The 2022 Players with Steve Bamford
01:20:17 Share

All right, Inside Golf Podcast, the Players' Championship with Steve Bamford. Sorry this is out a little bit on the later side. We recorded very early on Tuesday morning, but...

It's Steve Bamford. So we made it work and I think you will really enjoy this one. I want to give a quick reminder before we dive in with Steve. This podcast is presented by rickrungood.com. We've got a ton of great tools, even more coming soon that we're working on and content over there. We've added a ton of stuff and yet the price has stayed the same. We've added a ton of written content. I just released my first podcast.

very in-depth course breakdown today, or I guess it would be yesterday, and got a lot of good feedback on that one. That's going to be a weekly thing every Monday that I don't think you're going to want to miss. A lot of info that I just received

Can't really get to in the Sunday show without the Sunday show going too long. But my model inputs a lot of kind of statistical analysis in terms of the players that I would have wanted to deep dive a little bit more on the Sunday show, but just kind of run out of time. You're getting all that stuff in the Monday article. So be sure to check that out. The Wednesday one too, I will have a full...

DFS breakdown, ownership, weather, whether you should stack, pivots, chalk, all that type of stuff. I really think you want to make that a part of your weekly rotation. So head on over to rickrungood.com slash Andy. It is a great community. I'm very active over there in the Slack community.

And just a lot of smart people sharing good golf information. So rickrungood.com slash Andy sign up now. It's very inexpensive. And considering all the stuff that we just added today,

probably the best deal you're ever going to see. And you can give it a shot for a week. It's like $7. And if you don't like it, it's like $7. But I have a feeling if you are a listener of this podcast, a lot of the tools, the community, and the content will be right up your alley. So that's RickRundGood.com slash Andy. All right, let's bring in Steve.

All right, Steve Bamford is here of the Golf Betting System. Steve, it's great to see you. It's very early in my time on the West Coast, as we were just talking about, but I shot out of bed this morning in excitement because there's no one that I love more to talk golf with, and it's been too long. I guess we did the Ryder Cup, but I tend to save you for the big ones. So it's great to have you back, and good afternoon. Good afternoon.

How are you, Andy? I'm fantastic, man. I checked my notes, Ryder Cup, and we had the RBC Heritage last year.

Did we? I don't think. I appeared on that podcast, I believe. I don't think so because I was. This is still very new. My first real podcast last year was the match play. And I don't think I had the, I don't think I had the cloud at that time to bring you on for the heritage. You must be. Okay. Definitely the masters though. Yeah.

No, no, no. What am I talking about? The Ryder Cup, yes. The Ryder Cup, correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Ryder Cup. I tried to make a cut, a case for Team Europe, and look how well that went. Yeah.

I remember that. I remember that. Well, the value was on Europe. Absolutely. We can all talk about value though, can't we? We've got absolutely trounce. Well, I'm excited for this specific tournament, like we mentioned, because I don't, you know, I, last time we did the Ryder Cup was a little bit different. I think this is probably more of both of our lanes in terms of handicapping, but yeah,

I want to dive right in, man, because there's a lot to get to with this tournament. I think there's a ton of stuff that I want to ask you about specifically, but I kind of want to start with the weather. I kind of want to get your take on it. I checked it early this morning right before we went hot. And so we've got scattered rainstorms, 60% chance of rain on Tuesday and Wednesday. So I think that might even screw up some of the practice rounds.

And then Thursday, thunderstorms are likely. I'm reading here 80% chance of rain with 10 to 15 mile per hour winds, scattered thunderstorms in the evening, which if it's raining at night,

that means that they probably won't be able to run the sub air system. And then Saturday, the rain is scattered with thunderstorms, rain at night too. And then Sunday, it's supposed to clear up in terms of the rain, but it's still going to be cold and windy and 10 to 20 mile per hour winds. And over the course of those three days, you're going to get like a quarter of an inch. So

I mean, for starters, I mean, if this holds, I don't know if they'll finish this by Sunday evening. But what are you doing with all this? Does this change anything for you? Like, what are we supposed to make of this weather? Well, it feels all very Northern European to me. I'm sitting here just outside of London over in the UK and it's beautiful and sunny. But I go outside, it's eight, nine degrees.

I'm seeing forecasts here for Sunday of 9 degrees Celsius, 13 degrees Celsius. This is the danger, of course. They moved this from May, didn't they? Where May would be sweltering hot, 28, 30 degrees Celsius, breaking 100, whatever. And now we're seeing 9, 13 degrees Celsius for Sunday. A lot of golfers just won't like this.

A lot of the pampered PGA Tour won't be getting on with this. Now, I must say, I didn't select even consciously my selections this week in terms of my player pool and my bets. I didn't focus on European players or world players because of that. But now that I'm seeing this, you've got to say to the forecast is all over the place. You know, we...

It's going to take a miracle by the looks of it to get through Thursday and Friday without play suspensions. And this rain is electrical activity in the main, isn't it?

Yeah, that would be my guess too. And that's the thing. It's like if it's drizzling out there and there's scattered thunderstorms, like they can play through rain. But when it's thunderstorms, you have to get everyone off the course. And the thing about Florida too is it usually rains in like little pockets, right? It's not always a consistent rain throughout the entire day. So I imagine there'll be a lot of starting and stopping, right? Again, like I...

I'm trying to figure out how this affects how I would bet this tournament. If would I bet this tournament differently? Do you, do you think maybe there is, um, I know you and I both, we get out our stuff really, really early in the week. Right. So as it turns out as well, and some of my selections kind of work with them. Some of my selections, I guess. Right. But, but are you maybe looking more so at, you know,

how players have done in windy conditions? Or do you think maybe it'll get to the point where it's being overblown? If this forecast for Saturday comes to fruition, we're looking at

that could be gusting up to 30 miles an hour i think you've got to be a good wind player yeah yeah i i you know just throwing names at you i don't think i'll be backing matthew wolf at tpc sawgrass in 30 mile an hour winds just you know you just we're going to need grinders aren't we we're going to need

The other thing is, though, and what we shouldn't forget here is that Thursday, yes, there's going to be potentially rain around and Friday also. But also, if there's been rain Tuesday, Wednesday, leading up to Thursday, I think we're going to see a soft golf course. There isn't a great deal of wind here. It's only 6, 10, gusting 10, Friday, Thursday.

sub 10 mile an hour gusts all day. This golf course, you know, if you're a plotter, if you, if you can plot your way around this, it's going to be scorable. It's going to, these greens are going to be receptive. Yeah. And that, that was the, that was why I mentioned the rain at night, because if it's raining at night, then you can't have the sub air on to dry it out. And it looks like it's going to rain at night as well. So it's,

Probably more on the side of, I think, more like target golf, right? Like in terms of actual player skill sets that could work here. Do you think, do you place more of an emphasis now on, say, iron play or is there any kind of statistic that you feel like shoots or style of play, I should say, that kind of shoots closer to the top considering all of these factors? I think the stadium course is...

pretty unique on the PGA Tour. Pete Dye Design, as we know, had the recent Wensloff redesign renovation, but even then he was talking to Pete and Alice Dye around the design for whatever. Clearly it's his signature golf course. The thing that always jumps out statistically to me

And it's very, very, very atypical of a PGA Tour setup in terms of strokes gained. Around the green is always so vital here. And that doesn't seem to matter whether it's a soft golf course or a pretty firm golf course. I've got a stat here. Bill Ivey on Twitter threw this out yesterday.

He said on Twitter, Bill Ivey, he said since 2015, there have been 70 players to finish top T10 or higher at the players. Only six of those 70 have lost strokes around the green. Yeah. That's unbelievable. Yeah. 64 of 70 top 10 finishers here have all been positive strokes gained around the green. So, you know, you've got to...

I mean, I was on Victor Hovland last week and I love Victor. I love Victor a lot. I think he's going to be a world number one. But I keep saying on the Golf Betting System podcast and on my content at Golf Betting System, the one weakness that we all know he has is chipping and around the green game. And when you get to somewhere like Bay Hill last week, where the wind was howling, the greens were...

I mean, releasing isn't even really the right terminology for those greens. Yeah, the grass was just absolutely dead. Yeah. Actually, if the rough hadn't have been grown up all the way to around the greens, I think Victor would have fallen back because if there would have been chipping areas, that just isn't Victor Hovland. And that's what kind of puts me off a Victor Hovland sort this week, no matter if it's going to be soft. I mean, the fact that it's going to likely be soft will help it. But you've got to have around the green game this week.

So I think the beauty of the Players' Championship, but also we can see this on the betting boards, can't we, Andy? Let's be frank, even the layers, the bookmakers don't really know there's such value available there. It's joint favourites over here in the UK. We've got John Rahm's eat into favouritism over here at 12s and then we've got Colin and we've got Justin at 14 to 1. They can't really split them.

And that's the beauty here because this course can work, you know, it can play for Brendan Todd just as well as it can play for Cameron Champ, as long as they're having a good week and they're actually got an around the green guy. Yeah. I like that a lot. I was, I was actually looking at some of the numbers and I was finding that the

there are a lot of pop bunkers here, right? And I found it's harder to gain strokes around the green here from the bunkers. That's in the top 10 out of any PGA tour course from the fairway as well. And from the rough. So, and I think Phil even has talked about it before as well, that you need to have a lot of creativity and kind of short game magic around the greens. And I think everyone's first assumption is iron play, but the greens at Sawgrass are,

small. I mean, they're less than 6,000 square feet on average. So even though you're going to have more wedges in than long irons probably this week, like you're still going to miss some green. So I like that a lot. I luckily, most of my guys seem to be pretty good in that category, but I definitely agree with you on that. Should we dive into the odds board? Do you want to talk about some of the favorites?

Oh, yeah, let's talk odds, shall we? John Rahm was 14-1 over here. He's now down, he's been backed into 12s. Ben Coley's tipped him up out of the UK leading tipster and he's been...

He's been backed very well over here. Rahm, absolutely stupendous, still teeter green. Driving's fantastic. Approach play is probably the best. Tied with Colin Morikawa right now, globally. You could probably throw a Wills Alatorre or a Taylor Gooch in there in terms of the top four for a

approach play and Justin Thomas rounding off your five. But the big concern, and it was voiced by Ben yesterday in his tips, was the around the green game with Rahm and clearly we won't even talk about the putting. But if that comes back to John this week, and if we're living in a world where in 2019 we had Rory McIlroy win this at 14-1 and we had JT win this at 20-1 last year,

If you actually looked at the odds and you looked at the elite, Rahm was definitely the value pickup, in my opinion, of the very top of the board. I've also, I've jumped in on Rory. I managed to get 18s. He's drifted to 20 to one for Rory McIlroy, who's clearly a Florida golf course master. Yeah. Doral, Bay Hill, too. All those places. All of those places. But yeah, Rahm's the one that's being backed over here. I think,

It's like everything, isn't it? I think if Colin Morikawa had been closer to 18-1, everyone over here would have been on Colin Morikawa. But for a value play, we've been used to seeing John Rahm at 8-1. Yeah. At 15-2. Yeah. He's priced up at 14-1. We know that his approach play is grade A. It's whether he finds that short game this week. Yeah. And I joined...

I will join Ben and probably many others in the UK. I bet the 14 on Ron and I just, I look at what he's doing right now, ball striking, and you already alluded to it. It is just at a little bit of a different level right now. And, you know, I'm pretty hard on John Rob, my listeners know, but I would probably be very frustrated right now too, if I was him and I was getting that little out of such good golf. And I,

I think the reason why I was so interested in this week is I look at what he's doing. And if ROM is just a neutral putter, he probably wins. And this course isn't a course where you have to go out and gain a ton of strokes putting, especially since it got moved to March, like JT one last year, gaining, I think 1.3 strokes putting. And if ROM can just get there, then,

which I don't feel like is a huge ask, by the way. I don't think there's a scenario where he's not in the mix on Sunday. And in my opinion, Steve, TPC Sawgrass has...

In terms of actual undulation on the greens, I think they are on the relatively easy size. They're small, so you're not going to have to do a lot of lag putting. And just visually tracking him last week, it seems like a lot of ROM struggles had to do with distance control. And at Sawgrass, he's going to have a wedge in his hands a lot more and more

you can really be more aggressive and go up pins. And this overseeded Bermuda, very similar to what we see in Phoenix and PGA West. And Rahm has putted extremely well at both of those. So Rahm would probably be my choice at the top. I can't argue with that whatsoever.

I'm not Rahm's number one fan and 14 to 1, I cannot argue with the price point at all. That's the best that we've seen. There's downsides. I'll tell you one thing I will throw at you and I might as well get this in the mix early. You take the last three champions here, Simpson, McIlroy and Thomas. They all ranked in the top 10 for scoring average when they actually arrived at Sawgrass.

So if we actually took that as a number now, Horschel's at 10, Mack McKenzie-Hughes at nine, Fitzpatrick and JT at seven time, Scotty Scheffler six, Cantlay five, Russell Henley, who I think would be a decent each way punt or a decent DK play this week. His knees start to knock in contention. We know that, but this golf course is made for Russell Henley. Yeah. Three is McElroy.

Two is Cam Smith, number one, Colin Morikawa. Yeah. The other thing that I'd noticed here, like I'm harking back, and it's very rare, around the green game. Last five players' winners all ranked in the top 50 for strokes gained around the green arriving at Sawgrass.

so if i want to look at that right now rom's probably fallen out of that would be my guess over the last couple of years as i as i always say and as i'm always shut down trends are there to be broken but outside the top 55 fitzpatrick burns leishman outside the top 70 i'm only throwing big names out there zala taurus is outside the top 70. we've got speed corey connors max homer morikawa's at 118. siwoo kim previous winner

Shane Lowry, although he's a very small sample size, and actually he was 14th for strokes gained around the green last season. Lowry's got a good short game. That's the last thing I worry about with him. Exactly. Brooks Koepka, Paul Casey, T4 Tony Finau, Adam Scott, John Rahm at 177, and Victor Hovland. He is 216th for strokes gained around the green. He's only beating Bo Hoag.

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Yeah. I don't want to pile on...

Victor at all. And I want to actually get your take on Rory because I was close on him too. But I think also there might be something to pay attention to with Victor and Pete Dye, because I know that these are two events that aren't going to show up in a lot of the data websites, but the two worst, absolute worst times,

that I've ever seen Victor play was that team event. I don't know if you remember it, the Zurich Classic. Yeah. And the match play in Austin. Both PTI courses, both not have... You're not going to have the stats for. And I remember these specifically because I bet Victor at both of those events. And it was the worst I've ever seen him play. So maybe there's something...

to the visual deception of Pete Dye that Victor hasn't really figured out yet. And then I just worry about him a little too much out of these pop bunkers close to the greens. But let's talk about Rory. Give me the Rory sale. How did you kind of close in on Rory outside of some of these other top names? We've been talking about Rory a lot on the podcast, and he's definitely playing a lot better than we've seen for a long period of time, in our opinion. Yes.

When you look at his form recently, clearly he won the CJ Cup on his first season PGA Tour start. And then in 2022, he was sixth also at the DP World Tour Championship. That was where he ripped his shirt when he got mad because he was in a bit of a head-to-head with Colin Morikawa. But since then...

And this season's 12th in Dubai, sorry, Abu Dhabi, third in Dubai, could have won, of course, had the mud ball on 18. Everyone, you know, the whole world was saying, oh, Rory should have laid up. Well, Rory McIlroy never lays up, does he? That's why he wins so many golf tournaments.

10th at the Genesis. It's not bad stuff here, is it? And 13th last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational. I saw some video today and Saturday, midway down the back nine, he was still in second place at the Arnold Palmer Invitational on the Saturday.

Finish 13th. It's not exactly that Rory's playing bad golf right now. And he lost strokes putting too. Like he hit the ball great. And if he was a small gainer in the putting category, he would have been firmly in the top 10.

I'm a bit of a sucker for old style statistics because when I grew up, things weren't strokes gained related at all when I joined the industry in 2009. First for total driving last week, 13th for greens in regulation, third for ball striking. And as you said, it was purely the putt of the misfiled. He was eighth for strokes going off the tee, 24th for approach, ninth for tee to green.

He struggled with the putter, but he's been in the top 10 for strokes game putting across three of his past five appearances worldwide. So if the putter, there's no doubt that he's around the green game, he's sharp, everything's sharp. With Raw, it tends to be in the mind, doesn't it? It tends to be in the head. I just think with the Masters around the corner, with his pedigree in Florida, he's had an eighth, a sixth, an eighth and a first here.

If he's the kind of player that if we're not going to have a first-time players championship winner this week, you've got to have Rui McIlroy at the club. And I just thought 18-20-1 is a decent value price.

So of this kind of tier, we've already talked a little bit, obviously, about Rory and Rom. But of this group of Cantlay and Scheffler and Morikawa and Justin Thomas and, I guess, Xander and Hideki, who else has your attention? Because it's so...

it's so tough at the top, obviously differentiating between all of these top names, but you're going with Rory. Are you, are you going with two guys in, in this top range or are you kind of mixing down into the middle tier? If we're talking from a betting perspective, I've, I've, I've included Rory. Um, we, you know, if you, from a draft Kings perspective, you could, you could throw into it, you know, 10 and above. Yeah. Um,

I tend to look things from a betting perspective. You need to bear that in mind. DraftKings, there's far better people out there that play DraftKings far better than I do. I'm a trends man. I absolutely love trends. And if we're looking for the winner this week, every winner going back to 2000, and I'm talking about winners of the players played in March, have played either the Honda or Bay Hill before they've gone on to win this. So, you know, that's great for Ram.

Not so good for Colin. Not so good for JT. Not so good for Patrick. Can't we? Yeah. Yeah. Now that doesn't mean they can't be great DK players.

The thing I... I mean, again, Patrick Cantlay, he opened up over here at 28-1. He's now a flat 20-1 over here in the UK. He's been backed in, severely backed in. And I can see why, because we know he's a Pete Dye, Pete Dye kind of guy, isn't he? He loves dye designs, hasn't won for a period of time since the Tour Championship, but he's been there or thereabouts, isn't he? I mean, he's been very, very...

so far in 2022, considering he pocketed a rather large amount of cash at the Tour Championship and the FedEx Cup last year. It's not as if he switched off, is it? He had that period of time off in the fall last year and he's come back red hot. My only reservation with Cantlay is

I do like players. And if you look at Webb Simpson before he won this, I think he was top five strokes going on approach at the Quail Hollow, the outing before. If you look at Justin Thomas, he ranked second for strokes going on approach at the concession, his outing before winning the players. I'm not saying that from Patrick Campbell. Most of his great play at the moment is not with the irons. It's actually with the putter. And, you know,

You can never force Cantlay for his scrambling around the green game. That's always top notch. So, you know, if I was going to, I personally wouldn't take JT. I don't like defending champions here. They've got a terrible record at the players. I would have gone from a value perspective for Rahm over Morikawa, purely because of that Florida start and purely because he's striping his irons and his drive is just as good as it always is. It's long and straight.

So those are the two I'd probably take. It would be Rahm. And I personally would take McElroy of the top six.

Yeah, my reservation with Colin was one thing I noticed. Obviously, I think this is a pretty great golf course for Colin Morikawa. I don't think anyone's going to dispute that. You think about iron game inside 150 yards, he's probably the best in the world. But the one concern that I had with Morikawa was that I noticed when I went back and looked through it, he's never had two good putting weeks in a row.

Um, is that a coincidence? Maybe, but it's also like a three year sample size and you know, he's not the only one, Steve. I've actually, I've actually made a lot of money fading pretty much anyone after a spike putting performance. It backfires sometimes, but you'd also be surprised how much it works. Like some guys I noticed like Sam Burns and Billy Horschel, when they start putting well, they can gain like five strokes back to back weeks, three weeks in a row. But, but,

but Colin is not like that. And so Colin has gained over three strokes, putting six times in the last three years. And in the following week, Steve, he's gone minus one minus 2.1 minus 7.6 minus one minus 8.3 minus 2.5. So following a spike putting week, uh,

Collins' average next putting performance is minus 3.8 on the greens. And I get it. It could still be a coincidence. Sure. Is there a chance that he's done it in Europe and I'm not looking at those stats? Sure. But if you're asking for a reason to pick between Rahm and Morikawa, I would rather play Rahm. And my reason for Cantlay, too, is...

Again, it's tough when you're differentiating between these top guys, but you've got to find something to cling on with them because they're all such great options. And one thing I noticed about Cantlay is I was looking at Cantlay's schedule the past couple of years, and we all know he plays so well on the West Coast, Steve. Absolutely.

All of those golf courses are great fits for him. He Riviera, he loves pebble beach. He loves, and he plays a lot of golf on the West coast. Like he's probably the only elite that plays the Amex and pebble beach every year. And I noticed when he gets to the East coast, right after that busy West coast swing, it seems like a bit of a flat spot for him. Right. Uh,

Coming off the West Coast swing, so players was his first start, then missed the next three cuts, if you remember that. He missed four cuts in a row at this time of year. The year before, same thing. Crushes the West Coast swing, missed cut, missed cut. So I know he prefers playing on Poa. He still had success on Bermuda before, but I don't know. I don't find myself as tempted on him this week as I think some others do.

In my notes for this, I basically, I put this in my preview this week. It basically says you need Florida in your face form. And it's true, isn't it? Justin Thomas, he'd won the Honda Classic before winning this. And those two calls, I think PJ National and here, with water. I mean, there's water in play on 17 of 18 holes this week. Yeah.

now that again that does not scream that that does not scream matthew wolf um it doesn't we could even go down the route that doesn't scream tony t4 or t2f now to me because yeah um but he'd won he'd won at pj national uh rory mcelroy a winner at pj national even webb simpson webb simpson

had played the Honda Classic in 2018 before he won this. And he'd gone out in the last group or maybe the last two groups on Sunday, and he finished fifth at PGA National at the Honda Classic. And you don't see a lot of the guys that we're seeing at the top of the market, you don't see them jumping and adding Florida golf courses to their schedule. Cantley is one of those. Yeah. Yeah.

And if you're thinking to yourself, well, if you're not adding Florida type golf courses to your schedule,

But of course, you're playing the players. That would suggest that you're not overly into playing in Florida and those Florida-type golf courses where the wind is howling, the temperatures can be dropping, and we've got water everywhere. That's kind of the mindset I'm getting with players that don't play a lot of Florida-type golf. So I would rather pick those that play regularly and play a Florida schedule each and every year

So that, I would assume, that puts you off me and Jeff Nagels' guy, Xander Schaub. Yeah. Where do you go with Xander? The one thing I will say about Xander, at least we're getting backable prices now. Yeah. Yeah. What's the best you guys got over there? Some 30s were even starting to pop up. I'm not saying 30s. I'm saying 28s over here in the UK. Yeah. Yeah.

It's tough when you're, if you have Xander and Hideki at the same price right now, I think a lot of people would still understandably so pick Hideki in that kind of scenario if they're the same price.

You and Jeff are the Xander whisperers. So what's your view on Xander? What's going on with Xander? He seems bereft of confidence. Yeah. Yeah. Whisperer is probably the opposite of what I am because it always works out where the weeks that I'm the most confident in him, he plays poorly. And the weeks where he's kind of out of sight, out of mind for me, that's when it works out for him.

I think he's a good one and done play this week. I think he is probably, this may be in DraftKings, some of the lower or lower-ish ownership that you're going to get from Xander. He's a little out of sight, out of mind because of the Florida thing, as you mentioned. And he doesn't play...

Florida golf, really. It's never been on his schedule. He's played the API once or twice. He never plays the Honda Classic. He never plays the Valspar. The only time he plays here is the players. Now, I think if I wanted to put a positive spin on that, Steve, I would say, well...

He's amazing at Eastlake, right? And what is so different from Eastlake than some of these other Florida golf courses? You've got the Bermuda Rough. You've got the grainy Tiff Eagle. You've got water everywhere. And Xander's the king of Eastlake.

Maybe it's just a scheduling spot. Maybe he's based in Vegas and San Diego. Maybe it's just it doesn't really work for his schedule. And this is the way that they have the schedule right now. It's a lot. There are a lot of big, good events at the beginning of the year. Right.

We've got the match play two weeks away, and he's going to play that. Then we've got the Masters. Prior to that, you have Torrey, which he's always going to play, Riviera, which he's always going to play. Now, hopefully, this isn't a huge trend, but it seems like most of those guys are going to go to Saudi too. Maybe it's just a scheduling spot. The other thing that I would mention is, and you've done a great job of outlining this too, these are not...

true grainy Bermuda greens. And I think a lot of the reason why some people don't like Florida, some players don't like Florida is because the grain on the Bermuda greens, if you didn't grow up on that surface, if you're not used to putting on that surface, it can make you look pretty silly, but these are completely overseeded, right? They almost play. They almost look like that shiny back grass. Right. And so, um,

They're exactly what we see in Phoenix. And Xander's been great putting on those types of green in Phoenix. So that's kind of my Xander spend zone for the week. Did I do a decent enough sell for you? I've never spoken to anyone, Andy, that's mentioned Eastlake in comparison to a thought. No, no, no, I'm not. This is a mark of respect.

In my notes, and bearing in mind Eastlake is always after a stretch in the northeast, yeah, or yeah, the amount of comments I have read over the years from Matt Cucho and players like that, Elkis, they talk about coming to Eastlake and they say, well, this is like a Florida golf course. It's almost in Georgia. But, yeah, like you said, it's Bermuda. It's Bermuda grass fairways, thick Bermuda grass rough.

And we've got, you know, Bermuda grass greens. So the fact of the matter is, as you said, Xander is the king of Eastlake. And if you look at Justin Thomas, you know, he's had two decent runs at Eastlake. Rory McIlroy has won there a couple of times. Webb Simpson's had a fourth and a fifth there. Jason Day's had a fourth and a sixth there. You know, Tiger Woods wins everywhere, but Woods has had a couple of wins at Eastlake in modern times.

The other thing I do like, and let's just go into a little bit of detail. People, I don't know if listeners will know, but I'm kind of known for being anally retentive around the agronomy of golf courses. And what we've got this week, we have...

I get excited when I get the update from the Greenkeepers Association. It's like, oh, fantastic. On a Monday afternoon. This is why we're proud, Steve. Oh, I know. Tiff Eagle Bermuda grass greens this week, yeah? But they're not. Because, as you said, that's the base. They're overseeded with Poa trivialis and velvet bentgrass. Wow.

Now, so if you hear or read that they're Bermuda grass, they are not. They're a Bermuda grass base. They're not dissimilar, actually, to Augusta National Greens, which have a Bermuda grass base, and then they grow bent grass over the top of them, yeah? Yeah. Do you want a list of players who have won on these putting surfaces since 2009? Yes, and I bet you I could get a lot of them, because am I right on with the...

Phoenix does the same thing, right? Phoenix has that same overseed, right? It did. And then the last two years, so 21 and 22, they've taken away the velvet bent grass. They've kept the tribulus. The poly, yeah. But, yes, Scottsdale used to. I mean, Hideki Matsuama, two wins, both at Phoenix. Then I've got a list of Paul Casey,

That was at the Golf Club of Houston. Corey Connors, Valero Texas Open. Russell Henley, Charlie Hoffman, Mark Leishman, Rory McIlroy, Ryan Palmer, Ian Poulter, John Rahm.

His victory actually was at the team event at TPC Louisiana. Again, Bermuda grass greens with velvet bent grass over seed. Adam Scott, Webb Simpson, Cameron Smith, Kyle Stanley, Brendan Steele, Justin Thomas, Jimmy Walker, and Gary Woodland. Those are players that have won on these types of greens with this velvet bent grass over seed since 2009. Yeah, I think...

I think that is a common mistake with the Bermuda. And I think that probably leads me on to, in my opinion, Steve,

I don't want to say that these greens neutralize bad putters, right? But I do think it takes away a lot of the grainy struggle that a lot of players get frustrated over on some of these courses, more so like the Honda Classic, which is like this really grainy Tiff Eagle Bermuda. So I completely agree with you. I think it's really important to...

Think about those differentiations. And in my opinion, Steve, like it kind of just leads me down the route of looking at the leaderboard last year. Like it's a lot of guys that aren't considered. It's not exactly a murderer's row of great putters, right? Justin Thomas, Shane Lowry, Lee Westwood, Corey Connors, Sergio Garcia, Paul Casey, right? So maybe there's something there too. You don't have to be the most skilled putter to have success at a place like

TPC Sawgrass. Team no or team can't putt, team no putt, definitely in play this week. Yeah. And that was the crazy thing about last week. It's the complete reverse to Bay Hill. If you look at the statistics for Bay Hill, you've got to be a very – you have to have a strong putting performance that week to be able to actually get in contention. I think –

Scheffler was 17th for strokes game putting last week. And if you look at the guys beneath him, they were all in the top 10 for strokes game putting. This is the complete reversal. Team no putt is definitely in play. So Will's Alatoris supporters. Yeah. See, I never quite got Will's Alatoris last week. Teej Green, of course, he's fantastic. I get that.

but the guy struggles with the putter and a place like Bay Hill that is only going to get exacerbated here. There's a reversal more in play in my mind this week. Will Zalatoris and he would be at Bay Hill. I like that too. So let's kind of dive into Zalatoris range, right? Like let's talk about some of these guys between 30 and 60. Who do you, who do you have next for me?

I've got, you won't be surprised, Hideki Matsuyama. I've been told off recently. I keep saying his name wrong. My pronunciation is never the best. But Hideki Matsuyama, why not? Yeah. He's the sort that wins this. I'll tell you what else I've noticed here in terms of winning records. You get this. Justin Thomas, five appearances before he won this. McElroy, nine. Simpson, eight.

So they were winless in all of those starts before winning this. Siwoo Kim, you know, he's way out there. He only played once and I think he had a top 15. Jason Day, five. Fowler, five. Keimer, five. Kuchar, seven. Choi, nine. Tim Clark, seven. Average at through, six points.

players championship appearances before they actually won and Matsuama just fits the mold perfectly for me this way yeah I like that a lot he I I was even I mean I was what what number did you get him at are you seeing there was a tiny sliver with a couple of firms of 33s about him before I went live yesterday and literally was cut to 30s

There's only one firm now in the UK still offering them at 30 to 1. So that's not going to be a round for long. He's going to go off at 28 and 25, I think. I would agree with that.

I did for me this tier. The first guy that I had was Brooks. And I tried not to, I always go back and forth when I have people on. I wanted to take a peek at your article, but I also wanted to like kind of be surprised, but I also have people that tell me who you are on every Monday morning, which is a testament to how good and important your picks are is that some of my group chats will just be like,

Oh, Steve, this is who Bamford's on. This is who Bamford's on. So the secret is out. I know that you are with me on Brooks. I'll let you get, I want to hear your reasoning for him. But for me, like I saw the 41, um, I bet this last week, I thought the 41 was a good number, but

On Monday morning, he opened up at 50. So if you got a 50 props to you, I think that's an incredible number. I still like Brooks all the way down to 35. I would have bet him honestly at 35. And one thing I noticed with Brooks, he's been sneaky better than you'd think on Sheldon.

shorter positional golf courses. I don't, another Bermuda course that isn't in Florida that I don't think is the most terrible comp in terms of what it's asking you to do compared to TBC Sawgrass is Memphis, TBC Southwood and Brooks has been great there. And he's had some great success on these types of greens as well. So I think, um,

It's a lot of money, Steve, for Brooks. He's due for a big one. I think he might nag this one. He actually outscores himself over the last five years. He's actually performed better on past 70s than 72s, which would suggest he likes shorter golf courses. He's more than adequate on short golf courses. The thing with Brooks is, I get this, and

People get excited. They see a Brooks Koepka at 20 to one to win the Honda classic. It's sealing Brooks against the week. Brooks Koepka does not care about the Honda classic. He's not interested, not interested, but he,

The thing that Brooks Koepka is interested in at the moment is he's finding it. He said in interviews, isn't he? He's embarrassed about his world ranking at the moment. Yeah, I saw that too. Yeah, I like that. I like that. We forget. We think these guys are machines. He had a serious knee injury, and that seems to have settled down and disappeared. He's now focusing on his golf.

Brooks Koepka does not win the Honda Classic. He does not win, I don't know, the Rocket Mortgage Classic. He's interested in big prizes and the Players' Championship would fit perfectly within his CVs. His palmares, as we call it over here, it's like a cycling term, his collection of victories.

Absolutely perfect. And Koepka is not playing as badly as he was. I mean, you've just said that. No, he's not good, yeah. I was pleasantly surprised how well he defended his title at Phoenix a few weeks ago. Seventh of the strokes going off the tee. We know that's his weapon of choice with Brooks. If the driver is in play, he's in play. It tends to work with him that the driver...

Once he gets confidence with the driver, the length, the straightness, then all of a sudden the rest of his game comes. 16th tee to green, fifth for putting in Phoenix. And then at the Honda Classic, 16th last time out, 17th for off the tee, 21st for approach, 14th for tee to green.

He also shares the course record here with a lot of players, but also Hideki's the same nine. Is it nine under 63? Yeah. I believe that's what Hideki shot in the first round of, of 2020. Um,

And obviously they ended up canceling that, that after shot that in 2018. And I've got that down actually as a soft golf course round, because I think it rained the night before. Yeah. I think he's very much in play. Oh,

For me, and he'd never admit it because, you know, Bravado, you know, he's a champion. He's a major winner. He devoid of confidence. He needs a victory. I agree. And I think he would like a victory. Don't forget, we're also a WGC down this year. Yeah. And he always, you know, WGCs at Memphis, in Florida. I don't think the Mexico course really suited him. But here, I think he's very much in play. This is the kind of tournament –

he will 100% focus upon. And he's Floridian at the end of the day. He's got a decent record, isn't he? Second at the Honda Classic a few years ago. Also second last year at the concession. Concession, yeah. Behind Colin Morikawa. Yeah, he was right in the mix there too. He almost won that one. Did the big numbers on...

Did the big numbers on DJ and Spieth entice you at all? These are numbers that we've seen next to DJ and Spieth that we haven't really seen in a while. DJ, no. He's not playing enough golf. Spieth, I know Ben's on him as well. I can see the logic. If we're going off the... It just doesn't feel like a Spieth course to me. The trouble with Spieth is he can get himself into trouble off the tee. Yeah.

I just said exactly the same about JT at this point last year because his driving was abysmal. Yeah. And he held the driver together. I think Jordan's intelligent to know that he's not a driver addict, as in he's not Tony Finau, for example. He knows that on key holes he will –

you know three word five wood iron he's more strategic than a lot of players so yeah i i can see it especially with bad weather around yeah yeah but if you're if we're popping into the mix if we're playing the bad weather game

I would assume that you're probably more enticed by a Fitzpatrick or a Lowry. Oh, Larry. Yeah. I'm on Larry. Yeah. It's kind of, it's kind of concrete block in the middle of the forehead, isn't it? Second at the Honda classic last time out open champion. You also, and this, um, this is something we have seen in the past here.

I'll always harp back to the past. McIlroy hadn't won for 12 months before winning this. Thomas, six months. Webb Simpson hadn't won for four and a half years before winning this in 2018. And we've also seen Ricky Fowler was three-year gap between Quayle in 2012 and winning this in 15. We've seen players...

good players. Matt Kuchar was almost two years when he won in 2012. We have seen players that haven't won for a period of time grabbing the players. Shane Lowry, he's perfect for that. He's in the 2019 Open, the last tournament victory. And you've got to say, I mean, in my eight-week trackers, I track DP World Tour and I track PGA Tour trackers across the last eight weeks. He ranks number one in this field for strokes going tee to green.

Yeah. Wow. He hit, well, he hits it so well at such a consistent rate. I mean, he was, uh,

I think he was towards the top of the field and ball striking at Honda too. And, you know, he's been good. He's been good in Europe as well. Like his start to the season in Europe was very solid. And he was, I really thought that he had the Honda in, in his hands for a little bit there. I was really surprised he didn't win. Cause it looked like the momentum had completely swung with, with burger on that Sunday. And then the weather came down and, you know, he,

Kind of got a little bit of some bad luck there. Probably went a little bit too fast with his pre-shot routine. But if he wins that tournament, I very much doubt that you're getting 50-1s on Shane Lowry. So I like that one a lot. I'll give you a guy, Steve. I bet, and the short game stuff that we talked about, this is the one guy on my card that I have the most concern with. But I thought 70-1...

on Corey Connors was a pretty good number. I think that Connors is a guy who might get squeezed a little bit, you know, especially in, in DraftKings. He's right next to, you know, the Gooch's and the Paul Casey's and the Hatton's and the Woodlands and all of the guys that played well last week. And,

you know, Connors was awesome last week. Connors, they just didn't show him on TV, but he gained 11.3 strokes from tee to green. If Connors is like a neutral putter at Bay Hill, he wins, right? And I know that he had a little bit of a poor start to the season, but the same thing happened last year, Steve. We talk about this so much about the schedule in Florida and the

The second that we got back to this part of the schedule, shorter positional golf courses, Florida, API, the players, the Valspar, the Heritage, wedges and mid-irons matter a little bit more. We're off the POA. I think this is the type of tournament that Connors can win. And I do think that he...

can win a big one. Sneaky good record at the majors lately. He's already got two top tens at the Masters. 15th at the Open last year, Steve. First round leader at Kiowa Island. So even if it's a good field on the weeks when Connor's putts, he will be right there. So I think he's a great bet this week at 70-1. And I really do believe, Steve, he was right in the mix last

on Sunday at the API, if they had just decided to show him on TV, I think he'd be double as popular. I really do believe that. You're not getting 70 to one now, 55 to one with only one firm over here in the UK. I'm seeing a short 40 to one on Corey Conner. People are smart. Oh, yeah. I think he did the same last year, didn't he? Yeah.

he was top, top eight here last year and he came off a decent, was he top? I think he was top six or seven at API the week before. He was third at API. I think he went third, eighth. Yeah. Yeah. It's history repeating itself. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think there are a lot of good options in, in this range. Like,

Gooch, I think will be very popular. Siwoo Kim, I very much understand. Answer has kind of fallen off a little bit, but he is kind of the prototypical player you think for the Players' Championship. He's had a ton of success on Pete Dye courses. I'm always a sucker for Hatton. Casey

I don't even know. I mean, I had Casey last week and that weekend from Paul Casey really scarred me. But I think Connors is probably my favorite in this kind of middle to late tier before we get in the hundreds. Is there anyone else for you that you want to give a shout to kind of after Lowry before we at the end give out one or two kind of bombs in the 100 plus range? I think Taylor Gooch. I mean, Taylor Gooch is going to be bound to

I think we said it earlier, you probably look over the last six months, maybe even four months, the guy's approach play is elite. I think he was something like top three for approach play last week at the API.

Yeah, it was great. He gained over sex. Yeah. I mean, that's a serious performance. And if we are going down the route of a Webb Simpson or a Justin Thomas now where they were striking the ball before they won this, he was third for strokes gained on approach last week.

seventh for tea to green I think take I understand with DraftKings a lot of it is trying to it's not going for the chalk as you call it is it it's actually going for players that you can kind of switch across to yeah I wouldn't be surprised you know if Louis actually has a good week this week if you're prepared to to make sure that he's not hurt his back on in the warm-up on Thursday but

I think Louis is the kind of player that could pick his way around this golf course and we're seeing bad weather. One question for you, Andy. Have you any idea why Tyrell Patton, an API winner and someone that's been in the top five at the Honda Classic a couple of times?

The perfect Florida background. Why is Tyrell Hatton never fired at Sawgrass? There are a couple guys like that. I don't understand why Russell Henley hasn't played better here. I think this is a perfect golf course for Henley. And Hatton, too. Hatton is...

I think Hatton gets the mark by many as a grinder and a scrambler, and all of that stuff is true. But when Hatton's at his best, he's one of the best in the world from 175 yards in. He is a great iron player. He's a great wedge player. And I think that type of stuff is really important at Sawgrass.

I think this is a course that, you know, that's why I struggle a little bit more with course history. I think you can get going really bad really quickly.

And I think probably Hatton might have had some times here where it gets going in the wrong direction quickly and you get two or three over through four or five or six over through nine. And it's game over mentally. It's just game over mentally. But yeah, I agree with you. I don't have a good reason for why Hatton hasn't been better. I mean, there's a ton of guys here too. I think that, well, I guess...

what's so great about Sawgrass, Steve, is a lot of these guys' resume here is like Molinari, for example, has, he's got like four top tens and four missed cuts, right? Which is just, which is a crazy kind of CB at a golf course. Rory too. Rory has had, I think, five top tens and five missed cuts, right? So I think it's just one of those golf courses where

we're going to see a lot of variance. A player's track record is maybe not as much indicative of their future performance. I think you touched on this already during this podcast. They don't need to have the best experience, but they need to have some experience, right? Yeah, I think so. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Hatton pops this week and actually contends here for the first time. I'll tell you another player in this kind of range I like.

and he was fourth for strokes gained on approach last week at the API, Max Homer. Yeah. And if you're looking for a big tournament, I think DraftKings play. I think he's not a bad each-way bet. I'm not so sure that he wins the event, but 75-1 I'm seeing here with bet 365, but he's 50s in most places.

I don't think he's got the experience to win it if we go and part those past trends. And he, you know, he missed the cut on his one appearance here last year, but that guy is something about Max Homer, you know, Quail Hollow win, Riviera win, three wins on the PGA tour. He takes out big titles on big, major championship venues. I,

He's hitting the ball so well at the moment and he's not afraid to play the API. He's played that two years on the trot now, a 10th and a 17th. So it's not as if he is negating Florida golf. I think Homer could be one that's probably not going to be overly owned this week. A good pivot play in that kind of mid-range.

I like that. The last guy I'll throw out there is a player that you've alluded to a couple times, and I feel like you've coupled drive-bys on him already, but I thought 80-1 on Finau. That had my attention. All right, can I give you the case? Can I give you the case? I can't stop you, but yeah, please give me the case. So I know he had a little bit of an underwhelming West Coast swing,

but the irons completely came back for him at Riviera. He had his best iron week at Riviera since he won the Northern Trust, right? And if you look at how he was playing before he won the Northern Trust, it was not very good at all. It was very similar incoming form to what he has here. So I don't necessarily think that Finau's the type of guy that needs to be surging before he wins, right? He kind of, he won at Northern Trust at,

a big number. I mean, he won at Northern trust at, I don't know, 40, 50 to one he's 80 here. And he's had a lot of success on, on some of these club down courses. You know, he's been great at PGA West, which is the West designed as the West coast version of this course and, and similar overseeded greens as well.

The Florida thing is concern. But again, I think a lot of these guys just skip this part of the schedule because it's tough to fit in a Honda, an API, or a Valspar when you've got Tori, Riviera, players, match play, and then Masters. So I think a lot of the stars skip this, maybe not necessarily because they hate

hate Florida golf, but because it just, it doesn't really work with their schedule. And you tell me rain and windy, uh,

I kind of like Finau in those conditions. Like he'll throw on that Nike quarter zip. He's got a really underrated short game and you know, he's, uh, he's had sneaky, really good success at the open to Steve. So when I see Finau at 80 to one and he's right next to guys like Jason day and Chris Kirk and Tommy Fleetwood to me, Finau is still a class above those guys, in my opinion. Oh, for sure. Um,

I don't doubt you on that one. I always like Tony Fino at a big price. He's getting to that price point. I always like him at a big price going into a major. He's the kind of guy that plays major championship golf on proper big boy golf courses. No doubt about that. I've said that all along. It's not really a surprise he did win the Northern Trust, which is a funny course, Liberty National, but there's so many connotations with the field there is stacked, top 125,

by the coast. He is a very good coastal golf player. I'll tell you one thing I will say about Tony Fina. I would potentially be more supportive of him in bad conditions around here than on a perfect scoring test where it's not going to blow hard and 18 to 20 under is going to win. I just think Tony can get frustrated on a golf course where he just likes to take driver.

Yeah. But yes, one thing I will say is I think he was he top three for strokes gained on approach at the Genesis? Yeah, he hit last time out. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, he hit the ball great at Genesis. I think the only player who was better than him and approach that week might have been Rob.

So he's hitting it well. Yeah, this, it was, it was the best iron week that he had since the Northern trust. I do love, I do love the link between Scottsdale and here. And you, you see it with Thomas, you see it with Simpson. Um, there, there's a, there's a definitive link with,

Whether that's the Greens, the Overseeding, and Tony Finau. Ricky, of course. Yeah, I forgot Ricky. Ricky, of course. So Tony Finau works from that perspective. Brooks Koepka works from that perspective. Now, those are guys that have contended and gone very close and won in the case of Koepka. Finau should have won, shouldn't he, when he got pipped by, was it Webb Simpson?

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Okay. Maybe, maybe he pops. I will pops. I'll give you another guy. This is professional podcast segwaying here who also played well in Phoenix. How about Alex Noren? A little T six in Phoenix, right? Like Alex Noren, uh,

I got him at 130 to one. I think we both feel pretty strongly about him. Again, the secret has been out with your Norrin love. Um, I've heard you're on the Norrin bandwagon as well, and I'm completely with you on this one. I think I like him on shorter, tough positional golf courses. Um, he's had some great success on these types of greens, you know,

And Scottsdale, obviously, he almost led the field in putting at Scottsdale. And he's also been really good at kind of shorter positional courses like the Valspar and Heritage in a bit of a limited sample size. But even courses, Steve, and I'm not saying these are the best comps, but I look at places like TPC Twin Cities and the Honda Classic, and even Phoenix a little bit to a certain extent, where

There's landmines everywhere, and it's so, so easy to get derailed. Third at TPC Twin Cities, third at the Honda, fifth at the Honda, sixth at Phoenix Open. And he's coming off this great approach week at the Honda. And I said this, this was partially the reason that I was on Billy Horschel last week was when somebody who is a really good around the green and putter playoff,

player starts hitting the ball well, which Alex Norton is doing right now. I think he topped Gene Green's in regulation at Honda, didn't he? Oh yeah. Yeah. No, he hit the ball great at Honda. I will gladly bank on them trying to figure out the putter too. So because Norton is one of the best putters in the world over like a pretty large sample size. So I think Norton is probably my favorite play over a hundred to one.

I went to a British Masters here. They played it locally to where I live over here in Hertfordshire in the UK. And it was cold. It was windy. It was grey. It was horrible. And Alex Norren won that week. Yeah.

You look at all of his DP World Tour, i.e. European Tour victories, none of them are on Bermuda grass. I say that in the podcast all the time. He's never won on Bermuda grass greens. So actually the overseed this week works perfectly for him, the bent grass overseed. I'm all for that. You also look at Norrin. 2017, he was 10th here. He was actually third after round one, fifth after round two. And then in 2018...

Shot 66, 69. He was fifth at the halfway stage. He was actually first round leader in 2018. Then he completely lost his way. Went through a bit of a, I'll tell you another, another course, another course link that's, that's DP world tour. And European tour guys will get their head around is the golf national where they played the Ryder cup. I like that. Yeah. I like that a lot. Think of Mollywood.

Fleetwood and Francesco both play very, very well around here. But I'm just looking at the list here.

I've got, he won in 2018 at the Golf National with Alex Naren. He beat Russell Knox, who was a runner-up. Now, Russell Knox is another player that's, yeah, he plays very well around TPC Sawgrass. I keep going down the list. Tommy Fleetwood in 2017, another guy that's played Sawgrass particularly well. 2016, Francesco Molinari was runner-up at the Golf National.

Then we can go back even to 2013. Graham McDowell won there in 13 and 14. Francesco Molinari was runner-up in 2012. And we can even go back to Martin Keimer in 2009. He's a players' champion. And he beat Lee Westwood in that particular 2009 tournament.

So there's a lot of crossover between the Golf National, which again is another one of these faux links, water in a lot of locations. Got to drive the ball and pick your way around kind of golf course. The wind can howl there. The grass is completely different, of course. We're talking about Paris rather than Florida. But just the way that it's open to the elements, it's tough off the tee.

i do like alex naren this week the other thing i like about alex naren don't forget this is a guy that used to be ensconced in the top 20 top 25 in the world for three years yeah he's currently outside the world's top 50. he's upwardly mobile but we're getting towards two very important cutoffs the world match play cut off and we've also of course got the the final masters car for the top 50 in the world

That's a huge carrot for someone like Norrin. If he could get a top five finish this week, he's probably going to be in the Masters in April.

When does the cutoff end? I think it's in two weeks' time, potentially. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I can't say enough about Norton. I absolutely love him this week as well. Is there anyone else, Steve, maybe not necessarily in terms of their ability to win, right, but in terms of

some guys that might be under the radar for a top 20 or a top 10 or a top 40 play or some lower price guys in DraftKings? Like, are there any guys towards closer to the bottom of the board that you could see maybe again, not necessarily winning this tournament, but you think there's a lot of kind of value on and you think they'll have surprised some people and have a good week? I think Russell Knox, we've already said that, haven't we? I don't think Russell Knox. Yeah.

I never trusted Russell Knox in contention. The knees start knocking. We've got a bookmaker over here called Betfred. They do a T20 market. They also do T10 markets where they pay the tyres as well. All the tyres get paid out in full.

A T20, T40 market for Russell Knox, who's striking the ball very, very well at the moment, I think would be a decent bet. Maybe a Joel Damon has been playing quite well recently. Yeah. He's got a good record here. Actually, if you go back 2016 through 2021, he's actually ranks, strokes gain total, 11th in this field for strokes gained around TPC Sawgrass over that time period.

He actually ranks third for strokes gained at ball striking. Now, it's only from six rounds, but it's all relative, isn't it? I can't believe I'm about to say this, but from a DraftKings perspective, I could even see someone of the ilk, someone that's brilliant in the wind and an Emiliano Griot. Yeah. Now, that's...

There are truthers out there, aren't there, with Griot? Yeah. There's a good course fit here. I could see that. I think this is the type of course. Yeah. I could see it. His recent form has been horrendous. Yeah. But it's the kind of course that would suit him theoretically.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll give you who I think is a better version of Emiliano Greer right now is Tom Hoagie. Tom Hoagie is 210 to one. I probably like him more as a top 40 or a top 20 bet, but yeah,

I was on him at Pebble Beach. The reason why I was on Hoagie at Pebble Beach is because he's like a top five player in the world with a wedge in his hands. That is one skill set that over a very large sample size, Hoagie has been absolutely a lead at. And small greens, right, Steve? Again, at TPC Sawgrass, 22nd last year. And looking at the places he's done well,

Amex, right? TPC Sawgrass of the West. Myacoba, Sony, RSM, Pebble, obviously, Small Greens, Club Down. So I like Hoagie. I was...

Is there a bit of a Mito obsession in the UK as well? Because there's like a huge Mito thing here. Maybe it's just my corner of the internet. But are you guys... I think I started the Mito obsession in the UK. I was on him very early. My golf betting show that I put out on YouTube. I'm very...

The way I, Mito Perea, I'm very, very flowery in terms of my pronunciation, both for him and Joaquin Neiman. I love team Chile. Perea is playing some outstanding golf. I'll go back to Griot. Just let me go back to Griot. He was 10th after 54 holes last time out of the Genesis, finished 21st.

And before that, yeah, there's a string of miscuts. Don't forget as well with Griot, 12th at the Open last year. Yeah. So the sorts that would just pop out at very low ownership and could get you a nice top 20, top 25 finish potentially. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I've got nothing against Tom Hoagie again. I think if you look at his approach play, if you took his approach play over the last, say 24 rounds or three months, whatever way you cut your data, I bet you Tom Hoagie would be in the top 10 on the PGA tour with his approach. But it has to be. Yeah. Outstanding with his irons. Yeah. Hoagie, Knox and Mito. And I'll give you one more. This guy is way farther down, but yeah,

I keep playing Martin Laird every single week. And I just... He was hovering around the top 10 last week all week. And then he shot an 80 on Sunday. But he just keeps making cuts on...

on hard golf courses and in good fields. Martin Laird only plays the bigger ones. He's played Phoenix, Torrey, Riviera, API this year, made the cut every single time. He gained 4.8 on approach last week. That's a lot. He's 340-1, Steve. He's finished second here before

Of the guys that are 300 to one, I think where it is by far the most likely random guy to pop. He wins golf tournaments very randomly Valero on those greens that you've talked about to Shriners TPC, a kind of have to keep the ball in play off the tee there.

very accurate off the tee he remains for the fourth week in a row i think he's a very good play if you're kind of mining at the very bottom of the board but that those are kind of that's all i got at the bottom the only thing the other thing with martin led is he's got an outstanding record of scott style as well isn't he oh yeah oh yeah and he was good this year too seventh ninth i

I can also remember him kind of throwing away victories there. I think that was 2015 when he finished fifth, but he was a 36 and 54 hole leader. So he clearly gets on well with these overseeded greens. I think that win that he had at Valspar,

I'm pretty certain he had a win at Valspar. He definitely had a win at Bay Hill, but I think he's had a top three or top four. And Valero. He definitely had a win at Valero too, right? Overseeded greens, yes. Yep, yep. He's going to pop. What price are you getting him on draft games?

6,800. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. Right. Outstanding. Yeah. That is outstanding. Yeah. He actually sits in the top 25 in this field across the last eight weeks. Strokes going on approach. Laird.

And you're getting him at that price point. Steve, he led the PGA Championship in strokes game approach last year. Pete Dye, Kiwa Island. He led it. 340 to one. He's in the top 25 as well. 20th in my analysis for both tea to green. And guess who else is sitting in the top 25 as well? Russell Knox.

Our guys, our guys. I think those are, yeah, I think those are good plays at the bottom of the board. If you're looking for ways to kind of fill out your draft Kings lineup or put some, some top 20 or top 40 action. I like Knox, Vito, Hoagie and Laird would probably be my favorites. Is there anyone else, Steve?

Before we get out of here, anyone else that we didn't talk about that you want to give a shout to before we get out of here? Andy Cross : I think we've just about covered it to be fair, Andy.

It's one of those tournaments where, I mean, was it Doug Gim was right in the mix in this last year. You are going to get some randos. I think you're going to get some randos near the top and you're only going to get a smattering of the elite in the mix. I think I heard Rick Gaiman say this week something along the lines of that

I think it's one of the lowest in terms of 9,000 and above in DraftKings. It's one of the lowest tournaments. Top percentage, correct. Yeah, yeah. For basically people ejecting and missing the cut. Yeah, yeah. So there is space lower down. If you can pick the right players, like you just said, a Laird, a Knox, players of this ilk, maybe a Griot, a long way down, a Tom Hoagie,

And you can build, you know, interject them into your teams. There is a path there. If you pick the right guys at the top end where you can build some very successful lineups, I think. Pat and Keziah might be one. I don't know if Keziah's got the kind of mental...

fortitude for potentially something like this, but I always like Kazire on a Bermuda grass golf course on a shorter golf course. Yeah. And if this is going to be softer and maybe slightly more scoreable, I don't know about Kazire maybe because he's, he's been striking the ball quite well recently as well. Pat and Kazire on the, on the quiet. And he can get, he can get really hot too. Yeah. He's one of the, he's one of those guys that can gain sex putting pretty easily. Um,

For me, I would be fading the likes of a Matthew Wolfe and a Patrick Reed, for example, because I don't think they're going to find it at Sawgrass. You know, Steve, you're very mild-mannered on Twitter for the most part. I feel like the Wolfe thing, I feel like that really scarred you because I remember you tweeted something about Wolfe and I was like, oh, this is a very un-Steve Bamford-like tweet.

I think there's something about the guy. I think he's going to become a very elite level golfer. It's just the thing with Wolff is he's very, very volatile. He's either, like he did at the Under Classic a few weeks ago, I put him up to win. We all make mistakes. But even then, I put him up on the risk and reward. Because if he does drive the ball straight and long,

The rest of his game can be excellent, but his driving can be so errant. It's unbelievable. And that's why I wouldn't go anywhere near him this week, a player of that ilk.

I'd go for more players that have got experience around here or a Westwood, potentially a Fleetwood. I think there could be a European flavor. Yeah. That's where I'll end it. Just purely if this weather really does turn to chaos, which it appears it might do. Yeah. Poulter too. I think Poulter was up there the year that Si Wu won, which was harder conditions. I like that a lot. Well, Steve,

It's a pleasure as always, man. I would assume that the vast majority of my listeners already read your article as well. But for those that don't, why don't you tell everybody where they can find you this week? Golf betting system. We're over here in the UK. We've been around since 2009. All of our content is completely free of charge. Detailed in depth, as you know, betting previews. We have loads of tournament statistics.

First round leader analysis will be out tomorrow. We have strokes gain data, which is free of charge as well. So I was quoting some of it earlier. So where you can look going back to 2016 on strokes game, you can rank it by a skill set. So off the tee, if you want to look at players that have got the best ball striking here, it's all available free of charge, no paywall. Also one last shout, the golf betting system podcast, which we've turned,

200th episode this week. 200th birthday. Thank you very much. I sit with Paul Williams, my European or DP World Tour colleague, and Barry, who's over in Dublin in Ireland. We just talk about the golf tournaments each and every week. So yeah, come and subscribe to that if you will. But Golf Betting System is the site. Steve, it's great to see you as always, my friend. We'll do it again soon. I look forward to that immensely. Thanks for the time, Andy. Okay, that's it for the show.

Special thanks to Steve Bamford. Live Tuesday Scramble with Rick should be in your feeds already. The PrizePix stuff is just getting absolutely out of control at this point. So I would encourage you guys to check that out and get in on the PrizePix fun with us as well, because I don't know how long they're going to allow us to get away with this. But go check that out on the 300 Yards to Unknown podcast feed or the Rick Runkin YouTube channel.

And then Odds Checker articles, Tuesdays and Fridays. And we will be back on this feed next week for the Valspar. 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.