Recapping the 2024 Masters & Heritage Picks with Kyle Hewett
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All of my content every week. It's all at run pure sports. It's a community. It's a disc arts where we hang out and talk golf. We do premium shows. The mission has always been, we're going to create a community where the information is for people that really know golf, really know architecture, have boots on the ground, cat information, really understand the market, give you the best daily fantasy information, give you the best betting information, give you complete and total access to those people at all hours of the day. Uh,

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At Hilton Head and being there, being on site, I got to say completely saved me from some very incorrect takes that I had going into the week. I was able to completely talk myself out of Hovland and into Ludwig after I watched both of them.

We'll talk a lot about Ludwig on this podcast, plus some other guys that we'll recap as well. So we'll be back at Hilton Head again. I'm in Hilton Head right now. So we share all of that info exclusively in the Rumpier Sports Discord, sharing everything I know here and see. You can find it all at RumpierSports.com. Code Andy to get you that 15% off discount.

uh, again, another phenomenal week to join. I promise you will not be disappointed. One final shout to everyone who entered the draw to win a bunch of master stuff and a big congrats to bill Ivy. Your stuff is on the way. I cannot thank you enough for all the support I received this week. Continue to be humbled by all the people that want to check out all of my nonsense on this podcast. Speaking of nonsense, uh,

We're coming to you live from Hilton Head Sunday night. Scotty Shuffler just won the Masters. One of my best friends, Kyle Hewitt, been on this podcast many times before. One of the sharpest DFS players I know.

Just one of the best guys you ever meet. We're recapping the Masters together right now. So we talk Masters live from his parents' house in Hilton Head, plus some heritage pics because we're there. We got to add some heritage into it as well. And we'll not be doing a podcast Monday night. This is wanted to get the Masters recap.

out early while it was still all completely fresh in our heads. So instead of a Monday night podcast, we make sure to get some Hilton Head stuff in there at the end. So it's a good one. Without further ado, let's bring on Huey. All right, Kyle Hewitt is here. Of course he's here. We're in his parents' house right now in Hilton Head Island. What a wonderful day we just had, man. We played some golf early in the morning. We watched what I would say was

a pretty engaging and exciting front nine to the 2024 masters. And then Scotty did what I think a lot of us expected Scotty to do, which was just wait, wait and wait for others to make mistakes. And, and ultimately, uh,

The best golfer in the field, the best golfer in the world right now was the last man standing. Kyle, your takeaways, big picture from the 2024 Masters recording this Sunday night. So we missed the Butler cabin ceremony, but the final putt just dropped about 45 minutes ago.

Yeah, I caught a little of the Butler Cabin ceremony while you were setting things up. So if we have any questions about that, feel free to ask. But pleasure to have you in Hilton Head. It was a great day. Been a great weekend. Looking forward to the Heritage next week. But yeah, I mean, it was, you know, I think a lot of people, we like to say, you know, gun to head pick this week. Didn't bet Scotty, but I think my gun to head pick was

you know, what would have been Scotty and shout out Brian, shout out Natalie. They're, they're gloating about it right now in our group chat. Yeah. And it's, you know, in terms of trends and things along those lines, it made so much sense. I didn't love the number on Scotty, but I think where BK and shout out Natalie, hashtag CLV got them, they were actually, they were good. But by the time I,

was look, you know, but I had already made my card and I was only seeing four, four to ones. I bet futures throughout the whole upcoming to the masters. So I had a big card ready and it wasn't, I wasn't about to cash out of all those numbers to, to throw on Scotty, but made a ton of sense. He, he looked incredible doing it. You know, I think that the, my big takeaway is from,

from it is that, you know, Scott, he's the clear number one in the world. He's playing at, you know, the highest level of golf. I think we've seen in a, in a, in a long time, I think you've seen kind of, by the way, we can, we can acknowledge this and enjoy this without having to talk about Tiger woods. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I look, what I would say with that is, is

Scotty is doing things. So two things I wrote down to segue to that, because that was actually, you know, something I thought worth worth mentioning. You know, Scotty, second golfer ever to win both Masters and players in the same year since or not since. He's the only guy to do it. The one other person to do it is Tiger in 2001. He's the third golfer ever to win two players championships and two green jackets. The other two are Tiger and Jack.

So he's doing things that Tiger did and he's winning at a great rate and he's playing golf at a level that we haven't seen in a long time. I think Rom had some hot streaks last year pre-move to live and he was in the conversation of best golfer in the world. But Scottie's been doing it so consistently for such a long time now, not necessarily the prolific winning, but just being a

top 10 machine being a guy who is always there i think you and i have joked around two songs uh you know by the cranberries linger and and zombie you know you can't kill this guy i think the biggest points of the scotty uh show for me this weekend and and the the the the zombie thing holds so true here is you know saturday things weren't going his way on on 10 and 11 he he he goes he

he goes double on 10 and then bogey on 11 and he's he's minus four and the tournament seems wide open we're on the way back you know shout out andy kind of you know threw a little live action on on scotty when he was right when that happened he went to he went to like two and a half or two two point six uh 2.6 to one and and guess what happens you know he gets to the par five he goes

He goes, kills the drive down the center of the fairway, puts it on the green 40 feet. And this guy who just missed two five foot putts on the last two holes hits a 40 foot Eagle bomb. And just like that, you feel like, oh my God, here it comes again. And then the second biggest moment to me with the Sheffler thing is we're talking all morning.

about, you know, I'm telling Andy, I think Xander still has a chance. I think Cam Young still has a chance because there was in four or five of the lead and Scottie doesn't come out hot, right? Scottie was six under. No, he hit three of his first seven greens in regulation. Like it was a, we'll talk about, because there's a couple of things from the round I want to get to, but you're right. He didn't, the first, I would say the first seven holes, Scottie looked good.

Pretty shaky. And then I think things really flipped from him on 8 and 9. And he just seems to do that. He seems to...

His worst stuff is so much better than a lot of guys, you know, best stuff. So even when he's kind of struggling a little bit, he seems to hit a shot or two. You know, the shots for me today were he's he's stalled out all around. I think he was one over or even going into the ninth hole.

He hits the ball to tap in range on nine. Couldn't, couldn't hit his iron shot more perfectly. Nobody was getting as close as he did to that, that pin today. And then he does the exact same thing on 14 to, for, for, you know, a tap in birdie. So,

He just, he just, you know, you say this a lot too. And I think it's so funny, um, you know, or you, you, and also, you know, others I've heard say this too, is, you know, he's boring and, you know, he's not, he's not fun to watch. And, uh, and, uh, for, for golf, that's a, that's a very good characteristic to be, to be boring, to be a guy that's hitting fairways, to be a guy that's hitting greens, to be a guy that's not messing up to that. That's not,

you know, hitting ridiculous shots or ending up in places where you have to go for it so crazily. So to me, it's just, you know, the confirmation of the fact that Scotty Sheffler is the best golfer in the world. You know, I'm not ready to say he's better than Tiger Woods yet. But, you know, I think some are, you know, already making that conclusion and

I'd say that those people are somewhat prisoners of the moment. And I think Scotty is doing, again, Scotty's doing things that Tiger did, and that's incredible. But Tiger did it for so long and so much better than everybody else. So to say that he's there now, I don't see it. And even the last thing on Scotty I'll say before passing it over to you is,

Let's say Scottie is the exact same talent level as Tiger Woods, right? Let's say he's as good as golf as Tiger Woods. He's not going to win as much as Tiger Woods did because it was easier to win on the PGA tour when Tiger Woods was there. There weren't as many guys that could, that could compete with Tiger. And now there's so much more golf. There's so much more talent in pro golf. You know, look at, look at a guy like Ludwig, you know, Debbie Toms don't play well here. And this guy finishes second.

Second, there's so many more guys out there. You had all the guys from Liv in this field, and he still played great. Point being, it will be harder to win. He's never going to win at the clip that Tiger won at. So, again, it's extremely impressive. Scottie was, you know, I think the kind of guy that everybody was afraid of heading into this week and the guy that everybody's going to be afraid of.

At every other major, right? So, yeah, I mean, Tiger had sex at Scottie's age. Scottie's 27. He has 12 wins now in two majors, two players. Rom's 29. He has 18 wins in two majors. Scottie's wins are better than Rom's wins. There's some DP World Tour wins in there for Rom. There's actually some pretty good DP World Tour wins in there for Rom, but...

I think we can acknowledge what Scotty is doing right now without trying to be super hyperbolic in terms of putting him in the same sentence as Tiger, which I still think he's got a very long way to go in terms of that. What I will say about Scotty is it feels different than what Rom has done. Rom's resume is,

is still right there with Scottie's. Like, as I just read off their resumes, they're two years apart. Scottie is not the first guy to snag multiple majors before his 27th birthday, right? Rory got four before he turned 25. Spieth got three before he turned 25. I think what sets...

And we'll get to Rory and Spieth shortly. But I think what sets Scotty apart, and you touched on a little bit of that, is...

There's a sustainability aspect to it that feels a lot more longer term. I think it's easy to talk about Rory right now as a loser given his last 10 years, but after Rory won his fourth major before the age of 25, we were penciling this guy in to catch Tiger. We were saying this guy was the greatest guy since Tiger. He was the greatest guy since Tiger in terms of what he accomplished in his early to mid-20s.

Then he goes 10 years without a major speed. I think was a tiny bit more smoke and mirrors in the sense that he wasn't doing the things from an eye test standpoint, from a driving standpoint that Rory was doing. But I think people forget with speed, like we look back on this, this speed run of dominance and, and,

Think of it as this luck box guy pulled a rabbit out of his ass for a couple of years. Spieth was the best iron player in the world. He's a really great driver of the ball. Like Spieth was the best ball striker in the world when he was at the top of his game as well. And Spieth had a chance to win five masters in a row. He won a U S open. He won a British open. He won a masters in three years.

Scottie's got some things to do, right? And just terms of like, if we're stacking up what he has done versus what other players have done since Tiger, I think the difference with Scottie is how it feels right. And maybe that's why I'm trying to throw a little bit of cold water on us all just being prisoners of the moment.

I didn't watch golf at the level of what I watched golf at now when Rory was doing that from 2012 to 2014, and the guy won four majors before he turned 25. I'd like to talk to somebody with a little bit more perspective that remembers the peak of Rory just as much as they remember the peak of Scottie right now, just as much as they remember that Spieth run as well.

But there's something that feels so... I've used the word boogeyman before. We all use the word inevitable, but there's a gravity around him. And I've made this point on podcasts before when I talked about it after the Players' Championship. So I'll excuse me for repeating this point a little bit, but it felt so prevalent today because it happened today. And it happened at the Players too, where when Tiger was in the mix...

People saw him coming and just naturally fell apart around him. Look at what happened at the 2019 Masters.

Mahomes has that a little bit too, right? Where it's like, why is Lamar Jackson suddenly scoring 10 points in a playoff game? Like what is happening to all of these teams that are playing Mahomes right now? If you just, if you let him linger, if you allow him to stay in a game, we talk like staff is kind of like this too, where it's like, ah, the Warriors are down 10 with eight minutes left in the fourth quarter. Scotty has that Scotty has permeated the,

That he's permeated that type of mold of elite talent where wherever he is on the leaderboard, that's where your focus needs to be. And certainly in my lifetime, the last five to seven years that I've been following golf incredibly closely, I don't think we've seen anything like that where you

Whatever Scotty is doing in this tournament, that is where the lead is. That is where you need to be focused on. And every player seems to know that too, if that makes sense.

Yeah, you hit on one other Scottie thing I wanted to talk about. And, you know, this is not a shot at anyone. Like when I saw the tee times for the tournament this week and I saw Rory and Xander with Scottie,

I thought it was a horrible pairing for both of them for the exact reason that you said. I want to talk about that too. I thought that that was a horrible pairing. I think if you look at the other guys he was paired with the rest of the week too, like Colin today, Colin hung with them for a little, but he couldn't hang with them, the back nine. He couldn't come close. He came to 11 and Scotty all week on 11. I think he actually bogeyed 11 today, but-

he never even came close to bringing that water into play on 11. That's so guys were bringing into play. He was going to bail out, right. If anywhere, and he was going to figure it out from there. He was never bringing the water in. And by the way, Collins, the guy with two majors, right? Like I did a statistical deep dive on this. Collins, the greatest quote, one of the greatest closers of our generation, statistically over the last five years, uh,

Colin in final rounds in contention is one of the same with Bryson, by the way, for what it's worth and Homa for what it's worth. Statistically, Bryson, Homa and Colin are three of the best in contention players of the last five years. They significantly raised their baseline in the biggest moments. And none of them were the alpha today. None of them felt like the alpha today for one second. None of them felt like the alpha coming in.

No. And I think that, you know, Ludwig was the guy who made the run up the leaderboard today and he was able to do it, not having to play with Scotty. And I think that that genuinely like you, I think guys, you're starting to hear it when you hear it. So here's another perfect example. Wyndham Clark on after his round on Thursday, not talking about the ridiculous stuff he was, you know, talking about live for, you know, blowing smoke where wherever it needed to be

to be blown, but he got interviewed at Butler Cabin after, or no, I'm sorry, Bryson got interviewed in Butler Cabin after round one when he had the lead. So he goes in, and as he's going to Butler Cabin, there's a roar. Scotty had just chipped in from the bunker on 12, if you remember. He hit it over the green into the bunker on 12 and then chipped it in for birdie down the hill. And the crowd

Crowd was going crazy. Jim Nance asks Bryce or Jim Nance says, as, as Bryson comes on, he said, I saw you put your head down there as Scotty, um, you know, made a birdie and he was Bryson was basically like, yeah, I mean, the guy's just so good. Like, you know, I'm six under and here he comes. He's, he's, you know, he's four under, I think he shot a 66 on, uh,

on, on Thursday. So he, he ends up being right there after Bryson has this unbelievable round and the guys just know, like, he's always going to be there. He's going to continue to put himself in position, his floor. You've said this right now, his floor, he seems to have the highest floor of any golfer right now. Like his take, right. That was the take that we talked about. I said so many times on the show, uh,

I said this on multiple shows this week, so excuse me for repeating myself again, but like, I didn't think Brandel's take that Scotty, that it being in the range of outcomes that Scotty wins this tournament by nine. Like, I didn't think that was a crazy take. I thought that Scotty's range of outcomes this week were like we talked about before. If he loses four or five strokes putting, which I told you from what I saw him practicing putting this week on the grounds, which

Was highly doubtful. I thought that maybe eighth or ninth was his four. And I thought that I think he ended up winning by four, but only, you know,

Ludwig was the only guy within six of him or five or yeah, I think, I think Homa finished four. Didn't Scottie finish at 11 or did he make a bogey on 18? Oh, you're right. So the guys in third place were all at four under because, because Colin went into the trees. He had to play the ball back, played it up, hit a three wood right into the bunker, actually made a great up and down, but that dropped him from five.

five under to four under to be tied for third place with Fleetwood and somebody else was, was, was tied for third as well. Uh, yeah. Home home of more cow. Excuse me. That's, that's, that's, that's who it was. Right. Uh, and Tommy, that was, that was the other guy. My bad. Uh, yeah. So as you're, I mean, as you're saying, I think that's probably the biggest separator from him and even ROM like ROMs, uh,

Rom's done a lot of what Scott has done. He's two years older, but their resumes are

aren't that different. A ROM's one more, but Scottie has better wins, including two players, which I think are, if you're, I mean, it's a weird question now with where ROM's career is, but I think just in general, in a vacuum, what's more impressive, two players or seven or eight more extra DP world tour wins? I think probably most people are saying two players, but the point is, is that

Rom accumulated that stuff with a bunch of T 47s and T 39s and the occasional mix miscut mixed in there. Scotty's not doing that. And I think that what that is, what makes his level of grit and for what it's worth, uh,

I need to go back and really deep dive Rory's peak, but Rory did not have that floor. Um, I, you Rory was amazing during that, like two, three year stretch when he got those four majors, but he definitely missed a couple of cuts in there as well. And right now with Scotty, um,

Now that the putter floor has been raised in terms of like, it feels like we're done with the days of Scotty losing five strikes, five, six strokes putting. I think we're done with that being a possibility. I think, you know, there's going to be times where he loses maybe two strokes putting two, three strokes putting, and he finishes eighth. That's going to happen. But yeah,

I mean, we joked about it. The only thing that was preventing Scotty from being in contention would, would, you know, the birth of his first child. Yeah. Yeah. That, uh, that is, that is very true. I think there were some people hoping that, you know, Meredith was going to, uh, give him the call today, but, uh, she didn't, she did not. So, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's the floor with him. It's, it's, you know, he, he's hard to kill. He, he,

He's lingering around. It didn't seem like anybody went out and grabbed it today when I think that there really was, at a point in time, an opportunity to apply some pressure. He didn't really get much other than from Ludwig. And then Ludwig made the mistake at 11 that everybody was making. And he pulled into the water and double bogeyed and gave back a lot of the shots he picked up.

So, yeah, it was hanging. It was hanging out at six there. Like it was in those first seven and those first seven holes. Cause there were good numbers out there, right? Like Hatton was going really low for a little bit. I know that he gave some back on 17 and 18, Tom Kim shot like a 66 today. Um, and it wouldn't have mattered based on what we saw from Shuffler at the back nine, but you felt like in those first seven holes, um,

At least one of those guys, Morikawa, Zander, Homa, O'Bear did the best job of this. Bryson, Cam Smith, maybe Cam Young. Like,

Going four under through seven was out there today, and that didn't happen. And maybe if that happens and somebody catches Scheffler, gets to seven right there, or if it's a Homa or a Morikawa or an Aberg, they get to seven or eight in those first seven holes.

But nobody, but nobody did that. And Scottie was able to get it, but then he Ludwig did, but then he gave it right back. He gave it, he gave it. Yeah. He, he gave it right back and, and you let Scottie get the bad ones out of his system because the bad ones for Scottie, like the worst stretch, the worst stretch of the tournament for him happened on Saturday and you saw how he rebounded and, and,

To kind of go back to because there was another point that I wanted to touch on with Rory there and you talking about how they played together in the first couple of rounds. God, wasn't Friday so jarring? And I was thinking about this so much. I it was one of the guys I'm knowing upset this on the Friday recap pod, but it had me thinking like, does Rory know that?

That Scotty's that much better than him right now. And I was thinking about the difference in what we saw out of them on Friday, which is by far the toughest day. I think that day on Friday, particularly if you were playing in the afternoon, which Scotty and Rory and Xander were.

Uh, was one of the top that played over four strokes over par. And that was one of the toughest rounds that we've seen in, uh, in the PGA tour in a major over the last decade, right? You rarely ever see a golf course play four strokes over par. Um, yeah.

And the juxtaposition between Rory and Scotty in those conditions, I've said this many times before, the easiest way for Scotty to separate himself is when the conditions get really tough. Because what happens when the conditions get really tough? You get an astronomically low greens and regulation percentage. And Scotty is the best iron player in the world. And he's the best short game player in the world. So when you get really tough conditions, worse iron players aren't going to be hitting greens. Right.

And even when Scotty misses greens, he has a better short game than everyone else. The, the, the, I actually thought today going into the day today being the easiest conditions, these were the toughest conditions for Scotty to separate because there were actually 66 is 67 is out there. So if Scotty didn't putt, if Scotty didn't make enough putts, then there maybe could have been a guy that got cut.

completely sun-runned it with a putter and shot 65-66. But when you watch Rory and Scottie play next to each other, and you said it, man, that approach shot on Levin was...

was the perfect juxtaposition of where those guys are at right now, where Rory bites off a little bit more than he can chew and hits it into the water on 11. And Scottie plays this brilliant, perfect little tight draw into the right side of the green in two putts for par. And you saw that all week. You saw that on 11 today, too, with Homa and Ludvig, or it was Colin and Ludvig that went in the water on 11 again, and Scottie just bailed right.

I'm in time again, and this is going to get accentuated at Augusta national more so than any other golf course on tour, which is why it's not surprising this week that he ended up winning by four. This is how Scotty is going to separate himself, right? Is he is hitting the shots right now. He is making the decisions right now.

that the other best players in the world are incapable of showing and having that discipline. Scottie's beating them on a talent level right now. He's beating them on a ball striking level right now. He's beating them on a brain level right now. And I just wonder if for Rory watching that with two days, Rory being a guy that has been outside of Brooks and DJ,

Since Tiger, the best player in the world, pretty much nonstop for the past decade, he's been in the top three to five best players of the world. In the last decade, sometimes he's number one, sometimes he's number five. He never really gets past number seven, right? He's always in there. And I wonder what that felt like watching in real time Tiger.

somebody just being so much better at their craft in every single way, shape or form, because I don't know how many experiences Rory has had at that. Maybe a couple of times playing with Brooks at majors where Brooks just out alpha him, but it wasn't even close. And we'll get to Rory a little bit later. I have a lot of thoughts, but I, it just made me think about how cool it was to watch Scotty play with Rory

Two of the other five best players in the world. And for us to get to see, okay, this is how, like, if you want to know why Scotty is better than Rory or why Scotty is better than Xander or why Scotty is better than anyone else, watch that Friday afternoon route.

because the cream is going to rise to the crop and the toughest conditions and just watch. Cause that was a mental examination, right? And just watch how Scotty handled that mental examination based on how some of the other players in the world handled that mental examination. And that's what major should be Kyle, a mental examination, right?

Yeah, no, I, I, I totally agree. I think that, uh, I actually enjoyed, you know, I guess before we moved to the next golfer, uh, just a quick golf topic. Like I loved the way the course played this week. I know, I know you did too. It was, it was fiery. Friday was a little bit, um, crazy because of the wins, but I think the course like played very like fairly, I think. Yeah. Xander was like, this is fair.

Yeah, and the wind was whipping. I haven't seen the wind whip that hard at Augusta in a long time, me personally.

The sand was coming up on Friday, you know, getting in guys' eyes. Gary Woodland's, you know, ball was running off the green. They flashed to Gary Woodland at plus 10, and Andy looks at me and he goes, why are they showing Gary Woodland right now? He's plus 10, and his ball just starts running away from the green because the wind is blowing so hard. So, look, I think major change. I'm kind of tired, honestly, of the guys on the PGA Tour. I think a lot of events this year have played a lot easier than they historically do, and I think

These guys need to get their teeth kicked in every once in a while. And to win a major, I think that's the test you want, right? I don't want my major's winner to be 20 under or anything close to that, really. And Scottie got to 11, which was incredibly impressive. But if you look at the dispersion of the leaderboard after Scottie, it was seven by Ludwig and then four was the next highest score. So it really did play well.

incredibly well. And the, and, and the conditions to me looked, looked, looked unbelievable. So I, that was the last thing I had before we move on to, you know, another, yeah, we'll get to a player. We'll get to the players just, just, just to put a bow on the conditions.

This was the best major championship conditions that I've seen in my lifetime. Seriously watching golf or, you know, I started getting seriously, seriously into this five, six, seven years ago. And these were the best, most fair major championship conditions that I can personally remember and, and fair and best conditions.

fair being the operative word there, because I know that we've teetered the edge with courses like Shinnecock and things of that nature as well. But I pulled up this tweet from my friend Joseph Omania. The winner at Augusta National may barely crack double digits under par this week. A reminder that if you simply have

hundreds of millions of dollars, acres of land to extend tee boxes, a sub air system and perfect blustery conditions. Golf courses can still defend themselves, which is like, there's been, there's literally Paul McGinley kind of ate Brando's lunch on the rollback thing too, as well. But if you think about that, this was the major that everybody wanted. This was the type of major that we have been calling for for so long. Um,

Do you know how many things had to break right for this to happen? Right. And so I don't know.

If you could find a better illustration of what we should be striving for and how difficult it is going to be obtained, how difficult it is going to be to be obtained if we do not necessarily if we do not do something about equipment rather soon, because this is what a major should be, Kyle. Right. Like I talked about it being a mental examination. Right.

but major should feel distinctly different from every other PGA tour week. Right. And there should be some sort of, um, psychological aspect to them as well, where you have to think your way around the golf course and you cannot just hit track man golf shots. Right. Cause that's too much of what the PGA tour is. That's what the live tour is, um, is hitting track man shots on easy golf courses, driver wedge, um,

Uh, sometimes you see tougher conditions like the API or something like that, but that's, that's just hacking out of thick rough. That's not the mental skill of strategy that is required around a firm Augusta national. And what I think, what I think is so great about a major championship like this. And what I think major should do is it was really fun seeing, uh,

Some of the best players in the world that are truly, I mean, at their craft, the best in the world. I'm talking like guys like Victor Hovland, guys like Jordan Spieth, guys like Brooks Koepka. We could talk about a number, Wyndham Clark, a number of, a number of stars. I,

watching Hovland not know how to handle that and like losing his focus and missing tap in pots and watching Jordan Spieth make terrible decisions. Like that is the type of psychological examination that we should be getting at a major. It should not just be about target golf. It should not just be about skill. It should not just be about execution. We rarely get it anymore at the open championship anymore, but

But like, that's what a major should be where your skill doesn't matter here. This is about getting the ball in the hole. And we got that for the first time this week. And God, it was so incredibly fun to watch some of the best ball strikers in the world that not matter because they weren't mentally tough enough to handle the conditions.

Yeah, I think you want the winner of the major to like conquer that feat too, right? Like, yeah, to win, to win a major, and for it to play like the course to play the way it was like did you're such a more deserving champion, in my opinion, then, you know, if it's like a 20 underscore and, you know, kind

A major can't be the guy who made the most putts. The guy who makes the most putts wins on the PGA Tour every week. A major can't be the guy who makes the most putts. A major has to be the guy who had the best mental game, who withstood adversity. Majors have to be adversity.

And I think that you know better than I, but specifically, a lot of these historic tracks that everybody wants to see are the most significantly affected currently by the technology in golf, by the state of what the driver is, by how far the ball goes, by the speed training, by how far the guys are hitting the ball. So these courses that historically have played so difficult, we're starting to see guys shoot scores like at St. Andrews.

Um, you know, the last time it was there, I think it was 19 under, I think Cam Smith won at. So,

you know, there was a lot of rollback talk this week in, in kind of the weeds of the week. Um, I think Augusta national came out and supported the RNA and the USGA and in, in the rollback. And there was, there was a lot of guys, uh, Shambly McGinley, uh, you touched on it, that we're talking about the rollback and then Faldo, they, they brought on, um,

which I thought was a great segment. I got to find that clip and send it to you because it was like Andy Lack might have been dressed in a Nick Faldo costume at the Masters and giving his takes about

you know, the state of the golf game. He was saying, you know, not only for him, is it the ball, but it's the, it's the driver head itself. And he said, he wants to make it more about hitting the center of the club face, you know, Bryson for as impressive as he is. And some, somebody we should talk about who's who I think is going to have a massive year. I don't like, I just don't, it's something to me about a quote where like you're saying you can hit the ball three 50, uh,

off the heel and it goes straight. Like it just, that doesn't, that doesn't sit well with me. Like that to me, isn't what golf should be. Golf should be about hitting the center of the club face, right? You shouldn't be able to hit the heel and the ball go 350 yards down the center of the fairway. So I don't want to turn this. Yeah. We'll do a rollback pod another time. Yeah. I don't want to, I don't want to turn this into a rollback pod, but I just, I thought it was, I thought it was interesting. It was definitely a topic of conversation a lot.

this week. And I think because of how the course played and how, you know, I think it made it kind of even, even more relevant of a conversation. The takeaway, the takeaway should be, Hey, if you liked what we saw, if you liked what you saw this week, the only chance that is going to happen going forward, unless you want the perfect storm of everything going right, is that this needs to be addressed. If you want to see more of those types of majors, let's go through the players. Cool. Morikawa.

I want to, I want to tee you up on this one because you know, there was more call was not playing good golf heading into the masters. If he was to win the masters, he would have broken a hell of a lot of trends. Um, probably the biggest one is just, I test, you need to be a good iron player entering the masters. You need to be in good approach for him. More call was in the worst iron form of his entire career. Um, and yet, uh,

He had a very legitimately good chance to win the Masters, and he was 55-1. And I witnessed a Kyle in shambles all weekend with the potential that Morikawa was going to win the Masters, and you weren't on him. So you dodged a bullet, but your takeaway from Morikawa's performance?

Yeah. So like I let him go. Like I, I, after last week, we'll talk about, we'll talk about letting go in the Rory section coming up. Yeah. So my thought was like, I got to let this guy go for him to like, like find himself. Cause I had been on him for so long and so many weeks and, uh,

Look, I have part of the reason I love Colin is, is he was one of the first like big bets I hit when it came to golf. I've loved his game. I think he has, I think he still has just, if you're talking about pure swings, one of the best swings in the game, he's an incredible iron player. I truly think his, his game, I say this about some guys, I think his game is made for major championship golf and,

fairways, long irons, you know, he's hitting a lot of greens, T to green. He's very good. He's gotten better around the green, but the thing with Colin that was crazy was, yeah, it was literally the worst iron form of this career. And it wasn't really close. Like he had never lost three weeks in a row on approach on the PGA tour, which is what he did the three weeks before last week. And I think he lost like four strokes on approach last week. And, and,

and five putting the, you know, so it was, it wasn't like it was close, you know, he won the Zozo and he was doing a lot of things. Well, he was trending towards a win before the Zozo. I kind of think, thought he was going to have a bigger year this year. And then he took a massive step back after the Zozo. He didn't really play well in a lot of tournaments after the Zozo and which is, you know, fall swimming event. So it's,

Kind of, you know, for a longer way away. But yeah, I mean, he seems to be a guy that raises his baseline at majors. You know, the tougher the courses get, the better he seems to play. He's now got three straight top tens at Augusta with two top fives, I believe. Yeah. And I talked about on the, I was not on Morikawa this week. In fact,

I got a lot of things right from the practice rounds, more right than wrong. But one of the things that I saw in the practice rounds was Morikawa was hooked up to an iPad on the putting green, trying a new putter. And I was just like, I don't, I don't want any part of this.

Yeah. And so he switched to that new putter just to chime in there. Apparently he putted with it the first round. He lost strokes putting. He lost like two strokes putting. Switched back to the old putter on Friday, I'm pretty sure, and gained like two strokes putting. So I just thought that that was kind of interesting. Yeah. He finished seventh in the field this week in strokes gained putting. Did not put well on Sunday.

No, and you know, you know, when he put it worse was this was one thing I wanted to say about Colin. So Colin, incredible. If I gave him a grade after his whole year so far, I'd say he gets an A minus from me with his performance at this major where literally nobody was on him in DFS. Nobody talked about him in the betting markets.

And it would have been, I think I was saying this to you. It would have been the second time he won a major. He's a, he's a, he would have been a three-time major champion. And two of the times he would have won the majors would have been at greater than 50, 50 to one odds, which I thought was, would have been so funny. Both times there was like these narratives. One was that he couldn't hit an iron on the turf over at the open. And this one is that he's the broken golfer. So, so I thought, yeah,

I thought it was all, you know, very surprising. Like I didn't see it coming together at all from Colin, but at the same time, I'm not surprised to see him, um,

you know, do well in a major. I, I was rambling a little bit. I, cause I forgot what I was thinking, what I was going to talk about, but the one does Saturday. I truly think Colin could have been an eight under. I think he could have gotten. Yeah. We were easily. I mean, he missed the two putts. He missed the two putts on the par fives. Yeah. And he's like the inverse of what we talked about with the decky, right. Where we said, I know how decky looks great on paper, but when Hideki makes a ton of sense, uh,

He's usually due for a little bit of regression and more call is a little bit of the inverse to that, right? Where it's like, this guy's too good to have been bad for this long. I bet you had a major championship every once in a while. It doesn't matter what's going on, but when it doesn't make sense for Colin, there's just going to be times where he figures it out.

Yeah. And I just think he's a guy and not to win. I'm not saying to win, but like one thing I'm disappointed is it was a classic DFS play for me. He was, it was a buy low spot and, and, you know, I did, I didn't do it, but I think just in general, like he's the guy you want to play at these majors. Like, I just think he, that's the type of course he does well at. You talk about this all the time where guys start on second base and

Colin doesn't separate with his driver necessarily, but he hits so many fairways and his long irons are so good that that almost makes up for his lack of distance a little bit. So yeah,

I think he's just going to be a guy that continues to compete at major championships throughout his career. He gets such a bad rap. He's a track man golfer. He won two majors. How about calling in the wind on Friday? Just putting that there. That was why I was... You teed me up for it. That was exactly why I was going to say it. He played... And look, I will say some of the stuff with... He struggled in tough conditions before. I'm not...

I'm not denying that at all, but on Friday in the toughest conditions, he played a hell of a round and shut a lot of people up, I think. So I give him an A minus. I would have liked to see him be at seven or eight under just, just he had two five foot putts that could,

He missed. They were really short putts on par fives. He makes one or two of those. I truly think it gives him a little bit more confidence going into Sunday. He could have had a huge swing on two today where Scottie made par. Huge swing for him on seven. He missed a very makeable putt on seven. And then...

you know, he weaves it in the bunker on nine. He makes double one. Yeah. He makes double and yeah. Double part. Yeah. So, but yeah, I thought it was great. How about you? What are your common common kind of thoughts?

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Uh, you know, I, I did the podcast with powers, uh, after the players championship. And when I did the deep dive into the pressure tool, um, and I didn't realize how much of a killer Colin was in these moments. Now that did not come to fruition today, you know, Scotty out alpha everybody, and it wasn't particularly close. Uh, but yeah, it's, that's kind of another vintage, like made a lot of, we can talk about some of the things we got right. Um,

It's kind of like Taylor made for you and I. It's like buy low on a guy that is still one of the 10 best talents in the field, probably. I mean, in terms of his major resume, he almost won three major. He came close to winning three majors in his first 17 starts.

um i think he would have been the first guy to ever do that three majors and 17 starts and he had a real chance to do that this week um and and it would have been three ways to the you know three ways through to the grand slam and guess what i mean he's not going to be sneaking up on anybody going forward but he's got a jack nicholas coming up course coming up that favors a fade um let's talk at valhalla homa i don't have a ton to say on homa other than i was

I was really glad to see him get those reps. It was another guy where we saw some of our friends

Pick up 85 to one Homa tickets. Great bets, by the way. And I know, I know that another year is going to go by and we're going to start reading all of the masters trend pieces next year. And Scotty is going to fit every single trend and everybody is going to talk about, you have to be the best player in the world to win the masters. You have to be in great form. You have to win multiple times that season. You have to be in great approach for him.

Max Homa was playing like ass this season. Okay. And I know that if you deep dive the numbers a little bit, they were, they were, they were better than meets the eye, but like he lost in six of his last seven starts and approach. He was not playing great golf. There's a reason why he was 85 to one. And I think it's just another case of like,

Hey, in the future, I know he didn't end up winning the tournament, but one of my bigger takeaways from this week from a DFS perspective is like, Hey, I know some of these guys aren't going to fit some of these masters trends, but when in doubt, you could still buy low on talent at majors because every single year it happens. I can go back. I know it was home and more call with this week.

Um, you can go back to every single major and you're going to find a Ludwig as well, by the way. Yeah. Ludwig as well. Well, Ludwig was lower owned, but there were reasons against why Ludwig would have went, but Ludwig was playing great golf. Yeah. Yeah. Home and Morikawa weren't playing great golf. So, you know, I, you know, Homa was, he was, I thought he hung tough in contention. He wasn't Scotty. He couldn't be Scotty again. Yeah.

Outside of Morikawa, it's so interesting. Just thinking back on it now, I did that podcast about the pressure tool. Scotty was having to fend off three of the best pressure players of the last five years in Homa, Morikawa, and Bryson. And all of them...

Again, I think I give like a B to Homa on Sunday. He didn't do remotely enough and 12 really held him. He had a gutsy birdie that people are going to forget on seven, but was glad to see him get the reps. I think he will win a major championship. I'm not ready to say it's this year, but really cool to see him shine in this moment.

Oh yeah. I thought it was great. Uh, I like Max. I think a lot of people like Max. He's a great, great personality. Seems like great quotes, like really humble. You could tell that this was really meaningful to him. Um, yeah. And, uh, it was, it was great to see. We talked about this the last time you had me on after the Ryder cup, we said there was two guys and it's actually funny.

because they both came to fruition. Not in the sense that they won, but two big takeaways from the Ryder Cup podcast. I think I asked you a question. I said, who is going to take or who should be able to take the next step? We said Max Homa and

and Tyrell Hatton, both at the majors, both at the Ryder Cup were stars. Hatton was an under-the-radar star at the Ryder Cup. And Max Homa was not an under-the-radar star at the Ryder Cup. He was just a star at the Ryder Cup. And when you can do it in those big moments, those high-pressure moments, those crowds are going crazy. If you can do it there, it should be able to translate to the majors, in my opinion. And to see Max get

get his first real, in my opinion, big finish at a major, that's going to do wonders for him. It's like seeing the ball go through the hoop to me. I think now he knows, look, I might be, you know, a little bit of a head case, but I finished third at the fucking masters. So, um, a

I apologize to mom and dad if they listen to this one. That's my only F-bomb. I won't say any others. Yeah, so Homa finish was great to see. I thought the, you know, Homa and I think we could talk about Ludwig as well. He's next. He's next. Awesome to see as well. And, you know, another guy who... Is Ludwig the second best player in the world? He's playing like... Because it's... I don't think it's Rom.

And what's crazy as well, but what's crazy is taking over Ludwig right now. Just if, you know, aliens drop down from Mars and you just had to say, who's the best at golf? Obviously one shuffle or gap. Are you putting anyone above Ludwig at number two?

I'm not going to say he's like... So this is where I was... I think he's playing like the second best player in the world. Yeah, okay, fair. I have a hard time saying he's the second best player in the world. I agree with you. I will get to Rob. I will say to defend your point, and what I think is really cool is he doesn't have any of the course history on any of these courses. He finished huge at Pebble. He finished huge at the Players. He finishes huge at the Masters. And he has no...

playing these courses. So to me, incredibly impressive. It's going to be really interesting to see him come back next year. I think when he's seen all of these courses and that he's played incredibly well, and now he's got a little more knowledge. Now he's kind of seen things. He's gone to these different weeks. He knows what works for him. He knows what doesn't work. I think next year is going to be incredible to, to see Ludwig. And, and yes, I, I, you know, I was a big Ludwig denier specifically at the, um,

majors not because i didn't think one day he could win a major but i just i didn't see enough of him i didn't um i i was i'm a stubborn person i have an experience standpoint right i always say prove it to me i always say prove it like prove me wrong ludwig has proved me wrong like he's a very fuck he's a very very good golfer and we were talking about this earlier like what he's one of the guys to me it's starting to seem like he's course proof like i'm

what course there might be, there might be courses that devalue his driver, but he's still so long. He won the RSM classic. I mean, that's a lesson driver course. Yeah. We talked about it with the putter. He can get so hot with the putter. He got hot today with the putter. He made a few bombs today. Um,

on the front nine. So it's very interesting. I mean, he's an intriguing option, especially at the majors that value you hitting the ball long and straight is valued even more. And

he's going to be a force to reckon with. I really believe that. I thought incredible stuff from him. He's a, he's a stud. Like he's just a, he's just like a six, five Swedish, you know, definitely a tall drink of water for sure. Yeah. Hitting a golf ball. He, he has superstar potential in, in my mind and finishing second in your first masters. Pretty, pretty damn good. The last guy to do that,

um, was Al Torres and he's a pretty, he's a pretty freaking good golfer as well. So, uh, I'm excited to see, I'm really on the Ludwig train more than I was more than I was before the past couple of weeks before the players, before kind of some of these elevated events, we really only saw him dominate the fall in the Euro tour. And, and, and not to say that's not impressive, but I just wanted to see it more at these big events and I've seen it and I am, I

i mean yeah yeah i would say if you're not on the bandwagon i would say get on now i don't think yeah the one other thing that takes will will age well so i would yeah i would hop on while you still can

Yeah, my bad. I was, I was only, I was, I was trying to say, I thought it was so funny. The podcast, like you had so many episodes last week, you, you started kind of talking about Ludwig early in the week before you got to the practice round. You're like, I don't know if I'll play Ludwig. I don't know. I don't know if I see it or not. You saw Ludwig and Rory played together and you were like, yeah, I'm not fading. So I thought that that was very funny. I thought that was very, yeah. So that was, um,

That was key for me, man, because I actually, I said on the Monday RPS show that I did with Wiley heading into the week, then I actually think that the pendulum had kind of swung too far on Hovland and that Hovland might be a bit of a sleeping giant this week.

So I go to Augusta on Tuesday and it was the perfect day, a day I'll remember for the rest of my life. And I watched Hovland, Zalatoris and Sahith on the front nine. And I watched Rory and Ludwig on the back nine. And I watched it in succession. I, you know, followed those groups back to back. It was two hours with them on the front nine. As soon as they finished, I caught Rory and Ludwig teeing off 10. And I walked away from that saying, okay,

So

Um, they hit the ball so freaking high. They're, you know, just distance to apex Kings out there. And we are huge distance to apex guys. Yeah. And I was watching Rory and Ludwig talk to each other and, and communicate. And Rory was giving him tips and telling him what to do. And yeah, we talk about, are you sure you want to take tips from Rory McIlroy to Gus and Ashley? He's got like, he's got like eight top tens there and 15 appearances, um,

But...

Ludwig looked fully comfortable, fully comfortable out there. He had all the shots. Rory was giving him tips on the putting green. Like he was the number one. We talk about how difficult and nuanced Augusta's green complexes are and how these are takes coming out of my mouth. Remaster. Okay. So like we are all saying this, that you, you can't figure out these greens. It takes experience. Right.

Ludwig, number one in putting this week is a debutant. Okay. And so I probably need to recalculate that myself in terms of, you know, can you figure out these greens on your first appearance? Um, because you certainly can. And Ludwig was phenomenal T to green as well. But yeah, I don't think that there is a, um,

He should be 16 to one at Valhalla. Probably. I'm not sure I would bet that, but is he work? Do you let him get below the third or fourth favorite at Valhalla? That's a tremendous golf course for him. A tremendous golf course room. We'll, we'll get to Rom. I still think Rob Rom and Brooks still deserve a lot of respect on the odds board. And I would still favor Rom and Brooks, uh,

as the second and third guys. But do I think Rory or Ludwig has a better chance to win at Valhalla? I think it's Ludwig, man. Do I think Ludwig or Xander has a better chance to win at Valhalla? I think you've got to put Ludwig there, man. He's better than those guys right now. He just is. And it's the ignorance is bliss thing that I talked about a little bit as well. The Patrick Harrington quote where it's like,

Again, we will get to Rory. I keep giving these little hints at what I have to say about Rory, but there's something about watching Ludwig play golf where he just does not have a care in the world. Watching him today, he was eating. He was on his third sandwich. It didn't seem like he realized he was in contention to win the match. Can you imagine how Rory would have looked in that moment if he was at seven and Scotty was at seven? Didn't even look like Ludwig realized he was there.

I thought one of the coolest things about Ludwig today, and I hope it, I hope it continues. I hope this is the type of, I, I haven't watched him religiously like a lot of, a lot of people have. Um, but one thing I thought was awesome was he went into the water on 11 and

And he, as he walked off the tee was smiling, like literally laughing and smiling with his caddy. And you said this about Rory. I don't think I could ever imagine a situation where Rory would double bogey a hole and he'd be walking off the hole, not,

moping like at a major. Yeah, like maybe he'd laugh in like a self-deprecating way to be like, gosh, this always happens to me. Just my luck. But no, he'd do the hang dog and Ludwig had a bounce in this step all day. Ludwig looked like he was like the happiest kid in the world just to be at Augusta, which I thought was so cool. It was the crowd.

We're cheering him on. He golf is golf is fun for him right now. The way that golf was fun for Rory in 2020. Yeah. Yeah. So he, he looks the part. He really does. He was crushing. Like he might've like had like five sandwiches this round. Brian tweeted something so funny about it. Like he,

Like before he was going to play the 18th hole, he was going to eat like an entire meal from Taco Bell or something. So it was just it was super, super cool to watch him kind of navigate this place. And I think that I think that, you know, some of these some of these debutantes are not the same as the others. No, no. Talked about that on my Wednesday show with Big T. It's not the same. It's different.

Yeah, so there's just some guys that really seem, even Tom came last year, you know, he was a debutant. He finished top 16. There's a lot of really young talent, talented guys that I think are going to break that debutant, you know, kind of, I think people are like in DFS, for example, I think a lot of people are afraid to play. Like Ludwig was playing, to your point, but even before the Masters, probably playing the second, third, fourth best golf in the world. And he was 9-1.

on and he was, he was like 11% on and any other week, everybody wants a piece of him, but because he hadn't played Augusta national, nobody wanted a piece of him. And he goes at that and finished his second in his first start there. So I just think that that was, that was so impressive. And, uh, looking forward to kind of see what his, the, the, the career trajectory looks for him because, uh, again, I was, I was, uh, let me, I was, uh, I want to see it, you know, at the majors from Ludwig and boy, did he show it to me? Um,

All right, let's do Bryson, Xander, Rory, and then breeze through the rest of these guys. On Bryson, I think Bryson deserves to be talked about first out of that trio. You know, heading into the week,

It was a big no thank you for me because of the single length irons on these undulated surfaces. And that happened to him a couple of times. Like somebody tweeted this, but the chip that he boofed on 15 into the water, somebody was like, that looked so awkward to hit a lob wedge. That's the same length of your seven iron off of a tight downhill lie. But yeah,

I remember because shouts to big T who was so high on him and had him as his winner this week. And it looked like there was a chance there for much of the week before Scheffler did his thing. But I saw a lot of him on Tuesday and I was ready to come on the show that I do with big T and throw cold water all over the Bryson take. And I, I watched him on Tuesday and I said, I still have my concerns. I don't think I'm going to play him, but I'm,

The advantage that this guy has off the tee at this golf course, hitting wedges and six and seven irons into the par fives. When some of these other guys are hitting fairway woods, uh,

it cannot be understated at this golf course. And so I'm still a little pessimistic because I haven't seen it yet at Augusta, but I believe in the Bryson ceiling and we both already bet him at Valhalla. I picked him in December to win Valhalla. I'm a little bummed that a lot more people are probably going to be on his scent now at Valhalla. But I think it's coming. I wrote a

2000 word article in December at my previous employer. I don't know if you can still have access to that article about why I thought that this was going to be the year of Bryson and knowing that take that I had, I should have just been in on him, especially at low ownership at all the majors. But I was so spooked about the single length irons at Augusta.

I would not be, I mean, he's my pick as of now still to win Valhalla. And I think we're going to see a huge 2024 for Bryson. And part of the reason I wrote that in the article was he has found a way to optimize his health without losing his distance. He looks, I saw him on the putting green, like he's repped. Um, he looks healthy, uh,

he looked good walking that golf course and he is still the longest player in the field. Essentially it's in the practice rounds, Bryson Ludwig and Rory were 20 yards past everybody. So big, big, big ups to, to Bryson this week was very, very impressed by his performance. Yeah. It's funny. Cause both of us were like,

I think going into this year, if you ask both of us, like our thoughts to Bryson, we would have said that he's going to have a huge year. I've actually been betting on live like every week, which is kind of funny. And then, and then like last week for whatever reason, it was just never a thought in my mind. And some of that was of course history related. And, and again, some of, some of me I'm stubborn sometimes. And I want to see a guy do it, you know, before I'm, before I'm in. And he, he was, he was great. I mean, he gained, he,

He gained almost 0.4 more strokes tee to green per round than every guy in the field. Yeah, he was number one and off the tee this week. And that's always going to be the formula with Bryson. And the two things that I had concerned about, the shots that are going to be played on the ground at Augusta, his short game in irons, which have never been good at Kapalula, never been good at Augusta. He was 22nd and 44th.

So, you know, the formula for Bryson at Augusta is tread water around the greens and on approach and around the greens is still what sunk him. And something has to go horribly wrong on this golf course. If you are not one of the leaders in the field and strokes gained off the tee every time you play the masters.

Yeah, I'm looking right now round by round because it was funny. I think after like round two, I said to you, he's leading a field and driving and putting. He lost 1.3 putting Saturday and one on Sunday. So he was net. He was net 0.41 per round, but that was losing.

2.3 the last two days. So he putted incredibly well the first two days. He didn't putt well the last two days, but he hit the ball well the whole tournament. And yeah, I think one thing, the one other thing I'd say with him is that you touched on, I think this is the biggest part of it, is he looks, I think a lot of people said that what he was doing was unsustainable when he won at Wingfoot. Not that that wasn't ridiculously impressive, but he didn't look

healthy. He looked more like he was playing linebacker in the NFL than he was a golfer. And it just looked odd. You didn't see anybody close to his size or doing what he was doing.

And I think that pulling back what he was doing and, and, and slimming down is going to end up being one of the best decisions he makes in his entire career, uh, and going to lead for him to be winning another major. I really do see him, you know, winning another major. If he can continue playing, uh, the, the, the way he's, the way he's playing multiple majors, I think he's going to finish with more than two per. I think he might win one this year. Um, big, big Bryson guy, uh, uh,

Xander, I don't want to spend it. I don't have much to say on Xander other than I don't think you could have scripted a more Xander week. Right. And I have been the one that has pushed back the most in terms of like this guy is actually really good under pressure, surprisingly a lot more than you would think, at least compared to some of the other elite players. But I tweeted this out. There was a moment where Xander and Cantlay were T9 together. And I said right on schedule. I mean, there were a number of things you could have tweeted with that.

They always find each other. You can set your clocks to this, but...

There was maybe, I mean, Xander had a 2% win probability at one point. It really didn't go above five all tournament. And, um, it was another, I would say fairly uncompetitive top 10 for Xander at a major championship. And I do think based on how good he is, it is fair to start being like, fuck this man. Like what, what?

What are we doing here? Because he's so good. Because in my opinion, he has the second highest floor in golf, uh, besides Scotty, right? I mean, who, who this week was more likely to finish top 10 outside of Scotty than Xander Shoffley. You could set, like I said, you could set your clocks to at worst a T nine, right? So, uh,

You know, I thought it was a little odd that everybody just decided this week that this was going to be the one that, that Xander won. I thought you had an amazing number at 20 to one, but Xander did what Xander does at 22 to one. Yeah. Xander did what, what Xander does. And he beat like 96% of the field played amazing golf over four days and still felt like he was, uh,

playing a little bit of a different game than scottie scheffler out there he did play well on friday afternoon give him credit for that like he played he played it was really round one that sunk him like round one he got off to such a slow start um but he played well on friday after he looked way more the part of a guy than rory on friday afternoon playing with scheffler yeah i mean the thing like

I have not always been a Xander guy. I thought that the article and the quotes that he gave to Powers, shout out Powers because I love Powers, and the article he did on Xander was incredible. That made me a fan of Xander. He got... He had a... He... That...

That to, to, to do the interview he did after what happened at the players and to, to answer the way he did and to, to, you know, treat, treat kind of the guy with the respect he did. I think it just shows how good of a person Xander is. Like he, he's genuinely like a, a, a very good, good person, which I, which I like. Never met him, but know the caddy a little bit. I,

I, yes, this is what I've heard. I can, I can confirm from, I've heard, I've heard that from, from multiple different people that he is a really one of the good guys. Yeah. And, um, his, again, like he top 10, this tournament, and this isn't the first time this has happened. He top 10, this tournament, and it never felt like he had a chance to win. Like it,

It, yes, he had that for, I was Xander ticket holder. He had 4% chance. I think at one point, maybe when he was two under and Sheffield was struggling on Saturday before Xander gets within four. And then he makes the most classic Xander bogey on five and then he bogey sex. And it's like, okay, we're good here, man. We're good here. It's a four footer on seven. We're good here.

Yeah, but so like I don't care about the – it's not a closing thing for me. For Xander, it's just like he should be winning more. Like he's that good. He puts himself on his leaderboard so many times.

um, he just shouldn't be winning at a higher clip and he's not. And that's not, you know, I'm not trying to say he's a choker. He's a this, or he's a that to your point. It's a tech. We're how critical are people of you want people to, you should want that pressure. I always say pressure is a privilege, right? Like you should want,

that criticalness, like people are so critical of Rory, right. And, and rightfully for a lot of right reasons, if Xander had one major, you know, 10 years ago and he hadn't been like, he would have the same rap as like, he would get that, that, that same kind of additional pressure. But we seem to just like classify him in this way as, you know, a guy with an extremely high,

as your point, I totally agree with what you said about him. I think if you asked me, who's the second most likely guy to finish top 10 this week, I would have told you Xander Shoffley, like, and not twice about it, but you just want to see him kind of get in the mix of these big events more and, and start to close them out more. Um,

So again, that's a, that's a compliment, right? I mean, he has been to your point, he's been a top 10 machine this year. He's been one of the most consistent golfers on the PGA tour this year. He played so well at the players, which was a, which was a big event and just missed a few kind of key shots coming down the stretch. I think that's why a lot of people were on him. I think a lot of people thought that it was kind of, he was going to get some revenge at, at Augusta, but yeah,

But yeah, it's just, it's frustrating, right? I mean, the guy really didn't have a chance to win in, in my opinion, throughout the tournament, but played so incredibly well again. Right. And just shoot like minus one, like it was really nothing to, to, so that's, that's where I'm on. Really Xander stat line to just kind of did everything well, but his irons really, I mean, he was, I think he was outside of Sheffler, the only guy,

There were a couple of guys, but not many. Scheffler, Fleetwood, Homa, only guy to top 30 and everything. Yeah, he gained in all four key categories. Of course he did. Of course he did. Okay, let's do the Rory thing. I'm not going to spend a crazy amount of time on this, but I think I got to let him go at this point, Kyle. And I will tell you why. You know, I...

came into this major and I was very transparent about the fact that I am betting Xander to our Rory to win, because this has been my, my dad and I's guy. And this is the first time we're going to the masters together. And it's really special for us. And we're root. We want to root on the guy that, that we've always rooted on. And we've shared these heartbreaks before watching him come so close at St. Andrews and, and LACC. And, um,

This just felt this was our guy. This was our guy, and I don't think I'm ever going to be able to go to the Masters again with my dad. Hopefully, it's a place I return to many times in my life for work, but my dad's getting up there, and this was kind of our week, so I was going all in on Rory and that emotional bigger-than-golf aspect of it.

Probably allowed me to believe and dream and hope way more than I should have. But at the same time, Kyle, I wouldn't... I did caveat that like, hey, there's an emotional aspect, a subjective aspect to this for me, but...

Like I also thought he could win with every bone in my body. I wouldn't put out picks if I didn't think he could win. Like I love Stu Haga stand. Stu Haga stands my guy. Like I have many mutual friends with Stu Haga standard. I've met Stu Haga stand. I'm a big Stu Haga stand guy. I'm not giving him out as your winner of the masters just because I love Stu Haga stand. Like I, I really did believe that it was in the range of outcomes that Rory could win this tournament. And what I watched was,

Again, like I will, I will hand up this one because I got a lot of things from the practice rounds, right. That, that helped me. We'll get to Brooks, but I don't take back anything I said about Rory being the best guy on the course in the practice rounds. I don't, um, like I said, the only guy that was hanging with him from T to green from what I saw was Ludwig. Um, I didn't watch Sheffler play golf, uh, in the practice rounds, but, uh,

I just think it's got to be one of those things with me. I love the guy so much. He's my favorite athlete, but I don't really think I could put myself through this anymore. Certainly not at the Masters. And I'm rooting for him. I want it more than I've wanted anything athletic in my entire life, but I think I just have to miss it. And I think I'm going to have a lot more success

peace of mind. Uh, if I look past him on the odds board at the next couple of majors and, and if he wins, I will be rooting for him. I won't be financially invested in it though. And, and I won't talk myself into, into it happening because I,

There was something that happened, Kyle. And again, I w I will stand by everything that I saw in those practice rounds. Um, and maybe it's just at Augusta, who knows? Maybe, maybe he channels it at, at Valhalla, but, um, there's something that, that happens to this guy that felt a little out of body to me. Um, I was trying to think about what it, it's kind of like fire fast to me. You remember fire fast, Kyle? Yeah. Yeah.

I remember when Firefest, actually a lot of friends from Duke that went to Firefest. And I remember talking with my friends about going to Firefest because it looks so awesome on paper. It's like this giant music festival in the Bahamas. And that was at a time in my life that music festivals sounded really fun and awesome. And we liked going to music festivals. I'm past that time in my life now.

But you just kind of get there and it's like you open up the food box and it's like, oh, this is what the sandwiches look like. And I remember feeling that with Rory where it feels so awesome. And in your head, you're like, this should be the greatest thing ever. And then you get there and something just smells bad. The tents are blowing down. You can't find the people that are in charge.

Seems like all the acts are canceling at the last minute. And that's what it felt like when Rory got on the golf course, where it just, the second you get there, everything starts feeling a little bit off. And I know there are a lot of people that

Just are there already with Rory and have always been there. Like, Hey, I don't care. What does stat say? I don't care how he looks. There is a metaphysical thing that happens to him at Augusta national, which is,

I would contend with a little bit because he does play so good here overall. And he's still like, Rory kicked Brooks's ass this week with a C game. Rory kicked Rom's ass this week with a C game. Rory kicked Hovland's ass this week with a C game. He kicked Wyndham Clark's ass this week with a C game. But when it comes to winning a golf tournament, when it comes to winning a major, watching Rory play next to Scotty was a pretty damn jarring experience for me. And it's going to be,

a long time. I think in my opinion, before I, uh, I bet Scotty to beat, I bet Rory to beat Scotty Scheffler in a, in a big golf tournament. So those are my Rory takes.

Yeah. I mean, I, I have, I have a few Rory opinions. Um, you know, I, I like Rory. I'm, I, I would, you know, he's won me a lot of money in, in, in some, uh, DFS contests specifically when everybody thinks he's, you know, sucks and isn't going to win. Uh, uh, the, the narrative's never going to change on Rory until he wins another one. Um,

It's he's going to have, you know, people are going to be more critical of Rory than they are of a lot of other golfers in the world. He might be the guy right now that people are the most critical of, honestly, because of, because of how much success he had in his early career. And because of how he he's, he's mixed so many times since then. And because if you watch golf, Kyle, like I watch so much, I've been to like four of the last eight majors. I watch a lot of

golf up close. It is so different with him, man. He is so freaking good. And if you don't, if you don't believe me, then I would encourage you to get out to a golf tournament and watch him play. Maybe when the pressure is off.

Yeah. I mean, Rory is, Rory was one of the best golfers in major championships last year as a whole. Him and Shaf are the only two guys with eight majors, eight major top tens in the last two and a half years. Eight, right? This guy's top 10, eight majors in the last, you know, whatever, how many years he's got.

He's got so many seconds in there. I'm looking at his wiki page. And by the way, I think he will continue to do that throughout the year. Yeah. Like I think he will continue to be a, you know, he wasn't a great DFS play this week. He didn't end up being, it's a lot better than again, some of the guys around him, but I think he's going to continue. Cause just like Xander, like in these major championships, he is still so good that with the C game, he could finish top 10, top 20, whatever. I'm just talking about like,

Am I going to saddle up to bet him at 13, 12 to one to win these things after what I just saw?

For me, it's hard to bet him at any of those numbers because he's been so – he's just a tough guy to bet, generally speaking, because I don't like betting the top of the board unless it's at tournaments like the Masters or the Genesis or really tee the green kind of separating tournaments where I think that guys at the higher part of the board really do have a lot better chance to win and the guys at the bottom don't have any chance to win. But –

I just I think what he did this week was great personally in terms of it. I'm not talking about the play in terms of his his the lead up to the Masters. And if I were Rory, people keep saying you need to change this. You need to change this. You need to change it. What I found with Rory to me anyway, from observing, he seems to change something every year at Augusta. He played 20. He played 20 practice rounds last year or something like that.

when, when he came in and he basically did cold Turkey this year, he went in the week before he did, did a little bit of ops, you know, kind of played, played the course one or two rounds. And then that was it. He was the last guy on grounds. He showed up to his interview, like, like 15 minutes late, you know, answered a few questions, got out of there. And,

that I think is what you need to do that exact same thing next year. Don't overcomplicate it. Just do that again. Right. Take the pressure off of yourself. The other thing to me, and it's just crazy to me. It's he, he, I,

I get hair. I get the hairy thing. We're going to do that. You got to let Harry go. Like you, like we're talking about letting Rory stubborn. It's his best friend. It's Rory has to let Harry go. I truly believe. I truly believe that. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I don't think we can count on it. The other thing with Rory to me that I wish she would change is the guys right now. A lot of guys like,

Scotty, when he hits a shot, good or bad, you don't know. Like you could, if you missed the shot and then they flashed to Scotty, you'd be like, well, like, did he hit a good shot or did he hit a good, bad shot? Like, I have no idea. Cause that's like, he's got a great poker face with Rory. When he hits the bad shot, it's like a meat. Like you can just see it in his face. And it's like, dude, you're getting in your own head golf.

You should know this is a sport where you need to forget about the last shot as soon as possible. Right. You need to move on. You're, you're good enough to be able to make mistakes and still win golf tournaments. Yeah. And, and I think don't let it spiral to keep it. You made this point and I think it's spot on. He needs somebody to keep him focused, like to keep him, his eye on the.

prize i don't know if harry is the best guy for that because of the fact that he's the best friend i don't know if he's willing to step in and say hey rory why don't you fucking why sorry why don't you pay attention um you know and uh you know keep your eye on the eye on the prize type of thing so this is some of the yeah some of the most like rory gets it i i think it gets another major personally i don't know if it's going to come out of ghost i really don't um i

But I'm rooting for it. I'm rooting for it. I think that would be for the golf game. Incredible for the world of golf. Incredible. And he's a guy that has the talent to do it. He's been there so many times. The people that say like he sucks at Augusta, he's got an eighth, fourth, 10th, seventh, fifth, fifth, second there. So he's got the game to win there. I do think, I do think he's a little harder on himself mentally at Augusta than he is at other places.

And I think that that's just kind of something he needs to change. He needs to treat the Masters like it's any other tournament. I truly believe that. And I don't think that's what he's doing. I think he's changing his entire game plan around the fact that it's this tournament he's never won, nothing he's ever done worked for him. So he needs to continue to change it every single year. I don't think that's the answer. Yeah, I just don't know, man. Because like I said, I watched him play 18, like...

I watched his practice round with Ludwig on Tuesday afternoon. And then when everybody was at the par three contest on Wednesday, Rory played nine holes in the afternoon and I walked with him then. And he looked amazing. Um, like mood, body language, swing, everything looked great. The quotes leading into Augusta about discipline were amazing. He played some of the most undisciplined golf I've ever seen in my life. The second the tournament started, like even for Rory, uh,

The four putt on 13 today was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen a professional golfer do. Do you know that he reached every par five and two today and he played those holes and even par some, I mean, truly speaking to the hairy point,

The four put on 13, he had a bad first putt and then he misjudged the second putt. He had his third so quickly. And it's like, where is the guy just telling you to take a breath? I know it didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. Cause once Rory doesn't think he can win a golf tournament, I think he cares about whether he finishes T 13 or T 22, but Jesus Christ, like if you want to go back and look at some of the mistakes that Rory made, um,

It's so antithetical to like everything he was saying and doing. And that's why I think, I don't know what comes over him on it again. Like it's some sort of metaphysical thing that happens to him on Thursday morning when he's actually under the gun. But I thought his prep was like as good as it possibly could have been this week, but we got to move on. We got to zoom through these next guys. Okay. Yeah. One last thing on Rory, his par five scoring, just generally speaking this year, I don't understand. Yeah.

Yeah, he should be number one in that. He should be number one. That's the thing that's so frustrating is he's such a good driver of the ball and he can't he's not he's not taking care of the holes. He needs to take care of. But let's let's let's move the next guy. We're going to just do like three or four guys rapid fire. John Rom was my biggest surprise this week. I was really high on John Rom going into the week. I played him in DFS.

I thought he had a decent chance to win this golf tournament, like a really good chance to win this golf tournament. I should say I, one of my worst takes of the week, I suppose, was that the gap between Sheffler and ROM isn't as big as people think it is. I know it's a four round sample size of them being together. So I'm, I'm certainly not sticking a fork in that conversation. ROM could, who knows what ROM is going to do the rest of the year. I love him at Valhalla as, as a course fit, but,

But I was really disappointed from what I saw from John Rahm this week and surprised. I think there were some people that didn't expect too much out of Rahm from a defending champion. As a defending champion, I certainly did. So any quick thoughts on Rahm? Yeah, I mean, I thought very similarly to you. I thought, in the words of Andy Lack, the pendulum had swung too far. He putted terribly this week, but he did not hit the ball that great either.

Yeah. So, uh, it was very interesting. One thing that I meant to mention this before, but I'll bring it up now that we're talking to him. I don't think there's ever been a guy who's looked more miserable handing the, putting the green jacket on somebody than Rom looked in Butler cabin, putting the green jacket on Scotty. He looked miserable. Um, so I was surprised. I thought Rom was the type of guy that, um,

kind of like screw these trends, like ROM can break ROMs that good. I still believe that, honestly. I'm not like...

Rom to me, you said is Ludwig the second best golfer in the world. I think Ludwig's playing like the second best golfer in the world. I'm not ready to say Jon Rom isn't the second best golfer in the world because of a bad performance at the Masters. And I know you're not saying that either, but it was disappointing to me. I mean, I really thought, I thought with all of the shots people were taking at him, not that this is measurable.

But I thought he was going to have this massive chip on his shoulder. Maybe he's still dead. Maybe he did. He didn't seem to have a swagger, though. He didn't seem to have the

have the ROM swagger for, for whatever reason, um, this week. And, uh, yeah, it was, it was, that was, that was a miss for me as well. I really did think it was a great DFS play. It was the same thing that happened last year. Like everybody was just, just decided that ROM wasn't going to win because he had a few, you know, down weeks and then he did. So, uh,

Yeah. I, I, I fully stand by the play. I fully stand by John Rahm still in my mind being the second best golfer in the world. And I think he he'll be, he'll be back. He'll have a big finish in a major this year. I don't, I don't see a world where he doesn't, you know, finish big in these majors. I'm scared of him at the open as well. I think that's another place he can be really well at. So yeah,

Yeah. Very disappointing. I would have liked to see him in the mix too. I think it would have been because he's a guy that can go toe to toe with Scotty, I think. And I think, I think Scotty has, has answered that question in terms of Scott. He's number one and Ram's number two, but I think Ram when he's on his game can, can, can, can give him all the smoke in the world. Like I do think Ram is, is that guy. So I agree. I also think it's fair to say that,

I think both you and I, particularly lately, I've softened on Liv so much. I think I've been so fair on Liv and actually defended Liv in a lot of both on-mic and off-mic arguments recently, particularly in terms of how good these guys are and how we may be undervaluing what's actually happening on there from a competitive standpoint.

Also think it's just like very objectively fair to say, I hate the people that are like, there's no way that he regrets his decision because he got all that money. I actually think it really is fair to say, based on what we've seen from Ron, they're like, there's a pretty big part of him that may not have been pleased with the decision that he made. And I think live has been great for some people. I think it was a great decision for somebody like Bryson, uh,

I think with Rom, based on the body language, based on all the quotes, I think it's, I get he, I get the, you know, he's wiping his ass with dollar bills. I get it. Guess what? He's wiping his ass with dollar bills before a web.

$78 million. He had PGA Tour earnings only before he left. Based on everything we've seen, with the body language, his quotes, how frustrated he seemed that maybe he didn't get the prep that he wanted, or just watching that quote about being surprised about how good other players are.

I think it's fair to say. And then he gets boat raced by Scotty Scheffler, the guy that he's not supposed to be that much worse than. It was crazy. And I think you're spot on. The quotes all week were very...

It's weird. Just weird. It doesn't seem happy at all right now. Not stuff you'd ever think Romo would say either. And then another thing that I think is funny too is, so after the tournament at Live last week, he came out. This is before the match, before he even went over there, before any of this happened. He came out and said he wants it to be a 72-hole league again. Like he's pushing for it.

We have to beat this 72-hole league again. The vibes are off with everything. You knew what you signed up for. You knew this was a 54-hole golf event. You knew it was kind of where you're traveling to more exotic places and you're playing different courses. I'm not going to say, look, the guys on Live are still really good. To me, it still feels a little more like an exhibition than it does on the PGA Tour. I'm not taking any talent aspect of it. I understand that these guys on Live, Bryce, are

Rom, Brooks, DJ. DJ, maybe not anymore. Jesus Christ. That might be another conversation. Reed finishes 11th. These guys have games. Cam Smith, Hatton. I thought that was very impressive. He got himself... He needed to top 12 to get an invite back next year, and he did.

I mean, he also spit on the course. So like, I don't know how excited he is to actually get back there, but yeah, like there's a ton of talent on the live as a whole, but yeah, it was really weird to hear

what Rob, like Ram said, and it's specifically the question. I'm sure you heard it when they were like, they were like, Hey, Ron, did you expect like you going to live to expedite kind of the, the merger between the PGA and, and, and live? And he was like, yeah, he was basically like, yeah, that's like, yeah, I expect that to kind of expedite it. And I guess it's not like, yeah. Last three guys quickly. These are,

Um, two of them are live guys, Brooks. Now, again, I Rory huge counterintelligence scam in terms of what I saw in the practice rounds. I watched Brooks Koepka play on Wednesday morning. Um,

And I kid you not, I'm not being hyperbolic. This is not an exaggeration. I do not. He did not break 40 on the back nine at Augusta national. And I walked off from that practice round and I told you, I told all my group chats, I told all the RPS subscribers, I said, listen,

I have got the utmost respect for Brooks. He's one of the greatest players of all time. But if he wins this Masters, then nothing truly matters because he looked so bad on Wednesday. I mean, he literally, it was out of a scene from Tinkup. He kept hitting the ball into the water on 15. He could not execute the golf shots on the back nine at Augusta National in that practice round. And that was...

I don't know if I was going to bet Brooks, but that was one of the, you know, he just, he didn't have it. He did not have it this week. It has nothing to, I don't think it has anything to do with live. It has, I don't think it has anything to do with his, uh, potential to win other majors in the future. But, uh,

Brooks just didn't have his, his a game this week. And, and that was clear as day. If you are following him on Wednesday. So I was glad to help get a lot of people in the, the RPS community off, off Brooks, at least. But, um, I put no stock into it going forward. He just didn't have his, he didn't have a stuff this week. And, um,

We will assess him at majors the same way that we always assess him going forward. But from what I saw on Wednesday, there was no, I bet him to miss a cup. Like it was, it was really bad. Yeah. So, so just, just an off week for Brooks and I'm sure he'll figure it out in time for the next major.

Yeah, it was, it was, uh, I bet he played better than I thought, to be honest with you. Like, I'm not kidding. When I watched him, I was like, there's no way Brooks, he's playing a different sport right now than Rory and Ludwig. And it kind of speaks to him that he finished whatever T 45 or something. Yeah, he, um,

I'm glad you said what you said. Cause it actually got me to lower my exposure a little bit. I, the problem was I had a future on him and it was like a good enough number where I didn't want to cash it out. Brooks could shoot 85 in a practice round and you've, you have 20 to one on him in a major. I can't tell you it's a bad bet. Yeah. So that was, that was where I was at, but you did get me to lower the exposure and you were right. I got to give you a shout. Like you were right about so much with the practice round and another guy that you said that you thought was ready to win a major. He didn't win a major. He was out.

Al Torres last guy in my life to talk about yeah um so you know I I really think that going to the practice round was was a big value add for you I mean the Hovland thing was so funny um

you were, I was ready for Hovland to be my leverage play. And I switched off. So the funniest part about it was after we like discussed and you were like, no, like he's literally dead. Like he's actually broken. He comes out. He's four under after the first nine, like on at Augusta on, on, on Thursday. And we're, we're like, wait, what? Like, like, where did this come from? And then just, I think he went like 16 over on his last, uh,

27 holes or something like that to miss the cut by a ton and just looked very off in all of it. And then withdraws from RBC. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's what we, that's what I saw in the practice round. It's like, he's not playing golf course right now. He's, he's playing golf swing. No, I mean, we're going to be at heritage again. I genuinely believe this. If you told me that, uh,

You could not have data. Like you could never have data ever again to look at, but you could go to every single tournament one Monday through Wednesday and hang out there every single week. Watch it. I've been inside the ropes of them. I was outside the ropes at the master's.

But so it even all you need to know is like have gone to a bunch of these things, gone to a bunch of practice rounds, watched a lot of golf and really actually take time to look at what guys are are practicing. Look at how they're talking to their coaches. Look at how frustrated they look after certain swings. Try and watch them play practice rounds.

I actually think if you could do that every week, I actually think that that would be more advantageous to your success than having data. Like I would, I genuinely, genuinely believe that. So hopefully that helps us again at, at heritage.

Yeah, I'm super excited for Heritage. We're going on Wednesday to the Wednesday practice round, which is going to be great. Harbortown is super fun. It's one of my favorite events. It's elevated again this year, which is somewhat controversial, but I love the fact that it's elevated because I go to it every year. So the back-to-back elevated, you know, the Masters and then elevated events are really interesting schedule and tough to get up for, which I actually think makes it

Not that all of these guys don't want to win, but I think like next week's always interesting from that perspective. It's like who who like wants to win this this this this after major tournament. So that's going to be fun to I'm going to definitely be listening to a lot of what you're saying, because I, you know, I think you were spot on on a lot of things last week. So to be standing by you while you kind of look at these guys will be will be will be fun on.

uh, fun time on Wednesday. I wanted to talk heritage on this pod. We're not going to have time, but maybe we'll record something short tomorrow night or something like that. The last guy that I wanted, well, Zalator is quickly just to put a bow on that. I bet Zalator is 45 to one after I watched him on Tuesday. I just, I thought it was a great number. Yeah. Even if I had it, even if I hadn't watched what I watched on Tuesday, but yeah,

The guy, he's just a major guy. And he looked so relaxed and composed in his practice round on Tuesday. He was giving Sahith advice on how to play the golf course. And he said this, we're not breaking any news. He talks about how, you know, from a statistical standpoint, these are the best golf courses for his game from a mental standpoint. These are his favorite weeks of the year.

I think Zalatouris is going to win multiple majors in his career. And I think that he is... I'm considering Zalatouris at Valhalla. I don't think it's necessarily just an Augusta thing with him. Obviously, he almost won at Southern Hills and he almost won at Brookline too. But Zalatouris is live as fuck at Pinehurst, dude. I think he's live there.

I, there are guys I like more than him at Valhalla, like Bryson and Ludwig, but Zala Taurus. I, after what I saw both when the tournament started and in the practice rounds, I believe in this guy at major championships.

Yeah. And I think I, I, I always try to like see, like in my head, I think you do this too, is like, what, like what major could I see this guy winning? I see him as a master champion and a U S open champion. I know where they are. The U S open champion happens.

but I love him on the U S open style tracks. And the PGA championship seems to me to have been kind of over the years. And I think this is a take you've said, be morphing more towards what the U S open is in terms of the coldness, which probably means that he could, he could mix there as well. So he's a guy like more Kawa that,

I say his game is built for majors, right? T to green machine. And with those guys, it's just going to come down to the putter. I've been very impressed with Alatorre since he's come back from the back injury too. He's got a lot of big finishes. Absolutely.

At big boy golf courses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Riviera Bay Hill. And now, you know, Augusta. So he's got great finishes this year. I think he's just going to continue to be a guy that mixes at these, at these big events on these big boy golf courses. And yeah, excited, excited to continue to watch him play at the other majors this year. Last guy. Well, last guy and a half. Cause there's one thing I want to say about Hovland. I just want to give a shout out to Cam Smith, who I said, I,

I spent all last weekend at Atlanta diving into web stats and I was like, Cam Smith is playing so bad right now. If Cam Smith gains a bajillion stroke short game and putting, uh,

I suppose he can beat me. But that is the only universe where that happens based on the way that Cam Smith is hitting the ball. Cam Smith this week was a negative ball striker and first in the field in short game and putting, and he finished seventh at the fricking masters. He's, he's insane, dude. Like just kind of a tip your cap situation.

It's in play. It is always in play. And like, no matter how shitty he's playing on live, no matter how bad the numbers are, it is always in play that this dude is just going to be a fucking dog and get the ball in the hole.

Yeah, I remember the one thing I'll say about this, because this was my, I think you and I have both had a humbling Cam Smith experience. Mine, I try to keep to myself because it was the closest I've ever been to winning the Millionaire Maker was

I never in a million years saw Cam Smith winning at TPC Sawgrass. I thought it was the worst course fit in the world. He lost five strokes off the tee that week. And he gained like 11 points.

putting and around the green and just like took my soul from my body. Like, like, like took my soul from my body. And I've been like, he, that's what scared. I will say this. I think a lot of what you say makes sense in terms of why to fade him because he is

The way he gets there is it's not always the easy, like it's way harder to get there the way he gets there, but he is just, he's so, I'll use another Andy Lack word artisanal around the green and he's

Farm to table with his putter. It's it's he, he, he seems to find a way a lot more times than he, than he does at these, at these big events. So it's, it'll be interesting to see him play the next major because he had such good course history at Augusta too. Um,

I think he's the type of guy you could maybe be going forward. Like, honestly, like just like, maybe I don't fade cam Smith at Augusta. Like, yeah, I just am at Augusta because I think that's his third top 10 at Augusta. So I'm excited to see how he plays at the other majors because I don't, I don't think he's played. I don't think he's played the other courses before. So I'm excited to see him play there. Hovland. The last thing I wanted to say is,

I would say buy the stock at its low point. I still think Hovland's going to come back. I know it's ugly, good opportunity to have bought Morikawa stock at its low point. But I did a podcast in December talking about how Valhalla is the perfect course fit for Victor Hovland. I know a lot of people bet futures and have futures on Victor at the PGA Championship. I wouldn't give up on him

Figuring it out in time to really seriously do something at a major this year. So I know it looks bad right now with Hovland, but I would say don't sell all of your Hovland stock.

Yeah. And he's another guy. I'm just going to continue to repeat the same thing. I truly believe he's a guy that would, he'll rise to the top at the heart, the heart of the course is get, and he'll be a guy that mixes at these, at these major championships, because typically the majors are, you need to be elite off the tee and with your irons. And I don't see him. I don't, I don't see this being the rest of his career. You know, he was the best golfer in the world at the end of last year. And,

And now, you know, nobody wants anything to do with him from a betting and a DFS standpoint. So I totally agree. He's a guy that long term I'm still very bullish on. I think he has the talent to literally be like the third best golfer, second best golfer in the world. So, yeah, I'm totally with you on Hoplin. I would continue to buy that stock.

Okay. But maybe, maybe, maybe we wait until we see a little, uh, signs of life from him before, before buying said sock. Um, at least, at least in certain, at least in certain places, but I'm a believer long-term. Okay. These are, these are yes, no questions. So just yes, no. Does Spieth win another major? No. I'm going to say no to does DJ ever contend in another major. And when I say contend DJ is there on the back nine.

On Sunday. I'm going to say yes. I'm going to say yes to, but I horrible, horrible, very, very much understand the no. I'm going to say DJ does not win another major in his career, but I'm going to say there's going to be one more time where it's Sunday afternoon. And it's like, oh, fuck DJ might win this thing. And I think he doesn't win it. But I think there's one more time where DJ is right there in the mix on Sunday.

DJ is the type of guy too, where similar to Brooks, he could, I truly believe he's got the talent to show up any week and beat a field if he chooses to do so. And I know it's not just choosing to do so, but he is one of the best golfers of our lifetime. I truly believe that if you look at his stats. He is. Oh.

two majors uh so i i'm not ready to say that he's done done um but it was a very alarming performance i will i will say that um okay okay kyle this is a blast my friend um let's go crush some of that banana cake that you're really the best thing i've ever eaten but uh

Uh, thank you again, as always for joining me. Thank you for hosting me this week. I can't wait to play some more golf with you. Watch some more golf with you, uh, this week and get ready for the heritage. We are this ran crazy long, but you know, we're, so we're not going to talk heritage really at all this pod, but, um, maybe we'll put something out on quick on, uh, on Monday night on heritage or, or anything that we see maybe Tuesday, Wednesday at the practice rounds. But, uh, thanks for joining me as always, buddy. Anytime, sir. Looking forward to the next one.

All right. That is it for the podcast. Special thanks to Kyle Hewitt. Special thanks to Rumpier Sports. Special thanks to BetSportsGolf and TheRabbitHole. If this podcast helped you at all, a quick reminder to share it around on Twitter. We have a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It truly means more than you know. Until next time, we will be back on this podcast next week.

doing something fun because I'm pretty sure that it is Zurich Classic week. We will not be breaking down the Zurich Classic on this podcast. I can certainly tell you that. But until then, best of luck with your bets this week and we will see you next time. Cheers.

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