Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast.
Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the
better it gets. Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use Indeed to hire great talent fast. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com slash blue wire.
Just go to Indeed.com slash BlueWire right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on this podcast. That's Indeed.com slash BlueWire. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. This episode of Inside Golf Podcast is brought to you by The Rabbit Hole on BettsBurksGolf.com. This is where I make my models.
This is where I go to aggregate and accumulate all my data. It is a very helpful resource if you are serious about betting and playing DFS golf. It has been for me, at least I credit it as a crucial piece in any of the success that I have been able to have. So if you want full access to the model that I make,
Bettsburg Golf is where you want to go. And as always, the discount that you want is inside golf for 25% off any package. If you sign up today, you'll get everything for the Scottish Open plus my model for the Open Championship, which will also be in there by this time next week.
And these are two really important weeks to utilize this tool, right? We are the only data site with actual data from the Scottish Open. We're the only data site with a links golf filter. We're the only data site with
with a heavily curated and correct wind filter. We're the only data site that actually has putting data from fescue grass courses. So the edge is as important as ever. Once we get into open championship season, the tool is absolutely essential to have. If you are serious about making money,
in golf betting and DFS. Betsbertsgolf.com code INSIDEGOLF for a whopping 25% off discount. Okay, Scottish Open. Let's dive right in. I am incredibly excited for these next two weeks. We got past sleepy season. I was running around all over the place for the John Deere and Rocket Mortgage. Playing a lot of golf. I played...
12 different golf courses all across the Northeast in Chicago in 17 days. Probably a run of golf I'll never forget for the rest of my life. I'm feeling inspired. I'll talk about some of these golf courses, I think, at some point on a later podcast, but that's not what we are focused on today. We are dialing in
for two of my favorite weeks of the golf season, the Scottish Open and the Open Championship. I'm recording this on a Sunday morning. It's 9 a.m. Eastern time. John Deere Classic final round gets underway in about an hour. I've got Davis Thompson and Eric Cole, and I want this one bad. Looking at the DraftKings odds heading into the final round, DVT plus 100.
Eric Cole plus 450. Aaron Rye, who I don't have, is plus 320. Those are the final round odds on DraftKings right now. Everyone else is 25 to one or higher. So the books seem to believe it's a three horse race. And I sort of agree. I think that
One of the guys at 16 or 17 unders is probably going to shoot something low and make it fairly interesting. But I do think this golf tournament gets one at 25 under par. So, yeah.
I do believe that if Davis Thompson at 21 under par goes out and shoots 67, goes out and shoots 4 under, I think he wins. Just like similarly if Eric Cole or Aaron Rye at 19 under par go out and shoot 65, 6 under, and get to 25 under, they're probably at least in a playoff. So that means that the guys at 17 or 16 under par win.
I think they're going to need to shoot a 63 out there to get right there. And I do think one of them will probably do that. Your guess is as good as mine, who it would be between the Hayden Springers and the CT Pans and the Luke Clantons and Michael Thorpe-Jordson. I do think one out of the Clanton-Thorpe-Jordson pair would
We'll shoot something really awesome today. And, and, you know, those guys, no scar tissue, they're playing free. They've got nothing to lose. I think one of them's going to play some really, really good golf today. And maybe one of them underwhelms. But again, I do believe that if Davis Thompson goes out and shoot 67, if one of Eric Cole or Aaron Rye goes out and shoot 65, then,
I think that's at least going to be enough to get them into a playoff. You know, so naturally with me having Davis Thompson and Eric Cole, two of the three guys in pole position, you could probably walk in Aaron Rye as your probable winner. But I'm pretty excited to sit down and lock into some golf this afternoon. Not necessarily.
Not just because I have two of the three big favorites, certainly not because I like TPCG or run as a venue. I just haven't been watching a lot of golf lately. I've been on the road. I miss Sunday at the Travelers. I miss Sunday at the Rocket Mortgage. So I'm just pumped to lock into some Sunday golf back at home, rested, recharged, recharged.
Feeling great heading into two of my favorite weeks of the season, really the last two great golf weeks of the season. And hopefully Cole or Davey T make it a big week for us. But let's dive right into the Scottish Open. We got a bunch to talk about this week. So the Genesis Scottish Open, it's currently the only co-sanctioned event between the PGA and DP World Tour season.
So there will be a number of names towards the back end of this field that you may not be familiar with if you are not a regular consumer of golf across the pond. With that being said, the top end of this field is strong. You know, many of the world's best players on the PGA Tour side will be using this week as a natural tune-up.
to the open championship, given the, the link style feel of the Renaissance club, our host venue since, since the co-sanctioning with the PGA tour. And we started to get some of the better PGA tour players in this field. Xander Shoffley and Rory McIlroy have won this event across the last two years. And, and as is the case with all links, golf courses, wind conditions, dramatically affect the nature of the Renaissance club. I have seen,
some mixed feelings about the Renaissance club. It's a Tom Doak design and, and,
It's somewhat manufactured feel, but the course has provided a great host venue for tournament golf. And in all five years as a host, the, this tournament has come right down to the wire with three of the five ending in playoffs. And you got winning scores ranging from 700 par to 22 under par, depending on wind conditions. It's in North barrack, Scotland. It's designed by Tom Doak in 2008. So it's,
This is not a North Berwick or a, or a Muirfield where, you know, this golf course was constructed in the 1800s. It's a, it's a very modern golf course. It's a par 70, 7,293 yards. Water comes into play on one hole. Fairways are fescue rough as fescue greens are fescue. And over, you know, this next two weeks stretch of the Scottish open and open championship, uh,
weather will play a massive role in our handicap of how the golf course will play in 2019 and 2021. We did not experience much wind and bird
Burt Weisberger and Minwoo Lee won respectively at 22 and 18 under par in 2020 and 2023. We saw more difficult to middling conditions where Aaron Ryan, Roy McIlroy won both respectively at 11 and 15 under par in 2022 and
We saw super difficult, super windy conditions and Xander Shoffley triumphed at seven under par. So due to the variability of the conditions, modeling out this tournament is no easy task. And, you know, be sure to take to check the Rumpier Sports Discord for weather updates. I'll have a full weather breakdown in terms of how that's going to affect my DraftKings player pool today.
In the Wednesday article, I will be monitoring the wind very closely over the next few days as whether this tournament is won at 700 par or 2200 par or somewhere in between. That's going to have a dramatic impact on the players that I choose to deploy. Early wind forecasts show that.
fairly benign conditions. As I sit here early on Sunday morning and record this podcast, I'm looking at win conditions that leads me to believe that we will see something far closer to that 18 to 22 under number than the 7 to 11 under number. Keep in mind that last year,
This golf course played very easy Thursday through Sunday before playing brutally difficult on Sunday. So it is highly unlikely that we see similar scoring conditions every single day. Like if you look at how this golf tournament has played out in the past,
Even within the tournament, you're going to see pretty wild differences in scoring. And this fact should provide a formidable edge in showdown and in tournament betting. Yet, you know, for the purpose of this podcast, I'm going to be operating under the assumption that the Renaissance Club will play
On the easier side, due to the wind conditions that I'm seeing right now on Sunday morning, and I expect us personally to see usually pretty good at predicting these things. But again, if you've ever played golf in Ireland or Scotland, you know that this could change in a heartbeat, right? Like I remember, I've never played golf in Scotland before. I'm dying to. It's on my bucket list. I have played a lot of golf in Ireland. I went on a big...
Ireland trip in September of 2022. And, you know, you would look at the weather forecast, you know, on Thursday morning, if we're going to go play golf later that afternoon. And, you know, sometimes you would get dramatically different conditions than what the weather forecast was even showing that day. This is not
Like the U.S. where, you know, if you're going to play golf either in California or Texas or the Northeast and it says it's going to rain that day or it says it's going to be 10 mile per hour winds that day.
That's pretty much what you're going to get. That has not been my experience playing golf overseas in the British Isles, right? So monitor these wind conditions closely throughout the week. I certainly will be. I certainly will be providing daily weather updates in the Rumpier Sports Discord. But as of what I'm seeing now on Sunday morning,
I think, unfortunately, it's not going to be a ton of carnage. I am seeing...
fairly benign gusts, right? I think this is absolutely going to play on the easier end of the spectrum compared to that Xander Shoffley year where he won at seven to 10 under, right? I think we're operating a far lot closer to that, you know, burnt Weisberger and Minwoo Lee's year where, where they won in the 18 under ballpark in terms of the golf course itself. Um,
The Renaissance Club was designed in 2008 by Tom Doak, who, in my opinion, probably one of the three greatest modern architects, right? In terms of the work done after 1990, I'd say Cork Crenshaw, Tom Doak, and Gil Hance are great.
Kind of the three that are operating on a higher plane. Historically, in terms of the resume that they already have, the consistency of their overall design, I think there are a couple of younger architects now that absolutely...
have a chance to get into that top tier right now. They just don't have a, as extensive of, of a resume as the dokes, the Hanses and the core crunchers as of now. You know, but I, I love any Tom Doak golf course that we get to see on the PGA tour. Although I don't think that this is one of his better works. You know, this does play like a links golf course, but,
but it has a very modern feel to it. And the traditionalist in me, the lover of golf in the British Isles of, of lengths golf, my, my favorite type of golf to play in the world is lengths golf, right? And, and,
My favorite is the most connective I connected that I've ever felt to the game of golf. Golf at its purest form, in my opinion, is coming from the influence in the British Isles. Right. Right. Those golf courses in Ireland. Right.
The ballet bunions, the little hinges, the Waterville is through trolleys. Those are the golf courses that I have felt the most intrinsic connection to and all of the classical golden age golf courses in America.
Your Chicago golf clubs, your creeks, your National Golf Links of America, those golf courses that were designed by your C.B. McDonald's with a lot of Scottish influence, your Redan coming from North Berwick, a lot of those template holes.
your road holes that, that have this Scottish influence of let's pick, play the ball on the ground. Uh, the excitement of this golf course, uh,
the true nature and feel of this golf course really gets going in windier firm conditions. The adventure begins when you get on the greens that to me, not this aerial attack of target golf TPC courses. That to me is golf in its truest and most natural form. And, um,
You know, I think the Renaissance Club, it plays like a links golf course, but it has a bit of a modern feel to it, right? It doesn't have that rugged. This golf course was naturally sculpted into the earth and has been here for 200 years, like a North Berwick or Muirfield, that Scottish feel.
natural, old school, traditional aura to it. It doesn't really have that. And I feel like if we are going to have Scottish Opens and Irish Opens and Open Championships, the golf courses that should be representing
Scottish Open, an Irish Open, an Open Championship should be those golf courses that have been here for 200 years and are responsible for many of the greatest golf courses that we have in America because this is really where golf started. I do think that it's those types of golf courses that should be representing the
You know, Lynx golf or when we get to see the pros play Lynx golf, it should be those types of golf courses, those old school traditional golf courses that should be representing Lynx golf because that.
That truly does, again, represent Lynx golf and golf the sport in its truest and its most natural form. I'm still not one to complain. I think any Doak golf course, just based on the greens that he's able to design, is better than 90% of the courses that we see week to week.
on the PGA tour. Again, no, this is not Tom Doak's, one of Tom Doak's finest creations. It feels a touch manufactured and contrived, particularly when placed in context with some of the other Scottish golf courses in the area that, that have been here for a lot longer. The site was an old pine forest. So there's nothing, uh,
really natural or authentic about it. A lot of the best links golf courses in the world, you know, it feels like,
they just came naturally out of, out of the earth and that this site was meant to host a golf course, um, forever that it was placed on earth to be a lengths golf course. And, and the ground movements are so natural. Not a lot of dirt was moved. I mean, you know, as I played the oldest golf course in America, the oldest 18 hole golf course in America two days ago. And, um,
you know, that, that golf course was built with a horse and plow, right. And there's something so authentic to it. There's something so beautiful about it. It's almost like playing golf in a museum. You feel like you're stepping back in time into the 1800s and you don't really get that with the Renaissance club, but you know, still the golf course plays like a links golf course. You got to hit the ball on the ground. It doesn't,
boasts the history of the other local tracks, but it will provide a solid foundation for what we can expect next week at Royal Troon. Like all links golf courses, the primary defense is the elements. You've got some deep pop bunkers. You've got some gorse and, and fescue that line the fairways, but you,
Under calm conditions, this golf course can still get torn apart by the modern game. And, you know, kind of similar to what we've seen at St. Andrews and recent opens. Like this is a golf course that is a lot longer than St. Andrews. Like at St. Andrews under calm conditions, you can drive like six different greens. This is not that this is a harder golf course and St. Andrews and calm conditions. But if you don't get wind, you're,
you can see players bombing gouges golf course and gain a very significant edge with their distance. It's not a short course. It measures nearly 7,300 yards on the scorecard, but it typically gets set up differently from day to day. If, if,
If they feel like there's going to be a lot of wind in the forecast, they'll tend to set it up easier. If it feels like there's going to be less wind in the forecast, they'll push some of the tees back, create some more provocative pin positions. I would not get overly wrapped up with specific yardages, but...
It kind of uniquely features five par threes and three par fives. Two of the par threes are quite short. One plays 147 and one plays 161, while the other three all measure over 200 yards. And depending on the win, all three of the par fives should be reachable. None of them are short, but...
None of them are true three-shot holes either unless played straight into the wind. Seven of the par fours measure above 445 yards, which is a fairly large number. The fifth hole is a drivable par four, and the fourth and 15th holes are both shorter par fours. In 2022, under incredibly difficult conditions, Xander Shoffley was
the golf course with an incredibly balanced attack. He gained over two strokes to the field in all four major categories. And each of the top five players on the leaderboard gained strokes across the board. But, you know, last year, however, when we saw some more easier conditions, uh,
We saw players dominate with their driver more in calmer conditions. You know, Rory McIlroy, Benny on Scotty Sheffler. All those guys finished top three ranking first, second and third in off the tee play. And those who possessed below average distance on this golf course last year, your David Legmers, your J.T. Poston's.
Those guys ranked first and third and putting. So under the conditions that I would expect that we see this year at the Renaissance club, this is the quintessential driver putter golf course. Okay. Which is not dissimilar to another Tom Doak design that we saw earlier this year in Memorial park. So to me,
The two major things that are, you know, very tough greens. It's very difficult to putt in the wind here. Any greens designed by Tom Doak are going to have their fair share of undulations and contours. And this is a golf course with a very, very low Miss fairway penalty. You basically have, you know, some scarce pop bunkers and gorse out there, but, uh,
You know, the pop bunkers are few and far between, and the Gorse is kind of out there wide enough where you still got a ton of space off the tee where players are still going to bomb away, attempt to gain a significant advantage off the tee with their driver advantage.
try and get up as close to these greens as possible. And then it just comes down to how solid are you from inside 15 feet? How solid of a lag putter are you? I really think that this is, I talked about this at, at Memorial park, big time to these Tom Doak golf course, or a lot of what Tom Doak likes to do on, on his golf courses. Right. And
I felt this way playing a stream song blue recently at Tom Doe golf course that I played a couple months ago. There's generally space off the tee and really difficult, heavily contoured greens. So you can get up.
You can gain a significant advantage with your power off the tee, but you've got to be a great lag putter. You've got to be a great putter inside 15 feet from 5 to 15 feet. It's a big driver-putter golf course this week if we're kind of dumbing it down to...
how I would define this golf course at its most elementary level. And to be honest with you, you look at some of the, uh, the winners, Minwoo Lee, driver putter guy, Thomas Dietry, who's played great here, driver putter guy, um, Robert McIntyre, driver putter guy, Rory McIlroy to a certain extent, you know, like he's a very underrated putter. I don't think Rory gets enough, uh,
praise for the strength of his putter at times. It just, you know, we think of Rory as a bad putter because whenever we pan to Rory and contention, it seems like he's, he's missing pots. Right. But in terms of like Rory's long-term data and stats, Rory's a really good lock putter and Rory's a really good overall putter. And, you
You know, how Pinehurst kind of ended up playing at the end of the day was, again, I kind of talked about how I actually think the way the golf course was set up, it kind of devalued elite approach play a little bit, which was one of the reasons why Sheffler struggled. And this was more of a golf course about.
bombing it out there as far as you can and how good of a lag putter you are inside 50 feet and you know to a certain extent I think the renaissance club has a lot of of similarities in there in terms of of course iron play is still important I'm still heavily heavily weighting iron play like you would have to at every single golf course but in terms of its relative value to
significant advantage that you will gain from hitting the ball a long way and being a phenomenal lag putter and putter inside 15 feet. Like I think those two scales of lag putting and, and power matter tremendously at this golf course. So let's talk a brief bit more on the golf course and then dive into our model and my early leans. But first,
First, let's take a quick break and hear a word from...
Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. Leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day, Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the
That's Indeed.com slash BlueWire.
Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed. Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices up.
down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile, unlimited premium wireless. How did it get 30, 30, how did it get 30, how did it get 20, 20, 20, how did it get 20, 20, how did it get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month? Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes each detail. Our partners.
Okay, so the main thing that I want to emphasize here at the Renaissance Club is first let's talk about just briefly kind of the bomb and gouge nature of this golf course and why I do believe that this is one of the more distance bias at golf courses that we'll see all year on the PGA Tour and then
very briefly about, you know, why, why I think putting is so important here as well, but it ranked 21st in off the tee difficulty and ninth, the prior year under more difficult conditions. It features some of the toughest fairways to hit on tour, but there's virtually zero interest in players attempting to hit them because they're
It ranked 43rd out of 45 courses last year and missed fairway penalty, 29th out of 45 courses in rough penalty. It did rank first in non-rough penalty, which basically just explains that players who end up in pop bunkers are dead, but the pop bunkers are so few and far between that players will still bomb away and take their chances outside of the pop bunkers. There's no real hazards there.
on the golf course. The Renaissance Club ranked 44th out of 45 courses in missed fairways that resulted in a penalty stroke. And it's just unequivocally a golf course where distance is incredibly advantageous. Shorter hitters, of course, you know, your Tom Kims, your Tommy Fleetwoods, your Jamie Donaldson's, your Aaron Rise, your David Legmers, your JT Poston.
can still absolutely succeed here. But Xander Shoffley, Kurt Kadyama, Rasmus Hoegaard, Alex Smalley, Thomas Dietry, Dean Burmester all finished top 10 in 2022 while ranking significantly above average in driving distance. And last year under calmer conditions, I mean, the calmer the conditions get,
the more emphasis that there's going to be on power because you don't have to get a little bit more conservative off the tee and flight your ball, right? The less win, the more advantageous that is going to be to just bomb the ball away off the tee, whereas you need to get a little bit more scientific with your strategy and windy conditions. So under calmer conditions,
The distance advantage was even more pronounced, right? Four of the top five players on the leaderboard finished top 25 in driving distance, including Rory McIlroy, who blew the field away in driving distance. Benny Ahn, who finished third. He also
Also ranked third in driving distance. All in all, 27 of the top 40 players on the leaderboard gained to the field in driving distance. So basically, you know, 67%, two thirds of there's kind of a two to one ratio in terms of the top 40 finishers that
hit the ball a lot farther than field average, right? Gaining to the field and driving distance. And with such a low missed fairway penalty and accurate drivers losing their advantage, power is the name of the game at the Renaissance Club. Conversely, driving accuracy...
I think is of little relevance on this golf course. You know, 2022, eight of the top 15 players on the leaderboard, including your winner and your runner-up finisher in Xander Shoffley and Kurt Kitayama lost to the field in driving accuracy last year, nine of the top 12 finishers finished outside the top 30 in driving accuracy. So again,
I think this is a driver heavy, low missed fairway golf course where power is far more advantageous than accuracy. And then in terms of the importance of putting, so really, really difficult putting course. It ranked third out of 45 courses in putting difficulty. I have played
My fair share of Tom Doak golf courses and all of them feature challenging and undulating green complexes. Last year, the golf course ranked first in putting difficulty inside five feet, fourth out of 45 courses.
putting difficulty from five to 15 feet and 37th out of 45 courses in putting difficulty from greater than 15 feet. The Renaissance Club is one of the most difficult putting courses on tour, which is largely a testament on how difficult it is to putt in the wind and
and the subtle undulations of Doak's greens putting inside 15 feet remains an incredibly important skill at the Renaissance Club, both in volume and degree of difficulty. You know, this skill will be even more heavily accentuated in easier scoring conditions with a higher greens and regulation percentage.
And any time that we have a golf course with large, heavily sloped greens as well as greenside surrounds that are conducive to putting from off the green lag, putting will be a valuable tool for players to have in their arsenal. Finally, we have very limited data from putting on fescue greens.
But we have it in the rabbit hole still far better than any other data site can say. So we have the Renaissance Club data. We have statistics from the Open Championship. But the defining characteristic of golf in the British Isles are slower greens.
Greens need to stay slower in windier conditions or balls will roll off the greens. Thus, you know, I wanted to identify the players who specifically raise their baseline on slower green speeds. And then in terms of the approach play, you've got.
Close to 60%, well above actually, yes, 67%, two-thirds of approach shots coming from over 150 yards. That's what's going to happen when you've got four par fours that measure over 480 yards.
three par threes that measure over 200 yards and three par fives that are reachable by nearly all players in the field, depending on wind conditions. Right. So long irons, power putting, it's a very easy short game golf course. Surprisingly, like there are not, uh,
It ranks nearly dead last in around the green difficulty from the fairway and from the rough around the greens. Like unless you're in a pop bunker, it's a very easy chipping golf course. If you ever chipped off of fescue, it's a, it's a very easy, um,
it's a very easy surface to chip off of. And, you know, a lot of players are just going to putt from off the greens, which again, increases that importance in lag putting. So I threw all of this together, looked a little bit at the course history here at Memorial Park, the other real comp course that I would say in terms of the skill set of driver putter, the dope greens. I
I looked at windy conditions, which we have on the rabbit hole, the most accurate filter of windy conditions. We spend a lot of time discerning what should be considered a windy and challenging ground versus what should not. We don't just
mindlessly plug in the weather forecast from earlier that day, because that's not actually how it typically always plays out. Uh, I looked at links golf courses. I looked at open championship at Scottish open history, some links golf courses on the DP world tour, all of these putting metrics, mainly, you know, inside 15 feet, three putt avoidance from 25 feet plus putting on slower greens, uh,
Um, your, your power off the tee, your strokes gained off the tee on these driver heavy golf courses with a low miss fairway penalty. And here is who it shot out for me. Xander Shoffley, number one, former champion at this golf course, Rory McIlroy, number two, I think.
We are all going to be fairly fascinated to see how Rory looks in his most recent start after the crushing defeat at Pinehurst. I think what Rory does this week is largely irrelevant, which
it, which is how I think most people view Rory McIlroy at this point in his career. It's like we're kind of just done with what he does on PGA Tour golf courses. Unfortunately for Rory, there are four weeks of the year that matter. And I am fascinated as ever to see what Rory does at Royal Troon.
but, uh, what happens at the Scottish open this week, whatever I think him and Xander are fairly close for me in terms of their skillset on this golf course. Um, I'm going to let ownership tell the story for me there. Number three, Victor Hovland. I'm back in. I really liked this golf course for Victor Hovland. And I think he's very, very close. Um, I, as a
really good spot for Hovland. I think he's going to play well at Troon too. And then I think he'll, you know, he tends to have a lot of success in the FedEx cup playoffs. I think Victor Hovland's best golf in 2024 is ahead of him. We were on him at Valhalla. I think he's going to finish the year on a high note. I'd be fairly surprised if Hovland doesn't pick up one down the stretch. Now,
Whether that's at this—I'm going to bet him this week, I believe. I don't know if I'll bet him at Troon, but I think he's going to play well at Troon. I think if he doesn't win on one of these two next weeks in length season, I think he's going to have a really strong BMW championship and potentially Eastlake again.
Number four, Wyndham Clark. Mr. Driver Putter is back. We were on Wyndham heavy earlier in the season. He's been very contest earlier in the season. We faded him the past couple of tournaments. The iron play hasn't looked great. Those irons are starting to peak their head out again. He had an amazing Sunday at the Travelers Championship.
Um, and, uh, you know, the irons came back. He gained over 3.5 on approach at the travelers on Sunday. Number five, Corey Connors, uh, something's kind of in the water right now with Corey Connors short game and putting, obviously he's been one of the best approach players in this field, but, uh, he's been put chipping and putting the ball a lot better recently. And, and that iron play from Connors, he's actually, uh,
surprisingly had a little bit more success across the pond than you would think. Number six, Benny on, he's a former third place finisher here last year. Uh, he has, uh, he has the requisite power off the tee. Um, I have long been a Benny on supporter this season. I think it's coming very shortly with Benny on. I love Benny.
the way that he hits the ball off the tee. He's got that high sweeping draw. He can flight the ball in the wind. We've seen him do it on this golf course before. Um, I think Benny on is, uh, I think Bonnie Benny on will be there once again this week. Number seven, Tommy Fleetwood feels kind of like the obvious one, right? Like he's got tremendous history at this golf course. Um,
I had Tommy's going to make some noise the next two weeks, right? I think he will be a very popular selection at Royal Troon. He's played some phenomenal golf this year. He's coming off a week at the travelers where he gained over five strokes on approach. Um, not a bad thing to say about Tommy this week. I don't know if I'll get to him as an outright, uh, we'll see what the DFS ownership comes in on, but I get it. I has a great spot for Tommy eight Ludwig. Oh, bear. Um,
God, I love the guy. He, he really has disappointed. He disappointed me at the travelers championship. Um,
I still think he's played some of his best golf this year on these windy, tougher, firm, fast golf courses like the Masters and Pinehurst. I know he doesn't have a tremendous amount of length experience. I think he's going to have a great week this week. Ludwig is in strong consideration for me as a bet.
Number nine, Tom Hoagie. Just the irons have been unbelievable at the moment. He's playing some great golf. Always a threat coming off a week at the Travelers where he gained over eight strokes on approach. Number 10, Max Homa, which surprised me a little bit given his state of play. He has not been playing as great golf recently, but he's surprisingly played well at this golf course. I think this is kind of a sneaky, good Max Homa spot. Number 11, Thomas Dietry.
Driver putter, right? Such a, just a great driver putter guy. I love Dietrich this week. He's played well at this golf course in the past. 12 Colin Morikawa, kind of a mix. I don't love him on power putting golf courses, but Morikawa has been fantastic.
putting a lot better recently. Number 13, Christian Bizeidenhout, 14, Tom Kim, 15, Sahitha Ghala, 16, Robert McIntyre. McIntyre, the second place finisher here last year, another great driver putter spot for Bobby Mack, 17, Alex Norin. He might be on the wrong side of a good run. 18, Keith Mitchell, 19, Adam Scott, and 20,
Brian Harmon, who I actually really, really like this week. So I think the players that I am most interested in, the players that I have circled as potential bets, Victor Hovland, Ludwig O'Bear, this young Swedish duo, I
I really think it's coming. I really think those guys have a very strong finish to the season based on like
Ludwig should be a driver putter. Like he is such a power drive, powerful driver of the ball. And he is, you know, a phenomenal putter. Like Ludwig is a very, very underrated putter. Same with Hovland too. Hovland has a ton of difficulty around the greens, but Hovland's a great putter on slower greens. He's had all those victories on past Palm. He's a great putter inside 15 feet. I mentioned that this is one of the easier short game golf courses on the PGA tour. Um,
And, you know, he sneakily had a, he finished top 20 at the Travelers, whatever, drove the ball great. So Hovland, O'Bear, Tommy Fleetwood, for obvious reasons, he just has a phenomenal Lynx resume who he's played well at this golf course in the past, coming off a great performance at the Travelers Championship. I think, you know, Tommy always gets a little bit overvalued.
these links golf courses in the betting markets, but I still think that he is an incredibly strong option. If you could catch like a, a 25, 30 to one on Fleetwood this week, this feels like the event that he would win. It feels like a very likely scenario that Fleetwood is going to be awesome this week. And then, you know, maybe what a bunch of people down at Royal Troon or kind of backdoor, a top 10 at Royal Troon. Once everybody gets their hopes up,
And then the final four guys that I'm looking at very heavily here as outright bats are Wyndham Clark, Brian Harmon, Thomas Dietry, and Robert McIntyre. Just briefly on Wyndham Clark, uh,
He's played pretty solid here already. He's got two top 25s in two appearances at the Scottish Open, at the Renaissance Club, gaining strokes in both ball striking categories in both of those appearances. His driver remains an absolute weapon. I think that you want to play Clark on...
on these driver-heavy golf courses that give you a lot of room off the tee and have difficult, undulating greens. Like, to a certain extent, Quail Hollow was like this. To a certain extent, LACC was like this. He happens to also be a remarkable bunker player, for what it's worth. Like, he ranks second in this field in sand save percentage overall.
I trust him if he gets into trouble in some of these bunkers. And he's got that combination of power off the tee. And he is just an awesome putter, right? He's one of the better putters in this field from 3 to 15 feet. He's 17th in three-putt avoidance from 25 feet plus, 15th putting on slower greens. So the driver-putter combo is exactly what you are looking for out of Clark. And he's coming off that 9th.
at the Travelers where he gained 3.5 strokes on approach.
4.1 putting the off the tee and the approach got better for him and after four kind of shaky starts in a row it appears that Clark is beginning to head back in the right direction the ball striking looked unbelievable for him in round four and that's a lot of what I'm looking for is were you able to improve over the course of the tournament do you have some momentum heading into your next start and then
Brian Harmon, too. I know that he doesn't have the power off the tee. He's not going to win this golf tournament by dominating this course with his driver. But he has a 12th here or a miscut and a 12th in two appearances at the Renaissance Club. Obviously, he feels comfortable here in terms of Lynx golf. He won an open championship last year by five.
Hasn't won since, but has backed up this year with a couple of pretty solid finishes. In 18 starts this year, he's got 10 top 30 finishes. I was on him at the Travelers Championship. He finished 9th. I really liked the way that he played. He gained 5.1 strokes off the tee at the Travelers, gained 1.9 on
on approach 1.8 around the greens lost 1.3 putting so he finished top 10 in a signature event losing 1.3 strokes putting um just one of the better lag putters and putters from 3 to 15 feet in this field he putts incredibly well on slow greens like i think that these are kind of just as we saw you know last time that brian harman was on fescue based greens he gained
eight strokes putting and won the open championship by five strokes. He's got a lower ball flight. He's got that low piercing draw. That's great in the wind. If this tournament plays a little bit easier and we don't see as much when I trust him in more of a putting contest, I just think that, uh,
It should be a very warm, welcome, and soft landing for Brian Harmon in some great ball striking form going back across the pond to play some Winx golf. I don't think he's going to by any means win back-to-back open championships, but I could very well see Harmon contending at this golf course, kind of raising the hype a little bit for Royal Troon as the, um,
as the defending open champion. And then as it pertains to D tree and Bobby Mac, like these are just both fairly obvious course history guys that check the driver putter box. Like if you look at what Bobby Mac does best, he hits the ball a long way off the tee and,
He's a really great putter. He's a really underrated putter. He ranks second in this field on native grass courses. He has had a lot of success on legs courses over the course of his career. He's got two top tens in four appearances at the Open Championship Games.
gained 1.9 off the tee coming off the miscut at the Rocket Mortgage. I think it's maybe relative by a low spot for both of these guys. Bobby Mack was so-so at the Rocket Mortgage, and Thomas Dietry was so-so at the Travelers. But I just think both of those guys are such strong course fits based on their driver putter. So, yeah.
Some sort of hodgepodge of that group for me between Dietrich and Bobby Mack and EVR and Wyndham Clark. I really like EVR too. And then maybe I think I'm in on Hovland. And I'm very considering maybe anchoring that Hovland bet if I don't do Hovland, Clark, Harmon, Dietrich, McIntyre. If I just...
go with my big two Swedes. If I do, if I do Hoffland, Oh bear. But, um,
I just love Hovland's fit on links golf courses. I think you want to play him on slower greens. Um, I think you want to play him on golf courses where you can putt from off the greens. He's a very easy green side surrounds where you can putt. You do not need to hit a lot of tight lie chips off of like softer turf. Um,
This is very firm turf where you can putt the ball a lot. The ball will be on the ground, and Hovland is a great, great driver of the ball. He is still incredibly powerful off the tee. He gained 5.2 strokes.
off the tee at the Travelers. He ranks eighth in this field on native grass courses, seventh on links courses, eighth in windy conditions. He has a very strong resume at the Open Championship with four top 15 finishes in four appearances at the Open Championship. He just hopped right over the pond and felt very comfortable on links golf courses, and he remains an awesome long iron player at that as well. So,
I think Hovland's your winner. I do. And if not Hovland, some sort of combo of Ludwig, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harmon, Thomas Dietry, and Bobby Mack. Hopefully we can build off...
the success that we hopefully have had at the John Deere, hopefully Eric Cole or Davis Thompson can get over the finish line for us. And, um, we've got some extra money to play for over this next two week. Awesome stretch of golf at, at, at the Scottish open and the open championships and golf. I'm really excited and inspired to watch. Um,
We will be revving up the content over the next couple of weeks for the Open Championship. I've got
Kyle Porter coming on annually. We do this about once, twice a year to just check in on the state of pro golf. Talk about some narratives heading into the open championship, the annual open championship course breakdown with my guy, Steve Bamford coming later in the week. So we'll have a double podcast week this week. The podcast with Porter will come out on Tuesday morning. That'll talk.
bigger picture open championship storylines then later friday afternoon with steve bamford um and then we're you know revving right into that sunday solo podcast where i break down my bets for the open championship the draft kings picks with kobe dubose uh his favorite tournament of the year he'll be in vegas for that one um i'll be at home watching in new york i uh
Like I said, I played 12 rounds of golf in 17 days. I'm not picking up a club for the next two weeks. I'm going to sit at home and watch a ton of golf and dive in to, you know, the Scottish open and the open championship and really lock in for a great couple of weeks here. So join the rabbit hole, join run pure sports as well. Run pure sports.com promo code Andy. If you want to hop in that discord, I, like I said, I'm, I'm,
Putting the golf clubs away for the next two weeks to really dive in, be super active in that discord, answer some questions and lock into watching, you know, my favorite, one of my favorite struts of golf, golf of the year with the Scottish open and open championship. So until then, best of luck with your bets on Sunday. Enjoy the rest of 4th of July weekend. And we will see you back here on this podcast feed on Tuesday morning. Cheers.
Drinking and driving is a decision that could change your whole world. Things will never be the same if you ever get a DUI. Because legal fees and time in court are just the beginning. Getting into a crash is another way that your world can be turned upside down. Your vehicle may not be the only thing that gets damaged in that crash. You can face a life-altering injury or
or even death. But you're not the only one that can face those consequences. Your decision to drink and drive can permanently impact not just your world, but someone else's world as well. Whether you injure them or leave their loved ones grieving. The next time you're out drinking, call a ride share, a taxi, a sober friend,
or a designated sober driver. The only decision that will change your world for the better is the decision to call for a sober ride. Drive sober or get pulled over. Paid for by NHTSA.