

But what I will say about Rahm is that I do think he has the opportunity to be generationally great. I read an article a while ago about the pace that he was on and what he would have to do to catch Savvy. And so I'm just curious to see –

A guy that, cause Brooks isn't really a good comparison for this because Brooks has been very transparent about the fact that he only cares about the majors, right? Like he cares about the live events just as much as he cared about the PGA tour events. I'm really interested to see what ROM's motivation and the golf that he plays at like.

TPC Las Vegas or in Singapore because he is on pace to be like potentially one of the top 20 greatest golfers of all time. Maybe not now anymore, but I'm just curious to see, see what that looks like for him. Yeah. I think, I think that he is him and or his agents or the agents and the people that behind him in the business world, because these, these, these decisions are much bigger than, than Rom getting a phone call and saying, yeah, I'll come to, I'll come to live.

I think that he believes there's going to be some convergence with the tours. He might as well take his bag of money now. He's got multiple kids. Phil's his buddy. If you look back at when he played the Amex and he said, what piece of shit fucking golf setup greens. He's been angry at the tour and the tour setups for a while now. But the biggest problem that I think Liv has

has in terms of fans of golf taking it seriously is the force feeding of the teams aspect or pretending that the trades, the movement, the drafting is somehow legitimate because I don't know why they have to oversell this gimmick to us.

that it's real or it's something that fans embrace. But that thing is a major roadblock to even thinking that this tour is something that we would want to watch. And they don't... The other aspect of it too is they're not even getting the degenerates because they don't have gambling. And they don't have data. So it's like if somebody asked me, would we cover Live Golf at RPS?

Well, we would have to start with shot link, right? Like I'm not going to cover something that I don't have any data on where the motivation is in question for all the players. If we got shot link and I was able to look at those golf courses and potentially- And drafting did a $3 million contest a week. Yeah. And potentially formulate, find an edge. Like, yeah, I would definitely cover live. But that was the thing that was, you know, I put out a poll, this is earlier this month, like early December.

And I said, what is more likely to make you watch live John Rom or strokes gain data and strokes gain data one 70 to 30 on over 5,000 votes, 70 to 30. Yeah.

But I did, and I will say I heard from a couple people behind the scenes at Live after that poll, and they told me they're not going to invest in a Shotlink product. Well, first of all, the PGA Tour owns Shotlink, but it would be they're not going to invest in a competitor to Shotlink because they still believe that a partnership is incoming. Right.

And I guess that's fair, right? I guess like, why, why would you, why would you invest all this money in shot length? If you're just, if PGA tour may be part of the deal that you have with them is that PGA tour is going to give you shot length. Then why would you spend your, not that they've been cutting costs in any area, but I understand that. So I guess we'll see. Yeah. And, and I think absent a deal with the tour in American USA golf, which I believe will happen because, uh,

It's the PGA Tour, and that is just going to be in their decision-making calculus here. But absent that, and absent any sort of growth in viewership worldwide with the ROM acquisition, there comes a point where very smart business people in the PIF, the Saudi people, are going to say, what?

is it worth much more of our money to do this? Right. Right. Wouldn't you, I mean, wouldn't you, I would think so. Um, I, I know that MBS, every time I try and make that point of like, they're such smart investors, you know, he's, it's not, they're not, they're slaving over all this data and it may look like,

Yeah.

that yes, here is such a diehard golf, not just a, just an absolute golf hard. Oh, I think that the leash is going to be longer on this pet project than I think a lot of us want to believe. But I think, but the other aspect that, cause people keep talking and it made me think of this cause you just mentioned this, but the

People keep talking about, this is the future of golf, the global tour, the global tour. We need to make golf this global game. The thing that people miss with that, and Liv also understands this as well because they've made a lot of their biggest events in America too. The problem with this global tour that everybody keeps talking about is that you need the American TV market and you have to have golf on every

During the day in America, that is the problem with having a major in Australia. That is the president's cup in 2019. Yeah.

was amazing. And it was on in the middle of the night. And that's the problem with that too. Eastern standard time zone, period. You need that market. That is the biggest money market in all of sports. And that is the problem that I want to scream at people when they say, oh no, the future of this is we need a global torque. No, all

of the money is in Eastern Standard Time Zone. You need to have your golf on during the day in America at least most of the time. That is the most important. That is the biggest moneymaker. And I think that's what all these guys call it for the global tour. Data, betting, time zones.

Yeah. An authentic competition. Yeah. And I think that's the issue with your global tour stuff. Yeah. I think that's the issue with the global tour stuff that I think people want to envision this idealized version of golf where there's one event in, uh,

And I think there's unbelievable golf courses in Australia and one event in France and one event in South America. And these guys are jet-setting across the world. And it's like, no, for all of the money, you have to get in that Eastern time zone because that is the biggest money market for all these guys. So anyway.

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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 mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. For

$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. What about this week? Have you dove into this week a little bit? You know, and I'll pull my bookmarks from previous years, but your article made me insecure about you ever posting my course notes.

Because it's so well thought out and detailed. But I have a list of notes from a betting perspective in terms of me watching these tournaments four days, losing money on them and saying, okay, what am I going to tell myself in future years about the courses in terms of people to play? Your article laid it out well, and I think we reconciled it.

A lot of it for me is this week at Century was good wedge play and wind will fuck you up. I also heard from caddies played there is that it's some of the toughest walking on tour because of the undulation. Super undulating. Super undulating, right? So strokes gained quads.

So, no, but, you know, you get some of these minus 30 events, you got to score. I mean, what is your what is I won't go into your article because it's proprietary to us now and the RPS family. But what did your article talk about in terms of importance? It's like approach 100 yards and then right wedge play and putting right and putting you got to fucking score. If you're going to get to minus 30, you're going to make a lot of birdies.

Yeah. And look at Morikawa. Look how he's done here. I mean, who has some of the best iron play in the world? Yeah. I'd love a cam young type player. I just, I don't, I don't know what the, I think, and this is my problem with Ludwig too, is I, I think it, it, because the fairways are so wide, it's,

it devalues the skill required in terms of off the tee. And that's what happens when you have an 80% greens and regulation percentage. That's how we, as Ron would say, a putting contest, right? Is when you decrease skill for all ball striking metrics, then the emphasis falls squarely on who can make the most putts. And those end up sometimes being like the most fun events, right? Because there's a lot of variance in there.

So I, I mean, I think I have a strong opinion already. Do you have any like strong early leans outside of our man Sungjae? I think Tom Kim, his price, I think Morikawa ownership projection and price.

Corey Connors price was extremely interesting to me. JT posted. I know if I don't play him, we'll rip my heart out. Yeah. JT too. Even a Jordan speed type. Right. But that's, that's kind of where I'm, I mean, I will, I will put my hand down the Hideki Matsuyama sewer again. He'll be low owned. I'll say that. Of course he will be. Yeah. Yeah. You want to, I mean, and then you think of guys who can, it was a great wedge player. Yeah.

Or around the green. I mean, that's perfect. But Tom Kim, right? You want a guy who does all that plus makes a lot of putts. And I think I'm very curious as to see, like, do you think Scheffler and Hovland are mega chalk this week at the top? Or do you think a lot of that ripples down to, I'm a big can't lay proponent this week, but I don't know if other people, other people might be kind of sick of his shit, but yeah,

The inverse of that is that Hovland like sneakily has not been good here and they put out pricing before Rory said he wasn't going to be there. So you kind of have those two options of Hovland and Scheffler, uh,

Pretty cheap. There are a lot of events where Scheffler is 11, 5, 12, and Scheffler and Hovland are both pretty cheap. I haven't even looked at ownership yet. I can tell you right now. Well, it's too early. The Hovland will be top chalk all price range, period. Projected. He's just like the man right now. I think everybody's just... And I think with Rory out, Scheffler will be their...

And unfortunately, you know, I talked about Morikawa being, I thought, a sneaky play. I think he'll be popular. Oh, my God. With Rory being out and his course history here. Yeah. I think you're right. But I can tell you that even just talking about this tournament and Hawaii, it's six hours behind. This, like Century and Sony are two fun tournaments to kick off the year.

not to mention the absolute destruction that a lot of us felt in NFL DFS this year, I do feel a little bit of a lift for golf again. I'm optimistic, right? Yeah. I'm optimistic. I was very pessimistic in the fall swing, but I love century as the kickoff. It's such a good, I mean, that's the thing that people underestimate too, is it's like, you know, what's a good hang Hawaii, right?

You know what's good to have on your television screen when you're in Canada or Iowa or New York or Boston and it's 20 degrees outside? Hawaii. Hawaii is a pretty good place. They play that luau music in between breaks and you feel like you're there and they show people body surfing and shit.

Yeah, it's a good hang. You were just there, you dumb dumb. Why are you still there? Oh my gosh. I had to get back to the real world. You know, are you big fish guy? Do you like fish? Maybe this is transitioning us into things we're in and out on in 2024. Like catching fish or eating fish? Yeah, eating fish. Yeah, I love. I mean, so I spend two months a year in Northern Canada.

Well, Northern Ontario, at least. You probably get good fish up there, I would imagine. Fuck yeah. My dream is to catch a muskie. My dream is to catch any fish up there. Walleye, pickerel. But yeah, I fished my whole life. I used to fish in Northern, or in, well, basically Northern Quebec when I was a kid. And it was my life.

I was so blown away by how good the fish was in Hawaii. It was like, I couldn't stop talking about it. Every single meal in Hawaii, I was like, this is the best mahi-mahi I think I've ever had in my life. This is the best monkey bowl I think I've ever had in my life. Yeah, look to your right, dumb dumb. The fresh ahi. There's an ocean right there. It's right there. It's right there. It's like swimming in the ocean this morning. You should have asked, excuse me, is this wild caught? Where is this caught? Right there.

It's caught in the bathroom. We're in on fish. Absolutely. So I wanted to give you this like short little gimmick that I've been seeing on Instagram and TikTok, and we don't have to take a ton of time with this, but-

People have rebelled against New Year's resolutions. People are out on New Year's resolutions. What they've chosen to do, I've seen this everywhere on Instagram and TikTok, is these in-out lists for 2024. So I said to you about 30 minutes before we started recording, do you have any ins or outs for 2024? We're recording this on January 1st. It's going to be out January 2nd. This is our first podcast of the year.

First podcast that run pure sports. I think a more maybe fun, a fun game as opposed to just the boring New Year's resolutions is do you have any.

ins or outs we can start with ends for the new year okay it can't be like i can't say i can't say in on cam young yeah i can't say i can't say i'm in on golf like i you know it's got to be something that maybe is not quite a resolution but something you're going to prioritize more in your life um can it be i haven't thought about this could it be like micro specific

It could be super specific. Okay. Well, number one, I'm in on no...

free content that's supposed to be paid on run pure sports which we're trying to figure out your article was free for like six hours and i was i'm telling you i was telling you how hard dev is but i was losing my mind like why is this fucking article free um so we'll do that that's part of 2024 because it helps make more money um also

You know, you were flying recently. I am out on those pre-check-in stations like for Delta where you have to print your own bag tags. I know exactly what you're talking about. Forget it. Well, that's kind of out on that. That's my out. I am out on that.

I am not. I'm a grown man. I pay enough money to Delta for them. I would be much more efficient if I didn't have to have to punt around their computer and figure out how to tape things together on my bags. I'm so irritated that they make me do that. I'm out. I will not do that. I will not print my own boarding pass. I will not print my own bag tags. I'll not put the bag on the plane by myself.

Are you a curbside guy? Because I can't advocate for curbside high enough because I travel a lot with my golf clubs and I usually also don't like to check another golf

A bag. So what I end up doing is I put a lot of my clothes in my golf bag and I put my recording equipment in my golf bag. So my golf travel bag ends up being like 250 pounds. That's a, that's a joke number, but it ends up being put your recording equipment in that bag. They toss that shit around.

I put it, it's kind of in padding in its own section. Yeah. It's kind of in padding in its own section. But anyway, the golf travel bag ends up being super heavy for me and I just like to carry everything on and you roll over to curb, just bring an extra 20 in cash to the airport. You roll it over to curbside and they just take it from you and then you just go and then you just go through security and it's, you don't have to deal with the machines and all that too. And on curbside.

I have one here. I can't read my writing though. I just wrote something down. I can't read my writing. I am out on ordering Chick-fil-A DoorDash late at night. Saul Goodman got me. I'd never eaten Chick-fil-A. Started in 2023 and now a chicken sandwich at 11 o'clock or 10 o'clock always sounds really good. And I was like, man, I've gained eight pounds.

I'm out on chicken. What's the order? The crispy chicken sandwich? Just a regular chicken sandwich with pickles because you gutless idiots in America who don't eat pickles. I'm like, wow, I'm 204. I shouldn't be 204. I need to crack a couple of pounds down. Yeah, so Chick-fil-A sandwiches at 10 o'clock at night, I'm out. And any red meat and any bourbon.

Can you give me a case on no red meat? Because I ate a ton of it. I don't eat any of it. And I ate a piece of it with Tony big T from, from pure sports. I ate a piece of red meat, which I haven't had in maybe 10 years and some bourbon. And I was like, you better call cholesterol to the moon. Yeah. You better call UK hospital ambulance right now and just pick me up. Cause this is, this is not digesting. Yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's interesting. I've been trying to, I mean, fish, we already talked about, we're both in on fish. So that's, that's, that's a pretty good substitution you can do for steak, I guess, but I still can't, I can't eliminate steak for my life. I like it too much. It's probably my favorite food. If I'm being honest. I'm out of paying for parking too. I'm done.

The parking Gestapo in Lexington, Kentucky dominates my life and I'm done. I'm just not going to pay for it anymore. You come get me. I'll find you. Find me. I'm going to dodge you for 2024. I don't give a shit. Find me. Give me my tickets. I'm not paying for it.

Can I give you one of mine that I was thinking of? This is more big picture, kind of more sentimental, like a goal that I have for myself in 2024. I'm in on, it's kind of an in and out in the same, it's kind of two sides of the same point here, but I'm in on putting, I'm in on a tighter circle. So let me explain what I mean by that. I think when I was-

I'm almost 30 now, but when I was younger and in my early 20s, I think I was really consumed with being super social and having a lot of friends and having my hands in a lot of different places and seeing a bunch of people and meeting a bunch of people. And maybe this is a sign of me just getting old, but...

I'm really in on just a tight circle of people really only cultivating the relationships that bring me a lot of fulfillment, right? And putting more effort into

Into those relationship, like increasing my effort into the relationships that are really important to me and fulfill me and keeping that circle tight and maybe being less concerned with the.

having my meeting all these different people, having a bunch of friends, having a bunch of friends that you don't really care about, having a bunch of friends that don't really care about you, having a bunch of friends that put less effort into the friendship than you do. And just, just trimming the fat, like keeping it tight and, and, and genuinely putting more in like, cause I, one of my high school buddies, uh,

that I don't do a really good job of staying in touch with. He lives in New York, so it's tougher for me to see him as often. He's getting married this year, I think in March or April or May in the Bahamas. And it's a really small wedding in the Bahamas. And my first reaction when I got the invite was like,

man, like I have to go to the Bahamas. Like, do I really want to spend all that money flying across the country to go to this wedding for, you know, a guy that I haven't seen in a really long time. And then I kind of reframed my perspective on it. And it was like, you know what?

this is my best friend in high school. This is a really small wedding. If he's going to put the effort into inviting me to this small wedding that not a lot of people from our high school are getting invited to, those are the types of relationships that I should be caring about and cultivating. And actually, those are the types of relationships that I should be putting more effort into. I should be

I should be thinking about the people in my life that I really care about, putting all of my focus into that and not being so concerned with these tier B and tier C friendships where I'm not getting a lot of fulfillment out of it. They're not putting a lot of energy in it. So my in and out for 2024 is I'm going to keep the circle tight

And spend more effort cultivating the relationships and put more effort into cultivating the relationships that really mean a lot to me. I think that's a genius move at someone who at your age, I'm older than you. I've got some kids. Your circle really contracts as you get older. I'm finding that. Yeah. You don't have time for a lot of nonsense.

And especially post-COVID, when people became very much more realistic about life and their relationships and the time they had left on Earth, it's like you have to have time for the people that really value you or not a drag lift you up or you could lift them up or it's a very reciprocal relationship.

It's not a pull relationship. It's more of a very complimentary relationship like you're talking about. And life is a very, as you get older, is a much more lonely place, right? I mean, you could think about all these titans of business from decades ago or even presidents or what have you. Most people don't know their names or who they are, who their kin are or what they did.

What matters is sort of the legacy you left on earth with the people that mattered. Right. And that's a very, very small place. Your possessions will be gone. Your houses will be gone. Your money will be gone. You'll be gone. It'll all be gone. Right. So enjoy this time on this rock.

with people that you care about or who care about you genuinely. And that's a very, very small group of people.

My friends and yeah. And, and, and all our, all, all the RPS subscribers too. It's like, that's, that's what I was thinking about. And that's marketing, marketing, uh, advertisement interjection. That's everyone at RPS. Well, it kind of, the reason why I was thinking about it too, is it kind of goes hand in hand with kind of what I was talking about with the example of the wedding where it's like, yeah,

Man, if even I haven't been the best friend over the past couple of years, if he's going to make the effort in this way, then I'm going to put a lot more of my effort into it in that one. And that's kind of how I feel about it.

kind of the model that we have at RPS is like, okay, you know what? If you guys are willing to pay the price for this, if you guys are willing to put your effort into trusting me in this, I'm going to give you absolutely everything I got. And I don't really have any time or room for anything else. You know what I mean? And so I think it's kind of a, it's a theme. It's a theme for me in 2024.

cultivate the people that are meaningful to you and meeting you halfway. And it kind of goes in your theme with the not responding or getting in Twitter arguments too. It's like, okay, what really matters? How am I going to allocate my resources? How am I going to allocate my time? Yes. I mean, being very self-aware about who you are, being comfortable in your own skin, being aware of your faults, being willing to say you're sorry or grow,

And just again, knowing who you are as a person, being very comfortable with who you are is a very rare trait. And so anything that negative someone says about you, especially on Twitter, should never bother you. It should never bother you. Yeah. And you have the capacity then to...

to share that with people in discord or people who like want to listen to you or care about you because you don't need anyone's affirmation to say, Hey, I'm, I'm Andy because these people like me. No, I'm Andy because I like me. That's the biggest thing in life is liking yourself. It's very tough, but liking yourself, once you do it, you can have very good relationships and be very picky about relationships too. And also not listen to trolls.

And also not pay for parking. Because I'm Matt Wiley and I know who I am. And I don't need to pay for parking.

in lexington kentucky from the lexington parking authority thank you oh i owe forty eight hundred dollars dude i actually may we can we can get out on this but i'm it's gonna i can't promise it because i'm already have a lot of travel in my slate i'm gonna be at the masters i'm gonna be i'm gonna stay down there for the heritage

But have you considered the reality that the PGA is what an hour from you? Like, have you, have you made plans? Have you thought about this? I mean, the number two golf course in Kentucky. I, I am very aware of this. Yeah. Next to the Lexington country club. Shout out Mr. Nicholas. Yeah. Yeah. Lexington country club. It's what, it's what an hour. It's an hour from you, Lexington to Louisville. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You want to get on and play? We can do it. Yeah. I mean, even just going down to PGA week, if you've got an extra bed for me or some nice hotel recommendations, maybe that'd be fun. We could do, because Big T's in the area as well. When you're in Kentucky, you're a family. Yeah. We'll do it big. We'll do it big. Then you get to play LCC, which is the number one course in Kentucky.

Sweet. I'll bring the sticks down. I bring my sticks everywhere because you just, you never know who you're going to meet. Can I give you one more in on, and this is a typical, um,

This is the typical thing that I love to hate, right? The trendy new sport that everybody loves. But I am unapologetically in on the sport of pickleball, Wiley. This sport brings me so much enjoyment and I do not like it more than golf. Golf is still my number one love, my number one hobby. But-

Have you played pickleball at all? Can I give you the case for why it's taking over America? What is the cult addiction to this sport? Yeah, I'm all in. I'm like leading the bandwagon. Do I have to hang out with public people? Because I'm not good at that. You'll see me in Leicester, Kentucky posted up somewhere with my laptop. It's completely like tonight preparing for this podcast or the NBA slate.

I'm always on my own. I'm always. Well, that's, you know, another, the year of the small circle for us too. But I, here's the thing about pickleball that I think is so beautiful. First of all, it's a really low barrier of entry, right? Like it, it does not take a lot, if any athletic skill. So when I was in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago with my girlfriend's family and she's kind of, it was kind of a big group of us, right? Mom, dad, brother, sister,

brother's girlfriend. So every afternoon they had pickleball courts at the place that we were staying. We would play pickleball and it was kind of the perfect meeting point for all skills and interests and levels of fun, right? You can play this game of, it's basically like standing up bigger ping pong. It's like the intersection between ping pong and tennis.

But the court is so small that if you're playing doubles, you don't actually run. So it was the type of thing where every single person in the family of varying skill levels could participate and have fun and get a little bit of a workout, but not too much to the point where it was like a pain in the ass or the people that didn't really want to be running in the heat had to run the heat. And then, you know, the brother who's really good at pickleball and me, who's

aspirationally really good at pickleball, we could then play singles and have a super competitive match where we're running around and getting a sweat. So I guess the brother-in-law, the brother, the brother, yeah, the brother. So I guess your brother, not my brother, my girlfriend's brother. So I guess the case that I'm making deep down, you wanted to smash him, right?

to show your alphaness in the family. Totally, totally. He's better than me. No, but you want to be male dominant in the family to show your new life. Right, totally, totally, totally. And he's better than me at pickleball. I'm better than him at golf, but he's better than me at pickleball. For now. For now. We played a bunch of, yeah, so we played a bunch of both. We played a bunch of golf and pickleball.

pickleball, but he took me on the pickleball courts. But the point about pickleball, the case that I'm trying to make for pickleball is that I don't know how young your kids are Wiley, but this is the type of activity. It's revolutionary in my mind because it's the type of activity where you could say, okay, I'm going to get my really competitive friends and get in a real workout. Or it's the type of activity where you could say, okay, I'm going to bring my entire family, my two-year-old, not two-year-old, my five-year-old, my seven-year-old, whatever wife,

kids, cousins, and just have a bunch of fun doing something somewhat active. Or if I want, I can scratch the itch of doing something really competitive and getting a workout. And I don't think a lot of sports, it's probably not a sport, are able to accomplish both. And that's why I'm in on pickleball in 2024. Yeah. Well, that and urban sprinting.

Ask my staff. I started this thing called urban sprinting, where I just would do these intervals of sprinting downtown, fully clothed, like jeans and boots and doesn't matter, just to put in 100 yards. And people would see me sprinting, just get the heart rate up. I thought it would catch on, but then people thought I was not well. And what do the kids like to do? Are the kids in youth sports? My oldest daughter is a competitive volleyball player. Okay. Yeah, she's awesome. That's legit.

That's legit. Yeah. It's a, yeah, it's great because UK, you're just Kentucky's right on the corner and old pops here is looking for a scholarship. Yeah. Right. Get them started early. Yeah. Get them started early. There you go. So I'm in on, I'll be in on pickleball. There you go.

We'll play. If they have courts, I'll sell you on them. I got them at LCC. Of course you do, baby. It's really fun. And if you ever come out to LA, we've got them in LA too. I love LA. The Santa Monica Pickleball Courts are right down the street from here. I told you I love Santa Monica. I love LA. It's wonderful. Can I sell you on Riviera this year maybe? Kirchner's coming out.

You sold me on it. Then you said the second part. All right, Matthew Wiley, you got anything to plug? This is fun. We'll be doing this tomorrow. It'll be a little bit more golf focus with, with big T probably we'll, we'll get a little more into the nitty gritty, but yeah, of course you got something to plug. It's run pure sports code. Andy, Andy 15.

The thing is, we had to make two codes because you said Andy in your podcast and Andy 15 was the code. So we've got both. Okay. Got it. But 15% doesn't matter. Either one. 15% off. 15% off. And yeah, we'll do a Tuesday show tomorrow at three o'clock. But you get exclusive access to his content. You get to chop up with him in Discord. He'll play any course in America with you. That's what you offer.

And Kyle Porter. And ownership. We got to get ownership coming too. We got a lot of cooks in that kitchen. All right. Good to see you, my friend. We'll talk soon, buddy. Thanks for doing this. Yep. All right. That's it for the episode. Special thanks to Wiley. Special thanks to Run Pure Sports. Code Andy for 15% off. We will be running a big golf promo.

Either this week or next. So look out for that. And later this afternoon, head on over to the Rumpier Sports YouTube page. We'll be diving into a full breakdown of the Century Tournament of Champions and then doing a premium show for subscribers only on Wednesday night, which will be our final before lock going over ownership, answering questions. That one's going to be super active. Everything super interactive. Everything you need to know before the tournament begins. So stay

Head on over to runpuresports.com. We would love to have you code Andy for the discount. Best of luck with your bets this week. Enjoy the golf, and we will see you next time. Cheers.

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