Pebble Beach Picks, Hatton to LIV, & True Detective with PGA Tout
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Between the viaducts of your dream. This episode of Inside Golf Podcast is brought to you by Run Pure Sports.

Another incredible week of golf in the discord. We're gearing up for pebble this week. This is a big one. The energy has been high already on a Monday and you can go to rump your sports.com to get all of my info, all of my bets. I have made a lot of bets already this morning and some lines are on the move. And then as well as the matchup picks as well, which I spend a tremendous amount of time

on those matchup picks. I know it's probably unsustainable. 19 and four in matchups to start the year. Can't promise how long that's going to last, but I think I've been able to find a real edge here with the matchups, getting on them early, looking at line movement at certain spots, plus my model, my course breakdowns, and then just the generally pretty

Wonderful community. I mean, that was kind of the goal that Wiley and I had when we started up with this thing. And when he brought me on is we didn't just want to bring me on for my course info and my articles and my content on the shows. Like we wanted to make this a completely interactive community, interactive experience where we are talking golf in there in the discord space.

24 seven. So that is the place to reach me at any time with questions. I'm basically living in there. I'm also not the only smart person in there. It's just a really fun space to be a part of. And we're really proud of what we've built thus far. So run pure sports.com code Andy to get you a 15% off discount. You can check out the golf only option. Um,

But all the sports are wonderful as well. That's a little bit more expensive. So if you're only a golf guy, just check out the golf only option promo code Andy to get you that 15% discount. And we would love to have you as part of the community. All right, coming up on this podcast, my good friend, John Hasselbauer, you may know him as PGA tout on Twitter. He does a wonderful course breakdown article every week for the lines.com. He's been on this podcast many times in the past.

Um, I've spent a lot of time in person with John. We've played a lot of golf together. Uh, he's a real buddy and somebody that I always love talking golf with talking life with talking Knicks basketball with talking everything with. So, uh, we dive into all of it. We did a little Tory recap, uh,

And then we talked a lot about like the state of live and the PGA tour with the Hatton news. I think there's a lot of meat on that bone that I've, I've had some lingering takes on the lifts. I haven't talked about live on the podcast in quite a long time. Cause I think, uh,

A lot of the classic old PGA tour live debate feels a little bit played out, but I wanted to do a bit of a check-in on where the PGA tour and live was at as we approach the season opener of the live season at live my Coba and potentially some big news. I would imagine in the next couple of weeks in terms of some form of agreement, hopefully starting to formulate. So yeah,

we dive into all of that stuff. We also talk, of course, our pebble beach picks share all of our bets for pebble. And then we talk a little bit about this spicy next team at the end. John and I are both massive Knicks fans. I haven't really gotten a chance to talk much about the OG trade yet on a podcast. So we share some of our thoughts on this very fun, very engaging next team, probably the, my favorite next team. Um,

I've gotten to watch in quite some time in terms of the way this team plays, the way this team plays together, the way that they're coached. It's just been an awesome season for Knicks fans. So we dive into some of that as well. And then finally, we'll True Detective season four talk as well. A season I'm greatly enjoying. I know John is a big fan as well. So in the final half of the episode, get a little bit of everything here. We'll live talk, little farmers talk, little pebble picks, little

A little Knicks basketball and a little true detective at the end. It is an absolutely jam-packed episode. So without further ado, let's bring on John.

All right. John Hasselbauer's here. My good friend. You may know him as PGA Tout on Twitter. John, it's been a while. We've got a lot of catch up on. First thing I want to ask you, how's married life treating you? I don't think we formally caught up. Yeah, I'm seeing the ring on your finger right now. I don't think we formally caught up since the big day.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. I think the last time I saw you in person. Los Angeles, right? Was, right? When was that? LACC.

LACC. Yeah. Okay. So love was in the air. I was there for a wedding. No, you're right. You're right. The last time we saw each other was woke hill with Brian. Why am I blanking on the time of year that that was? That was in August. We saw each other at LACC. You met Natalie at LACC and came over to the Palisades. And then we, um, we played Oak Hill in, in, uh, August. Yes. With the Buffalo Bills.

With Josh Allen. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. So married life. Good. Haven't golfed as much being a married man. I've heard that that might be a casualty.

Yeah. I went to a five iron yesterday and my swing is gone. Sometimes I'll leave a five iron and feel like I've solved all my problems heading into a simulator. The opposite is now the case and I'm not going to get on a course for like two months. So that's not great, but I'm going to continue to just- Tyrell Hatton said, I don't want anything to do with these simulators going forward. Yeah.

That's it. We're done with it. I'm in Tyrell Hatton mode. Yeah. Get me on the real course, but don't put me on the Gus side. Don't even want to talk about playing over there. But no, married life is good. I feel like I'm going to use that as an excuse for not hitting as many outrights in the fall because I was very distracted wedding planning. Now I'm out of excuses, but I guess my excuse now is nobody can hit an outright. So it's fine. I'm not alone. Well, that's a good intro to talking a little bit about Torrey Pines, right? Which

You know, I came on here and said, this is the week where that ends, right? Because now we're going to a golf course with a lower greens and regulation percentage that typically weeds out in terms of ball striking, typically weeds out the better players from the worst players. And to my defense, like,

The guys who led the field in Tita Green were Ludwig, Xander, and Fee now, right? None of them putted particularly well. And you did have Matthew Pavone ultimately be the last man standing. And I feel like this has been the year of – because Pavone hit the ball fine. He gained seven strokes putting through three rounds, right? And I feel like this has been the year, John, of the guy that –

He typically finishes T3 and is dying to give the tournament away on the final couple of holes. Actually wins, right? And we had that moment again with Pavone where on 17, he doesn't hit the hole on a four-footer.

Bad drive on 18, bad layup on 18. It's like, okay, this guy's dying to give this tournament away. And then he hits one of the more iconic golf shots of the entire week, maybe that we've ever seen at Torrey Pines, and nails a downhill side winding nine-footer in Hogard's face. So I guess my question to you is,

How are we feeling going forward? How is morale? Do we think this can continue for much longer, or we're going to look back on this after a couple of Hovland, Rory, and Scheffler wins and think, hey, remember how weird January was on the PGA Tour? Yeah, I feel like just looking on Twitter who's hitting these outranks, I feel like Pavone randomly is the most...

most tipped of the winners for the first four weeks. I couldn't believe how many people. Definitely more than Dunlop. Yeah. There were a couple guys in the Run Pure Discord that were like big Pavone guys. And I was like, what are you guys seeing that I missed? And he's been good on the DP World Tour. So it was there in plain sight, like props to people who were on there, but it was certainly not myself.

Yeah, no, totally caught me off guard. I assumed that nobody was on him. When I saw some smart people in our space were tipping him, I was like, okay, I got to work a little bit harder, grind some more Euro stats to be ready for this. But like you said, we would have expected Tori to be the core.

course that kind of bucked the trend that we were on the first three weeks. First three weeks are birdie fast. That's where your randomness comes in. They have a tough course like Torrey pines. It should weed out, you know, the, the has from the half knots, but it was really just getting up and down for Pogo. And those last three holes, I think, are just down the stretch. He had that one that he flew it over the green and we thought he was out of bounds and out of the tournament. He got up and down from there. How about that on 16 as well?

Big putt on 16, and then he gets up and down from the bunker. There are so many players in that field, Homa, Pendrith, Finau, Ebert, all who just...

If they could get up and down as consistently as Pavone did on, on the last five holes, they would have won that tournament. So I don't think, you know, over the long run, we'll see more of like the cream rising to the top, but yeah, if you have the nerves to get up and down and hit these pressure putts when you need to,

those are the types of people we're going to close out these events. Has have these types of winners, these more so unheralded winners, and we can use this transition to see if you have any thoughts on Hatton to live as well. And live's debut, but has, has this taken away your enjoyment from, from the PGA tour, just as a fan in terms of viewing the past couple of weeks, seeing the,

a bit more obscure, less bigger names at the top of the leaderboard. A little bit. I think a little bit of this is starting to turn a corner with so many big names or even moderate names leaving the PGA Tour for live. It just opens the door for your Pavones to come over from the Euro Tour who you're less familiar with, your AMs getting your sponsor exemptions like a Dunlap.

Where if we had a deeper field of PGA Tour talent, you probably don't even have these stories. And they are good stories, but they're not necessarily like compelling for the game of golf stories. So, yeah, I don't know. I think Pavone is a good story and a good example of.

If you give the guy an opportunity to play against the best, you can really have a true litmus test. And him playing in the DP World Tour is kind of just playing in obscurity where we don't actually know how good that guy is. In the inverse, now we're going to have that when the live season starts and when guys like a Taylor Gooch have a good start, we don't actually know if that translates to being a major contender or not.

I think it goes both ways because, for example, I thought that Dunlap winning the Amex was good for the PGA Tour. I even thought Grayson, however divisive he may be, that that was a really good

B level PGA tour event outcome. This on the other hand, I think I would side and, and maybe it's my bias from getting to go there. And I got to cover it for golf digest and spend a lot of time in the media center. Like the media center was in shambles all week. Like I'm talking to all these local San Diego newspaper guys that are like,

Yeah. I've been coming here for 20 years. Like this used to be where tiger would open his season. And now you're telling me I have to bang out 800 words on something called Matthew Pavone. Like some of these old school San Diego journalists were in an absolute frenzy. Like this was their total nightmare. And, and, and,

And the tournament did feel pretty juiceless. Like, you know, I left pretty early on Saturday. And so in fairness, like I was there mainly on the days that are traditional work days. Maybe everybody showed up on Saturday, but I've been going to this tournament every single year for five years. This was the flattest it's ever been. Right. So, you know, I listen, I think it goes both ways. I think there are times on the PGA tour where, um,

The depth serves their advantage. I don't know if I'm going to be able to land the plane with this point, but there are times on the PGA Tour where the depth is their greatest asset, and there's times on the PGA Tour where their depth is their greatest detriment, if that makes sense.

Right. Because if you have a depth of talent, like a Pavone who's capable of winning, even though he's not a name brand, then that goes to show that there's just so many good players playing. But if they're not name brand players yet, then it's not good for the product. Exactly. Then you get which is not good for the product. And now on the flip side of that, or go ahead, you first, because I was going to ask you something about Lev. So put it all on that point. Okay.

Yeah. You know, I think pebble becoming a signature event hurt, uh, Tori this year because you didn't have Justin Thomas because of the pebble scheduling. You didn't have Sheffler. You didn't have Rory. Those are guys that probably would come here and add more juice to the tournament. The more types of guys that you have in this event, the more likely one of them is to make more putts than Tony Finau did dominate T to green and be in the mix.

So I think it was a bit unlucky that how many stars couldn't hit putts. I mean, Homa, Homa was setting up to be right there after the first six holes, I think it was 400 through six and he made absolutely nothing after that. He edged out every putt. So yeah, I think obviously great to see pebble get this field because the, you know, the LPGA just had a major there. It was amazing.

This event has always been overlooked, which is too bad. So now that all the best players are coming here, I think it's going to have a lot of juice. And in a limited field of 90, somebody good has to be in contention now. So I feel like this is going to be the first tournament of the year that we get a star in contention. Right. And this is the point that I was going to make about Lev opening the season this week and why it's so confounding to me. Hebel is prime.

the most bankable asset that the PGA Tour has, in my opinion. Now, this was a tournament that even when stars weren't coming to Pebble, was still one of the highest rated PGA Tour events of the entire season because we forget, John, that we're in the minority, right? So there were a ton of people that would still just tune in to see Pebble Beach and watch Bill Murray hit golf shots. He didn't even need to see Rory hit golf shots on Pebble Beach.

They'd be happy to watch Bill Murray and Larry Fitzgerald hit golf shots, right? So I, in my opinion, bringing the best that the PGA Tour has to offer to Pebble Beach is a no-brainer, and I think it has the opportunity to be –

Probably the non-major event of the season, in my opinion. Now, of course, it could fall flat and we could see a Brendan Todd, Adam Svensson duel down the stretch. Of course, that's in play. But just in terms of like, is there a safer bet than Pebble and getting the best players in the world to Pebble that the PGA Tour has in its arsenal?

for a non-major. And that's why I'm so confused as why did Liv choose to open their season going against the best card that the PGA Tour has to play? Because the PGA Tour has so many duds. They have so many weak opportunities to go against. If you can trot out

Tyrell Hatton and John Rahm and Brooks Koepka and Cameron Smith against like Lee Hodges and Brendan Todd at the three M open or the John Deere classic. Like that's a big potential win for live in the narrative wars. So I'm so confused as why it's like,

It's like if you're playing pickup basketball and Liv was just like, hey, give me like the 6'5 guy that played in college against the guy that sits on his couch and eats Doritos all day. I don't understand why they picked to go against the one safe thing that the PGA Tour has in its arsenal when there are so many duds out there that they could really make their name out there against.

Yeah. I mean, two interesting things with that. Number one, the schedule as a whole for live, this'll be its first year with a real paradigm shift of, um,

They used to compliment the big events on the tour where they would only go up against your John Deere classics and your 3M Opens and they would stagger it so that they were not head to head. This year, they've done a complete 180 and now for whatever reason, they are going head to head with the biggest tour events. I don't know if that's some sort of narrative to say, "Hey, we can coexist. We don't want to compete against the PGA Tour. We want to be a complimentary product."

where a couple of years down the line from now, people are playing against both events and we want people to watch both tours and grow the game. Maybe that's the angle now. I agree with you. It doesn't really logically make sense. Now they're kind of saying, screw you. Now they're kind of saying, we'll put up your best against our best. Which is a fight they will not win. So again, I don't think- And it's a fight that they could win on many weeks too, right? Like, listen, if you're telling me that

I'm not a fan of the golf courses on live certainly but there are a lot of duds on the PGA tour too and like I said if if live brings its names against the John Deere and the 3m open in the rocket mortgage like I think that's a battle that they could win with ROM now and and what's confusing to me is like.

When I asked you, John, not last year, but just in general, like, what do you think are the safest bets that the PGA Tour has? Like, what are the safest bets?

non-major events that the PGA tour has in their arsenal that you can reliably count on have probably the best chances to be good, compelling tournaments. For me, the first two that come to mind are Phoenix and Pebble Beach. Okay. Phoenix is like the one tournament that has a personality.

It's the one tournament that like, whether it's Harry Higgs and Joel Damon or Sahith the Gala and Scotty Scheffler and Xander Shoffley, like Phoenix just delivers. It has good energy. It has a brand. It has a personality. And Liv goes, hold my beer.

We're going to open our season going head to head with Phoenix and pebble, but golf fans, here's Brendan Todd and Denny McCarthy for the John Deere. Like that's going to be an off week for us. Make it make sense. Yeah. I mean, I would hope that at a certain point we figure out a way to watch both. I think we're in a similar camp of with live. It's just not a watchable product for me. Um,

Mainly because I can't bet on it. I think that would change so many things if it just became legal to bet. And that's just a conversation that local states don't want to have for their legislation. There's a lot of like, what is it? The integrity gaming policy or whatever. There's anti-competitive concerns with the team.

Like books, apparently books are like, there's what's to stop foul play from occurring with the teams. Yeah. And the thing that's funny is Yale got that integrity deal approved immediately. They had no issues going. This is a safe deal.

integrity league and there will be no foul play and if you bet on it whatever happens happens you can trust it and for whatever reason live continues i would i would imagine at least attempted to get approved on that standpoint and they got denied at the state level by every book that they tried to get legalized for so they won't allow you to bet on it until they do i'm not watching just for fun um an exhibition tour where you know this is my other thing with lib

As fans of sport, we are conditioned to hate the overpaid athlete, especially in New York. Like if you talk about the most hated athletes in New York, it's your A-Rods, your Carl Pavano athletes.

Jacoby Ellsbury. These are all Yankees, but they're all Eddie Curry. Stanton. Yeah. Eddie Curry. We hate Eddie Curry. Right. Because they got paid a shitload of money and they had this expectation that they should be better than everybody because they get paid more than everybody. And the minute that they don't play better than everybody, everyone turns on them. And now you have an entire league where you're expecting fans to buy into Jon Rahm,

who already made $500 million and the only stakes at a player for him to make even more money. It's like, I don't want you to make more money. You just took a handout of a bunch of money. I want you to lose, but everybody else who beats you is going to get a shitload of money. So I just don't care. Right. Right. And, and, and the thing too, I got to spend some time with a reporter last week at Tori that

covers live um he has been to a lot of the live like he's been all over he went to badminster and australia and he's gone um he's going to myakoba this week as well and he he does he's the live beat for major publication and he made a very astute point um that i agree with which is that

Everybody has already made their mind up about live at this point. Right. And the people that are in on live, they were in before John Rom and they're going to be in after John Rom and they're just fans of it for whatever reason they like it. They've made that decision long ago. This is where they've hitched their wagon and they're going to be with guys and the people that are out on live, uh,

It doesn't matter who they sign. It doesn't matter whether they get John Rom or Tyrell Hatton or whoever is next in line to go to live. They've drawn their line in the sand. They're just out. They're just out. It's too controversial. It's too murky politically. They've already made up their mind about the broadcast. They've already made up their mind about Saudi Arabia. They're just, they're out. They're so out. And it like, it's the same as,

It's the same as the way people feel about like Donald Trump, right? Like you can look at like the people that are in on Donald Trump. They're just in like they voted for him the first time they voted for him the last time they're going to vote for him this time. They're just in. He could murder a human being in the middle of broad daylight at Fifth Avenue and they just be in like he could get indicted. It doesn't matter. They're just in. He's their guy. And the people that are out on Trump.

He could cure cancer. He could save their child from a burning building. It's not happening. It's just a it's a nonstarter. They're just not going to do it. They've made up their mind. They're just out. And I think the only people that are flexible on this are like people like me and you. Right. That are like right now we're out.

But give a shot tracker and something to bet on. And like, now we're talking like, and, and that is the people that I think that they should be targeting, right. Is the degenerate gamblers, the barstool fans, you know, the, the data fans, the DFS players. Right. And I put out this poll a while ago about like what,

What would make you turn tune in more to live? And of course this audience is like my audience. So again, it's more skewed for gamblers and DFS players and hardcore golf fans, but over 3000 people voted on it. Like it was a, it's not nobody. Um, and 70% said that they would, they would watch live, uh, more so if they had shot tracker than John raw. Right. So I think the people like 99% of people, uh,

have already made up their mind about lift and there's nothing that can happen. That's going to make them change that. I think the only demographic left for them to get and target is, is the people like me and you. And that's why I've, I've,

confused as to why there hasn't been more. I'm sure there's like a million difficulties. I think there are smart people in that live room, but yeah, it's just the gambling and shot tracker thing is, is the only thing holding me back personally. Yeah. The unfortunate truth about the state of golf right now, whether it's decisions on the PGA tour live is

is that none of the decisions are being made with the audience and the viewer and the consumer in mind. And that's a factor of the revenue coming into golf is now all private equity. It's not like literally any other business where, hey, we need viewers so that we can monetize the viewership with ads so that we can put it back into the product.

The viewership has nothing to do with the money that Liv is making, and it never will. So they don't have to appease viewers. They don't need viewership to go up for them to be a successful business. They have an endless supply of money.

So they're just going to do whatever's good for the players. And that's why the stakes are just money. And then on the PGA Tour side, it's the same thing. Now you have the strategic sports group or whichever, that's how a majority of their funding is going to come in, which means they're going to be incentivized to make the players happy and do whatever the players want to do with their schedules and have a player-centric league, which kind of just leaves the consumers out of it, which is

And I think that's why there's so much frustration in the discourse around golf right now is because you and I have these logical conversations about what golf should do. And it's logical to the consumer, but it doesn't have necessarily all the best interest of the players. So they're going to make decisions on whatever gets them paid the most money. Imagine if there was a breakaway NFL, Saudi NFL league, and the breakaway Saudi NFL league got, uh,

like Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow, but then the normal NFL still had Aaron Rogers and whoever the other biggest stars are. And the breakaway Saudi league was like, Hey, we're going to schedule our biggest game against like chiefs, Cowboys, Sunday night football. Like how does that make sense for the fan? I don't understand. I don't understand that at all. Like,

I'm, I'm one of the call me crazy. Like I wrote about this in the winter, like I'm going to check out Ram on live. Like I'm, I'm, my curiosity is peaked. Like I'm not a fan of live at the moment, but like I said, I, I, I'm in one of those people that is flexible on this, right? Like I, I,

have a podcast. My main work is golf gambling and golf daily fantasy. And I produce content for a number of companies. I produce content for my podcast. I lead golf content for Rumpier Sports. I do it for Golf Digest. I do it for Odds Checker. This is my job. And the only reason why I cover the PGA Tour is because I have data and so I can provide actionable info on it. But

If Liv was trotting out Jon Rahm and Hatton and Cameron Smith and Brooks against one of the lower-rung PGA Tour events, and Liv had data and maybe some interesting courses, why wouldn't I cover the tournament with the better players? I'm totally open to it. It just seems like you're right. Part of me is saying, at some point, don't you care about...

Getting more people to watch and on the other hand, you make the astute point of doesn't really matter to them. Like it's all this is a bargaining chip and they don't need shot like they don't need to invest in shot tracker and they don't care about who watches and it's just.

It's all, it's a wazzy, it's a woozy. It's the Matthew McConaughey scene in Wolf of Wall Street. It's just, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters. Yeah. I think I've unfortunately been probably too honest to a fault about how I feel about live because we're in a similar boat where it would behoove us to speak positively of live because it would probably open up more opportunities down the line when one day when you can gamble on it and there are like

There's a merger and there's more coverage. I don't even think either of us have been negative about it on this podcast. We've just been confused. Oh, on this podcast. Yeah. I think we've always been objective because again, we don't have agendas that say, you know, the PGA tour is in our pocket or anything. We know a lot about the PGA tour. We root for the PGA tour success because it has the data. That's what we do for a living. And we know it best. I don't,

play in the DP world tour streets because I don't have access to all that data and I don't watch that tour. I could, but I, I just don't have time for it. And then, you know, that's my other pushback with live is I just don't have time to watch live Singapore at 3. Yeah.

in October, whenever that is. There's only so much golf I can watch. It's a second full-time job for me to keep up with the PGA Tour. I don't like fragmenting across three different tours. This is a very American-centric problem. I realize that for everybody outside of America, it's great news. They're going to new markets that the PGA Tour neglected. From an American golf perspective, it sticks. I'm sorry.

Yeah, it stinks. And the problem with the problem, we can close on this and talk about pebble, but the problem with the global tour, the reconciliation around a global tour. And listen, John, there is no greater fan of like international golf courses than myself. Like nothing would make me happy than a major at Royal Melbourne or more events in Ireland or,

Or, you know, there's some wonderful golf courses in Tokyo. Okay. There's like this in theory sounds amazing to me because I am pro go to the most interesting golf courses in the world. And many of the most interesting golf courses in the world are in international locations. The problem that everybody keeps missing with that one is that how do you sell CBS on golf tournaments that end at three in the morning?

Okay. All the money is still with the networks. The biggest advantage that the PGA tour continues to have over live and will always have over live is that it's on CBS and NBC from three to 6 PM on Sundays. Okay. It's like the nightly news and people,

could just set their clock to it. And that's the vast majority of the people that consume golf. They don't care where it's at. They just want to turn on CBS and NBC from 3 to 6 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon and take a nap. And the problem with this global tour is that once you start getting funky with these different time zones, there's not

Where's the money in that? How do you tell CBS that your biggest non-major event of the year is going to be in Australia and it's going to end at 2 a.m. Eastern time? How do you sell CBS on that? How do you sell the 55-year-old dad on his couch that's expecting to see golf at 3 to 6 p.m. on Sunday? That's the biggest revenue driver. Those TV contracts are

are the best asset that the PGA Tour has, right? And so I'm all for this concept of the global tour, but there are a lot of holes that you can point in the logistics of it as well. Yeah. And when your funding is unlimited and you don't need to rely on TV contracts, then, oh my God, all of a sudden you can go to all these markets. So it makes sense why it can be a complimentary tour for

Yeah, I'm honestly surprised that more of the Korean players haven't jumped to live and they've been pitched on this.

You can play in Korea sort of thing because there's so much talent there. And it seems like every other market has been cornered outside of the U.S. Foreign live between ROM getting the Spanish fans to come in. And South America's entirely live players now. It's like Rio is the only South American player on the PGA Tour. Everybody else is on live. Don't forget Toasty. Oh, that's true. Toasty's one of my greatest treasures. Yeah.

I know. I lost both Munoz and Mito, my two favorite boys. So I'm still bitter about the South American Armada in OnLive. But yeah, and there's plenty of British compliment over there too. So they're positioning themselves as a global tour. They're beating the DP World Tour now already. There's nothing left of the DP World Tour, unfortunately for them.

So I think in the end, we see a schedule that looks like a couple of live events replacing WGCs and everyone's playing a full schedule and the live guys have fatter pockets in the end because of it.

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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 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. Shall we talk Pebble Beach? Let's do it. I love Pebble. And you were saying before, like you could watch this course just to watch the course. I watched all four rounds of the LPGA major that was there last year. I don't remember who won. I don't even remember which major it was. And I watched every minute in all four rounds because I just love me some Pebble Beach.

Have you looked at the weather this week? I'm so bad at deciphering what the forecasts are telling me. I know that it is going to rain a lot the entire time and be windy a lot. How that affects the two courses and the waves and all of that, I'm very bad at actioning on it, but I know it's going to be a slog. I think you're in the right camp with this. I think the pendulum has swung too far with...

with people telling you they know what's going to happen with the weather. I think it's gone too far. Yes, weather matters. Weather's an edge. We need to have a State of the Union and a breaking point on people being like, this is exactly what's going to happen. I've been looking at this all day, and it's changed multiple times. And as we sit here on Monday evening,

I mean, I'm seeing on Sunday afternoon up to 69 mile per hour wind gusts. That's like tornado warning. Yeah, that can't hold. And so I guess my point is, is the stance that I'm going to take, and this will change throughout the week, is we're

What is the certainty that we have? The certainty that we have is that it's going to be a cold. Okay. It's going to be in the early low fifties. This is PGA tour does not play a lot of golf tournaments in the low fifties. Okay. So this is probably going to be the coldest event that players are going to see. What else do we know? There's going to be some form of wind. Okay. And what is the final thing we know?

pretty safe bet that there's going to be some rain too. How that shakes out in terms of the wave advantages, there could be delays. Okay. This happened at the players a couple of years ago where everyone was so firm on a wave advantage and then there were delays and it flipped everything on its head. So in my opinion, it's,

I'm not there yet on the wave advantage yet. Maybe I'll have a heart. Maybe I'll take a stance and take my chances on a wave advantage on Wednesday. But what I do think we can confidently say is that it's going to be unpleasant conditions for, for the players. It's going to be colder. It's going to be windier and it's going to be rainier. So if we can just come to the conclusion that, um,

We don't care about the tee times yet. Everybody's going to see it in some form. Does the fact that this is going to be more unpleasant weather conditions, how much does that shape your interest in certain players this week? Yeah, a lot actually, because I think in calm conditions, this is a bit of a wedge fest where everybody's going to be in the fairway. You can club down.

One of the highest fairway percentages on the tour. You don't hit driver on half these holes anyway. So it's really a second shot course who can knock at the closest for 125 and in and make the most putts on POA.

In an event like that, I like an Eric Cole or a JT Poston or something who's just great at that one skill set. But when you add wind and unpredictable elements, you have to scramble. It's going to be unavoidable. And it's the smallest greens on tour. So scrambling should have, when you add wind, it should be more important.

To counter that, if it's softer greens, then you should hit more greens regulation than if it was firm and fast. So really, I just focus in on grinders.

with elite short irons is where I'm at. And if I have an example of a recent tournament where it's been shit weather and they performed well anyway, that's kind of like a deciding factor for me and my player pool. And do you know what's the best part of this week for content? Is that even the loosest assumptions about whether or not a player is a grinder, you can just make work in your head, right? So it's like, it's like,

Tommy Fleetwood finished T-47 at the 2019 Irish Open. Was the Irish Open played on a parkland course? Who cares? It was in Ireland. Sahitha Gala has a second cousin in Alaska. He's a grinder. He's used to the tougher conditions. This guy, Mackenzie Hughes, is from Canada. He grew up in the cold.

These guys are mutters. They grew up in the rain. So as we like to joke about, there's really no way that you can lose. Like you can just any player, you can say, this guy can play in the rain. This guy can play in the wind. There's truly no rules this week. And some of the leaps that you're going to see people make about who they think can play well in the wind and the rain is just a content delight.

Yeah, a lot of it is eye test. Like, can I see this guy playing well in a ski cap? Because that's what Patrick can't lay to me. Right. I want Patty Ice in like a winter sweater. Right. Like, I'm feeling better about it now. It's like the thing that people used to say about Neiman.

where it was like, Neiman has a low ball flight, so Neiman's good on the wind, as if other players don't have the ability to control their ball flight. That's what's so wonderful about this week. And I'm all in on it too. For me, we can use this to start talking about the top of the board. I like Hovland this week. Now, Hovland's from Scandinavia.

How much golf did Hovland play growing up in the cold Scandinavian air? I don't know. He went to Oklahoma state. Do I have an image in my head of Hovland popping in death metal on his AirPods and having a giant grin on his face? Like he just ate his third edible while the entire world is crumbling around him. And everybody's crying about the wind and the rain and the cold. Like,

I don't have any evidence that that is going to make sense, but it works in my head. So I'm going to, I'm going to play Hovland. Are you familiar with Lafayette and links? Yeah. It's supposed to be wonderful. It's like one of the best golf courses in Scandinavia, right? Every time Hovland's like got a three week break, he's there. He goes to, it's like the Northern tip of Norway. And honestly, looking through pictures of it, it looks like Norway's Pebble beach.

There you go. So there you go. Sold. It's beautiful. That's a bucket list thing. I've always wanted to go to Norway. So if he wins this week, I'm going to pay homage with the trip to Laffington links. So I mentioned Hovland top of the board guys, Rory Scheffler, Homa, Xander can't lay speed. Any interest for you? And, and, and those guys at the top Morikawa to Ludwig, I guess, JT, um,

Yeah. I'm, I'm really interested in what, like from a DFS perspective where the ownership goes with Rory and Scotty, because they're both playing so well, but pebbles is a course that takes the driver's skill completely out of it, which is why they're so great amongst many other things, but that's what really separates them. So it was such a fallacy in like golf capping where like,

they're great at driving and you don't need to hit drivers. So they won't be great here. Like obviously it doesn't work that way. No. And it's like John Rom at the Amex, like, yeah, John Rom starts on third base at Torrey Pines because of that golf course and his skillset. And maybe he doesn't start on third base at the Amex, but like, he's still John Rom. Like if he plays his best golf, he's still going to beat everyone. Right.

Right. So in situations like that, from a betting standpoint, it's not worth it for me to take that premium when the skill set I'm looking for is something that I can get at like 50 to one for so many other people. But from a DFS standpoint, you want exposure to these guys are going to do well. I would lean more towards a Scotty than a Rory on this course, just because I think scrambling is going to be a little bit more important if it's crazy win. And like Arnold Palmer was a really good example of

ridiculous wind conditions where Scheffler just kind of scrambled his way to, to chase down Hoblin that year. It was 2022. So we know he can play well in high winds. He can play well in any conditions of the guys at the top of the board. I went with, with Homa as my first good pad, really the only guy like sub 21 that I've met. I was really, I,

decided between him and Spieth. Spieth obviously has a course history and there's so many great players who skip this event every year. So I do kind of like that Spieth's one of those few elites that always comes to this event. But Spieth just, he's so erratic and Homa's so consistent. I think Homa even still has good course histories. I think he has like three top 15s the last three years. Obviously great on POA. Looked very good to close at...

at Torrey Pines last week and just never a bad idea to bet against Homa in California. So I feel like this is sort of the forgotten California track for Homa because he hasn't won here and he's won at all the other ones. He's still been very solid. You kind of just assume that he must not be doing great, but he is. So anytime you're in California, I feel like you should bet Homa. It's a decent number, like 18 to 20.

I watched, I followed Homa, Zander, and Finau for 18 holes on Wednesday at Torrey Pines. And it was an interesting juxtaposition between the three players because you watch Tony Finau hit the ball and the sound that it makes coming off the club face is

is just objectively better than Xander and Homa. There's just a pop to it, and he kind of has this effortless power. If you were an alien popping in and were just asked who's the best of those three players, you'd say Tony Finau. And then you watch Xander, and every single time, it's the same consistency, it's the same rhythm, it's the same center of the clubface,

And the ball just goes dead straight, like sometimes with a little bit of a draw, but he just hits it in the same place every single time with the same tempo. And after watching a little bit, it's like, oh man, maybe is he the best guy out of those three? And then you watch Homa and the round that I watched Homa was...

He was struggling. He was really struggling out there. He was not playing good golf. He was kind of all over the place, kind of scrambling. And at the end of the day, Homa had the same score as all of those three guys. And I was like, I don't understand how that's possible. Like, Vinao and Xander played so much better than him. And then you think about it, and it's like, well...

That's kind of encapsulates why home is the guy with the most big wins, right? Like he's just the guy that finds a way to get the ball in the hole when he doesn't have his best stuff. And because he was able to salvage like a minus two or minus three round on Friday, when he did start to play better, his floor now is like T 15.

And so it was kind of this interesting juxtaposition where Homa looked the worst from an eye test standpoint to me when I watched 18 holes of him. And yet somehow he raised in my estimation as a player, like somehow I walked away and was like, Homa looked the worst of the three. And yet I think he's the best at golf. Right. Yeah. I mean, he has such a good, like pure swing too. He's got one of my favorite swings on tour. He had such a straight ball with,

which just feels like that works well in the wind. If we're going to get windy conditions, he doesn't have a very curvy ball off the tee one way or another. And, you know, I'd be lying if, if the TPC Potomac wind didn't weigh into my bed too, because that was awful weather. That was like the wettest tournament I've ever seen. Yes. And he was great. He was great that week. So he checks the box of ugly weather guy and,

checks the box of not hitting like a super spinny ball in the wind. Great on great in California. We know that he just seems to like deliver on the courses. He's supposed to play well at when, when he is sticky course history, he just keeps playing well at those courses. Let's move a little bit farther down. Um, let's talk about this middle tier. What are names in here? Why don't you lead us off? Anybody, anybody 30 to 70.

So I want to, a guy that at 28 that I want to have a conversation about is Justin Thomas. Okay. Cause I don't know how I feel about it. Okay. But then I started thinking about the players. Players round two.

One of these guys where you don't have to worry about the weather splits because he's an anti-weather split guy. If he gets blessed with the poor weather split... Wrong side of the wave at Southern Hills. Exactly. You know, you know both. So I'm like, he's weather...

He's going to play well regardless, but if the weather's really bad, he seems to be less affected by it than everybody else. It's not a ridiculous stretch. His last four tournaments are all top fives. And there was a 12th at, at said field before that. So he's obviously back. I was deciding whether to have a shorter car with Spieth on it. I ended up going Thomas because even going back to the Ryder cuff, like Thomas just passes the eye test right now, his game more than Spieth does to me.

Thomas plays really well on these short courses. Players, again, just a guy, if you take the driver out of his hand, he's so elite from fairway to green. His POA numbers long-term are fantastic. Every time he's in California. He's putted well at Riviera before. Yeah. His numbers here are good. His numbers at Torrey are great. I know he wanted to play there, but then

Then he ended up qualifying for Pebble, so he dropped out. But he would have played well, I would imagine, with his current form if he went in last week. One other question I wanted to ask you because you're a California POA expert. Adopted son. Yeah. Yes. And I've actually, I might have played on POA once, but I'm not a seasoned POA guy. Does the fact that the greens are going to be soaked most likely change how you feel about POA

past putting performance. Because to me, when I think of POA, I think it's like bumpy and over the course of the day, it's harder to putt on because it's a less consistent roll. But if it's a really wet surface, I would think it would be less bumpy and just slow. And I would lean towards players who putt better on slow surfaces than players who traditionally putt well in POA. Great take. That's a really good question, to be honest with you. I don't know if I've ever putted on like super wet surfaces,

Poa greens. You raise a really good point because if the Poa receives a lot of moisture, does that potentially... The reason why Poa is so bumpy is because it's a really thick grass. So if you compare it to a back grass or even an overseeded Bermuda...

The grass is so thin that it kind of sticks together and it plays like carpet. And like, you know, you remember the greens at Oak Hill. That's like a very smooth back grass that if you hit the putt on your line, it's going to travel on that line. The reason why Pella becomes my,

more inconsistent is because the actual blades of grass are just thicker. So it's easier for a ball to bounce off a thicker blade of grass than a surface where the grass kind of molds together and plays like carpet. I didn't know if I did the best job of describing that. But that's an interesting point that maybe if the poet is super wet and

The grains just kind of become mushier and you don't get those obtrusive bumps that we have grown so accustomed to on POA. Yeah. I don't know if this is noticeable for you on the grounds, but just from watching the coverage,

It looked impossible for anyone to hit a 15 foot putt at Torrey. And nobody did. Like Pavone did twice on the last two holes, like long putts. Nobody was hitting long putts. So I wonder if this opens it up a little bit where if you hit it on the edge, softer falls in on the edge versus if it's,

Just a lot of slow-mo wobbly-looking putts on this fast-dried-out Poe that I feel like will be less the case this week. Well, to answer your question about Justin Thomas, I was having a conversation with my friend Kellogg about this on Sunday, who also likes JT this week. And I think it's undeniable that the JT renaissance is coming. Now, does that...

come to fruition this week? Maybe. Does it come to fruition at Riviera or Phoenix? That's also in play. There are a lot of good golf courses coming up for Justin Thomas. Justin Thomas also plays really good golf in Florida as well. Because of my construction with my card, I'm not going to have room for him. However, from a DFS perspective, I think in between

can't lay Homa and Spieth JT is going to be the, the good pivot there. Okay. Um, because I, I have some concerns about Mark Kawa right now, and I think JT is going to receive demonstrably less ownership than can't lay Homa and Spieth at this specific golf course. Um,

And I think he's like the perfect DraftKings pairing to what's probably a super high-owned Victor Hovland just because he's so much more cheap. So long-winded way of answering your JT question, probably out as a bet and in in DraftKings.

Yeah. I I'm also just really impressed by the going 27 under at the MX. Like that's not, that used to be like prime Justin Thomas, like three years ago, his game where he could just kill you in a birdie fest. But for the last couple of years, it has absolutely not been. And like controversial take,

harder to shoot it harder to win a birdie fest where you're going to get to 30 under than to win a tory pines last week where you can scramble your way part of your way out of trouble i think particularly for jt's skill set so the guy that i i won't belabor the point because i've already spoken and written about him a lot this week and i texted you about him too um

But this just sets up so perfectly for Fitzpatrick, in my opinion. I bet him at 40 to one. I'm sure I won't be alone on that. You know, I've mentioned this before, but usually I will highlight a player on my podcast on Sunday and say,

a lot of the time I'll generally if that player is like Xander Cantlay I will receive a lot of messages saying how much of an idiot I am and then when I receive the messages of like hell yeah tailing you like great case that's generally a good barometer that other people are going to see what I saw in Fitzpatrick this week and so I'm sure he'll be quite popular but I just think

Short course elevated event. Like last time we were on a lesson driver signature of that Fitzpatrick run one that at the heritage last time we had an event where it pretty much rained for four days. Fitzpatrick run that in October at the Alfred Dunhill links and,

He has succeeded at Pebble Beach in U.S. Open conditions when it's cold. He has succeeded at Pebble Beach if the weather subsides in regular PGA Tour conditions. I just think he's like a very safe bet to play well, whatever the weather throws at us this week.

Yeah, I can never seem to get Fitzpatrick right. It's it's to me, it would make more sense for him to win here than it would at Harbortown. And when he won there, obviously, he had the whole narrative of this being his favorite course. He's so familiar with it. He went there as a kid.

But the driving distance is really such a key asset in his bag that can separate him. And you take that away to Harbor Town. Here, at least there's a few more like part fives that he's going to get to through his distance. And then he's smart enough to manage the course.

And lay back when he needs to. For me, I had a hard time getting on him because it's such a, an approach point and shoot course in normal conditions. Obviously if it's nasty and everybody's missing these greens and regulation, and we see like 50% of greens or regulation because of so much wind, then, then that's your, that's your angle for Fitzpatrick. And that's how he,

Contended at Southern Hills. Not an elite iron player. Right. Which is, you know, interesting topic of discussion is I ended up going Fleetwood in this. Okay. Branch. I basically the same number, but Fleetwood, I think also sort of a mutter tough conditions guy. You mentioned, you mentioned whatever random Irish open finish he had. So that was, that was weighing heavy on my mind. Um,

I don't know. I mean, I didn't watch his win where I guess like it's a classic way for Tommy Fleetwood to win in Dubai because Rory gagged it. He didn't actually do anything to earn the win, but he played well. And if he didn't win it, he was going to come in second with a good round on Sunday. So I don't know. I feel like obviously he's probably the best player on the PGA Tour without a PGA Tour win.

But he's got so many top fives. He just seems like the type of guy who can hit a flighted shot in the wind and gain five strokes with approach. Yeah, I think I agree with you. But Cameron Young, representing the data boys, would probably like a word. I would definitely take Fleetwood over Cam Young on my power rankings of top guys without a win. You know, that's probably fair right now. And Cameron Young...

Stock is low on Cam Young. It is low. And that's why I'm so confused about what, and this is another one of my bets, I bet Sahith at 90. In what universe in California should Cameron Young be half the price of Sahith right now? I'm with you. I also bet Sahith. My theory is I just keep playing Sahith on speed courses.

I think they're both like escape artists who are going to be an adventure off the tee. But if you take the driver out of their hands a little bit and they're in the fairway on every hole, then they can wear some magic and get hobbit with a putter and scramble when they need to. The other thing about Sahith, cause he was another guy that, so on Wednesday of Tori, I followed Xander Homa female. And on Thursday of Tori, I followed Sahith can't lay down.

I'm trying to remember who the third... Oh, Morikawa. Sahith, Cantlay, Morikawa. And my takeaway from watching Sahith play that round was that was a long round. It honestly wasn't even Cantlay's fault. They had nowhere to go. And Sahith is a fast player, but...

And it seemed like Morikawa kind of got off his rhythm and, and just like could never regain it. And so hit who plays way faster than Morikawa from what, from what I saw, at least in that round, um,

He just had like, maybe I'm getting into unquantifiable strokes gain attitude here, but I just liked how Sahith handled it. Like he shot a really bad round to open Torrey Pines on the North course and was like well outside the cut line heading into that round. And he played really well on the much harder South course to make the cut. And like Morikawa did the opposite.

And there was something about watching Sahith where, again, it wasn't a wow factor from a ball striking perspective, but it was the same feeling I had about Homa where I just watched it and I was like, this guy's going to find ways to win on the PGA Tour because he just knows how to get the ball in the hole. And there were times where that group was waiting on the tee, waiting in the fairway on par fives for like 15 minutes, right?

And Sahith shot like a really good round on the south course. So I'm pretty in on Sahith. I'm bullish on him long-term. And I think this week on the west course, 90 to one, that's a steal. Okay. Yeah. I was about to be concerned with the pro-am aspect of it all, that he'd have to deal with slow rounds again. But if you're saying he's got the patience to withstand it, then this is a pro. Really good attitude. Like even Morikawa, you could tell, was getting a little bit like, God.

geez, we're waiting again. And so Hith was shooting the shit with his caddy the whole time, like laughing, smile on his face. So I think even if we get crazy weather conditions, he'll be able to put a smile on his face. Okay, anyone else you want to throw out there? I cannot believe we've already gone this long.

Well, like you with Fitz, I've got all my thoughts out in my preview on Matsuyama, but I'm surprised he got to 70. I really thought 50 is where he would start and end. The fact that he's all the way down to 70, I love that. I mean, he's a lottery ticket. He could crash and burn, and he could kill your DFS liners for an outright. I love Matsuyama. He's a great middle line player. Plays well in California, so...

Like that. And Cam Davis is the only like long shot. I bet he's just like, I just play him on under 7,200 yard courses overall, just a really amazing track record on, on courses that are short, which is weird because he hits the ball so far. Yeah. Um, the only guy that I'll throw into that mix as well, I like a deck, you a lot, by the way, he just missed my betting card, but he's going to be a, I'm going to play him in draft Kings again, just like I played him last week. Um,

My biggest disagreement with Brian and potentially the market is that Wyndham Clark is good. I think there are a lot of people that watched that US Open and are like, Wyndham Clark, fluke major winner. He's going to go quietly into the night. My numbers strongly disagree. My numbers continue to say that Wyndham Clark is a really good player that's here to stay. I don't think he's like...

going to win multiple times a year on the PGA tour, even multiple major championships. Um, but I don't really understand how even Harmon too has a really good price. Like these guys that won major championships, major fucking championships in California and in the wind. Okay. And particularly when it's been good at pebble beach in the past, and it's like an awesome putter on Paula and putter inside 15 feet. Um,

Like in what universe are guys like Harmon and Wyndham Clark, like higher in the odds part than Bo fucking Hossler. I just, I just don't understand that. It was, I'm, I'm not always the type of guy that is, I will bite bat out of spite, but I'm kind of a team. Never bow.

And I just saw the Sahith and Wyndham Clark prices. And I'm like, the guy just won a U S open in California, like six months ago. What I understand, I understand why he's, he's won a signature event at quail hollow and he's 90 to one. You could make the same case for Harmon who I like too, but, and Sahith who we as well, but some of these guys in the 90 range, um,

I think they could win. And I, and Wyndham and Zahid, they're kind of the two guys I'm going to take my chances on. Yeah. No, I mean, ball striking has been, was great at the Amex for, for Wyndham and,

Potter's gone a little bit cold lately, but that's long-term, like the strength of his game. He's got the jailbird, which is supposed to be a cheat code. So he should be back. Once he has like a spike fighting week, he's going to contend against who, and it's not, it's never going to be a fluke if you win Wells and the U S open in a year. I mean, I guess you could say he was in a hot streak for like two months, but I think he's a much better player than just that.

I mean, he had a really, really good college career. He had a really good college career. Yeah. And he, he was a really promising and he just has the modern prototypical PGA tour skillset, which I just think that if you hit the ball a long way and know how to putt,

you're going to have a really long career in the PGA tour. And Wyndham hits the ball a long way and knows how to putt. So John, we've got a little long, but I can't get you out of here without like a, just a, just a touch of niche next talk. I like this team a lot. I know that Randall went down. I was, but I, that feels like a week's not months thing for me. I don't think, I don't think we were getting one of the top three seeds anyway. I,

So I'm worried about dropping to six. Like I think getting into the four or five matchup with Indiana or Cleveland is really important for us because I don't feel confident that we can beat Milwaukee, Philly or Boston in a seven game series. I just think the East is really good this year. So I really hope that even sustaining a Randall injury, we can still hang around the four or five seed.

But this is just like a tough team. And it's the first time as a Knicks fan where I feel like we have some culture. OG is the type of guy, and I was a big Barrett guy, but OG is the type of guy that is like on every championship team, right? Like he's not a superstar. He's probably not even a star. He's not even an all-star. But OG is like, he plays the Iguodala role.

on the Warriors. He plays the Kevin McHale role on the Celtics, the Michael Cooper role on the Showtime Lakers. Every great team has that guy who's a hard-nosed, great defender that can give Tatum and Giannis problems. You can put OG on Tatum and Giannis, and he can give them a really hard time. That trade has been growing on me by the second, and I'm

I think the East is too good for us to make the finals. I just think that Boston, this is like the best Eastern Conference Boston team we've seen in a really long time. And the way that Embiid and Giannis are playing right now, I just think we have...

short end of the stick in terms of these other Eastern conferences elites without like a true superstar on our team. But this is like a really gritty, fun team that maybe if everything breaks in our direction, we could be the Miami heat of last year. Yeah, no, I agree with all points. I think

This team is composed to exit in the second round of the playoffs, which is totally fine. I think the worst thing that we could do would be knee jerk for like a Dejounte Murray and trade all of our assets away and not be able to be positioned next year when a superstar comes up. Cause we're one superstar away from being the best team in the East. I think already around the margins now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

You've got role players in OG and Robinson when he gets back who are just going to be defensive stoppers. We haven't even seen them play together yet. So that's going to be incredible come playoff time when you can stick those guys on a team with good bigs.

Even when you go up against an Embiid, if say we get the four seed, we advance, we play them. Or sorry, if we get like the three seed and we play them in the first or second round. Yeah, we can match up pretty well between Mitch and OG on Embiid. So that's big. And it's nice to have elite defensive players who can be stoppers on one end and then don't need the ball on the other end.

But if they do get the ball, they can hit an open shot if other guys are getting doubled. So I love the composition of the team. I think we need a bet. We haven't replaced quickly as production off that bench. A little concerned that the bench was a strength of this team. They overlooked that a little bit because they still haven't addressed it. So I'd like to give up a little bit of like a cheap second round pick for some instant offense off the bench. Like,

I mean, Jordan Clarkson is going to be a little bit expensive to get, but him or guess you could say, yeah, like I think he would work very well on this team. I would like Brogdon actually in a starting role. I know he's like six man reputation, but I think he would be great at the two. And you let Dante be your instant offense off the bench. I think that could work, but you'd have to give up probably a little too much to get him. So I'd rather them do nothing, figure it out with this team and,

potentially win the first round and then get bounced in the second round, same as last year, but prove that we're a perennial top four team in the East the last couple of years, attract some disgruntled star over and have a big three of Brunson, Randall, and whoever else. Maybe it's Donovan Mitchell. Maybe it's Embiid if he, for some reason, doesn't want to be there anymore. But just give us the pieces to make a trade and keep Randall and Brunson have a third star because once we're there,

then we're a title contender. Right. Like if OG is the fourth best player on your team, that's probably a finals team. Right. I was also like, let me, I'm not sold on OG long-term immediately after that trade. So let me see it.

After 12 games, I'm like, I'm in. I'm so in on OG. Give him a bag. We need him. He's such a Tibbs guy. Like, oh, Tibbs must have been going crazy having his two best players be Brunson and Randall. It'll give you nothing on defense. I know. He finally gets the, he's got heart and OG, which are just all defense all the time, defending all positions. Like,

This is, this is Ted's dream. It is. It's like his Joachim Noah when he was coaching the Bulls. Like he loved Joachim Noah and brought out the best in Joachim Noah. And I think he'll do, I think he'll do the same with OG. Okay. Real quick. Just two minutes. Season four of true detective. Brian just texted me. He said, okay, I'm going to start true detective. So we got Brian on board.

Are you all caught up? I'm all caught up. I just watched, right before this, I watched the most recent episode. It really caught me off guard with, it's almost like a sci-fi. I know it's not, but they're really positioning this to be like otherworldly things that are going on, which is new for the True Detective universe. And honestly, a little bit welcomed. In season four,

Switch it up a little bit. Give me a female lead in Jodie Foster in Alaska, a very untapped market for the scripted series. I can't remember the last time I watched the series in Alaska. I kind of like the setting. Yeah. The snow. There's a good... I like shows with a sense of place. I'm watching it and I'm like, why have we never been here before in other murder mysteries? Because this makes so much sense. There's no daylight for we.

weeks at a time. Yeah, there would be some crazy shit that goes down. Yeah. I'm...

I will say this. I have thoroughly enjoyed the first three episodes, and I think that this has been a much more compelling setup than what we saw in season two and season three. I tweeted this. I think season one is in its own league. I think it's unparalleled. I think it's the best single season of television ever. So I don't think that season four should be judged on.

on the paradigm of season one because I think that's unfair to it and I think season two and season three suffered for that suffered from that I think this is better than season two and season three but

The next three episodes needs to be bangers because there's only six of them, which I did not, did not realize until I think yesterday. Right. I thought there was eight. So the fact that we're already halfway through and we've spent this much time, uh,

on stuff that I don't know how relevant that's going to end up being at the end of the day. I'm like, okay, season, there's a lot of pressure on episode four. I think episode four has got to be a big wow episode. And I'm, I recently am in the process of rewatching season one.

And that's what happened in season one. Like season one was awesome out of the gate. It was chugging along. And then season four, it was like, wow, this is episode, episode four. It was like, wow, this is, this is something really special. So not to be super hyperbolic, I'm enjoying the season, but I think the episode next week is make or break. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. I agree completely.

I don't know what other single season of television I would put up against True Detective season one whenever this debate comes around.

I feel like that is the consensus answer. And when people don't say true detective is the one it's because people haven't seen true detective. Right. The, the single shot scene with the shootout in the house is like the most, the biggest cinematic masterpiece I've ever seen in my life. Yeah. That's like one scene of television for like five minutes that I will always remember vividly everything that happens watching it live. And then realizing afterwards that it was one cut. I'm like, this guy's a mad genius. Yeah.

I thought season three was a little slept on. I love season three with Mahershala. I thought it was good. Okay. And, and, and I, I didn't think it was bad. I thought season three was better than two. And I even enjoyed moments of two as well. Two. I could never get into two. It's like the final season of the wire. Like it's just, people are, they're never going to respect it, but I think it's kind of a cult. There's a cult presence to it where, um,

Maybe people come around on it as like the contrarian take, like, oh, season two is actually good. Like maybe that turns into the contrarian take. I'm not fully there yet. I still think it's the weakest season, but I think season four has the opportunity to be number two in the power rankings for me.

I like what they're working with too. And it's such a juxtaposition for Verse 2 because season two was like all cast. And it's almost like an artist who had a debut album that they worked their entire life on. It was banger after banger. And then their label was like, all right, six months later, we need another album. And they were like, oh, I gave you all I got. But they'll have a ton of nice features on it.

it. So I don't have to write it as well because I have a lot of nice features. Season four was like, okay, now I've had time. I had a little introspective period to step away and I don't need all the features. I'm going to go J Cole, no features. I'm going to let Jodie Foster take the lead, but I don't need anything else but her. And you're just going to learn to love everybody else around it. All right, John, what do you got to plug this week, my friend?

Ah, the lines, the lines, the lines.com PJ tout Twitter. That's all. Keep it short and sweet. Read my articles and read Andy's articles. Awesome. Listen to Andy's podcast. Good to see you, my friend. We do woke hell this summer for sure. We need our revenge against that golf course, but until then, thanks for joining me. This is a blast as always. And, uh, and we'll talk soon, buddy. Absolutely. Same to you.

All right. That is it for the podcast. Special thanks to John. Special thanks to RonPureSports.com. Again, if you want to join the community over there at RonPureSports.

You can type in promo code Andy when you sign up. There's a golf-only option. There's an all-sports option. There's a bats option. We got everything you need over there at Run Pure Sports. It's a wonderful community to be a part of, and we would love to have you. So promo code Andy to get you that 15% off discount when you sign up, and we will be back on this podcast feed next week.

talking a little waste management preview. Until then, best of luck with your bets this weekend. Enjoy the golf at Pebble Beach, and we will see you next time. Cheers.

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