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Okay, Sony Open with Jon Hasselbauer. You know him as PGA Tout on Twitter. This one was an absolute blast. Jon is somebody I talk to every day, not just about golf, but we haven't done a podcast, just the two of us, in quite some time. So this was a ton of fun. And I'm
And in the last part of the episode, we talk about Euphoria season two. I try and make the case why it is the most groundbreaking show on television we've seen in quite some time. We talk about HBO. So I hope you stick around for that part of the conversation. But if not, there's a lot of good Sony stuff in the beginning. I feel pretty good about this week. So John Hasselbauer, Sony Open. Let's get into it.
All right, John Hasselbauer is here. You likely know him as PGA Tout on Twitter. I appreciate you joining me on such short notice, man. I didn't hear from Feinberg, who had COVID all day yesterday, and he texted me this morning and said, I'm good to go. Let's do this. And I said, well, now I'm already so amped up to talk about Euphoria and the state of HBO with John that we're going to have to push you back. So, John, welcome. It's been a minute since we've done
uh, one, just the two of us. Happy, uh, happy Sony open week, my friend. Yeah. Thank you for having me on. Uh, it's nice to hear that. I jumped Jeff and the power rankings. I'll let him know afterwards. Uh,
But yeah, thanks for having me on. It's been, this is my inside golf debut. It's been since pick the pup days that I've been on here. It's been like Texas Valero open. I think it was the last time we, we chopped it up and broke down a course together and you've gotten like eight new jobs since then. And, and I've gotten a few life changes recently.
in the past six months, whatever it's been. So happy to be here and obviously very happy to see you're doing well. Love the scramble. Love what you're doing, Rick. And good to be talking to you again. Yeah, it was. You were my second episode ever, the Valero Texas Open. My first one was the match play with Luke. My second was Valero Texas Open. And then third was the Masters, I remember. But yeah, it's been a while. I actually think we did. I had you on to do a Friday night show last
halfway point of the PGA Championship, I believe. But I've kind of scrapped those with future majors because it's just I can't get it out in time for anyone to listen to it. It maybe works better as like a live show than a podcast just because of the turnaround time. But yeah, it's been a minute, man. I know we did the show with...
Brian and we talk pretty much every day in our group chat. But yeah, I'm excited to have you on. How did last week treat you? I don't want to spend too much time on this, but any big, broad sweeping takeaways from the first event of the year?
I guess I broke even on props. I took Leishman over Koepka and I took Burns top 10 and he was top 10 for most of the way and then he doubled 17, dropped out. So I thought I was going to sweep the props, but I broke even there and didn't really have a good outright sweat. I mean, nobody really did if you didn't have Cam Smith or Rom. Kicking myself a little bit because I did like Cam Smith. I put him in
you know, the core of my DFS lineups, the numbers I saw him out were like 18 to one. To me, that's just like so short with so many top guys right around him. So kicking myself a little bit because he was popping in my research. I think he was like second in my model behind ROM. So it sucks when you're like, you're dead on, on the research and you don't make money off the prop on the outrights or anything, but it good, good to know that the process is off to a good start. Not going to hit an outright at every tournament. Um,
you know, a lot of people complaining about it was too easy. I kind of like, give me any tournament that puts John Rahm at the top neck and neck with anybody else. Like I don't really, the ends justify the means as far as I'm concerned. And if you're getting a nice down to the wire implications on a team with the world, number one and somebody else who's hot, like,
That's entertaining to me. So it was a fun watch. It's crazy that it got to 35 under. There's a lot of guys I think that we'll talk about who finished like T20 and shot 20 under last week. So there's guys coming in with good forms, even if the placement doesn't say so. So yeah, it was a nice little amuse-bouche, but we're ready for Sony Open now.
Yeah, I usually, I generally hate the way that the PGA Tour sets up courses for the most part, but I actually didn't mind last week. I think for one or two events of the year, it's still really fun when you have the right course to let them kind of just unleash. And I really enjoyed watching it. I thought it was a good product on television because you get these
beautiful sweeping vistas and they're hitting a lot of strange shots. It feels like the ball's in the air forever. And even the wedge shots are kind of interesting. They're kind of have the ball below their feet and they're trying to carry these big ravines. So I really enjoyed it as well. I I'm like you, I felt like I had a really good process last week and I made a good fair amount of money. I swept my matchups and did well.
on DraftKings, but it's always tough when you miss out on the outright, which feels like kind of the grand prize. But hopefully we have a little more luck this week, man. You ready to dive into Sony?
Yeah. I'll say too. I really liked the ESPN plus coverage. I'm looking forward to a year of that because you saw a lot of golf shots, even in the feature groups, they like spread out of just that feature group, which is like such an obvious thing for a broadcast crew to do. So glad that ESPN is willing to do that. I could do without the protractors or whatever they were bringing on every course for every other shot, but you know, it's nice to see that the coverage is actually improving, but yeah, we can kick it into Sony. All
All right, let's do it, my friend. So first, this is the first full field event of the year. It's a pretty good field. No more Bryson, but we've still got Webb, Cam Smith, Abancer, Hideki, Billy Horschel, Corey Connors, Harris English, Leishman, Sungjae, Kokrak, Kevin Na will be back to defend his title. So pretty good mix of solid, if not maybe
second tier players, sub elite players, but still kind of top 50 guys. And we are, we're traveling to Wai'alaik Country Club in Honolulu. It's a par 70. It measures 7,044 yards on the scorecard designed by the great Seth Rayner, Bermuda Grass Greens. John, I'm sure that many of my listeners have probably already read your preview, but provide us with an abridged version of what you might be looking for this week.
Yeah. I think looking at the list of past winners, it's a pretty consistent trend of like short game specialists, which is sort of like the inverted way to go about like handicapping. Who's going to win a tournament. Usually want to prioritize ball strikers and hope they get lucky with the short game for whatever reason. Like that's the through line. I see when I look at Kevin non patent, cause I are Matt Kuchar, Kim Smith, Justin Thomas, Zach Johnson, like,
guys are all really class short game players, um, get very hot with a putter and you know, some of them are not the best ball strikers in the world. Um, can Smith come a long way since 2020? Um, I probably wouldn't say the same thing about him now, but, um, in general, like it just seems to be like those shorter sort of plotters who rely on their short game to, to gain strokes are the ones who are winning these tournaments.
You also talk about Charles Howell and Webb Simpson who have the best course history here. They're also similar types of players here. They're not going to overpower a course. Didn't see any sort of correlation between hitting it farther and success here. Usually, it's always a nice to have. With distance, I don't even know if I would go that far on this course that it's nice to have because it's so neutralizing, whether it be the angles of the course and positioning yourself for your second shot.
I know you talked a lot in your pod about the runouts on these fairways. So even if you hit like a hot tee shot that goes a long way, it's probably going to roll out. So being able to hit like a very precise tee shot, even if you're laying up off the tee, setting up for your second shot and then rolling.
The greens can be hot too, and it can get windy. So even good approach players might miss the greens here. So that's where I think around the green and scrambling comes into play. And if it is a 20 under winner like we've seen a lot here, then it's going to be another putting contest. So I'm kind of favoring the good pedigree putters, especially in an unknown form week where you don't really know what sort of form people are coming in in.
you know that a lot of these guys have at least been practicing their putting. So I'm kind of favoring those like putting specialists this week more than I normally would. Not to say that I'm going to ignore any like team no putt guys, but that's sort of like where I started my research and started to refine my player pull down too. Yeah, I kind of like the, I like the zag on the putt
going heavy on short game. That wasn't a thing that I was looking at heavily, but it's definitely a way that you can kind of differentiate yourself and try and maybe identify a couple of different players than everyone else. I think everyone is going to, and justifiably so, be talking about iron play, specifically short iron play. I think it's something like 70% of all approach shots
come between this 125 to 200 range. And again, that sounds like a pretty big range, but
But it's really just who is the best in the world between a pitching wedge and a 7-iron, right? So I'm trying to kind of hone in on those players. And yeah, I agree, man. I think the only thing that I would add to it, obviously, I've gone way more in-depth in my Sunday show, but I can't emphasize enough how different of a golf course this is than the one we saw last week, not just in the conditions. Like last week,
there's a couple different kinds of Bermuda greens, right? Like the last, what we saw last week were really sticky, really slow, especially because all the rain they got, it was, they were almost like running nine on the step meter. I mean, you saw that all the time when guys were hitting shots into 18 and the ball would just stop. Usually that ball runs all the way down. These are more like TPC sawgrass greens. These are more like Florida greens. They're a lot firmer. They're a lot faster. They're, they're a lot,
flatter as well. So I think it's going to be a much different test, but oddly enough, there seems to be this giant correlation between guys that have played super well or not super well at all, actually, that have just played in general at Capolo. Even if they played terrible, they've had a pretty good history here at Wiley. So maybe there's something to that getting kind of the warm-up last week.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because I didn't really touch on that in my preview. And I've seen these trends go around like, what is it like nine of the last 10 or 12 of the last 13 or something like that. Winners have played the week before. I think there's a couple like bunk things about that. Like the first is that anybody playing in the tournament champions is literally someone who won recently. Really? They're just, they're just more likely to be winning this tournament than the people who did not qualify for
play in the tournament champions who hadn't won in the last year so i think take that with a grain of salt there's no correlation whatsoever between like you said between capilou and wiley so i think it's really just like kicking the rust off like this tournament is always in january it's always at least a month off a lot of the like lower tier players who aren't playing in the hero like they haven't played since november so like it's just a matter of like kicking the rust off i think so
I think it's a good buy low spot if somebody didn't play well last week because you're flying out to Hawaii or
You might be a little jet lagged. You haven't picked up a club. Maybe we don't know. I mean, I'm sure a lot of these guys have not like a competitive atmosphere, so maybe they just need to get themselves in gear. So a guy like Abe answer who will get to is popular this week because his numbers dipped. He was one of the worst in the field last week, shot like 10 under. It's not horrible even to shoot 10 under on that course. It is horrible, but you know, it's just interesting to see the overreaction to performance last week. And I think some of these guys just need to
a get right, like just get in game action and then get ready to go for Sony. Yeah. I kind of bucked the trend a little bit too in my selections in terms of whether or not they played last week or how well they played it. I kind of went in a different direction, but let's get into, let's talk about some of the favorites, Sean. So I'm looking at all odds or I used FanDuel because I found their numbers were a lot better than DraftKings this week. I think DraftKings might've taken a little bit of a beating there.
on Cam Smith, but feel free to throw out any numbers you want. I'm looking at where I'm looking, Andy, where
I'm an odds checker. Let's go. Yeah. Odds checker is the best. So if you guys aren't familiar with odds checker, I just started writing for them. They've put out a ton of like just great written and video content. But they also, I mean, I think what they're most known for is they have this screen where you can compare odds between all the best legal sports books. And
I think the viewers of this show are very smart in general, so I think that they shop around by now, but I can't emphasize enough how much you should shop around when betting golf or any sports for that matter. I know the wines does some of that stuff too, right? They sure do. Yeah. Got a nice funky little widget in my articles now that automatically populates. I believe it's just DraftKings, FanDuel, and Caesars.
right now. So I'm not sure if we'll update that down the line, but yeah, that's a tool that I've, you know, you can't like, there's so much like FOMO of placing a bet and then seeing that that number dipped and stuff. So at this point, there's so many resources out there. It just behooves you to look around and see the best number before you place any bets. Yeah. Especially this week where there was actually some pretty big differences between sports books, but
We'll use FanDuel just to talk about the tiers for these purposes, but feel free to talk about any other numbers. I certainly use some different ones for my own personal betting. Cam Smith's plus 850. Webb Simpson's 15-1. Sung Jae is 17-1. I've got Hideki at 17. Leishman at 19-1.
Kevin Knott, 29. Corey Connors at 29. We'll throw Answer English and Henley into that group as well. Those guys are all 32. Anyone piquing your interest at the top, my friend?
So I'm in this position I haven't really been in in the last few months where it's Monday night and I still haven't like started my card. I've like started my card in the back on like long shot guys that I know I want, but I've been going back and forth all day and like,
like just hovering over picking a couple of these guys and then not loving it. And then their odds dipped. And then I got distracted or I didn't get distracted. I was working and I missed the, the price. You were in a meeting, right? Brian was like going great. Brian was trying to sell you a car and you were just, yeah. Brian went all caps and I missed it still somehow. Yeah. I think he almost called you. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So, and you know, I was so, it's annoying because I was so locked in this morning on all these odds. I was refreshing on waiting for all these books to open. I knew where all these numbers were. And then I saw what happened after Bryson dropped and I was like, Oh, I don't like any of these numbers anymore.
Um, so my first thought was web when I saw him at 18, that number hasn't moved much. Now it's down to 16 is the best number you can get. Um, but I think I'm off of that now, the more I've thought about it, like web skillset is a skillset that you can get very similar to with a bunch of other players at a more efficient number. So I'm leaning more towards like short game specialist, shorter hitters in like the 50 plus range.
So that can just like sort of diversify my card a little bit more. Last week, I went all in on JT and it just wasn't a very fun experience viewing that tournament after he was shot over par on round one. So taking a little bit of my medicine this week and building out a little bit longer of a card and fading, um,
Anybody in the teens, I think the guys that I like the most in this range are Corey Connors, Taylor Gooch, and Seamus Powers just outside of this range. But I think I'll take two of those three, and I'm trying to figure out who those will be. But I'm curious if you have a lean between those three guys. I sure do. Well, we'll get to Seamus. I think Seamus wins the tournament. But I want to talk about Connors first because I am in on Connors, and I feel pretty good about him at Connors.
29 to one. I talked about him a little bit in my preview. I think there are a couple of things to like, right? Like, first of all, there's something about these greens that really suits his eye. He's gained over two strokes putting every time he's played here, where if you're familiar with Connors, he's not the best putter. So it's a pretty good sample size of 12 rounds of data where he's, he's been quite good here. Now, of course that could regress, but I don't think it's nothing. And, you know, the second thing with Connors is he's,
He just does all the things that you want on this course really well. Really good short to mid-iron player. One of the most accurate drivers of the ball you'll find. I know we were kind of discussing a little bit earlier in our group chat if he can get to 20 under. And I
I'm not really concerned about that at all. I mean, he's ninth in this entire field in easy scoring conditions over a pretty large sample size. And I know he hasn't gotten to 20 under a whole lot before, but guess what? The PGA tour used to be harder. Unless you were finishing top five in a select handful of tournaments, most guys weren't getting to 20 under. So I absolutely think that he can keep up. I was very pleased to get a 29 to one on him. He is a play for me. I don't have a problem with Gooch.
either. I think once you get into the 35th range for Gooch, I think that's a pretty fair number. But yeah, for me, it was Connors at 29. And just like you, I kind of foregoed that top tier of Webb and Sungjae and Hideki and Leishman. I know you're a Gooch guy, but I think
I want to hear your thoughts on this. I think Taylor Gooch and Seamus Power are the exact same player. I think they're exactly as good. And if you look at their recent results, they're almost identical. And if you look at their like short game numbers, they're almost identical too. They just play really well, whether it's like a tough course or a short course or a birdie fest, and they get themselves in contention often.
And they both almost won the RSM. Obviously, Gooch won the RSM. Power almost won that event too. I think that's a great comp to this week. So that's why I'm having a really hard time deciding between the two. Power has a better number, so I guess I'm sort of leading there as well. But what do you think? Is there a clear difference between those two players right now? Well, it's actually funny you said that because...
It feels to me this week with Seamus, it feels to me a lot like what actually happened with Gooch at the RSM, where all of the stats are amazing and everyone starts...
you know, talking him up and then there's a little bit of pushback. Right. And, and then there's a little fatigue and, and then he wins on a week where not a lot of people are talking about him or betting him, which is kind of what happened with Gooch. Right. Like we had all of us stack guys had identified Gooch for a really long time. Right. And, and,
He had a couple really close calls in the fall swing. And then for whatever dumb reason, whether it be the course fit or whatever, and you could make an argument that this isn't the perfect fit for Sheamus. I think it's a good fit personally, but he's been just his course...
history here has been just okay. But I think this is, I think it's the same type of situation, John, where they're, everyone's talking and seeing the stats with Seamus for a while. And then he just, he doesn't deliver. And then it kind of happens on a week where everyone's a little bit off. I think I look at these guys with like Gooch and, and power. And I just, I mean, you could say the same thing about ROM with his stats last year, Cam Smith too, where it's just like,
some of these guys, like it's going to translate into wins. Like I can feel pretty comfortable saying that about a couple players. And I do think that Seamus falls into that category, at least from a statistical standpoint. Yeah. Of course, these guys tied last week to like harder to even draw a line between the two. They both shot 20 under. So I think this is a good example. They finished 15th and they shot 20 under each. Like that's
That's a good four days of golf. So I think they're both in good form and you're actually able to buy low on them because they weren't really making much noise in that tournament, but they shot 20 under. So like you're, you're hitting the ball just fine in your first event of the year where they had like a little bit of layup. I like both of them. I might bet both of them, but yeah, you can probably bet both. I think I can, if I, if I start there, but somebody is an odd man out between those guys and Connor. So that's something I'll be thinking about over the course of this week.
So you're out on... So I can't talk you into the Russ bus, huh? I was driving the Russ bus this time last year and he was in contention. I think he was within a stroke or two of the lead going into Sunday and he parred every single hole. I think he had 18 pars. It was so...
unnerving to watch because he gave himself so many opportunities and he hit absolutely nothing. And obviously we know what happened when he was in contention at the Wyndham. So from an outright perspective, I, there's still so much scar tissue there for him. And for me as, as a better that if I'm trying to draw a line and there's a lot of viable guys this week,
I just don't really see the win equity right now. Obviously he has one at this event, so it's not to say he can't win and I wouldn't be shocked if he did, but.
Why don't you try to sell them? Well, I think the sentiment that you have is shared by many. I mean, according to Brian, I'm way off on this, and I haven't listened to anything yet today. I did a little bit of scrolling, but I was running around for most of the morning. I think people are kind of out on him. Now I'm talking about betting. I still expect him to garner ownership because
he's too cheap on draft Kings, but you know, this was a guy that I expected to be 25 to one in this field. And I think he is 25 to one at some books, but yeah,
It wasn't part of the plan, but I kind of shamelessly just dove in at 41 to one when the Bryson news hit and it dropped. I still feel pretty decent holding a 41 to one ticket on Henley. I would have felt pretty decent about it, even if Bryson was in the field. And I just, I think it's a little too high for a guy. I tried not to be too much of a slave to, to the numbers, but after a certain point, it's like, okay, what,
what's the point of spending all this time, like diving into this stuff. If you're just going to say, fuck it and, and, and not use any of the information. And I just, I look at the numbers with him and, and he's the number one player in this field over a really large sample size from where, uh,
the vast majority of all the approach shots come from. He's won this tournament before. He's been awesome on every corollary course that you want to throw out. He kind of had a sneaky, really good fall swing and is coming in playing good golf. And I guess I'm a square for this one, but after a certain point, it's like, okay, maybe the, maybe the pendulum has swung just a little too far on this guy. I think there's still a lot to like with him. And I think,
Even the lack of win equity, once you get into the 40 range with him on this course, I feel okay about. Yeah. And I think the most important thing too is it's Bermuda and that he's proven over the course of his career that he can really pop on Bermuda. It's not even like, I don't even think it's a blip at this point. Like when he pops, it's always Bermuda. So he's comfortable on those sorts of greens. Like you said, he's won here.
He doesn't have all the distance in the world. That doesn't matter here. And he's very accurate off the tee. So, you know, he's going to put himself in position. The irons are world-class. There's no more cow in this field. So he's probably the guy to beat with the irons in his hand. And like you said, it's his sweet spot distances. So I get it on paper. We'll see if it translates. I might bet him first round lead. Well, actually he's a little short first round leader, but.
I want some exposure. A great DFS player who doesn't win, you don't need him to at that price. Let's kind of dive into this next tier of players. I'm looking at, we're getting to...
Kisner and Matt Jones and Kokrak and, and Bazaydenhout and Si Wu and Eric Van Ruyen and Matt McNeely, Chris Kirk, Brian Harmon, Brendan Steele, anyone in that kind of 30 to 60 or 70 range that has your attention. I feel like a lot of the winners here, I could be off on this. I remember looking at this, but I don't have it in front of me. I feel like a lot of the winners of this tournament have kind of come from this range.
So we're going to call this range like 50 to 70. Yeah. Anywhere to 70. Yeah. Wherever you want. Yeah. There's no real rules here, John. There's one guy above the rest that I have the most conviction in, in this range. And that's that Matt Jones is not going to do well this week.
I think that's fair. I'm completely with you. I think that's a ridiculous price. He opened at the same price as answer on some books. That is the most severe overreaction to one week of golf. I think I can never remember seeing Matt Jones at 40 to one after being 200 to one and the longest shot in the last week's field at the century tournament champions. 36, 36. I'm seeing, but
10 points lower than Kokrak, who's won three times in the last nine months. Yeah. And he doesn't fit this course very well. He's not accurate at all off the tee, so it makes sense that he did well at Kapalua. But he doesn't have good irons. Yes, he's good with the short game, like putting specifically. But even before Kapalua, the putter went cold. And he's not a guy that strings together form. He just randomly pops off and then he hides away again. When he won Honda, we never heard from him again. So...
I don't understand that number at all. And if he's priced next to Harris English and Billy Horschel and Seamus Power in matchups, I'm going to do what you did with Victor Holland last week and just fire away in every matchup I can find against Matt Jones. Yeah, no, that makes sense. And I think they probably...
And DraftKings at least tends to do that where they tend to put their matchups based on the pricing. What about Kisner? Because I'd be remiss not to ask you about Kisner. This is one of those courses. He actually played pretty well last week. Do you, are you kind of, is it just kind of a, he can't, he's not going to, I don't know if I, I don't know if I see Kevin Kisner winning twice in like a six month stretch is kind of my thing.
Yeah, I don't, I haven't heard a peep about Kisner. I don't think anybody's playing him this week. And I was surprised by that because it's an obvious fit. It's like one-to-one with Sedgefield. If you can do well at Sedgefield, you can do well here. And he played so much better than anyone would expect him to last week. So I think that's why we're seeing him at 35 group with like Harris English and Abraham answer who are just significantly better all around golfers than Kisner. And that's why I'm getting cold feet to really consider him because he's
Gooch is right there. Henley, like there's so many guys right around him that are just so much better. Like the form before Capolo was not great for Kisner. So I'm going to pass there. I think he's, he's going to be a great leverage play and GPPs if he's priced like comparatively with the odds here, because people are not going to want to play him over any of those guys. I just said, you,
he's got to be single digit ownership this week. Yeah. You know who I was thinking kind of in that same vein that I initially had targeted as a, as a draft Kings guy, but I was eyeing a 66 to one on him too, but I actually really like Poseidon out here. I don't love that. He's never played this course before, but he's been very good on these types of courses. I, I know he gets talked about a lot like this, uh,
C-plus version of Spieth, but he actually reminds me a lot of Kazire, who won here, where he's not very accurate off the tee, but he's an awesome wedge player, and he's an awesome Bermuda putter. I know you're a lot higher on short game this week than I am, but he completely checks that box too. I kind of have some room in the middle here because I was lucky enough to get what I feel like are some really good numbers. I think I'm leaning heavily towards
the Zayden how that at 66, there are a couple of guys in the seventies we'll, we'll talk about, but the Zayden how was kind of the guy that I had my attention the most. Yeah. I think he's, he's one of those guys. I was looking at him in one of the majors and he's like a top 40 lock. Like this guy finishes like 38th everywhere. Yeah. And you get a little bit of a drift with it. You might get plus money on the top and then you probably won't.
maybe like a top 30 you get plus money with with uh vizu dude um i remember him being like a top three favorite at brew
at the Bermuda championship and disappointing. And that's like what I associate Bizzut Newt with right now. But I see that he did well at Mayakoba. It was like a quiet top 15. That's a good comp to hear and a place that you need to be accurate that he historically is not accurate. So it's encouraging that he had a high finish there. I just don't know enough about him. He doesn't play enough on the tour for me to have like a good feel on him. I'll definitely admit that I thought he could have been closer to half that number in this field. 66 is a great number for him. He's like 10 to one at the Bermuda.
Yeah. Yeah. He's so low. It was like Matt Fitzpatrick and him. I think I played him in one and done at Bermuda because I was like, when am I, when, when is he ever going to be this low again? Exactly. But you know, I haven't really watched a tournament where he contended and was in the mix. This would make sense even in a debut for him to, you know, do well, given the pedigree of the other guys who've done well here, but it's probably a pass for me, but a really interesting like GPP play. Yeah.
All right. There are a couple of guys that I want to talk about as we go up a little bit higher here. Before we kind of dive into the 70s, anyone we missed, like Si Wu, Matt McNeely, Chris Kirk, EVR, Brendan Steele, Keith Mitchell, any of those guys before we kind of get into this next tier of guys that are in the 70s and 80s and 100s?
I was about to say, surprisingly, no, I don't like any of those guys. But then you said Keith Mitchell, who is actually my favorite play of the week. Oh, wow. I love Keith Mitchell. I bet you can get a better number on him than 55 would be my guess. I got him at 80 on DraftKings, I want to say. Yeah.
So a couple of things. One thing I also didn't really talk about in my preview that I, I meant to, I think the 2020 Sony open, if you missed the cut there, it's a complete throwaway to me because it was like torrential weather Thursday and Friday. And then November masters. Yeah. It's just a one-off.
Yeah, or even like the I don't know if you remember the Bermuda Championship last year. If you got the wrong wave, it was impossible to even like make a par on certain goals. So just bad draw didn't matter how they played. It shows up as a miscut. And that's the only year that Mitchell's missed a cut at this event. I think he has top 20s every other time he's come here. It's not the typical event that you would think for Keith Mitchell is more of like a bomber does well in this Fazio courses that you see like Rory, like anywhere that you would expect Rory to do well. Keith Mitchell somehow also does well there.
as one win is at the Honda. That's more of a shorter course that emphasizes off the tee and then Bermuda greens. Um, anytime we're on Bermuda greens and it becomes a putting contest, the Keith Mitchell's on a short list of guys that you can actually like hope to gain like seven strokes putting in a given route. Um, so I like that if this does become a putting contest, I also like saw through like data golf that the, the barrier to gain strokes on approach,
is like the threshold is much lower, like lesser players can gain on approach here. And Keith Mitchell is not ever going to pop on approach. I think he's gained more than like five strokes, like five times in his career, maybe. So that's not how he's going to win this tournament. But if it becomes a birdie fest and he's hitting on the greens regulation, I think he's really appealing. He's only two or three events removed from it almost being a foregone conclusion that he was going to walk away with the CJ cut.
If you remember that, like at the halfway point, people were like parlaying Keith Mitchell with like futures and other things. Cause it was a done deal. He was like minus 500. And then he shot like over far on the weekend. It didn't even contend. But we're not very, we're like six rounds removed from him being dominant in a
really, really good field. That's not entirely different. I mean, it's not a good comp to hear, but there's things that you can do at that course at summit club that, that you can bring over here. So I just think he's not an 80 to one golfer that 55 numbers is appropriate and it's really good value. And I think he's 7,600 on DK. I love that too.
I like that. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I kind of had the same reaction as you where I saw the 55 and wasn't really into that, but I definitely can get behind an 80 there. I want to add, there's a guy that I actually am really curious about your take on here because I've kind of been struggling with this guy all day. I don't really feel compelled to bet him outright, but...
Charles Howell has played here 19 times. He's never missed a cut. So in 19 appearances, he's never missed a cut. In those 19 appearances, he has 15 top 30s. So almost 80% of the time, I've never seen anything like this. I mean, unless it's like the obvious ones like Webb, right? But for a player of Charles Howell's level to have this type of history. So over a 20 tournament sample size, pretty much, he's finishing in the top 30 overall.
80% of the time. He's finishing in the top 10 nearly 50% of the time over a really large sample size. This is definitely baked into his price in DraftKings and probably in the betting market as well. But I just, I don't know what to do with it. But something smells a little off. I don't know. What are his top 20 odds?
I don't know. I haven't even looked yet. I can pull it up. I know he's 8K on DraftKings, which was... I kind of project my best a little bit, and I did not have him as 8K. I had him closer to like 7.3 or 4. So that's getting baked into his price. But I just...
I don't know, man. I mean, even at, if you can finish in the top 30 at 8K, you're still doing some pretty decent work. Yeah. I mean, this tournament on data golf is the second after Augusta is the most important predictor for course history. So if you have good, good history here, it's the most repeatable or you,
you can expect it to be repeatable at here more than any other course, which I thought was interesting. So I think that's probably why that number is so inflated. Maybe the books are aware of that too. The guy who's played the second most events at Sony Open History is further down the board. And that's a guy that I really like this week and super random. But I think we'll get to that in the bomb section. But that's a pivot for me. That's like a 1K lower that has the same experience.
he's just to follow up, he's plus 220 to finish in the top 20. So I assume, and this is only DraftKings fan duels, placement markets tends to be a little bit better than DraftKings, but those aren't up yet. On DraftKings, he's plus 220. You know, the guy, John, that if I don't bet Bazaydenhout,
This guy that I'm about to talk about is probably the last guy out for me. And that last guy last week was Cam Smith. So guaranteed that he wins this week. But for some reason, I don't know if it's the hat, like his demeanor on Twitter. I have a really hard time taking Joel Damon seriously as a good golfer. But my numbers actually have him as maybe the best value on the entire board at 75 to 1.
I had a bad beat on a miscut with Joel Damon where he had a practice swing and his ball moved and he lost like two strokes from it. He missed the cup because of that. And it was like the best lineup I've ever made in DFS. It was five, six because of him. So I'm like one of like maybe the only people who has a grudge against Joel Damon because he's such a nice guy. But I don't go out of my way to play him. And like you said, he's such a like casual dude that it's hard to believe that he's actually good. But I know he's a good coastal player. I haven't dove into him too much though. What else do you like about him?
Yeah, I mean, he's a really good coastal player. And again, he just he fits the bill as somebody that played last week. He actually played pretty well last week. And, you know, he has had quite a kind of like a sneaky fall. I think the reason why he's popped so much for me statistically is because if you look at his fall swing, it was a lot better than you would expect.
And, you know, his irons have been really good too. He's really good in kind of that key proximity bucket that I'm looking at. Makes a ton of birdies, really good in easy scoring conditions. So he was somebody that I had my eyes on, probably not going to end up betting him, but probably will play him in DraftKings. What about some of these, the fours years with Denny? Because he's right in this range too. And I know he's your spotlight guy.
Yeah. Yeah. I've said my piece on Denny. If you want to read my tournament preview for the full thing, but Denny was actually third in my model this week, which I'm waiting short game heavier than most people probably are just to differentiate a little bit with things to pop. But you know, top 10 putter in general, top 10 Bermuda putter short game has been really good. He's second in greens and regulation, which I found really interesting because his irons aren't especially great, but he's,
you know, maybe there's some psychology to that where if you're a great putter, you don't have to flag hunt. You just sort of aim at the middle of the green and know you can hit a bunch of 20 footers. Cause I think there's probably a piece of that to it, you know, and after just sweating Justin Thomas and watching him miss like 10, five footers last weekend, still shoot 2,600. I always like naturally knee jerk to great putters the following week after I do that. But yeah, if it's a putting contest, few people in this field are better putters than Danny McCarthy. Um,
Um, he has a type of course, like a web Simpson light where anytime we're on like a sub 7,000 yard course and it's taking distance out of the equation and it's just hit fairways and hit greens and hit putts. There's a lot of players like that. Like the jazz Revy's like that minus the hip putts part, web Henley, all those guys, they all sort of fit into that same bucket. Um, the one knock against Danny McCarthy's never played this course before. And I was looking, um,
after like, you know, today on like how he started his seasons. And he actually has not gotten off to the hottest of starts. He usually starts at the Amex. He doesn't have great history at the Amex. So that could just be a course specific thing, or maybe he needs time to warm up, but you know, he ended the fall swing. Great. I think he had three straight top twenties.
And he has actually like sneakily a lot of top 15s in the last three years. I think he has like 17 top 15s in the last three years. So he hasn't really been in the mix. Last time I saw him in the mix is probably the Honda Classic where he finished top three. But again, another short course. So even though he doesn't have the history here,
There's a lot of good directional signs from these other shorter comp courses like Sedgefield and Mayakoba and Bermuda Championship. So a lot of comp course and course profile things that I like about Denny. And I think the number has fallen a little bit. I got him at 101 because there's no course history. And this is course history week. So that's why he's dipped a little bit. And there's a little...
You can have some apprehension there. It's not a lock by any means. I'm even debating to do a placement bet on it because I could totally see him not understand the course the first time playing it. But at 101, I think I couldn't resist that. Yeah. No, I mean, and I...
I played a Rainer course every day in high school, and there definitely is some nuance to his design. So I definitely understand why course history is a thing here. But I kind of feel the same way about Poseidon out. If you've shown me that you have this specific skill set and you've performed well on corollary courses, I feel like I'm ready to take the plunge. The only other guy that I wanted to mention before we get into...
kind of the 100 plus range. I actually really like Ryan Palmer this week. I'm not sure if he can win. He's like 45 now, and he doesn't really have that Stu Sink or Mickelson distance. I don't think he needs it here, though. But he's played here 15 times, makes the cut almost every year. He's won here. He's got a fourth in 2020, so he's got a top five recently. And he quietly started to come around this fall swing. He recorded...
his best ball striking performance in Houston in nearly a year. And he had this nice little run at the beginning of last year and then completely fell off. But I actually think he's kind of coming around again and you can still buy low on him here where, you know, he actually like he has like top five upside, right? Like some of these guys like Brendan Todd and Zach Johnson and Kuchar, like they're
It's been years since they finished in the top five of the tournament, right? And Palmer actually did that like three or four times just last year at the beginning of last year. So Palmer is a guy that I think he's going to have a pretty good start to the season. And I think he would be a decent spot to buy well on him in DraftKings. But anyone else kind of...
in like the eighties and nineties before we throw out a couple absolute bombs. You always catch me off guard with your Ryan Palmer takes. Cause I remember when we were doing Valero, you also brought up Ryan Palmer and I was like, Oh, I didn't know he's in this field. He's easy to mess. Yeah. But you know, past winter, as you said, the course history is there. So it wouldn't surprise me. Good teammate to John Rom. Yeah. Good teammate to John Rom. Certainly. Um,
Tom Hoagie. I love, I thought everybody would be talking about Tom Hoagie and some people are, but I thought he was the guy that was going to be like first click Tom Hoagie everywhere. Last 24 rounds, number one strokes gained approach. And it's not like he'd like gained a ton in one round. He's gaining like three or four plus every round. The season ended at a bad time for him, I think, because he was so hot and I has to wait two months to play again, but has really good course history here. I think is to top 15s within the last three or four years. He's missed the cut twice in that span. I think on the number as well,
The only reason he hasn't contended more is the putting. And the putting's been pretty good here. And he's had some pop weeks recently, too. He's a birdie maker, a really good first-round leader guy. I'll definitely be on him first-round leader this week. I know you talked him up, too, so that's no surprise to hear Tom Hoagie. But if it does end up being a ball striking, short game isn't as important as I thought it would be.
It's a 90 to one for the number one approach player recently. Recent form is a little iffy because nobody's played like immediately recently, but hard to ignore those numbers at that hard to ignore those stats at that number right now.
Yeah, I have nothing more to add. I bet I'm at 90 to one as well. And I talked about him a bunch on my Sunday show and you kind of outlined the case pretty eloquently there. I think he's a great play. Probably my favorite top 40 play on the board this week. He's a little more expensive on DraftKings than I was expecting, but that's fine. I think it's going to keep the ownership down.
Now there's okay. So there are 123456. There's six guys that I have like quick hitters on that I just want to mention as like DraftKings plays or low owned guys. Do you want me to reel some of them off? Do you want to go back and forth? How do you want to do this?
Let's go back and forth because I'm peppering this range too. I think it's actually very viable this week. Okay, cool. Let's just go back and forth with quick hitters. I'll give a guy, you give a guy. So I bet Griot at 130 to one. Don't feel great about it. Again, my numbers had him in the 70 to range and he's 80 or 90 at most places. But he's right up there with Henley as the best mid-range.
to short iron player in this entire field. And look, listen, I get it. He can't putt, but his Bermuda numbers aren't as bad as you would think he's played here five times, never finished worse than 47th. He's got a second at the heritage third at colonial, a couple of top tens at my Coba. I get some of these guys can't that can't putt, putt, like turn into a punchline after a certain point, but at 130 to one, I will take my chances.
Coastal elite. Yeah. All you have to say. Absolutely. I could have made that a lot easier. Yeah. Maybe on the way. I forget who was pumping that. I think it was coach actually, our boy coach. Pumping that narrative. These guys.
got the baby bump. So I could definitely see that. I like Kramer Hickok a lot this week, driving accuracy specialist, just pounds fairways. Had a 19th year last year, you know, almost should have won the travelers like this poor guy. He did everything to win that tournament and that, and that playoff with Harris English should be a tour winner, did everything he could, whatever he's won 61. And of course that's a, you
You could do worse than comparing this to River Highlands. I know that's Bent Poe and this is Bermuda. But other than that, similar skill set that you need to bring over here. And he just had a really high finish at the Houston Open. I believe he was like top five. So forms there, 160 to one. It's kind of crazy to me for someone who's shown it recently, has a profile and has had a top 20 at this event last year.
All right. I like it. My next guy, Max McGreevy. I already talked a bit about him on the preview. I don't really feel the need to go there at 200 to one. Um, although there are certainly worse bets on the board, he's 6.9 K on draft Kings. Um, I think you should play him. I think he might be good, John, or my numbers are just very off, which it certainly wouldn't be the first time, but
they've done pretty well for me over a large sample size when I actually choose to follow them. So I'm playing McGreevy again. And I think, I think I might've identified something there with him. It made me feel a little bit better that,
I think you mentioned him in your preview too, and Spencer saw something as well, but we'll see. Yeah. I don't think I can get there on an outright, but I like him a lot and I'll have experience somewhere. Yeah. Okay. So next guy is the guy with the second most history at YLI, Rory Sabatini. Oh my God. I didn't even know he was playing. He's played here.
this is going to be his 18th year playing the Sony open. He's here every single year. He starts his calendar year here. He has two runner ups in his career. Two of them came like 20 years ago, but still he, he likes this course. He likes like shorter positional courses. He doesn't have a lot of distance, but he's another like fairway hitting specialist.
had a freak like did you do you remember what happened at the rsm classic where he got disqualified yeah i sure do for the sticker yeah he had like a trackman sticker on his glove so he got dq'd like there's always something weird happening with roy so it's like fun to like sweat that i imagine that's not right who knows what's gonna happen silver medalist not far from here geographically in japan so you have the oceanic narrative with him i like that he plays a yellow ball
And, you know, that's really all, that's all you need at this point. You need narratives when you're in the 160 range and I like them all. Experience.
Speaking of narratives, why don't we fire up a low-owned, undiscussed 7.1K Russell Knox on a coastal course, right? He's absolutely unbelievable with those short to middle irons. He plays here every year, makes the cut about 50% of the time. But when he does make the cut, he actually finishes in the top 20, which is exactly what I'm looking for out of a 7K guy. Again, like
I can't emphasize this enough. The fact that these guys can't putt is baked into their price. You don't need to tell me that Russell Knox can't putt. I know that Russell Knox can't putt. I still think he's a good play at 7,100. If the wind picks up at all, you lock him in. Okay, my guy. I told you I was going to spotlight this guy, and then I confused him with a Japanese player. Okay.
Kaita Nakajima. This is everything you should want in an absolute long shot bomb. The number one amateur in the world who just won the Asian Amateur Championship.
I love that a guy with those sorts of that pressure going into the amateur championship as the number one and winning it anyway, it's like a giant field and it's, it's not, you don't just like the best player doesn't just automatically win that tournament. So I think that's really impressive. What we know about him is like, he's 21 years old and like a stick.
Um, so he's not going to hit it far, but he's super accurate. Can go low. He's, he's playing on the Japan tour with full grown adults and doing really well. He has a win on the Japan tour this year, beat like Sean Norris and a few other like long time Japanese veterans who like hold their own on the PGA tour played in the Zozo. So this will be, that was the first time he played in the PGA tour field finished T27 and
tied Xander Shoffley and Joaquin Neiman, which means that Kaito Nakajima by the transitive property is as good as Xander Shoffley and Joaquin Neiman, and you're getting him at 200 to one. Yeah. He's 6,800 on DraftKings. I just liked, I was hoping for even a little bit lower. Yeah. It's higher than I expected. Yeah. Cost-wise. You might be onto something there. All right. I'm going to give you
I'm going to fire up a little Henrik Norlander. I just think he has a lot more upside than a lot of guys in this range. He already has a 20th and a ninth year. He's an awesome iron player, not the best putter, but he's been better on Bermuda. He's just one of those guys, John. And this was the reason that I got on Gooch really early where he's
there aren't a lot of guys that have the ability to really spike with their irons. Like most guys can spike with their putter, but there aren't a lot of guys that can reach 7.5, 8.5 with their irons. And that was kind of something I saw pretty early with Gooch where he would just have these plus seven or plus eight iron weeks and Norlander can do that. He does do that. So I'm going to keep playing him and I think it'll be really under-owned too.
Nice. Another guy, I think that fits that profile. I'm not going to get there, but a really good value is Chad Ramey. Not many reps on the tour straight off the corn ferry, but he's been incredible with the irons. Not really anything else, but the irons have been great, but he's strung together a high clip of top 20s.
early on a volatile putter, but you never know, especially at one 60, you never know. You take it. And he's in that same group with like Hayden Buckley and Alex Molly, who are just like, they all pop in my models all the time, but they're corn fairy guys with like not a lot of history. So like I I'm playing wait and see with them. Um,
But I remember Hayden Buckley being like 40 to one in the fall swing because he had back to back top tens to start his career. So it's a little interesting to see him out 160 to one. He's the kind of guy that like actually gains in all four categories from the early stats that we've seen. I'm sure they'll regress a little bit, but I think he's probably the best well-rounded player.
rookie after Mito Pereira, of course. Had to sneak in Mito somehow on the spot. But for my money, if I look at that rookie Cornberry class, I think Hayden Buckley's the second best. So I'm interested to watch him this year. I probably won't bet him this week, but I think it's a really good number on him. Yeah. Total drive-by shooting on my boy, Saheeth. But
I'll accept it. I don't even think I could get there this week with him. I know Mito's not playing. I think Saheeth is playing, but I just didn't have enough on him. Pride of Pepperdine. Yeah. Okay, well, there's the coastal thing. The last guy I have, John, is
What about Swofford? He was everyone's darling during the FedEx Cup playoffs, but he was still pretty good this fall. I typically think of him on larger golf courses, but he's played the Sony Open eight times. He's never missed the cut. He has four top 15 finishes. Really good iron player, makes a lot of birdies. He's 6,800. I think that's some gold right there, John.
Yeah. You know, I messed up because there was low hanging fruit to play Hudson Swofford at Liberty national for the Hudson on the Hudson narrative. And I, I completely missed it. And he like, he was like top five that week. Like, this is only good week of the year. And I was like, I, I, this is so obvious. How did I not see that? That, that is, that is the gold that everyone can find weekly in your articles. What was the Baltimore one that you had with the wire? Um,
When we went to cave, what was it? Caves that was in Baltimore. Yeah. Yeah. Caves Valley was in Baltimore. So I just did wire gifts all week. A shame that Bryson didn't win that week. Cause I had a lot of good, like Bryson winning wire tie-in gifts, but this week it's going to be white Lotus gift. Yeah. I was just about to say it. We're at, we're at Y light. So that was filmed at the four seasons. Why lie?
Uh, I don't, I feel like there was like one very quick scene on a golf course. So maybe you do see like a hole. Um, if you go back and revenge it, should we use that to transition into the second part of our podcast or do you have any, do you have any other guys you want to throw out there?
I was, um, I was dovetailing it there. Okay, perfect. All right. Well, you're a pro. We know this. Okay. Well, I mean, I, I had, well, it's actually people like when we do this, let's, let's recap our bets real quick, just so everyone's on the same page. Corey Connors, 29 to one for me, Henley, 41 to one Seamus power, 46 to one.
I am deciding between Domin at 75 and Bazadin Hout at 66, and then Hoagie at 90 and Griot at 130. Nice. So I've got a spreadsheet here, and it's a load of question marks at sub 50. I'm almost definitely playing Power, and I'm really leaning towards Gooch.
but I'm going to run some advanced analytics and look for some sort of narrative that pushes me over the edge there. Maybe Connors, maybe even Henley. I could see myself going there. I was so high on him last year and he didn't play poorly. So I could see myself going back there, but I will have two guys in the 30 to 50 range. And then I've got Mitchell at 80, Hoagie at 90, Denny at 100, Sabatini at 150, Hickok at 150, and
and Nakajima at 200. I love it. I feel like 201 bets shouldn't even be on the card. Yeah, it's whatever. It's like when you're throwing five bucks, it's like who really cares? This is the most viable I've ever felt a 201 bet being. Wow, I love it.
All right. Well, I'm probably going to get there with DraftKings now after talking to you. I mean, at the very least, I think that makes some sense. All right. Well, not a single entry, but like a GPP. Yeah. Yeah. Why not? All right, man. Well,
That will conclude our discussion of the Sony open. Um, I teased on Twitter that you and I would be discussing, uh, a little euphoria, the debut of season two of the HBO show that premiered last night. I mentioned this to you off air, but, uh,
the mention that we were going to be discussing it did not get even close to the typical engagement that I usually get from my tweets. So maybe there's absolutely zero appetite for this discussion, which makes sense. You are more of a marketing guru than me. I don't think the gap
between euphoria. I don't know if there's a whole lot of overlap between euphoria fans and golf fans, but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about it anyway, because I'm just so captivated by the show. I'll start here, John. How did you get into the show? Because obviously for the listeners have a little background on you. You do work at HBO, but I know that you don't...
you know, it's not your job to watch every single show that comes across HBO, right? So how did you kind of, how did you pick Euphoria? Because we can just say at the top, it's not for everyone. I don't want anyone to be like, you recommended Euphoria and I watched it with my 14 year old and I'm scarred for life. Like it is, it is a, it is a, it is a required taste we'll say.
Yeah. Yeah. We haven't talked about this, but by my intro to euphoria is, is a wild one three. So it premiered in 2019, July, 2019. I screened this in January,
like December 2018 or even maybe even early like so long like four years ago probably a very long time ago and I got zero context like sometimes we'll just get screeners back then we had to go into HBO's office because somebody had just leaked the final season of Game of Thrones so we didn't get like digital copies of the oh sorry I should also
This probably is confusing already. I work at an agency on the HBO account. So I don't work for HBO. I work on HBO. HBO marketing. Yeah, exactly. So everything that I work on is for HBO and I report to the CMO of HBO, but I'm not an employee of HBO. It's confusing. Anyway, so I had to go to their office and they had a screener. We had a screener in person and it was my new director's first day.
And they didn't give us any context or a brief on what the show was. They were just like, hey, we got this new show. It's called Euphoria. We want to screen it. We're like, okay. So never met, like literally met our new director in the room and he's like a 40 year old dad. And we're like in this like very intimate like conference room that could only fit like six people. We're like sitting on a couch together. It was a hot thing.
And we're watching this show and it's like the opening scene. It was also a director's cut. So it wasn't the final cut. And the opening scene is like them in the motels, like Jules and what's her name's dad. And she's like getting like aggressively like hardcore scene. And it's like the first scene that they show it. And we're like, what is this show? Like all they told us was like, Drake is the executive producer and Zendaya is in it.
That is the only context that we had. And we're like, oh, it's going to be like Degrassi. It's like Degrassi on steroids. It's like the most dicks you'll ever see in a TV show. Oh, so many penises in this show. So again, like if anyone's trying it out for the first time, you were warned. Even in episode one of season two, a lot of penises.
Yeah. So it's like jarring, but then it like keeps you because it's like really well done and it's beautifully shot. And there's like a good storyline and touches on like what it's like to be a teenager today, even though it's in like a very extreme circumstance of it and it's parents worst nightmare. But it, you know, the music's really good. You can thank Drake for that. He's like very involved in soundtrack. I actually remember screening it and there was a song that wasn't out yet and it was a Drake song and like Drake was in it. And I was like, Ooh, he's leaking a new song.
So that was fun. But yeah, it's really good. And I didn't know what they were going to do with season two. I actually didn't work as closely on season two as I did with season one. So I'm like kind of taking it all in without any like pre-screeners or anything. And I love that first episode. A lot happened. Yeah, I think you kind of...
dovetailed on something really important with the show where you kind of watch it for the first time and it's this really jarring experience because it's really like nothing you've ever seen before. I'm going to read the quote that Zendaya put out on her Twitter. I know I've said this before, but I do want to reiterate to everyone that euphoria is for mature audiences.
This season, maybe even more so than the last, is deeply emotional and deals with subject matter that can be triggering and difficult to watch. Please only watch if you feel comfortable. Take care of yourself and know that either way, you are still loved and I can still feel your support. All my love, Daya. Daya? Daya. Anyway. But yeah, I think...
I think for me, what, and I know this sounds like kind of high praise, but I think every so often there's a show that kind of comes around that really just
kind of almost like changes the way of the type of stuff that you can do on television. Right. Like I think, I think the Sopranos kind of changed the way you could make a prestige drama. I think breaking bad and mad men to kind of did that. And I think with euphoria, I know I'm placing it in, in really high air with some of the greatest TV shows that have ever come along. It's very different than that, than those types of shows. Right. But, but,
I've really never seen anything like that. And I think it kind of opens up this lane where it's going places that no TV show has ever really gone before. It's absolutely fearless. I mean, it's taking on some really weighty
stuff here, right? Like it's taking on addiction with children. It's taking on gender and sexuality and pornography and violence. Like the first episode of season two is really violent too. And
I think it's taking on stuff that a lot of TV shows have been afraid to do before. And I think while it can be kind of jarring to watch, I think it is kind of groundbreaking, if that makes sense. Yeah. Well, I think it's hard to make a unique show today because there's like a thousand different shows coming out every day and there's
Netflix and HBO and Showtime and everything in between. And it's hard to grab somebody's attention. Granted, this came out two or three years ago and it was a little less fragmented and there weren't a million streaming services. But I think that's why it's resonating now because we had like two years of a gap and we realized like how different that was and how much we missed it. And they take like risks on that show that like,
Only a handful of networks could even air this stuff. Yeah, it's a really good way to put it. They take a lot of risks. Yeah, and it's like a lot of niche subject matter where not a lot of people, it's not a mass draw to dive into sexuality and being trans in high school, drug addict. That's a very small pocket that people can relate to, but the people who can relate to it
are such like big hand raisers because nobody's ever like given them a spotlight to, to talk about those issues. And, um, you know, it helps to have Zendaya because she's like a global superstar. She's blown up so much since like season one with Spider-Man now and Dune. Um, she's like the biggest superstar there is an acting right now. She's just like in everything that's a blockbuster. So it's really helpful to have her as a face on that show because it introduces that subject matter to people that wouldn't otherwise seek it out. Um,
And it's an uncomfortable watch, but I think the point of it being uncomfortable is to like,
shed a light on just topics that aren't being talked about. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I got a little bit lost in the comment section today of that post by Zendaya and people are like, this show has changed my life. And I just, I don't think a lot of people, like I think Succession is the greatest show on television. I think it's the greatest show of, you know, maybe the last decade. They're not people saying like Succession changed my life. And I think that's what's interesting about Euphoria is it's really different
taking on something that hasn't, that a lot of shows would stray away from. And I think that it's going to really change and make some real inroads going forward. I mean, like I said, it's not for everyone, but it's so like really,
What I like about it too is like, it's really well crafted, right? Like this is, this would have been a really easy show to fuck up. Like they could have, this would have this, I mean, the cast is really young outside of Zendaya. Like they took chances on like a lot of unestablished actors and they, I mean, John, they nail the addiction piece like really well. And like a lot of shows don't, aren't able to handle that matter with,
teens so poignantly and so acutely and they kind of handle it with kid gloves on and Euphoria just kind of stares it in the face and handles it so beautifully. And it's, I mean, it's really like the filmmaking too is pretty, I don't want to get too like, cause I really like, I really appreciate like good television and movies, but even that, even that scene with, with when the camera angles of just shifting between Zendaya and
uh, or between Rue and Jules, you know, at the kind of at the end of the episode when they're, when they're first kind of talking to each other and it's like her face, it's Jules's face and then Rue's face. And it's like, it's going back and forth and it's really strangely lit and the camera's moving in a really weird direction. Just some real avant-garde provocative shit going on right there that just I'm a total mark for.
Yeah. Yeah. Sam Levinson is the, uh, the showrunner, the producer of the show or whatever creator and the character of Rue is like directly based on his life. And I think it's so interesting that he like wrote it for a female character. Cause that's, it's, it's hard. It's not the same. And the things that you like, even like her relationship with Jules, like,
that's not a one-to-one experience. I can't be with like what Sam Levinson was going through. So it's, it's interesting, like the liberties taken, but not like fucking it up either. And it's shot in a way that's supposed to like simulate the like drugs being high, like distorted and like your reality is not what it seems. Um, whether it's like spinning a camera angles that like, even that first scene in the pilot where they're like
She's like walking on the ceiling in a circle. Like, yeah, I saw that scene. I was like, whoa, this is like a real show. Yeah. This is not just like a bunch of hot people like doing drugs. This is like actually some depth and like well done choreography and stuff. So cinematography. So yeah, I mean, it's awesome that it's picked up, you know, the reception has been so good.
because of how many risks were taken. And the viewership numbers were incredible for the first episode already. And that's just overnight. So I think a lot more people are going to start talking about it throughout the season. Yeah, I can only imagine. To me, it's appointment viewing. It's an event. I have a couple of friends that feel the same way. My brother absolutely loves it. So are you...
kind of working on the account that's marketing that show? Because I have to imagine it's one of the more interesting shows, maybe more difficult shows to market.
Yeah, I do all paid media for any HBO original show or HBO Max original show. So if you've seen an advertisement in any form of media, my team is responsible for planning it, recommending it, placing it, all that. So we're buying a Super Bowl spot for winning time. Spoiler alert. That's a...
exclusive nugget for anyone who's made it this far into the spot. I know, right? These are the true diehards that are listening at this point. Yeah, we'll have 30 seconds in the Super Bowl. So that's always fun. We did a Super Bowl spot for Westworld a couple of years ago. We did one for that Game of Thrones Bud Night collaboration. That was a good time. So that's the extreme of it. But yeah, if you ever get an ad on Instagram or Twitter, I know everybody's on Twitter, that's my team behind serving the ads, which is...
Yeah, a glorious, very fulfilling lifestyle. Well, I've talked to you off air before about how I think that Succession was maybe the most geniusly marketed show I've ever thought about with the way that they framed the show.
image where it turned out to be, you know what I'm talking about, where they basically, the promo for the show was, it turned out, I assume this is a spoiler, you know, spoilers, whatever. Everyone's seen Succession that's listening to this in the first place. But the way that they had the promo of the show turned out to be how the finale worked out. And the way that Jeremy Strong profile came out and they wouldn't release the teaser to any of
they wouldn't release the screener to any of the media. And it created this giant shit storm about like, did Jeremy strong die? Did they kill him off the show? He wouldn't say those things in the New Yorker article. They wouldn't drop the New Yorker profile. It was all just, it was so genius and so well done. And so I applaud you and all of the minds behind HBO. I just think that they are, they,
I'm a total Mark for it. I could do another hour on station 11. I think that shows absolutely brilliant industry is coming back this year. They put out my favorite documentary that I watched all year into the storm, the QAnon documentary, which was Scott Piercy. Oh my God. That was so captivating. I would encourage anyone to check that out, but I think they're just, they're operating at a, at a much higher level than the Netflix's of the world, in my opinion. Yeah.
Well, I love to hear that. I will say Winning Time, got to plug Winning Time because that is going to be incredible. I'm more excited for that than any other HBO show that's come out since I've been working there. That's going to be so good. Adam McKay, who just did Don't Look Up. It was supposed to be Will Ferrell playing Jerry Buss, I believe, and John C. Reilly's doing that now. There's a little fallout and controversy over that. That's going to be incredible. And that's in March, first week of March.
Peacemaker also is in a couple of days. That's a good show. That's coming out this Thursday with John Cena. That's a spinoff from Suicide Squad. So that's a fun watch. You have Intel and when industry is coming out? Because I know they're doing a season two this year, but I don't think they've announced the date. That is a good question. Probably not in the first half of this year. If it was, I would have heard from it. Yeah. Okay. So I can probably expect like fall. Okay.
All right. Well, I said my piece on HBO again. I think we can, there's a lot we could do. Maybe we'll do like, we'll do more if there is a positive reaction to this, which I highly doubt, by the way, I have zero expectations of that.
But maybe I'll bring you on to talk more euphoria and we can make it like there were so many. I enjoyed so much listening. Like there were podcasts that emerged just for succession. And I was one of those crazy people that actually listened to them and enjoyed them. So maybe if there is more of an appetite for our takes on television and euphoria and HBO, maybe we'll do some more of this stuff because I absolutely love talking about it.
I do too. I won't hold my breath that people ask for an episode two. But, you know, obviously it's what I spend most of my day on. So I could talk about it for hours. And, you know, next time Jeff gets the next variant of COVID, I'll slide in for the follow-up TV recap. All right, buddy. Well, this was an absolute blast. We probably could have gone three hours longer, but before we get out of here, why don't you plug everything that you got going on this week?
All right. Yeah. So you can catch me now on the lines, the lines.com taking all the content that I was making last year as PGA tout and now publishing them as John Hasselbauer on the line. So it's nice to be an actual person and making content as an individual and not like a facade of some brand I was trying to build. I'm kind of
I don't know, disassociating myself from the tout piece of it and trying to be John. And, you know, hopefully that catches on eventually. But yeah, I do my tournament preview every Sunday and I'll tweet that out from my handle at PGA tout. Uh,
And then I'll do a values write up or just identifying some long shots. If you've made it this far, you already know who my long shots are, but please click that article anyway. And then I've updated my final thoughts article to actually like put thoughts into them. I feel like that was kind of missing last year where I just sort of put like rationale for my bets, but I didn't actually like expand on like what I think about the tournament. So I'm excited to have that update and just put like
storylines that I think are interesting about the event and just general like card construction strategy and DFS approach and things that I think are more like helpful for people to make their own decisions with rather than me just like regurgitating my card to people. So excited for those updates. And yeah, that's it. Otherwise tweeting stuff out at PGA tout. John Hasselbauer, PGA tout on Twitter. Good to see you, my friend.
Always. Don't be a stranger. Good to see you, buddy. All right. That's it for the show. You can find me this week on The Scramble with Rick Gaiman, 12 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. You can also catch the replay up on the Rick Run Good YouTube channel or the 300 Yards to Unknown podcast feed. You can check out some of my writing on Odd Checker this week as well. I have an article coming out on Wednesday with Thursday matchup bets, which I'm
I always think are just a really fun way to get the tournament started. You get that nice cash on Thursday and I actually find it to be a really exploitable market. I know that first round leaders are maybe more fun. But when I was in talks with odds checker trying to figure out what to do, I really wanted to try and put out
useful content. And I think a lot of golf betting people just think about outrights, but you ask any professional better. The only way they bet golf is matchups. So check out that article on Wednesday. Really proud of it. Uh, I drop another one on Saturday morning where I analyze the board at the midway pay midway point. And I say, okay, uh,
if your card is blown up, this is what I would do, uh, to get a little bit of a sweat going over, going into the weekend. And I had a blast writing that last week as well. So a lot of great feedback on that already. So all really excited stuff and, uh, friendly reminder, I will not be on Friday scramble. I have the great scene, the job filling in for me, and I will not be doing my Sunday solo show, uh, because I'm going on a golf trip. Uh,
with some of my college buddies. But I will be back on Tuesday with hopefully the healthy and elusive Jeff Feinberg talking about the American Express. All right. Good luck with your bets and we'll catch you next time.
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