All right, this is a bonus episode. It is an Open Championship DFS special with Nagels Bagels. Listen, Nagels is a friend, so we're a little bit more comfortable, and we've got a really good rapport. And it went on a little bit longer, and we yelled a lot, and we talked about Xander quite a bit. And I know that's not for everyone, but I think if you're a real golf fan and you love this stuff as much as we do,
I think you're really going to enjoy it. It's probably the most fun I've ever had on a podcast. So no ad read. You've heard enough about BetUS. Cheers. Here we go.
All right, I have my buddy Nagels on the line. Nagels, I want to start here, man. First of all, how's Ken? How's the family? I miss you, man. What's going on? How's the golf swing? I haven't played golf since we played golf. Golf swing is just fine. There has been no tweaks.
My brother's good. Yesterday was his birthday. Oh, happy birthday, Ken. Yeah, my sister and my niece, they were out there for the last couple of days. And so they got to meet the baby, got to meet baby Cassidy. For the listeners, you're referring to San Diego. Yes, my brother was in San Diego. We live here in New Jersey. So my sister and her daughter, my niece, they flew across the country to meet the baby.
My dad was there like a week after the baby was born. I was there at the end of June or middle of June. And now we've all been there. So, no, he's good. He's a little down about his golf picks lately. So he's debating whether or not he wants to go do like a full –
like a full Nagel week. He's like, I'm tired of losing. And I'm like, well, you know, you don't have to, you don't have to go all in every week. You know, you can dabble. So we'll see. I mean, I'm trying to talk him into it, but he's fine. He's doing fine. Baby's good. He's good. My golf game is, we think it's fine. And I'm excited about this week. You're good off the tee. Like you, you can, you can get off the tee and like, you'd be surprised how many people can't do that.
Okay.
All right. Well, you know, I have, I was playing with my, my brother's bosses clubs. Not that it matters, but it was a pretty nice, uh, Taylor made driver that the guy had. It felt really good on the range. I took like, after I hit the second shot on the range, I'm like, Holy shit. If the ball is going to do that, like I'm ready to go. Let's go. Let's get on the course. You did. You did that. I, it was like my first time meeting you, you show up to the range, you hit one ball and you go, Oh man. Yeah.
Yeah, the bucket just flew. It was like a rocket. So I was playing with a real driver, I guess. A modern-day driver, which I'm not used to. So, yeah, that thing was out there. So, yeah, that was fun. But, yeah, that was a good time. You know, I try not to take my golf game too seriously. I might make a bogey. I might make a par. You know, whatever. Just move on to the next hole. It's really not a big deal.
But that was a fun day. That was a fun day. That was a really fun day. Well, great transition, Andy. Speaking of golf game, it's the British Open, man. It's the Open Championship. I'm calling it the British Open for SEO purposes and all the new people that are listening to my podcast. I understand that the correct term is the Open Championship, but for SEO purposes, the title of this episode is the British Open. You get what I'm talking about. Okay. I've talked about the Corsetan Nagels. Let's get right into it.
What are you looking for here? I actually, you go first and then I want to talk about some weather stuff because it's changing like literally by the moment. The weather's changing? I'm shocked. Okay.
Well, I didn't know. My approach going into this week, I really wasn't sure how I was going to do it. Because if you look back at the last couple of outings at this particular golf course, you had Greg Norman won, and he went really low. And he was a world-class player. And then you had two kind of like no-name winners. I'll call them no-names. Darren Clark wasn't really a no-name, but they weren't one of the elites.
So I didn't know if that was because of maybe certain course conditions of that week or if just that was just a result of,
how the golf course plays, where you might get a random winner. Sometimes I think that the golf course will dictate the type of winner that you're going to get. Now, what I mean by that, like, going into the ocean course at the PGA, I just had a feeling that we were going to have a weird random winner. And my whole theme that week was it's probably going to be somebody that nobody's going to pick to win. And it was Phil Mickelson. And not a lot of people were on Phil that week.
No. So I don't know if we're going to get an outlier or not with this course. And if we do, I don't know if it's because it's because of the golf course or because of the weather that they get. So I heard you're one of your preview shows and you reference Victor Hovland.
who I originally had in my lineup. And then I heard your take on the whole thing. And I'm like, yeah, okay. It's probably going to play more traditional, like an open, not really sure I want to go all in on Victor Hovland. So maybe that you're probably right about that. So after listening to some stuff today, I I'm kind of changing my mind. I think it's just going to play like a traditional open championship. We'll see what happens with the weather. But I think some of these guys,
Some of these modern day American players might struggle with the conditions and the skill sets required to play here. So that's what I'm looking at. So, okay. So you brought up some really good points. Thank you. Yes. So...
Just to circle back to the wind thing before I forget. So I just recorded a podcast with our buddy Jeff right before this. And I looked at the wind finder and I realized that I did my Sunday morning podcast. I recorded that on Sunday morning. And then I didn't check the wind finder at all until right before going on with Jeff because I wanted to give an updated wind report.
The wind had doubled. It went from 10 mile per hour gusts to almost 25 mile per hour gusts. I recorded the podcast with Jeff, went about an hour or so, coming right in with you, just checked right again really quickly just before we went live. It went down again. So now it's going all over the place. I don't even know what my point is by saying all this. I guess my point is nothing matters. Yeah.
Just like every week, Andy. Just like every week. Nothing matters. Nothing matters. I mean, I think we just got to wait and see. Obviously, you want to see the tee times and the weather stacks and all that crap. And hopefully the guys you have don't get caught in a bad wave or they can survive. You know, it's an open. So I'm glad. We've seen it before. We'll be prepared for it.
I think this COVID, I'm worried about this COVID thing. With hell. Didn't they all withdraw? Yeah, but what if something happens on Thursday or Friday?
and contact tracing and somebody gets like disqualified because they were on a plane with this guy or that I'm worried. Like, I think something goofy might happen. So that would suck. Yeah. I think, yeah, you're right. I mean, it's the same thing with betting the NFL last year. It's like, we're here for content purposes. So we're going to get, I talked about this with Feinberg a lot too. It's like,
If you're really smart about this, like I think like the really sharp people are like locking all of their lineups at the very last minute. They're not even thinking about any of this stuff until they get the most updated Wednesday night weather report and stuff. And we're recording this on a fucking Monday night and you know, we'll, we'll see what happens. I think you're right. I mean, it's, it's a, it's a crapshoot that happened. I remember with the NFL, like it was with the COVID thing. You had, it was the most annoying fucking thing ever betting the NFL this year because the COVID thing was,
changing all the time. And so now you throw COVID into the mix plus the weather. It's like, what are we doing here? Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot to factor in. All right.
Let's do it. Where are we going next? Let's do it. Okay, so terrible intro for me. This is a separate bonus DFS show. So we are going to be talking. We're going to be breaking down the DFS slate completely. So let's start at the top, man. So let's do 10,000 and above. You've got five guys. Oh, by the way, I listened to your show last week. I always listen to your show. By the way, please check out Nagel's live stream on Wednesday nights. Fantastic. It's one of my favorite shows. And you talked about you were like –
I'm over this ownership thing. I'm not going to think about it the way I always think about it. And I noticed you had a much better week because you and I were both battling for that notable top 10. And I know I fell short. I can't remember if you fell short too. So do you want me to not even give you the ownership projections?
You can... Well, I think the audience would like to know. That's a good point. It's not going to factor in my... It's not going to factor in my decision-making. Listen, Andy, I've been getting my teeth kicked in since the... Kevin Na. Yeah, that was a good pick. I'm saying, before last week, or before this week, for the last couple months, I've been getting killed. And...
I was pretty much a beaten and broken man going into the show last week. And I said, I'm just going to kind of wing it. I'm going to try to get back to my roots, go back to when I didn't have all this extra information because I used to be good at this. I swear to God. You still are. I wouldn't have you on the show if you weren't still good at this. Yeah, but I've been a little cold for a little while. So-
I'm just referencing last week's show. I did things a little bit different and yeah, you can say it worked out. If Richard Wierenski makes the cut, I probably win the listener week, but you know, if, if the nuts or whatever, whatever the fucking thing is, but I'll just, uh,
You can give me the ownership. It won't affect what I'm going to say. Okay. And this is all probably going to change and it's all fantasy national. So like, for example, when I say fantasy national, some of the guys that Mayo picks, like they're going to be a little bit higher on here because it's Mayo site.
and you know, once the, I like fan share. I know we both use fan share, shout out fan share, but they don't have anything that comes out until Tuesday. So I'm just going to give the ownership projections. I think they're going to be kind of rough, but I think they're pretty good for giving us like, like tears. So John Rahm,
$11,300. He's coming in at around 17%. Rory McIlroy, right below him, around 13%. Brooks Koepka, around 24%. He seems to be the guy that everyone is gravitating to at this point. Dustin Johnson seems to be the guy that
Not a lot of people are playing. He's probably the least he's at a flat 10. And then you have Xander at around 16 right now at 10,000, which feels low to me for what I would expect. I feel like that's going to be a little bit higher by week's end.
What are your thoughts on the top? And I've saved like a lot of, this is my third show of the week and I haven't talked about Xander at all. So let's just get this out of the way now. All right. Let's, let's, let's talk about Xander because I'm actually surprised that Brooks is projected to be the highest owned guy in this range. I would have thought it would have been Rom or it would have been Xander. Maybe I'm wrong about Brooksy. I, I always liked Brooksy. I've been,
I've been on him. He was my one-and-done pick at the – where was it? The U.S. Open after the PGA. Yeah. He usually plays the week before a major, but not in the Open for whatever reason. And his record is fine here. He's got three top tens out of his last four tournaments. I don't know. It's a hilly terrain, right? There's a lot of uneven lines. Oh, yeah.
It's not going to be the easiest walk in the world. I don't know what his knee's doing. Ever since he played the Travelers and he finished fifth, he's been just kind of frolicking around with Jenna, doing stuff. She had some type of charity event. Listen, I'm a big fan of Jenna Sims, friend of the show, and I keep an eye on what she's doing. And it doesn't seem like Brooks has been gearing up to play in the Open Championship. So the fact that he's the highest on guy is concerning to me.
But, yeah, let's talk about Xander because we were both there. We followed him around. I followed him around for three days. You were there for two days. And he was hitting the ball as good.
As good as I've ever seen. Unbelievable. I was shocked. I've seen a lot of great athletes in my day. I feel like I have some context for this stuff. I've seen a lot of golf tournaments. I've been to a lot of golf tournaments. I've seen a lot of great things happen at Madison Square Garden. You know when you watch an athlete and you're just like, wow, this guy's like, he's operating. This is like, I'm watching something kind of special right now. He's
operating on a different plane than the people around him. He was out driving Phil and Sheffler by like 20 yards. I mean, in the middle of the fairway, he was, he was unbelievable. It was such a shame. And I'm now we have to talk about this putting thing. Yeah. We, we were there. We talked to his putting coach. I didn't bring it up. I wanted to, but I didn't want to get escorted away by security.
I don't know why he made those changes two weeks before the biggest tournament of his, of his career and a tournament that he's wanted to win since he was a kid. Why are you changing your putting style two weeks before this event? It didn't make sense. And now it seems that he's abandoned it and he's just going to go back to what he was doing. He wasn't arm walking when I was watching him yesterday. I got, I got notified today that he's not arm walking on the putting green. So I,
That's just a total failed experiment. And he did it at the worst possible time because he cannot hit the ball better than he did when we were there. So if he makes a couple of putts and he's comfortable, he's going to be right in the mix. And if he's not the highest on guy here at $10,000...
That's a bargain, man. I'm excited to see what happens when you combine a comfortable putting style with the way he's been hitting the ball. I'm looking forward to it. I hope that he really, really, really contends. I think he can. And, I mean, he's second in odds. He's going to win. He's going to win. He has to.
He has to. Go ahead. Finish your thing, because I want to talk about the arm lock for a second, too. Okay. No, I was just saying that he's second in odds. And listen, when we first started talking, I think it was before –
I don't even know what it was. I don't know if it was the Masters or if it was the PGA. It was before a major. You were talking about Xander. That was how our friendship started. Just for the listeners, the reason me and Nagel are friends is because before the PGA Championship, I'd only listened to his show like two times. But before the PGA Championship, I was like, Xander's going to win the PGA. That's all I DM'd you, and our friendship started from there.
Yeah, well, by the way, if anybody's interested, that's a good way to get my attention. I'm happy when you're saying your thoughts. But I told you before the PGA, I said, well, every time somebody says, oh, you know, no one's really talking about Xander despite the year, you'll find that everybody's talking about him. But now it's obviously it's not a secret. And he's second on the board behind Rahm.
And now people are trying to figure out why he's priced so low. You had a guest on last week that talked about the each way paces and the top five betting and the top 10. Those numbers have, he has to be priced low because he fucking top fives every goddamn tournament. So the books know that. And they can't have him be plus 400, the top 10, because they're going to get killed.
So it's not really about the win odds. It's about the other odds that are correlated with that. Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm all over the place. No, no, no. You brought up incredible points. So here's where I want to start. First of all, with the arm lock thing, and by the way, I don't even...
even know what the hell has gotten into me with Xander. I like partially blame you for this, but something like shifted for me. Yeah, I do. I do. I'll tell you why something shifted for me at, and I texted you about this today too. Something shifted for me at the U S open. I don't know if it was like the family, the experience watching him hit it so well, our conversation with UK data, uh,
For some reason, like Niggles, I'm pretty mild mannered on Twitter. Like I don't really, I still think of the platform primarily as like, it's a way to help me like pick up job opportunities and stuff like that and build my podcast and stuff like that. I'm not trying to get into arguments with like egg avatars that have two followers. For some reason,
When people go at Xander on Twitter, I lose my fucking mind, dude. I don't know what it is. Cause it's not like JT has always been my guy. And I don't like, I don't like feel that way when people go out JT, like if you want to call JT a pampered fuck, like it's like, I can kind of laugh at that. Right? Like it doesn't, it doesn't make my blood boil the way that it makes my blood boil when people go out, go at Xander. And I want to just say one thing. And then I want, I want to hear your response to that. Like,
So I'll give you an example of this, but I've been all over the place, like defending and I got into it with the decade guys about the arm lock thing too. But like, for example, Joel Beal, who's like incredibly a person, a golf writer that I have so much respect for. He works at golf digest. He's a great writer, quote,
Chris Powers and Steven Hennessy, like I would consider like good friends. They've friends of the show. I'm playing golf with them next week. They're like great guys. I'm a former employee of golf digest. Like I could not have more respect for golf digest. He tweeted something about Xander like a couple of weeks ago. And I,
I responded. I was like, that's a bad take. That's like a really uninformed, lazy take. And like a bunch of people liked it and he didn't even respond. But I don't know why I get so angry about this stuff, man. And I need you to help me. I blame it on you. Something happened at the U.S. Open where it shifted with me.
Okay. Do you remember what the take was? Do you remember what he said? Okay, so he said the arm lock was a bad decision. And I said, okay, first of all,
It is way too small of a sample size to ever make a broad sweeping statement about that. And for the amount of people on Twitter that are so quick to slam the decision and slam the arm lock thing and stuff like that, I was even going to talk about after too how I'll still defend the decision because we spent...
12 hours with that team, following that team, following, watching Derek on the putting green, like, okay, the putts didn't drop. All right. Like, do you really think that you can sit here on your arm chair and say that you're, it's their life, literally like it's their life to make these decisions. He would not have implemented something in play if they didn't think logically
long and hard about this. They didn't just wake up one day and like, let's fucking go with the arm lock, right? Like there was a lot of thought that went into this. All these guys are really smart. Their entire life's work is like trying to figure out and making these decisions. And there were a lot of people that were like, the arm lock lost Xander the US Open. And what I said to that was, look, I followed Xander for years.
12 hours over the course of two days. And being a fan of JT, I know what it looks like when you're lost with your putter. Like I've been playing competitive golf my whole life. I know, I know that feeling. I know that vibe. I know that body language on the course. Like Xander didn't look now, of course, this take age incredibly poorly because he obviously fucking switched. So clearly he was uncomfortable with the arm lock. But at the time, my argument was JT,
dude, I watched this guy. He didn't look uncomfortable whatsoever. How many 30-footers did we saw miss by a foot? Like, they just didn't drop. He just had a ton of whip-outs. To say that Xander's a fucking idiot for switching to the arm lock, it's like...
That's so, it's so lazy. It's like, why do you think that, you know, more than his fucking putting coach? Who's like the best putting coach in the world. Why do all these people on Twitter that have never played a competitive round of golf in their life. Now they're better at making decisions than Xander's team.
the putts didn't fucking drop. They were close. He didn't look lost out there. They didn't fucking drop. And so that's what made me so angry about the whole situation is people were tweeting like the arm locks, the dumbest thing ever. Why would he do this? It lost him the US Open. And now my take has aged poorly. I acknowledge that because clearly there was a level of uncomfortability because he did switch. But my whole argument was is, listen, there's a difference between being lost
I'm a fan of Justin Thomas. I've seen it before a lot of times. And strokes gained putting isn't everything. Like, you have to watch the golf. Like, you have to watch the golf. You can't just look at the numbers. And I watched the golf for two days, and he missed a lot of putts on the edge, and I felt like he was really close, and they just didn't drop. So that's, like, part one of my rant. Okay, I think the argument is that...
Just the magnitude of the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines and Xander being there as a kid when Tiger won and the buildup when they announced it in 2015 or 16 that it was going to be there in 2021. I'm sweating bullets, by the way. What? I'm sweating bullets, by the way. All right, all right.
The fact that it was like everything, like Xander's career as a kid was like, oh, well, we got to, he's 20 years old. He's just starting out on the Corn Fairy Tour. He's like, all right, well, we got to, we got to, we got to make sure we play in that. And that was like, that was a goal of his to get to Torrey Pines. And obviously he was going to be in it.
Just when he made the switch and they asked him about it and he said he was ranked, he was like the 12th ranked putter on tour and he made this switch. It's, yes, it's easy to say it now after the fact, but it's kind of like, you know, if you're going to go for a two point conversion or not. If you make it, it's a great decision. And if it doesn't work out, the coach is an idiot.
It's like the same thing. There's always going to be, if he won the U.S. Open, then he's a genius. But he didn't win the U.S. Open, so yeah. So you can't argue that because there's nothing to argue because you're just arguing an if. Well, that's why he lost. Well, no. You don't know that. You don't know that. You don't know that if he didn't switch that he would have won.
A lot of his putts were all downhill too. He was on the wrong side of the hole. Every time. Every time. We saw him on the putter green. He's got to work on his downhill putting. Because every putt he missed was downhill. It was so frustrating. He hit the ball so well. He hit the ball so well. But at the time, at the time, listen to me, Andy. At the time, I wasn't saying, oh, this is a bad idea.
I can say it now in hindsight that he switched. Like, yeah, that didn't really make sense. But who exactly you said, like, who am I to say, you know, we talked to his coach. We talked to Derek. Who was I to say to Derek, Derek, what the hell are you doing? Convincing him to switch two weeks before the biggest, the biggest tournament of this guy's career in his hometown.
I'm nobody. I don't know. So that's the decision that was made. But now they went back. And it's water under the bridge. And Ron's the greatest golfer of all time. And Xander's chasing. And he doesn't belong with the upper. He doesn't belong with the elites. And we're right back there. And he's going to get another crack at it. And he's playing great. So it can happen. It can happen. I just need more detractors. I need more people telling me that he can't win and he's all screwed up.
And, you know, Rom came to Torrey Pines and he won. Maybe Xander could go to the Open Championship and win. And, you know, tit for tat. I don't know. But I'm glad he switched back. Whatever he's comfortable with. And was it a bad decision? I don't know. Maybe. I just don't know why he did it. But I don't want to argue about it. Yeah. Okay. So...
First of all, I think... And then the... God damn it, man. And then the takes were like, he's so in his head now. And it's like, I don't know. I don't really see it that way. I see it as...
he made the experiment to be honest with you. My prediction is, I think that he's probably going to work more on the arm lock over the off season. Um, that was the thing that I, that was the thing that, yeah, that was no, but that was also the thing that was so tough to figure out about it is because you make a really good point about, you know, why would you implement this before the U S open? Uh, I promise we're going to get to like the other golfers in a second, but, but, uh,
But at the same time, it's like, if not now, then when? Okay, so like when? Because right after that, it's the British. And then right after that, it's the Olympics. And then right after that, it's the FedEx Cup playoffs. And you can say that people don't care about the FedEx Cup playoffs. It's $10 million. Of course he cares. He owns Eastlake. Of course he cares about the FedEx Cup playoffs. So, you know, why that decision was made at the time, you're right. It's completely water under the bridge. But I see the situation as,
Okay. So if you actually look at the numbers, he like lost slightly over the first two days at the Scottish Open. His putting wasn't dreadful at all. Friday night, he goes out on Saturday morning. He goes back to the old putting grip. I don't have the numbers in front of me. He was awesome. Okay.
over Saturday and Sunday, he putted great. He was one of the best in the field. And obviously the ball striking continued to be downright elite. So I think probably the conversation that happened on Friday night, based on like what I know of Derek, what I've witnessed, you know, my guess is he was like, look, man, I don't think I've ever hit the ball better in my life. And I can give you a bunch of numbers that back that up too. Like I'm
I'm not going to, I'm not squandering this opportunity. I'm not like, I'm not squandering this opportunity. I'm going back to the stroke that I've used my entire fucking life because I'm going to win this fucking tournament. Cause I've never hit the ball better in my fucking life. I've gotten goosebumps. Yeah. Sign me up. Yeah. Sign me up. So we're playing Xander. I think he's, he's Xander was never, uh,
a highly regarded, heralded, amateur, young guy. Like, oh, this guy's the next big thing. Or he's, you know, it was Jordan, it was JT. Those were the guys. And Zander was just kind of like in the background. You know, he's earned every single accolade that he's gotten. He built himself into a top five player. It wasn't gifted to him. He was...
It's always, it's just, it's been a process. It wasn't like he dominated on the corn fairy tour. He barely got his fucking card and, and he manufactured a career and he's always been improving and improving. And then he got a win and then, then he wins a WGC and then he wins again. And it's just been building. And now it's like just trying to get to that next level of, of,
He's here now. He's here and he just needs to get that next win in an event that has a cut. And apparently there's all these rules that are attached or it doesn't count, but he's got to win an event that has a cut.
And it's got to have a full field and whether it has to be a certain degree or these things don't count and it can't be in his hometown or it has to be in his home. Like whatever. Everybody has all these stupid Twitter rules that, oh, well he sucks because he needs, he can only win if it does this. You can't pay attention to any of that nonsense. He's a good kid. He works hard. He's trying. He works his ass off. He's the only fucking person on that putting green at the U S open at fucking 9 PM at night.
He's trying. I mean, and he's good, and he's not an asshole, and he's not a hothead, and he talks to the media, and he's fine. He's good. He's a good character, and he deserves it. It's hard. Golf is hard. It's hard to get to that next level. It took Bryson a little while. Bryson got his major. Cantley still doesn't have his major.
You know, Rom just got his. It's going to happen. He's there. He's right there. And he's been knocking on the door. And, yeah, maybe you're right, man. Maybe it's like, yeah, I can't hit the ball better than I am. I'm going back. Fuck you. I'm putting the way I want because it's time now. And I'm not going to waste this. And I like that. I'm in on that. I'm in on that.
Let's fucking go. Yeah, let's fucking go. We're doing it. I told me and Feinberg just did a betting show like an hour before, and we were talking about our bets, and he asked me about Xander. He kind of asked me that final slot, and I was like, for me, it's between him and Cantlay for me, but I'm talking to Nagels, and so it's probably going to be Xander by the end of the conversation. I'm in.
I can't. Listen, man, here's my thing. I don't need to have any money on Xander to be over the moon if he wins. I like to think of myself as a very unbiased person.
better, but a very biased golf fan. And by the way, like the reason why I like guys like you and Feinberg, like the best content creators are fucking fans. Like they are people that are able, like look at fucking Bill Simmons, man. Literally he just sold his company to Spotify for $50 million. And the entire time he's been like, I fucking love the Celtics and I fucking love the Pats. Like I don't care. So many of these guys sell,
So many of these guys, they just don't – I don't know if they love golf, you know? And I can't not bet Xander. I can't not – I can't not bet Xander at the British Open. He's the best I've ever seen him play. I got to bet him. He's got to win. I like it. I think that –
I think we've made a pretty good case for him. Okay. All right. So there's other players playing this week. Apparently. Yeah. Be nice. So, okay. Both of us quick in the, in the 10,000, we, we both like Xander the most. Let's talk about the nines Hatton, Hovland, Morikawa, who stays in JT Spieth. Everyone's gravitating towards Spieth. It looks like Spieth is the guy at, at around 26%.
The pivot guy is Hovland at 9%. Everyone else is pretty even in that kind of 14 to 16 range. All right. Well, I do. It's kind of like a process of elimination. I did like Hovland. I thought that that I thought there might be an avenue in which I would do that, but I'm going to probably rely on experience and as, as gifted as,
I don't know. It's just like, I was just thinking, I don't know if there's a lot of links in freaking Norway or whatever. And I didn't know if there was a case to be made for Victor Hablo. I really, I wish I knew more about, I mean, he's a Euro, but he's basically an American. He plays an American game. So, I mean, he doesn't play the same type of game as a, you know, as a Hatton or a, I think those are the types of players that people are going to gravitate towards. Just that the open championship,
Short game. Everyone knocks Hovland over his short game.
But is it going to be a situation where Hovland's in play or Morikawa's in play or you're a Justin Thomas guy? Is Justin Thomas in play? No, he doesn't have it. I don't think so. No, he doesn't have it. I don't. So the only guy in that range is either going to be – you're going to play Spieth or you're going to drop down and you're going to play Hatton. But Hatton's priced right there with Cantlay and Reid, you know, stepping into the eights. But those are going to be very popular selections. So, yeah, I –
Everyone's going to gravitate to speed. Nobody likes Bryson. And Louie's priced too high. Maybe Louie's the play. No, people will still... No, no. I don't like Louie at all. And people are still going to play Louie. Do you have an ownership projection on him? Yeah. I mean, he's 16%. People are still going to play Louie. I think that's low for him, actually. I think he's going to be...
I guess maybe not low. I think that's about right. I think 16% on Louie feels about right. He's top five in the last two majors. He's won at St. Andrews. People really like Louie. They really, they really like Louie. I've just been hearing some detraction because...
He's priced so high. You know, people like Louie when he's – Louie's 8,200 and he's 5% old. That's when people like him, and they like him a lot more when he finishes in second place in the last two majors. Yeah, now he's priced up in the nines with Morikawa and Hovland and JT and Spieth. It's like maybe they don't click on Louie because –
you know he's a wild card let me just really know what you're gonna get let me just ask you a question though like yeah why don't you just play speed because because here here's the thing and it's like i am so the anti like you know me and you both think about this the same way and i ran all these numbers and you listen to my i know you listen to my pod yesterday and i i like i
I ran all of these numbers and I did all this fucking research and it all kept coming back to one guy. It literally, like it was so hard for me to escape. It all kept coming back to one guy and it was all speed. And I was like, okay,
I was like, I know this guy's going to be super popular. I know people are going to like him. And then I saw that Mayo was betting him. And I know that Mayo was looking at a lot of the similar things that I was looking at. And it's not like a grand secret. We've talked about this before. We've DMed about this before where we were like, Spieth has got to win the British, right? Spieth has got to win the British. And then I had that period on Saturday night where I was like,
No, it's too obvious. Fuck that. I'm not going to do it. Fuck that. I'm not going to do it. And then I was just like, you know what, man? What's the fucking point of spending all this time doing all this shit if I'm going to come up with... I could literally write 10,000 words right now if you ask me on why Spieth is going to win the British Open, and I'm going to fucking...
pivot to Zalatoris because he's half the, like, it's like, what am I really doing here? I think the one thing that I'm pretty good at is finding guys at the bottom that no one else is playing. So I'm just going to play Spieth because it's insulting to my process if I don't.
You don't want to insult your own process. Listen, I'm not telling you to don't play. I like Spieth a lot. I was just – I was throwing names out there as a possible, you know, other options if you want to go a different avenue because you know everybody else is going to be playing Spieth. You want to put Spieth in at 9,700? Yeah, he's almost like –
People throw this term around, you know, like a free space, which I don't really love that term, free space. Nothing's a free space. Yeah, nothing's a free space. But listen, at the beginning of the year, when Spieth had this obvious turnaround and it looked like at his number from the Masters drop from 80 to 1 to 20 or whatever it was. I don't remember the specifics, but I...
I said, then I said, ah, you know what? I kind of like everyone's going to play speed at the masters. I think maybe it's like the open championship, but this year, this might be the time, but now we're here and he's not under the radar. It's not, it's not like, it's not a secret. Uh,
Because I was – at the time, I was just thinking in my head, it's like, well, he's not going to – I don't think he's going to play well like Torrey Pines or at that Ocean course. So maybe people will be off of speed, you know, if he doesn't win the Masters. But no, it's there and it's obvious. And you talk about the course descriptions and you hear what the skill sets require and you're around the green game and your irons and creativity. Yeah.
You listen to anything and they're like, all right, well, pick one. Listen to this and then pick a golfer you think fits that description. Everyone's going to say, well, that sounds like a Jordan Spieth golf course. So, yeah, it's very, very obvious. Just play them and just worry about the other five guys. I completely agree with that.
I'm just trying to answer the question. Well, if you don't want to do that, if you don't like Jordan Spieth, maybe Louie's the play, but maybe he's not. Maybe just play Spieth and move on to the eights. Okay, let's move on to the eights. Okay. It's been like an hour. Okay. Cantlay,
Hideki withdrew Casey Zalatoris, Finau, Webb, Scheffler, Adam Scott, Justin Rose and Fleetwood. The guy is the two guys that I'm seeing. Not surprisingly are the two guys at the top, which is can't lay and read. Both of them are at around 20%. Can't lays about like 19 and read is 11.
22. Other than that, it's pretty flat. Scheffler's at 14. But then even Casey's around 12. No one's playing Zalatoris. No one's really playing Webb. Scott's sub-10%. Rose is around 7%. And Fleetwood's around 9%. Lowry's 11. And Lowry's in the 7,000. So in that range, what are you thinking? In that range...
I had Reed in my lineup. I think that's going to be the popular. I bet Reed. I'm not playing him in draft games. I heard you. Yeah, I remember you saying that. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, if you like Spieth, play Reed. What's the difference? Yeah. Spieth's a better iron player, but if that's what you're going for, yeah, that makes sense. I think I might pivot off of the Patrick's. As much talk there is about Cantley, he only has two top tens in majors.
in his career uh he could be he's very popular i don't like him when he's popular what about finow he's coming in he missed his last couple of cuts but he's been great majors he was good in the last two open championships it doesn't seem like it's a week where everybody's playing a fee now okay no one's playing him yeah so if you have to pick between can't lay reed
Casey or Finau, I could take a chance on Tony Finau. Why not? Yeah. He's been great. He's what, 12th and an 8th his last two Open Championships? Better. He's gone. 9th and a 3rd. Yeah. Yeah. No, Finau's interesting. I think he is...
He's somebody that I'm considering more so just because like, I'm going to pay up for Xander and I don't trust that Xander is going to be 16. I think it's going to be more and speed. I'm probably going to not end up using in draft Kings as much. Cause I bet him. Right. So it's like, you know, I think that,
I think that this is the range where in theory, this is the time where I would start to try and get different, but I'd just rather play Paul Casey. And it's not like a 20% Paul Casey week. It's like a, people are kind of over him. And I don't like, I tell the early reads that I've got on Paul Casey this week is like, people are, people are kind of tired of it. And I don't,
Like I've heard the Paul Casey is not good on lengths. He's an American golfer. You know, you want to play Paul Casey at the Val's bar and the PGA championship and Torrey Pines. And it's like, I look at it this way. So I came into this week. I was like,
I'm going to bat Westwood. I'm going to bat like Fleetwood. I'm going to bat like Poulter. I'm going to, I'm going to, those are the guys that I'm going to be targeting. And I dug into it and they're, they're not good. They're, they're, they're all, they're all just putting well, even Louie, like the reason he's finishing top five, like they're all just,
They're all putting well, they're all putting really, really well. The only reason why Tommy Fleetwood's making cuts is because his short game's unreal right now. He's just putting well. And here's Paul Casey. It's the second best iron player in the world right now. He's top fiving in all these majors.
losing strokes putting, right? He's a decent putting week away from having a chance to win at Torrey, Harding Park, and Kiowa. What's a more likely outcome? Paul Casey makes a few putts or...
like Fleetwood or Westwood or Poulter or even Louie just randomly gains like 10 strokes off the tee or on approach after for a year, like being neutral or losing. It's Paul Casey having a good putting week. Like that's the more, that's the more likely outcome that's going to happen. And so I'm just going to play Paul Casey because he's hitting the ball incredibly well. And like, there's a universe where the wind, it just went back down again. Right.
And like, like suddenly it's not that hard. And Bamford was talking on his podcast about how he thinks it's going to be easier. And he wouldn't be surprised if it's 15 under this week. And it's like, when that happens, it's just played the ball striking bastards, as you say. And I'm just, I'm like, it's just, I'm almost to a fault. I'm just going to play the guys that are hitting the ball. Well, and Paul Casey is like the second best iron player in the world. And it's not like a, you know,
Go ahead. Okay. Listen, I, okay. Uh, great, great, uh, great take on Paul Casey. Uh, you're going to get them low owned. I, you know, he was high owned at the masters and he was high old. He gets high old. And this isn't a week where he's that, and it's pretty much the same argument for Tony Finau.
I don't want you and I to have the same exact lineup if we're going to be playing in the same exact contest. So you want to play Paul Casey? I'll play Tony Finau and I'll see you in the listener league and we'll see what happens because we're both going to play Xander. We're both going to play me. So let's not, let's not go, you know, let's not have five of the same guys. I, I don't, I'm not overly impressed with Casey's record in the open championship fair. And that would be,
That would be the only thing. And I'm looking at Finau 18, 27, 9th and 3rd in his last four opens. Now he's coming in off two missed cuts. He was bad at Torrey. We were there. And I'm thinking he's going to bounce back and give me a nice Tony Finau performance like he has in all the majors or most of the majors in the last four years. And I think I'm kind of getting Finau at a discount. You are. I'm going to try to take advantage of him.
More so than like a Scotty Scheffler who has no experience. And I think people are going to make the mistake of linking last week with an open championship type conditions. And that golf course wasn't exactly... What's that? I said great call. I couldn't agree more. That golf course wasn't exactly an open championship type...
conditions type thing. That's not the marker in which you should grade Scottie Shepard, in my opinion, as much as we love Scottie Shepard. But I'm going to play Finau instead of Scottie Shepard. But Casey's fine. But I'm also saving $200. That's a good point.
Okay. All right. Seven sevens. I'm not going to list all these guys. It's huge. I'll just list. I'll list like, again, like you're the only guys in the sevens. Are you do you have it up in front of you? I can list all the guys if you want.
You got it up in front of you? I have it in front of me. Okay. All right. So the only guys that are garnering above Fitzpatrick at 79 is like 13%. Lowry's at 11%. Daniel Berger, obviously he's mispriced, so he's at 11%. I would expect that to be even higher as the week goes on because he is mispriced. Harris English is a guy that everyone is...
seeming to gravitate to at around 15%. And then Brandon Grace is like the trendy guy that a lot of people are betting and playing at 13%. Other than that, no one's really like above eight. And a lot of these guys are very low. I have some gems in here, but I'll kick it to you first.
Oh, I wanted to hear your gems. I can go first if you want. I mean, let's alternate. Okay. Is there somebody in particular in this range that you happen to love that you haven't heard a lot about? Yes.
Yes. I hope we don't have the same guy. Okay. So we have the same guys a lot. We play this game sometimes where I tell them, I guarantee I could guess your lineup. I don't know how you knew that I was going to be on now last week. I really don't. I'm a loyal listener. I just know. All right. So-
So why not Cam Smith? So people were betting Cam Smith at 45 to one at the PGH. I bet Cam Smith at 70 to one. So people were betting Cam Smith at 45 to one at the PGA championship. And now no one likes him. Like I think Cam Smith can win this tournament. I like it.
he's played in three of these. Now he's gotten better every time he finished 20th at Royal port rush. He fits that Zach Johnson, Louie who stays in mold of player that like they're a top 60 guy, uh,
They make a lot of sense on paper, but then no one really considers it until it actually happens. All those trends with like Tyndall and stuff. He like fits them. He's won this year. He's been playing well. Like Australians have a great history at the open championships. You want to talk about bunkers? Cam Smith is third in sand saves. He's like the,
third best bunker player in the world outside of Reed and Spieth. The weather looks like it, you know, if it gets scarier, give me Cam Smith. He's 5%. Cam Smith's 5% and people are everyone's. Yeah. Cam Smith's 5% because he's 7,800 and he's right next to Fitzpatrick and Lowry. Like I'm going to play Cam Smith. Okay. From a golf skill perspective, yeah.
I understand your point completely. My issue with Cam Smith is he's like a chilling boss guy. Oh, I forgot you hate him. I worry about his motivation. I don't think he's a killer. I mean, since he won that team event, he's got a 59, two missed cuts, and a 30th.
He just, he doesn't give a fuck about anything. I don't think he's a guy that is like this vault, vaulted competitor. And he wants to, he's a killer and he wants to win. I think he's just kind of like a chill. Now this is a major though. So he might care about a major, but I just worry about his motivation and his attitude. Finish second at the masters.
Yeah. And then he won the team event and he's kind of like taking the rest of the year off. He's just, I don't, I just, he's, he's very streaky. It's if you look at his OWGR, he's very streaky. He gets hot. It's, you could just see what he's doing when he wants to play well and try. He plays well. If he doesn't really care, if it's like a, in a low,
it's like, yeah, he's going on his boat or whatever. He's going to go fishing and he's worried about other things, made enough money already. I just, I, from a golf open championship perspective, the type of player he is, yes, he fits, but that's my issue with him is that I worry about his motivation, but that's pretty low ownership to be honest. So maybe he's motivated. Maybe he wants to win an open championship. That would make sense also.
I like Sergio. I wish you let me guess. I knew you were going to say that. I like Sergio. It's a good play. I'm playing him too. It's a good play. I mean, his record in majors has been terrible since basically since he won the Masters.
He has like 14 or 15 miscuts, but in his last major, he finished 19th. And he kind of broke that. He's 20th, 19th, and 17th in his last three starts. This is his best major, even though he won a Masters and number one here.
I just, I, based on everything I was hearing at his short game and ball striking ability at his price and his ownership. And the one thing that kind of tipped me off to this whole thing, he's only 50 to one on DraftKings Sportsbook. And that is low.
For a guy that's 7,600, for him to be 50-1, somebody is betting that guy to win. That's 50-1 is low for a guy at 7,600. That's a good point. And that just kind of like, what's going on there? You know, Bazanahoud's 7,400. You know, it's not – he's – there might be value there. And I'm just – I hate Sergio Garcia. He's the worst of the worst.
but I, I kind of like him this week, especially if he's going to come in with ownership. If you were going to be playing Fitzpatrick and Lowry and Westwood and Berger English. And yeah. Yeah. Like I'll take, you want to play Harris English? Fine. I'm going to take Sergio Garcia and we'll see what happens. And I'm not doing it just to be contrarian. Although I have a ton of chalk on the top. I think if,
He's been terrible in majors up until his last major. Maybe things are good at home now. Maybe he's like, I'm tired of playing like shit in the majors. Maybe he wants to get on the Ryder cup team. I just, I like, I like Sergio. I, I,
I played him. I don't know what a tournament it was. It was one of these last tournaments where he finished 20th, 19th, or 17th. And I remember I picked him and I had him on the show and I heard, I was watching the next day. He might've been first round leader. Yeah. Colonial. Colonial. Colonial. Yeah. All right. Fine. And,
I heard the announcer say, boy, no surprise to see Sergio starting to percolate a little bit knowing the Ryder comes right around the corner. And I'm like, I just fucking said that on my show last night. And you just... Exactly. And...
I think we're getting him in a good spot here. I know, and he still has that reputation for being bad at majors with good reason. So I kind of like Sergio. Okay. I'm in too. He was one of the, I have like 18 guys starred in my player pool. Sergio is in that. So I'm in on Sergio too. Of course. I mean, what's your player pool? Like 20? Like 20?
Now, this week? Yeah. Well, Zach Johnson is out. I liked him too. Three, four, five. Right now I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Sixteen guys? Yeah. So three or four guys in each range. Yeah, so I have 18 guys starred and I play like four lineups. Okay. Yeah. Hey, no, that's fine. That's a good start. I think Ian Poulter is going to pick up some buzz. I don't know.
what his ownership difference is. But if people are going to go with that, people are going to go with that crafty Euro guy and a good short game and Ryder Cup narrative, same freaking narratives you use for Ian Poulter, you can use for Sergio Garcia. And I might get an ownership edge there. And this is, Poulter's sneaky not so great in the open. He's not good.
He gained like nine strokes putting. He's not, I, I, cause I want, I know this cause I wanted to bet him. Like I wrote him up in the Roto baller article on fricking. I wrote it last Friday. I wrote up Ian Poulter and then like I, I did, I did more digging and it's like, he's, it's a little smoke and mirrors like maybe, but he's going to have to gain a lot of strokes putting. I don't like Poulter, but okay. So this is a big range. Is there anyone else? Cause there's,
There's one more guy that I want to talk about in, I mean, I guess two, but there's one or two more guys that I'm pretty high on in the low 7,000. Do you want me to go first? Yeah, go ahead. All right. So I'm going to like, why not Molinari? Like he made me like, he made me a ton of money in DraftKings at the U S open. I played him out 1% at the U S open. He's not going to be 1% this time, but he's going to be,
he's going to be 5%. So, I mean, I know this sounds crazy, but when I did all the ball striking stuff and the numbers, like Molinari is hitting the ball better than Westwood. He's hitting the ball better than Poulter. He's hitting the ball better than Fleetwood for that matter. He just can't putt. And I always play those guys that are hitting the ball well and can't putt, but
The thing with Molinari, he either finishes like people just, he hasn't played a lot this year, but he either finishes in the top 15 or like misses the cut. So obviously that's a risk, but he's had a good season. He just doesn't play a lot. He's played 10 times this year and 40% of the time he's finished in the top 15, including at Torrey twice and Riviera. So he shows up for the bigger ones played in 12 British opens. He's made eight cuts.
eight top 40s five top 15s and obviously when i like i'm just gonna play five percent malinari when everyone's gonna play like the polter and the and the english and and on higo and all burger all those guys like he's priced next to all those guys and i think a lot of people don't think he should be but like why not i like it that's uh that's ballsy i like when you're
that's see you don't get that you don't get that anywhere else i know that's why you gotta put your balls out there every once in a while i that's that's fine yeah that was he finished did he finish 13th that 13 that's that was tory fines yeah i'm there yeah the two missed cuts since then yeah man uh that's uh
That's a risk. It's a good risk. I'd rather play a Molinari than play a, play a, uh, who's a random, like a Higo. Yeah. Somebody that I don't know anything about. He's playing in his first open championship or even a Harris English. Yes. Who everybody seems to love. I don't mind that at all. Yeah. Molinari. So yeah, I mean, I'm probably, I'm probably not going there. I have some guys a little bit lower than I like a little bit more or a lot more. And yeah,
Why not? You got to have a guy or two that makes you a little squeamish. Okay. So wait, do you want me to give you my other low seven guy or do you have other seven guys or you want to just go into the sixes after this? Because I have one more guy in the low sevens that I'm going to play. Is it Alex Noren? No. Are you going to play him?
Probably not. I have my lineup, Andy, and I kind of love it. I might get talked off one or two guys and might have to transition. But Norrin coming off a missed cut, but his last three opens, a sixth, a 17th, and an 11th, he was playing well. He was kind of chalky last week, and he missed a cut and burned some people. And he was fourth the week before that.
And he's a Euro and he might be low-owned. I'm not sure. People like Brandon Grace instead. And you got Poulter down there.
So yeah, I was, I was looking at Alex Norton a little bit. Yeah. Bobby McIntyre, people like him. He's a flavor of the week. Yeah. You like Ricky? Are you going to be on Ricky this week? Yeah. That's your guy. Yeah. He's so, all right. Just for, just for reference, him and Norton are both 8% right now. I like, I like fallow this week. I think that this is a spot that Fowler in theory would be, uh,
very overhyped and very over-owned, like in theory, because he's really good in British Opens. And I think he's pretty fairly priced on DraftKings. I think this is like the most playable Fowler has been in like a year. But everyone played him at the Travelers. Remember that week where everyone was like, oh, we're back on Ricky. It's time to play Ricky. And he missed a cut at the Travelers. So I think now people are like, fuck that. I mean, but you look at the spot, he's played in 10 British Opens.
If we're going to do like, here's the problem that I know both of us have. We created narrative in our head and then we don't stick to it. That's why I'm like, want trying to stick with Fowler and Molinari. He's played in 10 British openings. He's missed one cut. He's got three top tens runner up at Liverpool in 2014, six at Port Rush in 2019 when he wasn't even playing well. He finished fifth at Royal state Georgia's here.
Here you finish like no one. I get it's a decade ago, but it's like, there's four or five guys in the field that have played this course before. And like Fowler finished fifth here. It's not nothing. Right. Like it can't, it can't be nothing. And like, I,
I'm not going to do the whole numbers thing. I talked about this with Jeff too, so I don't want to do too much Valor, but like, I'm telling you, I wouldn't play Ricky if the numbers weren't good. He's like, he's playing well. He's playing good golf. I think he's, I like Ricky. I'm going to play him this week. Hey, I, uh, I gave it a look.
I I'm surprised what his ownership number is. I thought it was going to be a little bit higher. I heard people like people are talking about it just because, yeah, he's missed one cut in the open championship in his career. I think I was on him that year, by the way. Um, it's like, yeah, it's like 80 in the first round. Maybe I'm thinking of a U S open or something, but, um, and yeah, I mean, um,
He had that one missed cup. He had an eighth and an 11th the week before. That's what happens. Everyone gets, everyone goes on the same guy and then they blow up and the chalk bomb. And you know, that's the game. That's the game that we play every week. And you have to try to avoid a landmine. Is he a landmine this week? I don't sound like it. It sounds like it might be a solid play. It's, I think it's a little bit safer than your Molinari pick. Yes, it is. So yeah, I mean,
Ricky has never really done anything for me. I have no allegiance to him. He hasn't been a guy that I bet on. Whatever. He's the face of the PGA Tour. I just want to see stuff that gets done on the field. I don't hate the guy, but he's definitely not one of my guys. I'll say that.
I mean, it's not that good play. I like it. I support it again. I'm trying to beat you in my listener week. So we can't have all the same guys. Okay. So do you want, is there anyone else you want to mention in the sevens before we dive down to the sexes? No. Okay. So like, I'm just going to tell you, you're going first this time, by the way, I'm just going to tell you the only guys that are garnering ownership because there's about,
four or five guys that are above 5%. And it's Kisner at 69. A lot of people are gravitating to Kisner. But even like 8%, I guess 8% for 6,900 guys a lot. 7% Stewart Cink, 8% Charlie Hoffman, and 5% Keegan. That's not, okay, that's not, there's no ownership there that would
There's no ownership that would make me, that would take me off of any of those guys. Yeah. I don't think, all right, first of all, I'll say this. I don't think, I know Sam Burns is what, what is he like 6,300 or whatever? Oh shoot, dude, I didn't even scroll down far enough. What is Sam Burns? Jeez, you have to go all the way down. Yeah, Sam Burns is 7%.
I didn't even get that low. Even that's well, well, that's going to go up with the exception of maybe a Sam Burns, who I know people are going to like because Sam Burns and $6,300. And that gives you a lot of flexibility with all these, with all these guys that nobody's ever never even heard of with the exception of him. And there might be one or two, like you got Sebastian Munoz at 65, uh,
There's not really anybody. You really shouldn't be dipping below 6,500, especially with the volatility at the top. Unless you want to roster like a ROM and a Rory stack that,
Or you really love a guy down here. I don't think with the way the pricing is and it's a major, I don't think you have to go below 6,500. You could if you were so in love with two guys at the top, but that's not anything that I'm doing. All right. Anyway, I digress. I like Stewart Cink. Yeah, me too. And I don't know if we have to go into a lot of make a huge case for him.
He's not outstanding at the Open Championship, but he's consistent. He's a bit of a different player than he was for whatever reason. He hasn't missed a cut in a really long time. Now, since he's won, he hasn't been great. It's not like he's been top 10 in every week, but he has been making cuts.
He is a former Open champion. The fact that he's got his kid on the bag, I don't know if that means anything to him, that his kid's caddying for him at the Open championship. He was great at the Masters. But he can top 20. He's 6,900. And, yeah, he might have some ownership attached to him. But the one thing that led me to Stewart Cink –
Now, I don't know if this is what everybody's doing. I don't know if this is people like him because of his ball striking numbers or the fact that he's a former champion. But what attracted me to Stewart Cink was...
the fact when I was listening to all these course descriptions, how everybody was talking about all these runoff areas and all these shaved areas and what it's like around the greens. And all I kept thinking about was when I had a ticket of Emiliano Griot at the Heritage and Stuart Sink is freaking two-putting from off the green on every goddamn hole because he's putting and he doesn't have to chip. And that's what I associated with. So if he could do that here...
I think he's got the pedigree and the form, and I think he's going to be solid. I'm not really worried about it. He's a ball-striking bastard, and he's not going to struggle around the greens. I like him. So that's my Stewart Cink case. Do you want to pick a guy?
Yeah. So the, I think the only three guys, maybe four, but I mean, you don't even really have to dip this low. I think Chris Kirk at 6,400 is kind of a bargain. He's like, I talked about him a little bit in the preview show. He like,
He, he hits the ball. Like he's got this low draw where he, he hits the ball. He shapes the ball. He's, he's good in the wind. Um, he's got some good results on coastal courses. His ball striking is good. Um, he's 6,400. I think that's low. I still may not even need to get there. What about Matt Jones?
Yeah. Well, you mentioned Chris Kirk and I'm like, yeah, you mentioned the wind and now I, yeah, I played him at Honda and it all. Yeah. Who won the Honda? Matt Jones. Yeah. So yeah, same argument. Good in the wind.
You know, decent enough record. I don't love – it's okay. He hasn't really been great since he's won. He's been a little sporadic. But I can see the narrative. Of course, you know, good in the wind and Aussie, the whole thing. You made an argument for Cam Smith and people love Adam Scott. He's got a great – Aussie's in the wind. Yeah, it's a thing. So, yeah, I can see it. I'm not going there, but that's a good pick. That's fine.
The only other guy that I think I'll have in one of my... Both of us, we're not 150 lineup guys. This is just not our thing. I have a very small player pool. I play about four lineups. Nagels plays one. The only other guy that I'd play...
I think Keegan, like, I think he makes sense. Like he's good in the British open. I know it doesn't seem like the British open for Keegan. Like I scanned past him really quickly and then, you know, I had to go back in and I was like, again, I just think that if, if this doesn't play as hard as we think it does. Right. And I was like talking about this a little bit with my buddy, Mark, who's bet who's like all in on calling more calla.
And it's like, if this, again, the wind stuff is stupid. I'm not going to try and predict it. It just went down again. But like, I just think that if this course doesn't, if it's not that crazy monsoon scramble fest, everyone's missing greens that everyone thinks it's going to be, then, you know, the
It just goes right back to iron play again. And you look at the guys that have played well here and people don't think about iron play because the greens at the open, they think it's like a big green or whatever. And you think about iron play at like colonial, but it's all the guys that are, it's like Darren Clark, he fourth in greens and regulation. We don't have strokes gain statistics, but all the guys that finished well here, they were like whatever off the tee and they hit every green and they stayed out of those bunkers.
And Keegan's like a top 10 iron player in the world. And he was Uber chalk at the PGA championship. He was like the trendy pack.
The PGA championship, he was like 90 to one and everyone was betting him and he was fine. He finished like 17th, but he's double the odds now and he's hitting the ball just as well. The irons really came back at the rocket mortgage. He's a good wind player. He's got like a strong low ball flight. He's a good coastal player. Uh, he plays the Honda. Well, he already finished 17th at Kiowa. He's, he's good on harder courses. His three wins have come into WGC, a playoff event and a major, uh,
So I think he's really playable. Like if Keegan popped up on this leaderboard and he just has one of those weeks where he gains like eight strokes on approach, like I really wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good player.
Yeah, but he's a douche and he's like a mental midget and it's an open championship and he shouldn't be able to perform well at an open championship. I know he's got like three top 20s or whatever. Listen, I never liked Keegan Bradley. I don't know what you're doing, a lot of construction or whatever. I'd love to know what the weather was like, the years that he won or the years that he top 20 at the open, but
I just, I don't like him at all, ever. He's always, he's too much for me. And I just don't, I don't associate Keegan Bradley as somebody with a bunch of mental fortitude that's going to be able to handle it over the course of four days. But you make a good point. And yeah, I'm not going to,
just smirches ball striking ability. I love good iron players. He's the same category as a lot of those guys. They're like a Lucas Glover type thing. Yeah. Ball striking bastard can't putt. That's my brand. So yeah, I get it, but I don't like that guy. I like, uh, I like Kisner too. Are we going to talk about him at all? Yeah, we can talk about him. He's just the, like, I just, he's the guy that's garnering the most ownership in, in the sixes. And I know that it's fine. It's not like,
Kisner's going to be like 15%, but I just, I think it's trouble. It's a lot of putting. It's just a lot of putting. His fifth place finish, his eighth place finish. Yeah, it's good. You're saying he's not hitting the ball well? You're saying that's all putting? No, it's a ball, it's not, it's like, it's better. It's not like bad. He's playing good golf right now. I just, like, I don't, the way that I look at it is like, I need to, I'm
maybe this is our problem is that like I try and get too different but like I I don't need to play Kisner like I have other guys that I'm fine with and if I'm gonna like if there's a if there's a 7% difference between Kisner and Matt Jones and I can make it up there but then take a
a 7% hit on whatever Xander is or Spieth is above some other guys. Like I just, I take, I want the, I want to take the discounts lower.
Okay. I want to play my guys at the top. Just hear me out for a second, all right? Because you're much more of a numbers, stats guy than I'll ever will be. So I don't know what tournament it was. There was a thing, well, I think it was Bryce Garnett game, like 13 strokes putting or something like that in a tournament a week or two ago. And...
That was the thing that you, you hear that when a guy has a high finish, it's like, Oh, well he did it all with his putter. And I know that that's obviously that's not going to be a repeatable performance or most likely it's not going to be a repeatable performance. So when I say Kevin Kisner, his last two starts, he's finished fifth and he finished eighth. If you're telling me, well, it's all putting,
Like, how much is it all putting? Because he was bad for a while. And some of these golf courses he had no chance on. So I don't care what he finished at Torrey Pines or at the Ocean Course because those aren't Kevin Kisner golf courses. I'm worried about his numbers in golf courses that he should play well on.
And he's had a couple of those and he's had a couple of top 10 finishes. And the open is like the only major in which he can really compete. Cause I don't think he's going to compete at the, at the masters or at a U S open, maybe a random PGA, like he did at a Quail Hollow, but that would have played really firm and fast in August. This, I don't know, maybe, maybe everyone's having the same mindset that I have, but I don't want to, I don't,
If I'm basing this on, oh, he's in good form because he's top 10 in his last three tournaments, but if you're telling me that he's only top 10 in his last three tournaments because he's just making every putt, then that will give me some pause. So should it give me pause? Has it been that good? Actually, not as much as I initially thought. Good. Yeah, he hit the ball. Okay, so he...
At the Travelers, yeah. The Travelers was all putting. He gained seven strokes putting at the Travelers. But the Rocket Mortgage, he still gained strokes putting, and he gained around the green, and he did nothing off the tee, which he never does. But he hit his irons really, really well at the Rocket Mortgage. Put it this way, he gained more on approach at the Rocket Mortgage than he did putting.
So that's fair. Yeah, I concede on Kisner. That's like a really good point. I had this image in my head of, I dug into all these guys like last Thursday and I had this image of Kisner
With Kisner all putting, his irons were really surprisingly good at the Rocket Mortgage. Good call. You're right. If it plays hard, Kisner's a grinder. He's a bulldog. He's one of those guys. He's not a bomber, but this is an opportunity for him, and he knows it, and I think he's going to come to play.
I like it. All right, cool. No, you're good on Kisner. I was actually wrong on that one, so you're good on Kisner. Anyone else that we need to talk about? We didn't talk about any of the top. I mean, we've been going on forever, so we don't need to. But anyone else? I usually don't play if somebody coming in off a win.
I try to think of these narratives sometimes. Coming off a win, what's the motivation? Maybe Lucas Glover. You're talking about Ricky as a guy in this field. He's a guy that was in that field. He finished 12th. He's coming in off a win. People were talking about that, the win he had and how he's actually been putting a little bit better and all of a sudden now he's got a win because he hits the ball so well. If it plays that way,
Maybe you could get a real, maybe that Lucas cover could be a sneaky play. Again, just kind of like the same argument as Keegan. Yeah. So no, I don't think you should be, shouldn't be playing too much around in the, in the sixes. I don't think Sam Burns is a lock at 6,300. No. People talk about him being a free space. He just walked off the course at the ocean course and it's his first open championship.
And he's like the modern American golfer and maybe he struggles. So to say he's a free space at 6,300 because he can miss the cut at 6,300. If he was 7,300, he can miss the cut. If he was 8,300, he can miss the cut. So the risk, is it worth it for me there? I know people are debating whether or not they should do that or not. Listen, they can't all be free spaces, right? No, no. I'm with you on Burns too. All right.
One last question for you. Yes, sir. Are you betting Xander too? Because I always knew I was going to play him in DraftKings, and I was like, I'm not going to bet him at the U.S. Open. And after this conversation, I was like, I want to bet him. I'm betting him too. Is this a week where you're betting Xander at 20-1? Yeah, if I can – yeah. Yes, probably. I think it's only Monday. I think I'm going to – I really like what you said. You're really – you're really like –
y'all probably created me. Are you really, you really got me good. I'm really ready to like run through a wall right now. And I think that, um, I'm probably gonna, I'm probably going to be there. I, the only problem is the part of me thinks that the golf course might, and the weather might give us a really high winter. So I might dabble,
with some longer shots, but I can still bet Xander and still dabble. It won't cost me a fortune, but we'll see. Probably. I want to be there. You know, I, I want to, I want to be there. I don't need a financial gain. Yeah. I have all those bad tweets and angry tweets about Xander sucking. They're all bookmarked, man. I'm ready to fire. I'm ready to fire as soon as I get my wind. So,
Yeah, that'll be good. But I want to have a winning ticket. So we'll see. We'll see. All right, buddy. Hold on. Okay, I got to walk my dog, but plug your show real quick.
Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, Wednesday nights at 8 o'clock Eastern time, I do a little golf show. I go through my lineup. Went through a lot of these guys already tonight, but I might have some more stuff on Wednesday. And we'll go through. I do a show. I make fun of some people. A lot of people are involved in the chat. It's pretty good. On YouTube, Nagels Bagels. On Twitter, at Nagel Bagels. You'll be able to find me.
It's a lot of fun. People seem to like it. It might be a good show. Check it out. If you enjoyed this conversation, that's there. There's a show. That's a show. There you go. Nagels. Thank you so much for joining me. We got to do this again soon because this is the first time I ever did a DFS show, but I had so much fun. So, uh, we, I know we'll talk about this a bunch, but we'll do it again soon, buddy. And thanks for joining me, my man.
Andy, thanks for having me. That's it for the show, guys. I will be back on this podcast feed Sunday afternoon with an in-depth breakdown of whatever fucking course a 3M Open is at. Until then, thank you for all the support this week. It has been a blast, truly. And enjoy the Open.
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