WGC-FedEx St. Jude Preview and Xander Wins Gold with Nagles
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Okay, I'm recording this at 2 p.m. Eastern. I was up till 4 a.m. last night watching the Olympics. The second half of this podcast is a full reaction to Xander's win from me and my friend Nagels. So I would encourage you to stick around for that. We have many thoughts on what happened last night, but for the first half,

I want to start with the FedEx St. Jude's. So let's dive right into that. And then please stick around for the second half of this episode for my Olympics discussion. All right, let's go.

WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational. This is a great tournament. I really like this tournament. The PGA Tour has hosted an event in Memphis since 1958. There's been a ton of different title sponsors here, but it became a WGC in 2019. That's important. So from 2018 and earlier,

If you won the St. Jude Classic, it's still a good tournament that attracted good players, but it wasn't a WGC. So when DJ won both times and Berger won twice, all those guys from 2018 and earlier, they won this before it became a WGC. And then in 2019, when Brooks won, that's when it become a WGC. So do keep that in mind when I go through the former winners, but-

I'm just basically saying that the fields weren't as strong here until the last two years, if that makes sense. But I digress. Okay, Justin Thomas.

One last year at 13 under par. Brooks Koepka won in 2019 at 16 under. Dustin Johnson in 2018 won 19 under. 2017, Daniel Berger won at 10 under par. 2016, Daniel Berger won as well at 13 under par. Then you have Fabian Gomez, Ben Crane, Harris English, DJ for the first time, and Harrison Frazier all between 9 under and 13 under par.

So as you can see, I know that there's a TPC at the beginning of TPC Southwind, but this is a real course here. Once you're getting into that nine to 13 under range as a winner, that's a real course. So let's talk about the course, TPC Southwind.

It has been the host course since 1989. It was designed by Ron Pritchard in 1987. And the tour came in in 2004. And they did TPC this place up a little bit. But I don't think that this is a really gimmicky TPC course, in my opinion. I think it's harder. And it's a lot closer to a TPC sawgrass than a TPC deer run.

I know it's short on the scorecard. It's only 7,200 yards. It's a par 70. Eight holes have water hazards. Bermuda grass greens, zoysia fairways, 5,420 square foot greens. They're very small on the smaller side, but it's a real course and it's going to be uncomfortably hot.

This time of year in Memphis. So you're going to have to deal with that. What we saw with Cameron champ coming down the stretch at the three, I'm open where it looked like he was going to pass out from a heat stroke and

That's in play this week. That's definitely play. So stay hydrated. And there's some wind too. I think that it kind of depends. You see like the winning scores kind of range from like nine to 16 under it's going to be closer to nine if there's wind and it's going to be closer to 16 if there's not wind, but it can get a little bit windy and there's not a ton of trees. So, you know, it,

Course is exposed to the wind, I guess is what I mean. There's rough too. It's relevant. There's two and a half feet of Bermuda rough and you want to be attacking from the fairways here, especially because the,

The greens are pretty small and difficult to hit for that matter. Like greens and regulation percentage here is only 59% compared to the tour average of 65%. So that's a pretty sizable difference. And while I don't think it's as important to hit the fairways here as it is to hit the greens, it's like there's only 56% driving accuracy here too compared to the tour average of 62%.

That's a pretty sizable difference. And I haven't found a huge correlation between strokes getting off the tee and playing well here. It helps. It's definitely a factor. But there are some quotes that kind of led me down that path about kind of fairway finders and stuff like that. I'll get into that in a bit. But

You can play from the rough here. I don't want to make like you can play for the rough here. It's really the water that you need to stay away from. It's not like the average winner's rank for driving accuracy across the past 10 years is 30th. So I'm not saying it's at like the top of my list in terms of importance. But like I said, if you read some of the quotes,

A lot of the players, they all talk about how important it is to hit the fairway. So I'm going to look at a little off the tee and good drives and fairways as well.

And it's also worth noting that the fairways are Zoysia and a lot of players don't like Zoysia. It promotes flyer lies. So flyer lie that you'd maybe get in the rough. You could get that in the fairway here and like Eastlake and, and the PGA championship at Belle Reve. Like those are the, the only real Zoysia spots and,

The Olympics, too, of course. So it's nice for the Olympic guys to get to go from Zoysia to Zoysia. That's certainly convenient. But you don't see a lot of Zoysia grass on the PGA Tour. I don't know if I have a point by saying that, but it's worth noting. So maybe if you look at guys that have played well at Eastlake or PGA Championship at Belle Reve with their approach numbers, although not all those approaches are coming from the fairway. So it's hard to measure to begin with.

Anyway, these greens champion Bermuda grass. Okay. Same greens as quail hollow, same greens as Sedgefield, a country club of Jackson for the Sanderson farms. They can be a little tricky. They own, they aren't always for everyone. So I think maybe looking at players that have putted well here or putted well at quail or Sedgefield,

Definitely not a bad call. Definitely not a bad call at all. But most importantly, I think there are a lot of ways to win here. I was looking at the 2019 leaderboard where Brooks won and he was fine from tee to green, but he gained 9.3 strokes putting that week. And then the next year, Justin Thomas,

wins the same tournament on the same course, losing almost two strokes putting. So there's a lot of ways to do this. It's not like a situation where I was looking at the rocket mortgage and it's all like, you've got to put out of your mind or, um, same a little bit with TPC twin cities with the putting and the irons. I think, um,

I think there's some, some, a couple of formulas here and looking at the top five in 2019, they all putted really great. Um, and like Rory finished fourth and he actually lost three strokes on approach. Uh, but then the next year, the top five on the leaderboard, they were all awesome on approach. Like Capco gained 8.4 strokes on approach and lost 2.6 strokes putting. So

What does that mean? I think it tells you that, yeah, irons and putting, always. But I think you need a well-rounded game here. And I think there are a couple ways to get it done here. It's a really good course. So that's what happens when it's a good course. It's not just one specific skill set that it tends to highlight. You need a well-rounded skill set here. And if you look at the last five years...

Like with Berger twice and DJ and Brooks and JT, we haven't had a winner here above 33 to one. So good players have won this tournament, especially since it changed to a WGC because good players always tend to win WGCs and WGCs are on harder courses. And like when this was a regular PGA tour event, sure. You had like Fabian Gomez and Ben Crane and Harrison Frazier, but like,

the last five years and specifically the last two years that it was a WGC field, when you guarantee all the best players for rounds, I think the cream will rise to the top again this year. So, and I'll get into that a little bit more with my favorites when I kind of talk about the early leans, but yeah,

Guys who are playing well, too. The last five winners here, they've all had a top 10 in their previous four starts. There's no need to get super cute here. I think this is a tournament generally won by good golfers in good form. Now that it's a WGC, that's only magnified.

And I think that's the, that's what you want to really focus on. I don't think that you need to get too cute here. If you've played here before, uh,

I think that helps. Like DJ and Brooks, before winning here, they all came with really good course history. But at the same time, like Berger in 2016, he won on his debut. So it's definitely not a prerequisite to have played well here. I believe Harris English and Dustin Johnson in 2012 and 2013, they also won on their debut. But the last four guys, they all came in with some really good experience at TBC Southwest.

Okay, let's get a little bit more specific with the stats real quick. These are the main things. I'll run through them quickly. So like I mentioned with off the tee and fairway skeined, I don't think that it's like the be all end all number one formula for success here. But there is like, there's some quotes that I found that has me continually going back to this. So here's one from Fabian Gomez, former winner here. He won in 2015.

Fabian said, and in this course, you know, many holes, you have to be really competitive with your driver and also many holes. You need to play a fade. Okay. Nope. That's probably checks out considering that burger and JT and Brooks and DJ have been awesome here. They all play fades. Maybe there's something to that. Ben Crane, who also won here. I'll give you another quote from him. I'll tell you what.

This is no golf course to play from the rough. It makes it so difficult. You get a lot of flyers. It's hard to control the ball. Okay. There's just another one. Just another one. Lee Westwood too. It's quite tight. You need to drive the ball straight. And although it does give you opportunities, you know, where it's not driver on every hole as well, but there's a massive premium on hitting fairways here.

Ratif Goosen mentioned he said the same thing. This is the last one, I promise. But when look at this stuff, when they're all telling you the same thing, it's probably worth noting. So Ratif goes, it's not a golf course that you can just blast away at. A lot of holes have dog legs and you pretty much have no chance of stopping it on these greens from the rough. So again, that's enough to have my attention about the importance of hitting the fairway.

Irons, of course. Yeah, they're big here. These greens are hard to hit. JT gave an excellent formula last year where he was so good with his irons and he didn't even need to putt well. And Brooks is a really good irons player. And Berger is a really good iron player. But the thing that stood out to me the most

Because, listen, you can make a case for iron play being well and above the most important indicator for success every single week if you want to frame it that way. Like me telling you that iron play is important here, it doesn't help you one bit. Like I'll –

I'll steal this quote from Kevin Clark. Stats are like a hostage situation. You can manipulate them any way you want to manipulate them to work in your advantage. So me telling you that irons are important here, that doesn't help you at all. Like I said, you hear that every week. What I do think is interesting and...

This, I think, can help us really narrow it down a little bit. But the amount of iron shots that were all coming from the same range. So like 50% of the approach shots at TPC Southland, 50% came from this range of 150 to 200 yards.

That is a lot. That is a lot. And I know it sounds like a big range of 50 yards, but for pros, it's just like the difference between a seven iron and a nine iron. It's not a huge range for them. And if you throw 125 to 150 in the mix, now you're suddenly up to 67% of the approach shots at TPC Southwind come from that 75 yard window. So two in every three approach shots here come from 125 to 200 yards. That's,

Well, well, well above tour average. So again, like that sounds like a big range, but we're really just cluing in on who is the best in the world with a wedge, a gap wedge to a seven iron in their hands. Who is the best in the world at that?

Like it's different from what we talked about last week where I said focus on short wedges and focus on long irons because there's a lot of short holes and there's a lot of really long holes. This is the opposite. It's all kind of conglomerated with those short to middle irons.

Um, it's a mid iron course and I think that's how you win it. And it checks out because you look at JT and Brooks and I wrote about this in the roto ball article, but over a large sample size, they're the best outside of more Kala. Of course, that's the caveat for everything these days with iron play, but they are, uh,

the best mid iron players that you're going to find over a large sample size. And they always play well here. So one 25 to 200, it's super important this week. I think that is where this tournament will be. One, um, greens and regulation gained. Also, there's just a huge correlation between guys who've played well here and hit a ton of greens. Uh, that's very much in there for me as well. I think you really got a pound greens and then short game. Um,

I wasn't able to find a huge correlation where I felt like this was a particularly difficult course to get up and down from. Scrambling percentage here was easier than tour average slightly. But at the same time, if we're talking about a course where pros are only hitting 59% of the greens,

I think it's something, and I'll give you another one from Ben Crane where he talked about it. And he talked about how important it was where he said, scrambling around these greens is just incredibly difficult with the rough around the greens. A lot of guys keep talking about this rough and how tricky it is. Grainy lies. It makes some of the guys look silly, he said.

And if you look back at the winners, Brooks was first in scrambling. DJ was fourth in scrambling. JT gained a bunch of strokes around the green and he was getting up and down from everywhere. So I'm going to throw it in there. And the way I like to look at short game, it's not just strokes around the green, but

I like to do a weighted thing where I throw some scrambling in there and some bogey avoidance so you can really just help hone in on the players that find ways to make pars. And I think that's going to really matter this week. And then Bermuda, I talked about Bermuda putting. I think specifically that champion Bermuda that we see at Quail and Sedsfield, they're

Listen, I'm not a huge believer that you need to get too cute with this stuff. I think you'll drive yourself absolutely crazy. But there are different strains of Bermuda, and this Bermuda is different from what you see at the Florida courses. Not by like a lot, but the pros can tell a difference.

So, yeah, sure. Never let something like that put you on or off a player, whether they've done well on champion Bermuda. Use it as a supplemental positive or negative. But poor performance or good performance with that stuff, I don't think it should ever be a deal breaker. Okay. I think that's it. I think that's it. So, to recap in kind of a vacuum,

I really think that mid iron range of 125 to 200 yards is going to be giant. I really do. And even more specifically, 150 to 175. I think you're going to want to look at maybe some motivation stuff here too. Like who really needs this one? Who is maybe somebody that hasn't had as good of a season and

And has a worse standing in the FedEx Cup. And needs to have a really good performance here. So they're better positioned for the playoffs. Again, I don't think this is the biggest thing in the world. And I tend to be way lower on motivation stuff than other people. But I don't know. I think you look at someone like...

Like Morikawa was number one in the FedEx cup standings. Would a win here be nice? Of course, but he's going to be in the Comcast business top 10, no matter what, but there's the guy like DJ or Brooks or,

or Berger or Reed or Scheffler that are right outside of that top 10. What I'm referring to, by the way, is the top 10 players in the FedEx Cup at the end of the regular season. They get like a $10 million bonus split between those 10 guys. So it's like a million bucks if you're in the top 10 at the regular season. So a guy like Brooks, who's 12th in this, we know Brooks likes PIP stuff and incentivizes bonuses.

I think he cares about, I think he would enjoy that extra million dollars if he could move up two spots in the FedEx cup standings. I think Jenna would enjoy that. I think, you know, Brooks, they enjoy the finer things in life. I think they would enjoy that. So that may matter to him, maybe a little bit more than Morikawa who could finish dead last in this field. And he'd still get the million bucks. Maybe, but,

I don't know. I'm just saying it. And then you take someone like the bottom of the FedExCup standings too, like Adam Scott, who's 123rd in the FedExCup standings. So he needs to play well. And I don't know if he's going to play the Wyndham, but this is crunch time for him. And his season's over.

his season's over till January. If he, if he doesn't play well here and maybe he doesn't care about the FedEx cup playoffs. I don't know. I, I always think that these guys care more than we give them credit for, even if they don't act like it, it's a lot of money. And I know Adam Scott is already very rich, but it might matter.

It might matter. I completely digress, but I think it's mid-irons and guys who pound greens in regulation and have had some good success on Bermuda and maybe at this course specifically. I think it's a really good formula this week. I think it's a really good formula this week. And it helps if you drive the ball in play and hit fairways. And it's a huge bonus if you have a good short game too.

But I really think if you just want to hone in, I think you could do a lot worse than using that. Okay, who dominates with those middle irons? Who's been trending positively with those middle irons? There's going to be 70% of the approach shots are going to be with those middle irons.

And I think it's matters and Bermuda putting too. I think that's, that helps a lot. These guys are coming back to Bermuda. So that's just me. If you want to do it differently, uh, by all means, by all means do it differently. Okay. Early leans, early leans. Um, I like Brooks. I really like Brooks and, uh,

I'm not as big of a Brooks guy as some others. I don't get the Brooks boner at majors where I think he needs to be on your card at every major. I mean, listen, I'll bet Brooks. I bet Brooks plenty, but I don't go crazy for him. But I think that this...

sets up kind of perfectly for him. And he's gone 19th, 3rd, 2nd, 37th, 30th, 1st, 2nd, 4 top 3s and 7 starts here. I think he should be the favorite with Morikawa. Maybe Morikawa should be the favorite, but I think Brooks should be right up there. And I think he'll be very popular and

I don't know if I'm going to bet a guy like Brooks at 10 to one, but all the research that I did, I think that this is going to be a crowded leaderboard with elites at the top. I really do. I look at how this field shakes out and it's a lot of really good players and there'll probably be a couple like not super elites, but like

I don't know, mid elites in that range. And then it's some bad players. So I think it's kind of going to end up working out maybe a little bit closer to the Olympics where on day one of the Olympics, uh,

it was a really weird leaderboard. And then as the week went on, it got closer and closer to, you know, more of the good players were making their move and rising to the top and Hovland and Morikawa and Connors and answer. And by the end of the tournament, like all those guys finished in the top 15. So I think that,

favorites here. It might be a small card week where you have one or two guys at the top and maybe a mid-tier guy, but I think that's what I would do here based on my research. So I like Brooks a lot. I really do. I couldn't find...

Any logical reason not to play him. He's, like I said, he's 12th in the FedEx upstandings. I think he wants that bonus. He's been awesome with his short irons. He pounds a ton of greens. He hasn't played a lot this year, but when he's played, he's been incredible. Like, I think he's healthy now. Every stat that I have on him leads me to believe that his game's in a really good place.

Um, like he gains it. He continues to just gain a ton off the tee and his irons have been even better in the short term and he's, he's putting okay. And now he goes back to Bermuda, um, where he's done so well in the past. It's by far his best surface. I like Brooks a lot. I don't know if I'll get there based on the number, but, and if he's just mushed to death and, and

but I think it's hard to escape him here when I dug into it. The other guy at the top, and I haven't really done a ton on the Olympic guys yet. I wanted to wait until all of the strokes gain data from the... I wanted to wait till the Olympics was done because I think the strokes gain stuff...

at the Olympics, that matters. I want four rounds of it, and I usually do all my research for this stuff on Friday and Saturday, and the Olympics was still going on. So a lot of those Olympic guys, I'm going to dig into tonight. I'm focusing primarily on guys that didn't play in the Olympics. The other top guy,

That I looked at really heavily. And I say the other top guy, like all of these guys are really good options. Like Berger is a good option. Louie is a good option. He's been playing great. Like DJ even. I get that. It makes sense. But why not Spieth here? Because I know that he's only played here twice, 12th and 30th.

And neither of the times that he's played this course, when he's finished 12th and 30th, he's been in good form at all, like at all. And he was still able to finish pretty highly. And I'm not even a huge Spieth guy, although he did really grow on me at the Open. That was the first time I bet on him in quite some time, and he really grew on me. High character guy. Spieth has grown in my estimation. He's more fun to have money on than I expected. But anyway, what Spieth is doing right now

Short of Morikawa and Rahm, he's been the best player in the world over a relatively large sample size now. He's second in the FedEx Cup. Last 13 starts since February. He has 11 top 25 finishes, 8 top 10s, 7 top 5s. So Jordan Spieth,

is finishing in the top five at over the top five with like 125 player fields, sometimes 156 at over a 50% clip in his last 13 starts since February. That's nuts. That is nuts. He's back. He's back. Whatever. I know maybe he has to win a major to be officially back, but man,

He is just, it's clicking for him right now. And he's one of the best iron players. He's, he's got that back. Now the irons, they're just, they're there for him. And he always gaining off the tee. Now he's got that little bleeder again, that I think will play really well here. The short game is unbelievable. And I think there's an element of creativity here that will help and I

great too and he's just the floor is high that's how you really tell with him like he has no business finishing in the top 20 at Torrey Pines but

But he can't help himself. And that's how you know that he's an elite, is that even on the weeks where he shouldn't be relevant, he still is like, wait, Jordan Spieth still finished 20th at the U.S. Open at 7% on DraftKings, and everyone thought that he wasn't going to play well. He still finished 19th. That's how you know that it's working for him. And I...

I think he's going to be a thing this week. I think he... This is a course that makes sense for him, even though he hasn't played here a ton. I'll talk about a few mid-tier guys really quickly. I like Scottie Scheffler. I think...

I think he's going to win soon. That's not a hot take. I think a lot of people think he's going to win soon. He's played here three times. He's finished like 43rd and 15th. He's getting better every time he plays here. I know that it might be more logical to try and predict these breakouts for guys like Scheffler,

in the Byron Nelson or just a weaker field event. I don't know, man. Like Scheffler, he always does his work on the biggest stage. And I feel like he's kind of has to earn your respect when you look at what he's done in these bigger tournaments. He's so much better, almost like Patrick Reed, where he's just better. If the field's better, he just plays better. That's what Scottie Scheffler is, like PGA Championship at Harding Park, 4th.

19th at the November Masters, 5th at the concession. Last time we had a WGC event. Runner-up at the match play, another WGC event. He finished runner-up there.

Boston lost a horse show on the finals 18th at the April masters third at the Memorial, which is like the biggest non WGC major event too. And seventh at the U S open and then eighth at the British open. So he just shows up and there's no reason to believe. I think a lot of people are going to pick him, but a lot of people should pick him. I, people don't want to miss out on this guy and I get it. So I,

I got to see where the wind blows, but there's no reason to believe that he can't succeed here. And he's good statistically. He's been excellent off the tee and the irons. They're a little more volatile, but they can really pop. And he's just playing some really good golf right now. So I think you got to take him seriously. Scotty Scheffler.

The other guy that, again, I'll get into some of my sneakier bargain bin guys that I think are playable tomorrow with my buddy Rob on the pick show. I think Fitzpatrick, I don't think he's going to catch anyone by surprise here, but I think he's...

He makes a lot of sense. He's finished fourth and sixth here. So like I said, he's probably going to be a trendy pick. And I think he should be. He's been good. He lost in a playoff at the Scottish Open. And then he's fine at the British. He finished 26th. But...

The last time we've had some real stats in him, he was hitting the ball great and the irons have been okay, good enough. And the putter is always reliable and he's just, he's deadly on Bermuda. He's the number one Bermuda putter in this field. It's his best surface by a really sizable margin. And he's played here twice and gained a combined 14 strokes putting and

So, I mean, you can look at that two ways. You could say, well, is this course really good for him? Or did he just coincidentally have two of the best putting weeks of his career here? And that's why he finished highly here.

I am of the former. I think this is a good course for him. I think he makes a lot of sense. His mid-irons, they're not as elite as some of the other guys, but he's so good around the greens. He's a really good scrambler. His off the tee is really improved. He keeps the ball in play off the tee. He's 57th in the FedEx Cup, so he's comfortably in. But, you know, this would make a... Given the courses that are coming up with Fitzpatrick, I think...

He's kind of licking his chops for this one because he's always been in the mix here, and I think this is a really good opportunity for him to move up in the standings, and I think he's going to do that this week. That's it. That's all the other guys that I want to talk about. There are some other guys that are playable that I will talk about with Rob tomorrow, but those are the only guys that I really like

We're like, yeah, these guys, good chance I bet one of them. Spieth and Brooks and Fitzpatrick and Scheffler. Those are the guys that I have the most interest in right now. Like I said, I still have to look at the Olympic guys. I wanted to wait for all that strokes game data to happen, but that's it. That's it for me on those guys. All right.

Um, second half of this podcast, please stick around. It is a conversation, as I mentioned with my buddy Nagels about, uh, Xander and what it means and the Olympics and what it means for his career and, uh, our takeaways. And it's, I know, I know people, if there's one thing I've learned, it's that people don't love Xander. So I know it's not for everyone and you can tune out now, but, uh,

It's a fun conversation. So if you're kind of into that stuff and trying to place what the Olympics means in historical context and kind of talking more about this victory and breaking it down, I think you'll enjoy this conversation. I know I sure did. So let's get to the Olympics conversation with Nagels Bagels. Thanks so much, guys.

I am being joined for a special emergency podcast by my buddy, Jeff Nagel, host of the Wednesdays at 8 p.m. Nagel's Bagels Periscopes show.

Nagels, we did it, buddy. Xander did it. Maya did it. Derek Okada did it. Ross Chuller did it. Ping Yee did it. Stefan did it. Xander Legion did it. You did it. I did it. He did it. Xander won a fucking gold medal. Yes, he did. Very exciting. You might be a little too enthusiastic.

It's, um, I've already, I've already seen it. I've already seen it overnight and this morning on Twitter and everything else. Uh, thanks for having me by the way. It's great. Great to talk to you. Uh, yeah, I'm just a little concerned that this, I don't want this to be treated as if this is the pinnacle of his career. And, uh,

I think it's great that he won. And I think it's great that he's, this is a positive. I just hope it's a stepping stone and not a, a milestone. You know, does that make sense? Am I, it completely makes sense. It completely makes sense. I just, there's, there's a lot, listen, there's a lot that we could talk about with this, but,

And I'm looking forward to doing so. But, yeah, it was great. There were some dicey moments there. You know, when he stepped up on the 14th hole, you and I are texting each other at 3 o'clock in the morning or whatever it was, like, well, one more birdie ought to get it done. And he promptly hit one, like, out of bounds. So we had to sweat that out. But 18 was great. Great up and down on 17. Great up and down on 18. Got the job done.

And it was good. But I'm looking at this, I think, from a different angle than you might be. Because, yeah, I'm glad he won. But going into this event, just the Olympics and golf and the Olympics in general, I was...

I was shitting all over the Olympics. I was crapping on Justin Rose saying how that – I don't think any higher of Justin Rose because he won a gold medal. So why – I can't be a hypocrite and say, oh, look at Sander. He's a gold medal champion. Now, I don't care really that he's a gold medal champion. I am glad that –

There may have been a monkey on his back and there are whispers and talk about him not being able to close. And he's a choke artist. And I think he won that battle yesterday, but he hasn't won the, uh,

I just don't want this to be the highlight of his career. If he never wins a major and this is like the best he ever done, it'd be like Ricky Fowler winning the players. And that's like the best. That was his peak. And that's all he's ever going to be. And I was getting Ricky vibes from Xander after major season just a couple weeks ago. I was like, God, I don't want him to turn into Ricky Fowler. And...

this is like this is the gold medal is kind of like winning a players in some weird in some weird shape so I'm sorry I'm rolling on here thanks for having me on but I just want to make sure you know that although we're both glad that he got the win I just I want to make sure that we're on the same page or not on the same page and

I don't know. What do you think? Okay. Okay. So I am on the same page with you. I don't think that this is by any means the pinnacle of his career at all, but I'm like you. So when this week started, I was potentially just going to take it completely off. Like I wasn't going to do any podcasts. I was going to dive into football. I, I didn't care. And by Wednesday, I,

I found myself caring about this tournament a lot for whatever reason, like almost as much as I care about, I don't know, like the players, not a major or anything like that, but in a tier right below it. And I think something happened during the week and you kind of have to watch the golf to get it. But like,

I didn't spend a lot of time on Twitter last night. I didn't spend a lot of time on Twitter this morning because I knew I would get triggered. But if the take is that this doesn't matter, that this wasn't something that we should put any stock into,

I don't think you watched. I don't think you paid attention to anything that these guys were saying. And I'm not even talking about like the Sung Jae and Siwoo debate and the missing putts for them. I'm talking about the idea of thinking that winning this tournament wasn't a pretty big deal that deserves to be talked about for years to come. Like friend of the show, Eric Patterson was tweeting about it. I'm paraphrasing here, but he was like,

know about you guys but if you just watch it the vibe like how these players are kind of like playing and interacting on the course and the quotes that they are saying it feels like a major the intensity of it and Kyle Porter said the same thing and Alan Shipnuck said the same thing and

I just think if you don't think that this was a big deal, I don't think you watch because this was fucking huge for these guys. It was fucking huge for these guys. And I didn't realize it in the weeks leading up to it. I don't even know if I realized it until like the tournament started, but you had to kind of experience and like soak in the week to really understand that this was massive for these guys. Does that make sense?

Yes. Okay. Yes. For the players that were there that aren't playing for prize money and are playing for their country and their first time and their experience and they didn't know what to expect and what they got out of it and how surprised they were and how all those, all the quotes out of Tokyo that we heard. Yeah. I'm talking about

Me personally, I don't care about the Olympics. I never really have. I think it's a commercialized scam. I think the integrity of the events has been compromised because it's all, it's ever since the TV deal was made and NBC paid billions of dollars. And then they started putting pros in all these certain events because they need to pump up ratings. And I just think the Olympics is a total sham, but now it's,

This is the second go around where they have my favorite sport as one of the events. And yeah, like I said before, I didn't really care four years ago in Rio that Justin Rose won a gold medal. And I got shit on it about it on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. When I mentioned that it was like the most engaged tweet I've ever put up in my, I ever had in my life. And yeah,

I got some people thought it was a bad take. Other people agree. It's what do you know? Something on Twitter, people disagree. I just, I'm saying like, like for me to just say, you know, I don't really care about the Olympics, but then I have my favorite player going for a gold medal and I have a big bet on them because I hit the first round leader, which and everything was all coming together. It's like,

I don't want to be a fraud. I don't want to be a hypocrite. Dale Nagel, you said the Olympics don't matter, but now you're going to take bows because Xander's a gold medalist? My point is, Nagel, I think it's okay to flip during the week.

Because that's what I did. And that's what I think a lot of people did. I think that you're not a hypocrite for going into the week thinking this doesn't mean shit and then watching it and experiencing it and realizing it's a big deal. Because we don't have a sample size of this. It happened once in the last 100 years. So it's a perfectly acceptable take to be like,

We don't know if this matters at all. We don't know if these guys care about. We don't know how big of an accomplishment it is. But I think you had to watch it and experience the week to realize that this was different. And I'm not saying this was as big of an accomplishment of even like him winning Eastlake or even him winning Sheshin. But I mean, like...

At the bare minimum, at like the very bare minimum, if you want to say that this is a weak field and it doesn't matter and it, it, it, at the very bare minimum, statistically based on the strength of field, it's a PGA Tour tournament. At the,

At the very least, it's another – it's the equivalent of winning another PGA Tour tournament. At the very least, it's like the Sony fucking Open, okay? So this isn't like winning a European Tour event, the Grand Canary Islands, or the Kazoo Open, or anything like that. If you want to take everything that you can away from it, at the very least, it's like Xander won another tournament that –

Rory was in and Colin Morikawa was in and Victor Hovland was in and five of the top 10 players in the world was in and all these like good Korean players had motivation and stuff like that. Like that's the bare minimum for me. Okay. Listen, that's, that's, that's fair. Yeah. You had your master's champion was there. Your, your open champion was there. Your players champion was there. Yeah. A lot of motivation and yeah, I'm not,

There's, there are some, there are some, there are some positives to take away. I'm not worried about that. I'm not looking to, I'm not looking to looking for arguing talking points for people on Twitter that are just going to say, whatever is a small field event, no cut and Xander won. What a surprise. You know, that's not, I can't, I can't worry about that.

I think there's a lot to gain. I think Tim being in the lead again and playing from ahead and actually closing out, I think that's whether it's the Olympics, whether there's a cut, whether there's a big field or small field, I think that's something that that team is smart enough to learn from. And I just hope it propels him in the future because that is, that is,

That is a step that he hasn't been able to take because all of his wins were when he came from behind. So, yeah, there's a lot you can take from that. And you're right. I did flip because after the first round and –

Because I was like, just like you, I wasn't going to do anything this week, but then I was on the be right pod. So then I had to take in all this Olympics content because I needed to have something to go on this podcast with. So then like, you just get like, kind of like sucked in. And I, I was high on Mark Leishman and I hadn't, then I hit the first round leader bet, but then I,

Hearing all the stuff over the course of the week, nobody was really picking Xander. And all those talking points were kind of right with his dad and the Olympic connection. We went through that putty experiment phase that we talked about at the US Open. And

Like, yeah, the Tokyo roots and Xander in the Olympics. And it was like, Oh, he's three under, but he's, he, he was the second favorite, but then his odds drifted, even though we shot three on there on the first day. And that didn't make any sense. I was like, Oh my God. Like, wow. You know what? He might actually win this week. And he was 11 to one. And I had this money in my account from Seb Straka. And I said, yeah, you know what?

Andy's right, you know, he's been banging this drum for a couple of days and another one of my buddies like, yeah, Xander's probably gonna win. And I was in denial. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't do a show. And of course he's gonna win on a week I don't do a show and Rob's not here and I was shitting on the Olympics for two weeks. Of course Xander's gonna win this tournament and make me look like a total fool.

Like, yeah, all right, let's get back in at 11-1. And, you know, let's go. We can be here. Because it made too much sense. All the signs were there. And people were still like, oh, he's a choke artist. He sucks. His odds shouldn't be this low. And I'm like, no, you know what? This is like a perfect spot for him. So it worked out. It worked out. And it was great. And it was not without stress at all.

And yeah, here we are, man. I had a great week. First round leader parlayed that into Xander at 11 to one and things are good. You're right. We, it was this kind of weird thing as the week went on where I knew we were in good shape. We weren't even really talking about it a ton. Cause it felt like at the beginning, neither of us were super excited about it, but you know, you didn't do a show and I,

I talked about him, but, and I obviously talked about how much I liked him. I said in a vacuum, regardless of the odds that I think Xander would win, but I'm still not going to bet that number pre-tournament. Um, but there were all these boxes that he was checking and there still wasn't a

a lot of chatter about him, as you mentioned. And it started to feel as the week went on. And I was like you after that first round, I caved and I was like, I have to get in on him right now at 11 to one. This makes too much sense. But it started to feel like there was just some juju in our favor. And

you know you make your debut on be right and you hit sep straka as a first round leader at 100 to 1 and then zander shoots a 63 in the middle of the night on thursday the same night that our friend steve has a baby and the strokes gain perspective from just our little friend group is just absolutely through the roof and it's like okay this might be a thing this might be a thing yeah and uh

Yeah, once I was away for a weekend and I came back, I knew I was going to have Saturday night to watch it. And, you know, I guess I'll just bring this up. I'm not going to wait for you to bring it up. I've had this thought in my head about Xander's been talking a lot lately about chasing a ghost and staying present and being patient and all he's reading these books about how to handle playing from ahead and

That made me think because, you know, I'm trying to do whatever I can to help the team. And I just remember Tiger Woods talking, pretty much simplifying the whole thing. And Tiger, you know, he's the greatest closer of all time. And he just said, well, it's just a simple math problem. If I'm up a shot or two and I go out there and I shoot 67, well, someone's going to have to shoot 66 or 65 just to tie me, you know, depending on whatever the numbers are.

And that's hard to do when you're playing from behind and you got to be aggressive and have to shoot 65. And that's the way he looked at it. And he like almost never lost. So I, I, that's just something that was in my head. So me, like an idiot, I, I send a message to Austin Kaiser and I tell him all this on, on Saturday night.

I say, you know, it's early, it's morning time in Tokyo. I know that he's, you know, he's taking off in five hours. I said, listen, I know you've got, I know you've got a busy day ahead of you. I'm not going to keep you. I wish him a happy anniversary. The guy flies to Tokyo in the Olympics, misses his third year wedding anniversary. That was all over the Instagram.

But, hey, it was a business trip, man. That's another thing. It's like, oh, they're so all in. And it's sad and everything else. It was totally going to happen. But I just said, hey, I heard Xander talking about this stuff. And it made me think of what Tiger said. And maybe this is something that you could –

you know we should just something to think about you know you go out there and you shoot 67 today hideki's got to shoot 66 on his home country to tie that's a lot of pressure so let's just roll the dice now we didn't know sabatini was going to shoot 61 but whatever those are the if somebody goes out there and does that you tip their tip your hat just like uh co-crafted in vegas so

Anyway, he responded to me yesterday, and I'm like, dude, it's fucking on. They're ready to go. He thanked me for the support and saying, you know, I like the way you think, but we're going to be aggressive, but we're going to be smart. I'm like, oh, they're so fucking winning this thing. It was great. It was great. And I was waiting to see if –

If somebody asks Xander, like, what changed? I'm watching these press conferences. I'm like, oh, you know, my caddy told me beforehand and mentioned, like, Tiger's name. I'd be like, I fucking said that. That didn't happen. But I know it might have happened. It might have happened. Who knows?

But I did everything I could against Xander over the finish line and it worked. I don't know what's going to happen going in the playoffs and in the fall events and next year. I think I was texting with you and I said, listen, man, nothing matters until next April. Yeah. But this is a big stepping stone. And I think that if he's in a major or if he's in another random tournament where he's in the mix and

You know, maybe those demons, we don't even call them demons, but at least he's got a positive experience to fall back on. He knows he can do it. Now, granted, who is he holding off? He's holding off Rory Sabatini and CT Pan and whatever, but it's still. Hideki and Morikawa and Rory. Those guys were all in the mess. That wasn't really the, Hideki missed that far putt, man. He was done. I know, I know.

And that was another thing. It's like, Hideki's right there. And they played when Hideki went off and after the rain delay, you know, he was in Xander. Xander was his playing partner that day. Xander watched him go hate shit on the back nine at Augusta and had to watch that. And now it's like, all right, you know what? Now it's my turn. And he went out and he did it. And,

Good for him. I'm happy. I'm very happy. I'm sorry. I'm rambling. I've been holding this in. I've been waiting. This is why we had to do an emergency podcast. So I want to touch on a couple quick things that you mentioned. I have a bunch of just quick little hitter notes that I want to get to. So we were texting about this, but I told you,

He looked so locked into me in those first couple of holes. He went out in 32 on the front nine. He birdied one, he birdied two, he birdied five, he birdied eight. He didn't really miss a shot for like the first five or six holes. Um,

I told you this was as locked in as I have ever seen him. I told you, I said, when I used to go to these junior golf academies in Florida every summer, they talked about this kind of, and Tiger Woods, there's books written about this, and Tiger Woods talks about this all the time, where there's kind of like this

state of mind and state of being that you try, that all great golfers try and enter where the mind is completely separated from the body and the mind is taken completely out of it. And the body is so prepared to

um to do to execute what you need to execute that it's just rhythm and motion and go zone and he always is somebody that never gets too high or low on the golf course it always feels like his demeanor is pretty good but i legitimately felt and i thought he was great at tory i mean he outplayed everyone from t to green um at tory pines as well but i thought that front nine um

I thought it was really, really special. And I know that he had some adversity. I'm not going to go through hole by hole. And I know that he had a lot of adversity on the back that we can talk about. But if there's like one takeaway for me, it was I was so unbelievably shocked by the hot start that he was able to get out to. And I was just so impressed by that nine holes to start the round.

I mean, that was part of the reason why he was able to hold on and win because he flipped the script. Normally, he would just end up the first couple holes when he's four back to Hideki at Augusta. He was throwing up all over himself on the third, fourth, fifth hole. And Saturday. Saturday, he didn't look good either. Saturday, he looked jittery, and he started off really slow on Saturday, too. Okay.

Okay, but, you know, Sunday's where the lights are really on the brakes. I was at a wedding. I wasn't really paying attention. He was fine. He got it together. He rallied late on Saturday from what I can – Yes, he did. But in the past, when he's been playing from ahead, he would usually –

like press and give give shots back and let everybody else in but to get off to a good start he never let anybody until he made that bogey which was a great bogey save by the way until he made that bogey I mean he was always in front it wasn't until then and like oh well 17 is a freaking it's a it's a long it's a long par three 17 and he got up and down we we knew that he

He had to make birdie there. He did. And it was par birdie par to win. And he did it. So I never really thought he was in serious trouble. But, you know, he just stayed the course and he got the job done. But, yeah, that was part of it. He didn't have –

He was in good shape, and we were getting texts and tweets like, oh, this is over. He's going to win. Oh, finally. And it's like, he hasn't even gotten to back nine yet. Everybody calm down. It's not over. Let's just let it play out. That's the most frustrating part. People just mushing and trying to mush. And hey, he overcame it all, and he got the job done.

So, yeah. And I want to talk about too, what you mentioned with, we can talk a little bit about the back nine too, because obviously it got a little rocky there for a second. You, we were texting every 30 seconds for three hours and then you went rogue on me for like 45 minutes. And I was like, Nagels is like halfway to Newark right now with like some dark thoughts in his head. But, but,

you know what i think was so important was we talked about what he kind of learned in from his mistakes and and struggles in phoenix and and hawaii and all these other times where he's had this opportunity to close the door and i think the most important thing that stood out to me is

If you ask Sander, and he's talked about this in the subpar interview that he did with Colt Nost, and he's talked about this a lot before, but if you ask him why he felt like he lost in Phoenix, it was short game. And he got up and down from everywhere. Everywhere. I mean, just he was 13th in the field in strokes gained around the green,

And on Saturday, like I mentioned, he got off to a rocky start and it was like the exact opposite of how his Sunday round started, but he was getting up and down like three times in his first five holes. And I was just so impressed by his around the green play. And I think that if you look at some of his struggles in the past, like Xander's one of the most well-rounded players you'll ever find just from a statistical standpoint, it's never like his around the green game was bad.

if you just look at the numbers. But if you look at kind of some of the biggest reasons why he lost some of these tournaments, he just wasn't getting up and down at the rate that he needed to be. And he did that.

He did that this week, and I can't understate the importance of how good he was. With the putting, too, man. I mean, how many? He was fifth in the entire field in strokes game putting. He made so many clutch four- to eight-footers this week. So many. It was his week. It was his time. Everything up until this point.

There's, I don't know if this is true, but I just think Xander is very genuine when he talks to the media, press conferences, and I take all that in. I don't think he's just, I don't think he's just giving golf speak or just making stuff up just to get out of the interview. I sincerely believe what he's saying. Maybe that's my fault, but I just think he's genuine. It's one of the reasons why I like him so much. And...

People want to come to their own conclusions about how he's finished in these tournaments. And he's talked about it. And if you believe him, like I do, yes, they were bad losses. And he might have gagged one up or choked. But he learned from it. And it was a buildup. And I never believed that he was –

like a loser that he couldn't win or that I never, my confidence in him never waned because I listened to him and it's like, all right, well, yeah, you know, he's still young. Golf is hard. He's just got to clean things up a little bit. And yeah, he,

He's just improving and getting better. And he's driving the ball great. And he's hitting good irons. And it was really soft. So, yeah, that helps. But, yeah, he got up and down. He made some putts. But the only up and downs you need to know were 17 out of the bunker and that all-world par to win a gold medal on 18. Maybe six months ago.

He misses that putt or one of those two putts where he doesn't hit it to six feet and he's got 10 feet and it's just a tougher, it's a tougher, it's a tougher putt to make. So it's just, it's been building and it's, it's a good justification. But again, like I just, like I said in the beginning, and I know we're going long, I'm sorry, but I just don't want this to be, I don't want them to overdo it.

I want to stand there and put this gold medal, enjoy it, put the gold medal away, and let's not rest on our laurels here. Let's not be content with being a gold medalist. That would bother me. It would really genuinely bother me because –

I hate the freaking Olympics. And I don't want that to be the, I don't want that to be the, the pinnacle of his career, but it's only been a day. Let's see how it plays out. Cause Justin Rose hasn't done shit since he won a freaking gold medal. And I don't want that to just, I just don't want him to get fat and happy on this. And I don't think he will because he knows, yeah, it's great. And he did it for his dad and that's great. But you know, I still want a green jacket. I still want a U S open. I still want these things. So let's,

Let's I want him to win a FedEx cup. He's great at Eastlake. He's just got to get himself in position. So yeah, I want more and I don't think I'd be a greedy. This has to be a stepping stone to amazing things because there's a lot of good golfers out there and I want to be one of those guys. I want to be in the top five and I want to be one of those guys. And if this is the, if this is the last thing, last step that was needed to take to elevate him to that status,

fucking fantastic. I'm so happy that he won and that this was the moment that elevated him. But if this becomes the pinnacle, this apex, and it's just

you know, relevant from here and maybe he'll win a, win a Phoenix open or something. And, and he might be relevant in the majors, but he just can't get to that level. Then yeah, that sucks. Cause I don't want him to be a punchline. Cause kind of way like Justin Rose is kind of a punchline. Apologies to the English fans, but he is. And I don't want that to happen. So I'm worried about it, but right now it was just enjoy it. Congratulations. I'm happy for him. And I,

I don't really care what happens in the playoffs. I'm looking forward to April and next year's major season. And, you know, it's good stuff, man. It's good stuff.

Okay. So you, here's the last kind of point that I want to make that you kind of started to touch on a little bit where I want to try and put his career in context a little bit, because I don't think a lot of people understand this at all. They certainly don't act like it based on the way that he gets talked about on Twitter and podcasts and stuff like this. But you brought up a point on the

the last time we did a podcast before the open that I've continued to think about since then. I thought it was just a really good point. So I'm going to say it again for all the people that didn't listen to that podcast.

Xander wasn't a highly touted amateur like a John Rahm. He wasn't a prodigy like a Rory or even a JT. He wasn't even someone like a Hovland or a Morikawa where they had this extremely decorated college career. Like he kind of came out of nowhere and he went to San Diego state because he wanted to be at home and,

close to his dad. And it was also one of the only colleges that guaranteed him that he would play. Like if Xander went to Oklahoma State or Stanford or Clemson, he wouldn't even play it on that team. He just, he wasn't even good enough yet at that stage of his career. So he worked for everything.

He manufactured this on his own. He rose to become a top five player in the world because he worked his fucking ass off. This wasn't something that was written in stone like Rahm or even Hovland or Morikawa where since they were 13 years old, you knew they were going to be a thing and they've won their whole life and you knew they were going to be great.

Xander worked his ass off to get to where he's at. And if you think, not you, but people, if you think that at 27 years old with four wins, an Olympic gold medal, eight major top tens and 18 starts, if you think he's underachieved...

or you think he's a loser or there's any label that you want to put on him. It just tells me you don't get it. It just tells me you don't get it. He's not behind. He hasn't underachieved. He's not deserving of any label to fill one is first major at 34 years old. And,

And what Xander has done, given the context of where he came from at freaking 27, it's fucking remarkable. And he's just going to get better. He's just going to keep improving because that's what he does. He works his fucking tail off. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he was, that's, that's why I believe in the, that's why I believe in the process that they, that they, because everything's been, it's just been part of it from being a decent college player and then,

getting on the corn fairy tour and then finally getting onto the PGA tour and then just, and just winning a green briar and then winning a bigger event and then getting, and getting into the top 10 in the world and contending in majors. It's like, it's all just part of the growing and learning process. And that's how they go about their business. But yeah, it was never a Jordan speed. You never, never,

But 15 years old, it wasn't like, oh, wait till you see this. There's this kid, Xander Shoffley. That wasn't a thing. But there was, it was a thing about, oh, this kid, Jordan Spieth or Justin Thomas, these two juniors. You know, they were friends when they were juniors. I don't know if you heard that. Yeah. Once or twice. Yeah. That was that he had a much different path to where, and that's one of the things that I just respect about it.

and yeah he's earned it that's that's yeah it's it's so true yeah i remember talking about that and so yeah what's what's next and that's why i like the team i like the team so much i i like i love the team i love the team it's a great team they're not a lot of prima donnas in that team you know they're we talked to all these guys and yeah it's uh

I don't know. It's just, I feel like a part of it and I I've been, I'm here for it and I just hope it, I'm happy for him. I hope it keeps going. And yeah, I don't know what else to add with that, but it's he's I just, yeah, I just, this is just another step. I hope. I think it is. I really think it's, it's another step. I don't think this is the apex, which I,

I don't know what you think about that. I think it's just another step, right? Another step in the process. 100%. It's another step. That was kind of like the point I was kind of talking about is if we look at Xander's career trajectory, he has – like if you just put it on a graph, like –

he, from where he started to where he is now, it's such a high trend line of him just getting better and getting better and getting better at every stage. Like I mentioned, it's not a situation where this guy was just the best in the world at 15 and he's just continued to be the best in the world. He has worked his way up. And I think that's why I'm really bullish on him going forward. And I,

The last thing I'll say is like we went to Torrey Pines and we watched him for – I watched him for like 12 hours. You watched him for like 18 hours where we just watched every single shot that he hit. And the one thing that really stood out to me was like we –

We watched him play with Homa and Scheffler and Phil, and especially what stood out to me on Saturday when he played with Scheffler was –

I think we both are big Sheffler fans, like huge Sheffler fans. I think Sheffler's like a top 25 player in the world right now. He's awesome. Sheffler's unbelievable. And the contrast for me to watch Xander, just I'm not talking about stats. I'm just talking about like pure eye test, just like the way that he hit the ball.

I was just like, this guy is like, he's in a different level. He's on like, he is, he is so good. And he's just, he's so much better than these guys that he's playing with. And, and you have to kind of see it. And, and you, you ask the people on tour, man, like ask Rory, ask Justin Thomas, what they think about Xander. They all think he's a fucking stud. I mean, they think he's just, if we're talking about like a $20 Nassau, uh,

Like who's going to win on tour that everyone knows how good Xander is. And I know that maybe hasn't translated into as many wins as people would have hoped for. Like I said, I would, I would push back on that given where he's at and his age and the career trajectory and all of those things. I think he's doing great, but yeah,

He's really, really good. He's really, really good. And you have to, like, when you look for it, you see it. If you really get, if you really understand it and watch it and see the degree of difficulty of the shots that he's hitting with his driver and how much distance he's picked up. He was fourth in the field this week in driving distance.

he's really good. And that's why I think me and you are so much higher on him long-term than I think a lot of other people.

Yeah, I mean, forget our opinions for a second. You know, Bones mentioned that at the end of the broadcast last night. I heard some of it. I turned the sound on once all the postgame stuff started. But, you know, if you ask all the top ten players in the world, you ask any one of them, whether it be Rahm or JT or Rory or Bryson or Brooks, they all know how good Xander is. They all know that if they're trying to win a tournament and he's there, he's –

It's not Brendan Todd. No offense to Brendan Todd that they're trying to beat. They know that he's

He's a formidable opponent. He's got the respect of everybody on the top in the top 10. So don't waste your time arguing with some idiot on Twitter who's telling you that he's not that good. That is Patrick Cantlay. He'll tell you how good Xander is. They all know. So don't worry about what people on Twitter are saying. It doesn't, that doesn't matter. They know and they're all really good. And they're,

It's fun to watch them go after it every week. And Xander's one of those guys. I don't care what anybody says. I don't care what the odds are. He's legit. And he's been legit. And I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the future. But this is not a fluke. And anybody tells you that it's a fluke or it's a result of the format or the field strength or the field size or whether there's a cut or not, it doesn't fucking matter. I hope he performs well in the Ryder Cup.

He's a guy. And if people want to deny that, they're dumb. And I don't care. And I don't have the patience or the tolerance to deal with that. And I don't want you texting me saying, I don't know how you deal with those people. Andy, I don't deal with those people. I don't have time for it. I have a life to live. I have things to do. And I'm not going to argue with some idiot on Twitter telling me that Xander's overrated.

or he's this or he's not as good as this guy. Just let him fucking play and we'll see what happens. You root for your team, I'll root for my team, and let's use it on the field. And let's see what happens and let's not worry about who's got a bigger cock because it doesn't matter. Just go out there and play and we'll see. That's it. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get out of hand, but I wanted to make sure we were on – yeah. Yeah.

We're fine. Everything's fine. We're on the same page. We are completely on the same page. And you're right. I mean, the stuff on Twitter, it triggers me and it aggravates me more than it should. It's more so just like, I'll give a quick shout out to our friend Xander Legion. Like,

Such a good kid. Like, just a nice guy. And you look at his replies when he's tweeting, and people are just fucking assholes. And he's a kid. And it's like...

I'm not going to reveal too much about him, although we both know him personally and he's a great guy. And I just, it, it frustrates me because the other, the last thing we'll say, we'll close on this, but you touched on this again when you came on my podcast the first time where it's like,

He's not an asshole. He's a, he, he, he's a good guy and he gives back to the community and his head's in the right place and he cares about the right things. And he's, he says all of the right things and he gives the time of day to the media and he handles himself well, and he's not a hothead. And there are a lot of guys on tour that I don't know if they have that type of character. Uh,

And he does. He has that type of character. And I'm sure there's things that we don't know about him, but he's a good kid. He's just a really good kid. He's so likable. If you don't like Xander Shoffley, that's a you problem. That's not Xander's problem.

I'm not saying the guy's perfect or he's beyond reproach and he's made mistakes and he may say or do something and whatever, but he's so likable and he's genuine and you don't hear a lot of bad things about him. And there's no reason not to like him.

People think he's too boring. Like, who cares? It's golf. It's not Happy Gilmore. It's fucking golf. They're all boring. So, I don't know. I'm just... Yeah, he's very likable. He's genuine. And...

Yeah, don't get yourself worked up. People don't want to, people want, people are just going to hate. Haters are going to hate. And there's nothing you can do about it. Just use the mute button. It's a new thing I've used in the last month or so. And it's, it's very helpful. And don't, don't go and click on comments that you can't see because it comes from an account you muted. You muted it for a reason. You don't need to see it. It's probably going to be something that's going to piss you off. So don't even bother. Just let it go.

It's fine. It's a lot easier way. If you're going to, Andy, you're making a name for yourself. You're going to have, you have to deal with shrapnel, man. You got to learn how to like, just stay, stay focused, stay in your lane. Because I started replying to some of these idiots and it makes me feel icky because I'm not that person.

I'm better than that. And you're better than that. So just let it, just who cares? Who cares? All right, that's it. I'm done. We're good. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I think we've touched on everything I wanted to touch on. Did you get everything that you wanted to touch on? I think I got everything. I don't think I could possibly talk anymore about this. I think we uncovered every nook and cranny of this win. And like I said, let's just hope that it's the beginning, not the end. And

And I'm really happy for our guy. And congratulations to Xander. He's earned it. He deserved it. I'm happy for him. I'm happy for his dad and Austin, of course, and safe flight back to the States. I don't think he's going to play Memphis, but he might.

And we'll see. And I just hope he enjoys it. And, you know, whatever happens the rest of the year, who cares? Well, the Ryder Cup. I'd like him to perform well in the Ryder Cup. Because that's an event people pay a lot of attention to. So, I know he's going to – I really feel he'll play well. It's fun. It's so much fun when he's playing well. Watching that yesterday is like, God.

It's a beautiful thing to watch when he's hitting the ball like that. He's getting up and down and not really sweating. Like, God, this is freaking perfect. Let's do this more often. That's what I said. It's like you can –

Take this away from him. If you want to take this away from him, you can say that it doesn't matter. You can say that it's an event, that it's a weak field and who cares. I'm still going to enjoy it. I'm still going to enjoy it. And I enjoyed every single moment of that. And nothing can take that away from us and me and you and him and Derek and Ross and Maya and the whole team that we love so much. Jeff Nagels, everybody. Nagels, plug your show real quick.

Wednesday nights, 8 o'clock. Only got a couple episodes left. We're only going up to the Tour Championship. Then we're going to take the fall off. We'll be back in January. Nagels Bagels on YouTube. Nagels Bagels on Twitter. You can find me. I just give out my lineup. We'll do one and done. Do some picks and bets. It's a good show. We talk about the tournament. Give it a little preview. It's going to get like your last stop before you lock in your lineups and maybe laugh a little bit. I don't know.

Some people like it. It might be good. It might be good. It might be a good show. Nagels, we will talk soon, my friend. I think we're playing golf next week or the week after or something like that with maybe Chris, or we'll figure that out. But anyway, buddy, thanks so much for joining me, man, and we'll talk again soon, man. Go Zander. Go Zander.

Drinking and driving is a decision that could change your whole world. Things will never be the same if you ever get a DUI. Because legal fees and time in court are just the beginning. Getting into a crash is another way that your world can be turned upside down. Your vehicle may not be the only thing that gets damaged in that crash. You can face a life altering injury or

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