Valspar Picks, Covering the Players, & the Xander Pressure Game with Chris Powers
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It's all run pure sports.com. It's a community. It's a discord. It's where we hang out and talk golf. We do premium shows where I can get off takes that I don't think I can get away with on this podcast. It's where all my friends and I talk golf and create content together. The mission has always been, we're going to create a community of,

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If you want, let's prove it to you. And this is certainly a good week to do it. I kind of love Valspar. Amazing week to join the community. All right. Coming up on this podcast, my good friend, colleague, staff writer, Golf Digest, Chris Powers. He covered the players for Golf Digest. He was there all week. He wrote an incredible piece on Zander.

So I text him and say, hey, I want to talk to you about this. So we talk a lot of Xander. We talk covering the players, some Scotty Schaeffler, of course, and then some Valspar picks. Obviously got to talk some snake pit. So awesome episode. CP is one of my favorites to talk golf with. Without further ado, let's bring him on.

All right, Chris Powers is here, Golf Digest. Thank you for joining me, man. You just got back from the players. I got to say your commitment, it means a lot to me because I have to imagine

Coming home and being like, Hey, I just spent a week at a golf tournament. Oh, by the way, I've got to do another podcast on that golf tournament as well. I, uh, I hope that went over well for you, but I, I respect, um, and very much appreciate your, uh, your commitment to joining me tonight, my friend. No, it's definitely one of those things where like on Friday when you asked, I was like, hell yeah, I'm so down. I love chopping it up with handy. And then, yeah, I got home to that. I was like, ah,

I still got to do it. No, I'm kidding. I'm very happy to be here. Always, always a treat to be on your podcast, Andy. Well, I wanted to start with the players at large because you spent pretty much the whole week there. And I spoke to you a little bit. I spoke to a couple other people that were covering it on grounds for media, some just regular fans that were there as well. And it seems like the general...

consensus on this tournament that as far as obviously majors are in a little bit of a different ballpark, but as far as PGA tour events goes, there's something unique and singular that the player seems to get right in terms of the fan media attendee experience compared to other PGA tour events.

Do you feel that? What was your experience at the Players this week? And what do you think? Because I know you attend a lot of PGA Tour events over the course of the year. What makes this one different? So I've been going since 2018 now, however many years in a row that is. That was the only May one I went to was 2018.

And that was Webb. Tiger made a charge. Incredible, incredible week. Then you get Rory, the move to March. Obviously, the COVID one, Hideki would have won that one going away. Obviously, JT, Cam Smith, Scotty Scott. Every year just seems to raise the level. And I can't say enough good things about the on-site experience. I think everyone, it should be top of the list to go.

uh, golf tournaments wise, obviously the masters is the best, but I said this on my podcast this morning. I I've only been to one. I'm going to my second masters this year. Very excited for that first. I'll see you there. Very excited for that. But it is, you know, it's amazing to be there. It can be a tough watch though. If you're trying to see a lot of guys, plus I'm, we have similar brains, like to not be able, I know this is a millennial thing, but to not be able to, uh,

Check the leaderboard and know what you guys are doing. And Twitter. And Twitter. No Twitter. It's crazy. Oh, my God. So it's tough, but it is an amazing on-site experience. Of course it is. But back to the players, I think it's, bar none, the number one fan experience. It should be at the top of your list. It really is.

What do you like? It's got to be a combination of a number of factors, right? I imagine food being able to navigate the course actively. That's the number one. That's the number one thing for me. Okay. So that's what I wanted to ask you about. Like in terms of navigating the course and walking the course, all 18 holes, how is that both, you know, from a media perspective and just general fan as well?

From the media perspective, being there so many years, you figure out how to get around very easily. Fan first time, I'm sure it'll be sensory blitzkrieg, as Brandon likes to say for you, but you'll figure it out if you go a few more times. It is so... I think about this every time I go. It's so easy to be like, I want to go see this player on this hole and just dart there and

less than 15 minutes, 10, 15 minutes. And then you can, but of course you'll stop. You can see so much. There's so many great spots to watch from 16, 17 is one of the best spots in golf. I think to, to just hang there and watch shots come in to a 16 green and then tee shots on 17. It's you can bounce around so quickly, so easily, any hole, you can see a lot of holes, a lot of groups. It's just a, I really can't say enough about it. So, uh,

From an energy perspective, because I've been to two events this year. I went to Torrey. We both went to Riviera. And I got to say, at Torrey, this was largely leaderboard related, but it felt a little flat. And Torrey was the one that I did...

that I did cover from the media perspective and you go into the media center at Torrey and like all the older San Diego guys are like, man, this used to be like, this used to be the start of the season. This used to be where tiger used to come. Now you're telling me I got to write 800 words on like Matthew Pavone, something called Matthew Pavone, all the old school San Diego sports journalists there. We're all in a tizzy. And in fairness to them, like,

I've been going to Torrey for five years. It did feel a little bit flat. Roar Riviera, I think always brings the heat. Like I'm always a huge, it always feels like there's good energy on site there. Despite me dying on the hell that LA is like the worst, one of the worst sports towns in the country. I,

I don't think anyone in Los Angeles knew that a U S open was happening there. Um, that's so sad, but what was the energy? What was the energy like at, at Sawgrass this week from a fan experience? Because I feel like, I feel like this week was, we've been talking all year. This major talking point all year was like the PGA tour needs some juice, like week after week, like this can't be what the PGA tour wanted in terms of outcome. And I think, um,

In all forms, cases, and senses of however you want to define what a good golf tournament is, I think that this one delivered on all aspects. And so did it feel on the grounds like the tour golf maybe got a little bit of its mojo back this week? Because it felt like that viewing it.

My takeaway from this week was just being around the grounds and hearing the fans, seeing them. No one seemed to care that all the live guys weren't there. Obviously, them being there would have made it even bigger than it was, but...

People were just really into it, energized. It was a great little duel back and forth. Wyndham having a legitimate shot on 18 to, I mean, we were so close to a four-way playoff. I think that would have been amazing for the PGA Tour. Three-hole playoff, 16, 17, 18. You get the three-hole aggregate, yeah. Yes.

That would have been incredible for guys and all dogs too. I mean, Harmon, Wyndham Clark is, is amazing. Um, besides the, besides the allegations, uh, unfortunately, which are spreading golf Twitter, but, uh, yeah, I mean, it was amazing. It was a 10 out of 10. It is every year. I mean, last year, Scotty kind of ran away with, uh, ran away with it. This one, obviously, I mean, we'll get to Xander, uh,

uh, having a, such a great chance. And then obviously Wyndham and Harmon too. So I, I detected no fatigue this week. You hear, I hear about fatigue right now because of the whole saga live saga. So, um, I did not detect any of that. People were very into it and it's, it's just a great crowd. They, they actually, they know the golf, um, in, uh, in Jacksonville.

I want to talk a little bit about Scotty. You mentioned Xander. We're going to do a whole thing on Xander because you wrote a great piece on Xander that I want to talk a little bit more about. But I feel like we got to start with Scotty, right? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. You know, try not to be a prisoner of the moment, right? I think that situations like these call for being a bit hyperbolic. I certainly understand that. I don't think that we have...

I think a lot of this is context related and the start of, like I said, the PGA tour year, the start of the golf year outside of some, you know, Anthony Kim stuff. And you know what, I guess Nick winning was a good story, but I think there's been a bit of a bit of a lack of juice. A lot of golf fans being fatigued, as you mentioned, um,

the live versus the PGA tour thing, both tours feeling diminished. A lot of people just feeling like, man, just get me to get me to master Thursday. And, and the frustration with that for me has been like, you and I cover this weekend and week out. We have to talk about this every single week. So this concept that, uh,

only four weeks of the year are going to matter now in a diminished golf world is frankly like very depressing, not just as a fan, but for you and I that work in work and cover golf weekend and week out. But I think that, and the TV ratings will reflect us, whether this is in team sports or individual sports, greatness dominance, whether you like it or hate it is

is good for ratings. It just is. Dynasties in team sports are good generally because they evoke feelings. So like the Patriots became villains that evoked emotion and feeling in people. The Warriors, they play basketball in a way that people have never seen play basketball before. And while I think that

A run of Scotty domination is better than the alternative and a bunch of random winners. I'm trying to like put my finger on how I would feel and what it would really mean for the sport if Scotty, you know, goes nuclear and keeps us up.

Yeah, I think I'm kind of all for it. I just don't know if he can become super hateable. He's such a no social media, just a goofy, loves his wife, loves his family. So I just don't know about him becoming a villain. But you can just be a villain based off of how much you win. And the way he does it, it's just like he's incredible. He's a tactician. The Tiger comparisons are a little out of control right now. But...

I don't know. It is a dominant run. I do just wish that John Rahm was in these golf tournaments he's winning too, because I feel like we're just being robbed of probably what would have been the next great, like get these guys in every tournament together and one, two, every time. Maybe it's Scottie and Wyndham now, but it sucks that we might only get Rahm Scheffler a few times a year, but hopefully that won't be the case.

Yeah, the other thing about Scottie, I'm with you on the Tiger comps. I mean, just Kyle Porter had this stat the other day, but...

Scotty's peak right now, like what he is doing right now, Tiger's peak was a full stroke per round better than this, which is wild to believe. So if Scotty and Tiger played every single tournament together, Tiger would beat Scotty on average by four every single tournament. Also, Tiger had six majors at this age. So I think we've got a long way to go in terms of

who Scottie is and what Scottie can be with that being said, I think it's, I think it's perfectly reasonable to get excited about, right? I think a lot of this is context-based. Like I, I don't know if we would be reacting to this the way that we are now, if the golf world wasn't fractured in so many ways and there weren't so many depressing aspects around it, that so many golf fans are like, just give us something big, exciting to root for that. We can all rally behind. And,

And I think the one thing about Scottie that I will say, because, listen, John Rahm won three times last year and won the Masters after winning three times last year. I think that the difference between Scottie and Rahm, and this is non-statistical, this is more anecdotal.

But you see this with a couple athletes. There's only a select few athletes that are able to achieve this. Tiger absolutely achieved this. I think Brady achieved this to a certain extent. And I think Mahomes is there right now. I think this was the first year where I noticed it with Mahomes. There's like a boogeyman aspect to greatness where when somebody becomes that good, they

There's a phenomenon where the other players around him start to underperform. And I feel like we're starting to feel that a little bit with Sheffler, where there's this gravity where now everybody's every golfer in that tournament's biggest concern is where is Scotty on the leaderboard? And it's like, Scotty's coming.

Okay. We can never be sure you can never kill him. There's like a Freddy Krueger quality to it. And Iger had that right. Like you saw that with tiger all the time where it's like tigers five back. He's going on a run. Oh, by the way, the guy in the lead, Francesco Molinari, even at the 2019 masters just hit a ball in the water. And there's this phenomenon of like,

When you feel him coming. And that was it all weekend. It's like, when it was leading, I think Xander was there, Harmon was there, but you just, you felt Scotty lingering. And unless you kill the guy, like at the end of the day, he's going to get there. I think Steph Curry has a little of that a little bit, right? Where it's like, okay, the word, the warriors are down 10 in the third quarter. Like what's going on here. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I think you mentioned ratings. It would be tremendous. Just every time he's in a tournament, he's in the lead, and then it's like you can slay the giant kind of. So that makes for an easy story every time he tees it up like it did with Tiger, as you mentioned. I think I'm trying to... Did it feel like Rom had that to you? I can't put my finger on it, but I don't know. Maybe it's the player...

Maybe it's what players are saying about Scottie right now, and you were there, so you probably heard more on the grounds than I did. But even that Shane Lowry quote of just feeling...

completely powerless over that. That's a pretty wild thing to say for a guy who's won. Yeah, Wyndham too. Wyndham and Xander said it. Wyndham and Xander said it. Wyndham said, of course, when somebody asked, what do you think of Scottie charging? Xander was like, oh yeah, just another week out here. Harmon was like, look, he's the best player in the world right now. He can't be beat pretty much. So they are all kind of saying it.

So there's this, that weird inevitability quality. Yeah. And I think it's that and, and,

When Rom was awesome last year, he would still mix in like a T47. Yeah. I remember at the API, he finished, you know, he was first round later and then he like totally fell off T47 or something like that. Mixed in like a T56 at the players. He flies off the handle, Scotty. Scotty just, I mean, Scotty gets a little pissed. Scotty is the handle. Obviously. Scotty is the handle. Yeah.

He gets a little pissed, but not like Rom. Rom can just fly off the handle. Maybe that's...

That's kind of why he would throw in those T47s. But the floor is just so high. It's like, okay, if Scotty loses five strokes putting, what is he finishing? Ninth? Yeah. Yes. Yes. It's unbelievable. We get the best as we get to find out at Augusta. I can't wait. I can't freaking wait. We'll talk a little Augusta at the end, too. I want to get to Xander, though. Talk a little Brooks. Yeah, we'll talk a little Brooks. We'll talk a little Brooks. Because there's...

You wrote this piece on Xander and I thought it was excellent. I thought it was super well written. I thought you got some good quotes. So talk to me about...

The players is done. Why'd you decide to write that piece? Because I think a lot, I think the easy answer, well, I appreciate that you did, but I think like the answer is let's just write another piece on Scotty's greatness. But, and maybe it was your assignment to write about Xander. I don't know, but why did you, how did you conceive of that idea? A lot of this, especially in my brain comes together. Like,

way later than you think it's going to and uh some of some of my you know obviously we had a couple guys there so we are talking we're talking out like okay if this happens you'll take this you'll i i never care about having the the winner to be honest i'd rather always do the other ones um so i let i let joel have the winner or shane whoever i think shane did the winner um joel takes the

Kind of the next big thing, which was obviously- Joel probably talked like the Ysere meeting. That's right up Joel's alley. Yeah, I know. Exactly. He took the Wyndham pain angle because Joel loves some pain too. Yeah. Obviously on the last putt. And then so they were like, yeah, we should probably have something on Xander. So-

And I was out on the 18th hole and the 17th hole. I was like, yeah, of course I'll do Xander. And I, and I asked him the question about the social media hater. So that's kind of what I had on my mind. I feel like that's,

that's the narrative so why not just write about or ask him about the narrative um see what he says and he was amazed his quotes were amazing on it and there's a couple other good ones too so it worked out it kind of just comes together down the stretch of the back nine i definitely didn't make it big like i am taking xander if he if he finishes by one uh loses by one and writing that story it just came together kind of

down the stretch there. And I mean, you talked to him a little bit after he gave some, he gave some great quotes, which I'll pull. I want to pull up here in a second, because I think what, one of the things that he said was really interesting, but he seemed, what was the vibe after? Because he seemed like pretty gracious and defeat, but not emotionally destroyed. Right. I get 100%. And that's like kind of what I respected about it afterward. Um,

um, just like, man, he's gotta be so crushed. This was, this would have been the one for him. Obviously we, we both hope there's going to be way bigger ones, but this would have been the one. So,

And then he comes in and he's like, yeah, kind of, uh, that's kind of what happened. It is what it is. Got to move on all that kind of stuff. But, uh, said some good stuff too, obviously that you noticed. My dad told, this is the quote. My dad told me. So that was great. It's a good one. My dad told me a long time ago to commit, execute and accept. I'm swallowing a heavy dose of acceptance right now.

But that's kind of what I did. I tried to commit. I executed poorly on some shots and here I am accepting it. Yeah, that was great. Pretty good hashtag perspective from a guy. That was great. So where do you fall on this after writing the article in terms of like, was this more of a Xander loss to you or a Scotty win? Okay, even... I'll push back a little bit. Even...

Even leaving the putt short on 16, missing the six-footer on 17, and then putting himself in a position off the tee where he couldn't get it done. Yep, on 18, I know. He couldn't give himself a good birdie look. It felt like, I don't know, man, it's fleeting in golf. It's tough. This is why I push back so many times on...

being hyperbolic and a prisoner of the moment about, Oh, this guy's going to get five majors. This guy's going to get for me. Oh yeah. No, they're not like, no, there's not, there should not be maybe Scotty and Rom are like the only two guys in this era that you put the major over under at like 2.5, 3.5 maybe. But, but,

You know, it's another blown, not blown, but I'll give some data on what I think he, you know, his expected win rate and stuff like that a little bit later. But, um, I don't know how many good opportunities you're, you're going to have like that at a, at a big one like that.

Yeah, I do. I like to always compare it to windows for in the team sports like championship windows. Sometimes they're only three or four years. It's kind of like that for the majority of golfers.

Like, you know, Jordan Spieth went on a great run, cashed in on his run. I don't know. I hope he has another run in him, but there's Scotty. I mean, Scotty Scheffler, there's so many good players. You got to kind of capitalize on your run. I feel that way about Zalatoris. I, I, again, I think he'll win a major, but like you said, we do. Oh, he'll, he'll have so many more chances. It's like, I don't know. He finished second at like multiple seconds. Like you gotta, you gotta cash in way earlier. Now I honestly,

Obviously you can counter with Phil and Sergio and DJ. And I do think Xander will go that route. I think he, I think he'll definitely get one. And I think it's going to be very sweet when it does it.

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$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. So I agree with you, and I'm sure you've got a couple people in your mentions talking about how Xander is a choke artist and a loser. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, you know, I did a little research on this, Christopher. Of course. Of course you did. So, you know, and listen, like...

This took me a while. I'm not going to lie to you, but it is all information available to everybody. If you know how to use data calls pressure tool. So I walked into this a little bit and this is going to preempt a game that we're going to play after the game is called better or worse than Xander under pressure. And I think you're going to be surprised about some of the names that are worse, but.

In his career, there's been 36 times where Xander's entered the final round in the top five. That's a lot. He's given himself a lot of opportunities. Of those 36 times, he has seven wins.

given how he played, given the people around him on the leaderboard, his expected amount of wins is 6.9. So he's done exactly what would have been expected to him. His strokes gain versus expectation is plus 0.2. His true strokes gain is plus two. So this year at the players, he gained 1.9 true strokes gain to the field, but played minus 0.5 below his baseline. So going into that round,

Going into that final round at the players and tell me if this tracks with what it kind of felt like. If Xander Shoffley has an average Xander Shoffley round, he wins that tournament 55% of the time based on, based on the way that he played on Sunday.

he wins that tournament 48% of the time. So he didn't, you know, he didn't really play bad enough to lose it per se, but he also didn't really play well enough to God and win it. And there's been a lot of that in his career. Like in final rounds, he's raising his baseline by 0.2 strokes. He's actually, uh,

a better golfer than his baseline when he is in contention. Like I want to make that very clear for people that don't understand this. So I just think people that say he sucks in contention or as a choke artist don't understand data yet. At the same time, there are some elite golfers that are statistically better under pressure than him and many that are way worse. So that's why I said, do you want, do you want to play this game where I'm going to give you guys and you have, and you have to guess, uh,

Better or worse than Xander under pressure. Okay. So the criteria for this CP is over the course of their career, anytime that they are within five of the lead entering the final round, how do they do? Okay. What is, how do they perform? So let's start with a guy that we talk about in conversation a lot with Xander Schumacher. Let's, let's start with Patrick Cantlay. Patrick Cantlay, better or worse. Definitely better.

Definitely worse. Absolutely worse. Absolutely worse. Yeah. Like Cantlay has been in that position. It's really ironic. This is a hilarious stat. Over their career, Cantlay and Zander have entered the final round within five of the league, both the exact same number of times. 36 times. 36? Oh my God. Which is hilarious.

And Cantlay actually has eight wins. Xander has seven. But Cantlay's played worse. Cantlay's just gotten a little bit more leaderboard gravity and luck around him. So yes, Cantlay, Xander better than Cantlay over pressure. I'm going to give you another one. Hovland. I feel like the object of this game is that all these guys are worse than Xander. Not necessarily, but okay. Then I'm going to say no, Hovland's better. Worse?

20, 20, Hovland's minus 0.05, 26 opportunities, nine minutes. His expected win rate was 6.35. He's actually had the beneficiary of, um, okay, this is going to be a fun one. Rory McIlroy. Oh my God. We've got, we've got, we've got a large sample size here. So, um,

I mean, just for my brand, I have to say Xander is better in clutch situations than Rory. It pains me to admit this. Rory's way worse. Is he really? Yeah, Rory's way worse. Rory has had double the amount of chances. Rory has entered, this is since 2012, so maybe he's had even a couple more chances.

He's entered the final round within five of the league 114 times. He's got 30 wins, but given how he's played, he should have about 26. Before the round, he should have had about 31. Rory's been worse. Rory, he just has been worse. He has been worse in final rounds entering the league than Xander. Way bigger sample size, though. Okay, next one. Colin Markawa.

Uh, definitely worse. Way better. Colin is. Colin is a fucking killer. I'm going to give you there. There, there are, there are, is it that surprising? There's three guys. Yes. There's three guys in the modern era of the elite players that statistically in final rounds when they're in contention, uh,

are objectively the three best players in the world, and I think it's going to surprise you who those three guys are. Collins, one of them. Wow. Yeah, Collins plus .5. That's really good. I mean, 22 opportunities, seven wins. So only 22 times he's entered the final round within five of the lead. He's converted on that seven times, and there's a lot of moving parts in there. So like...

That's pretty damn good. Okay, Jordan Spieth. Man, I got to say worse. This surprised me. Jordan Spieth, of all the guys that we're going to mention, is way worse. Jordan Spieth is minus 0.82%

per round when he's entering the final round within five of the lead. Yeah, he's been bad. He's really bad on the weekends, I feel like. Sneakily really bad. I don't think he gets enough shit for it, in my opinion. 53 opportunities. Three majors, bro. Three majors. I know, I know. He stacked them early. 53 opportunities, 11 wins. So Spieth has left like...

Statistically, Spieth left almost four wins on the table. Easily. Easily. I believe it. Doesn't get talked about enough. You're right. Well, that's the thing that I... Just a real quick aside on this. That's the thing that bums me out about the Rory conversation a little bit as it pertains to Spieth. It's a little bit like...

Rory is the college football team that loses 45 to nothing to Alabama in the playoff. Whereas like the eight and whereas like it's almost better for your brand if you're eight and three and win 42 to nothing in the orange ball, like 10 and two when your conference Rory has to win the tour championship. Right. The reason why Rory gets so much shit is because he's,

Over this past decade where he hasn't won a major, he's been at worst like the seventh best player in the world where there's been times where speed has been like well outside the top 100 players. And I don't know if he's a top 20 player right now. So when we talk about a fall from grace, like if you really dive into the numbers, what happened to speed?

is way weirder than Rory. The one thing you can say about Rory, I was actually thinking about this today for some reason. He...

He has been very consistently great, good to great for 10 years. And that's like way harder than we all think as we know. Spieth is the perfect example. And there's other guys too, where they just have three, four, maybe five good years and then kind of just fade a little bit. And Rory, Rory's never had a bad year, really.

He hasn't. I mean, even, yeah, even some of those mid 2010s, but in fairness, like minus point. None like Spieth. Like, like, no, correct. Correct. Correct. None like Spieth and Spieth is almost half a stroke worse than Rory in contention for what it's worth. Scotty Shuffler. Got to be better than center. So it's worse, but it's trending up. And I think people forget. I think people forget that, uh,

He had a bunch early and didn't win. That's right. Right. I think people forget how many times, like, Scottie has been, had less, he's been playing golf for less time than Scottie and, or than Xander and Kalen. He already has more opportunities. 38 opportunities, 8 wins. But there's a lot in there with Scottie. This is trending up.

But I think there's a lot in there with Scotty with people forget how many times he's just been relevant in a golf tournament and hasn't won. He was the guy. He was the guy who was amazing but couldn't win. Like that was becoming his. That was becoming his thing. How many times last year were we like Scotty T3 entering the fight? You know, Scotty is just around and he wasn't winning. So worse. Brian Harmon.

I would say better. I feel like when he gets in there, he usually cashes in. So I'm going to say better.

It's, it's pretty significantly worse, but improved. Improving. Okay. I'm just, I, I'm, I'm laying out all these guys just to like statistically poke holes and everybody being like Xander's a choke artist. I just, I wanted to do the research on this. It's just, it's just insane. I don't know if it's, I don't know. Can it can choke? This is like a Colin Coward. It's like, can choke artists and can't close be two different things.

That's a good question. Choke artist to me is like, has the lead and just double bogey, like blows up at the worst time or shoots three over just a bunch of bogeys. Can't close is like what Xander does. Just like minus two or like minus one, like he did yesterday or minus two, like he did yesterday. Right. When you need the 67, you're

He shoots like the 69 or 70. I feel like I'm just talking out of my ass right now, but I know, you know, I know, you know, better. There's, there's a lot of merit to that point. Right. And like in fairness, and that's why I looked at the expected wind stuff. The reason why Xander's baseline is higher than some of these guys is

is that he does not flame out. There's been very few times. There are times when you look at some of these numbers and Spieth will mix in a 77 on Sunday. And Xander doesn't ever flame out, but he doesn't necessarily give you that peak, peak rate.

plus three uh performance okay so i of course he has two in in seven wins like he's he has shot low he shot he shot 60 he shot 62 to come from to come from four back in hawaii to win that thing so he's he's done okay i've got four more quickies for you windham clark uh worse

By like 0.002 of a stroke. I just want to flag this now under a small sample size. Wyndham is like quickly 14 opportunities, three wins. Wyndham is quickly developing a reputation statistically for being a great rusher player. Like I know that that is...

Yeah, I know that people think that anecdotally from what they see, but the stats back it up. Like Wyndham, I'm curious to see what he does over a small sample size or a larger sample size, but he's one of the few guys that is a plus in contention in terms of his baseline. JT. Oh, man. Worse. Yeah, worse. Minus 0.25.

A little better, a lot better than Rory, better than Speed. Wow. Okay. But worse. Jon Rahm. Better. Worse. Yeah, worse.

You know, ROM's gotten actually lucky with the guys around him, but his expected wins is 12.1. He has, he has 15. His baseline's mine. His ROM's better than Scheffler so far. I just want to flag that as well by a little bit. Um, raw of the Rory Scheffler ROM group.

Rom has been the best of the three in contention, but it's been very close between this. All those guys are within a tenth of a stroke of each other. Okay. And then two more guys for you, Bryson. Better. Way better. And I don't know if this gets talked about. I finally got one. Bryson has been bar none the best player in contention in the modern era.

And, and I don't, I love that for 26 rounds, 10 wins. So Bryson has had 26 opportunities expected before the round. When was 5.74. He's got 10 based on his play. So I don't know, like,

Bryson's a fucking killer. And I don't, you know, we should be shouting this narrative into existence like tomorrow. Bryson's the best closer. I love it. Statistically, Bryson is. Like Bryson has been un-fucking-believable in contention. And then I kind of showed my cards here because there's one other guy. There's one more. Actually, can you guess who it is?

DJ or Brooks? Oh, shoot. The guy that I have. Why did I forget Brooks? Let me pull up Brooks, too. Well, who's the guy that you had? Can you guess it? Is he a PGA Tour or Live guy? He's a PGA Tour guy. Wow. He wins a lot. I've got Brooks for you, too, when you're done. Spoiler alert, it's better than Xander. Hideki. Nope.

You should get this. He's probably one of the top 10 most recognizable on the PGA Tour. He's a good Twitter activity. Homa? Homa's really fucking good at contention powers. I believe it. I believe it, actually, now that you say it. I remember thinking after, I think it was Tory last year, like...

I feel like this guy closes pretty much every time he gets in the mix. He does. So, you know, Homa's plus .53, which is insane. He's in the Morikawa Bryson category, where 2.47 expected wins, given how he's played. He's raised that to 4.8, and he's came out with 7. So Homa has had 18 times when he's entered the final round within five of the league.

He's converted on seven of those, which is fucking wild. So statistically, the three best... So Homa and Xander have seven wins a pop. Homa, Xander have seven wins a pop. Cantlay's got eight. Hovland's got eight. Yeah. And then Brooks, real quick. I just pulled it up. I don't know. Brooks. I just did not put Brooks on this list. Brooks is 0.21, which would make him...

Slightly worse than Homa and Bryson and Mark Kawa, but that's only mainly because he's getting better than Zander. So if you're doing the ranking, so if you're doing the ranking statistically right now of the modern players, I just did actually just did.

Give us a giant sample size. I checked on like guys like Cam Smith. They were like average, but let me, let me just make, see if DJ pops out and that DJ is right around average over a giant sample size DJ better than Rory's for what it's worth. But the, the five best guys are,

Number one by a hair is Bryson. Number two, Homa. Number three, Morikawa. Number four, Brooks over a larger sample size. Um,

And then statistically five is Xander. Now, a lot of that is like, I'm just saying like a lot of that is him just like having a high floor and like not flaming out. And I, I could do a whole other like 8,000 word article. If you give me time to like deep dive into,

you know, peak performances and stuff like that. It's there's noise and it's complicated, but just in terms of like purely is this guy doing enough in contention every single time to put himself in position? Like he's had so many of these opportunities where he plays better than his baseline and wins the tournament. Like what happened at the players, like 50% of the time. And like, I was thinking about like his, his,

The Tiger Masters, he was one shot out of the playoff, too. He was. He was. Right there. What was the other one? Carnusi, he just played a bad round. And then Hideki at Augusta, he got it within two. He was legitimately there. Yeah, I think he's doing enough. He's just getting clipped. Seemingly on the biggest stages, unfortunately, by a guy who blitzes him, shoots eight under.

By the way, if I just looked at Tiger, there's some noise in there post-2019 stuff, post-2018. But you look at Tiger's expected between 2004 and 2012, he raises his baseline by over 0.65 strokes. It's insane.

in absolutely insane. So I just want to, I get that. It's fun. The Shepard stuff is fine. I get it, but I just, this Anders suck stuff is fine, but just wanted to do a little data corner with Andy and CP. This. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed that. I think I lost the game. I got like two, right. But I enjoyed it. Okay. I'll let you get out of here quickly. Valspar, any Valspar thoughts, uh,

Yeah, I mean, I guess I do like Brian Harmon. I want to say I have not done the proper research this week. I want to say he has a decent record here. He's got a bunch of missed cuts, but also a top five. So hit or miss. One top five. He's got, I'm going to try and attempt to pull this off the top of my head. I want to say it's two top 25s, one of them being a top five and four missed cuts.

I can effort that if you want. I like it. I still like it. I think I'm a big believer in betting guys who just finished second the following week. So I like Harmon. That's really the only guy at the top I liked.

Uh, Keegan, I'm sure people will love Keegan this week. Can I ask you, can I ask you a question that I was thinking about today? And I, I talked about this with Jeff Feinberg on my, on the odds checker video that we do. Who do you think is closer to a win right now? JT or Spieth? I would have said Spieth before whatever the hell happened at Riviera. Did you get, did you get eyes on him at, at players at all or see any of the players? Yeah.

No, I didn't. It's actually funny you say that. I did not see Justin Thomas this week. Yes, because Thursday I was like, I'm following Rory Hobbins. That's the group to go watch, get up and get coffee and go out there. And it was amazing. I'm sad I left after the front nine, unfortunately, and missed the situation on seven. I was there for the situation on 18. That was great. So we were on Thursday. We're waiting for these guys to talk.

Spieth sprinted to the locker room. Sprinted. Hoblin just straight up was like, no, I'm not talking, and stormed ahead. Rory talked. But yeah, so I did see Spieth, if that's what you're asking. But again, he played well in Hawaii, I remember. I bet him. He played well in Hawaii. He played well in Phoenix. Yeah, I thought he was trending pretty nicely, especially...

leading into Augusta where we know he can flip the switch. JT, I don't know, man. I don't think he's... I think he's back maybe back to where he was last year, just for a little stretch right now, at least. Well, he's been... He was okay at Bay Hill. I saw a couple duck hooks, though. Didn't he not hit a few duck hooks at that event? He hit a couple duck hooks at Bay Hill, and mainly he is...

he's let us down in the biggest spots, right? Like I think heading into this year, JT played well at the Amex. He played well in Phoenix, right? Those are kind of some softer setups, but then it's like, okay. And I fell into this trap both time. It's like, okay, JT Riviera, like, let's go. Well,

like tougher golf course, lawn irons. This is, yeah, it was in the column. It was in the column. I can't talk. And, and, and it was like, okay, Riviera JT, let's go. And bad miscut. I'm sad. Bad miscut. I'm thinking to myself, I did watch him. I watched him a little that week. Yeah. That was ugly. I'm thinking to myself like, okay, noisy played with tiger. What's going on that week? Like I'm ready to forgive him at,

the players. And I don't have an explanation for this one. Like he wasn't in a, he didn't have some sort of noisy marquee group. He didn't have the commitments of a defending champion. Like he wasn't, he wasn't flying under the radar by any means, but like it wasn't a,

He wasn't coming in with all of this noise. He was the 15th biggest storyline entering the week. He just absolutely ran his putting, and he hit his irons really, really well. I never answered your question. I guess based off of that, I would stick with Spieth, I think, next winner.

Yeah. Over, over JT. I was going to ask if something looked off with speed because it's like, I just feel like something is something in his game. Definitely wasn't having fun Thursday when I was out there. It wasn't having fun. Um, all right. Anyone else you want to throw out for Val's part? We'll get out of here, man.

stevie made a decent case for adam shank this morning on our podcast you guys already record you guys do uh you guys do we did before before my flight yeah yeah we had um

Actually, I missed it. I was getting into the airport. It was with Brian Anderson, who's calling the first game of March Madness on Thursday. Awesome. He a golf fan? Good interview. He's three handicap, he said. Good for him. He started on PGA Tour Live. Everyone go listen to the interview. We'll check it out.

Yeah. Three handy cake told some, he plays with Barkley. Of course he plays with all the TNT guys. So, um, it was good stuff. Very cool. Um, who's your pick? Good luck to your Duke. Yeah. I was going to ask like, how are we, what's the state of the union on Duke basketball? I've been hearing like, it's, it's pretty concerning. I haven't, I haven't dove into March madness yet. You know, I haven't, but I'm hearing, I'm hearing a lot of UNC talk. I've

I've seen a couple, I've seen a couple of UNC. Yeah. UNC is going to win it all. And I just, yeah, it's been very, it's been very concerning to me seeing all this UNC talk, but I feel like Duke's good this year. Right. I don't follow college basketball anymore, but I feel like I watched, I watched them. I watched them play one half of basketball and it was that UNC game last week. Cause I bet Duke live. Cause I just had to have some action on it. That,

that was it. So I have no clue. I used to love college basketball. I really only watch... Steve is the guy we got to talk to. He is, yeah. Steve's grinding the college basketball. Yes, he gave some picks on the pod. I really just watched my Seton Hall Pirates and, I mean, Rhode Island where I actually went to school. They stink. And then Seton Hall getting snubbed was very painful. So I haven't... I have barely even looked at the bracket. I'll just say UConn because that's what...

It seems like it's going to happen. Do you want to give a final swan song to our guy, Saquon Barkley? Bid him adieu to the link, Philadelphia. Honestly, have a good time. More power to him. I feel bad for him. We've got Devin Singletary now.

Like let's not pay Saquon Barkley and then pay $6 million a year for Devin Singletary. That sounds, that sounds really reasonable. He's free now. He's free. Yeah. All right, buddy. Uh, thanks for doing this, my friend. I will, uh, I'll be in. Oh, last thing. Uh, I'm heading to stream song next week based on your recommendation. Like you guys put up, you guys put out stream song content and, and I, I texted my golf groups group chat. And, and so we're heading there.

Uh, literally on Wednesday morning. Like I am in Mexico right now. I fly back to LA for, for one night, Wednesday morning, I'm off to stream song. So I can't wait. Um, I love that for you. I, I, I want to go back. I, we only played blue. We played, uh, we played the chain, which was, was fantastic. I I'm like, I'm, I need to get back to that place.

So we we've heard short course is awesome. Like if you have an hour and a half in the afternoon, like 5 PM, just rep that short. It's a must. Yeah. Yeah. We've got that locked down. All right. CP get to see you, my friend. We will do this again soon, buddy. Absolutely. Hey, go Knicks, baby. Go Knicks, baby.

All right. That is it for the podcast. Special thanks to CP special. Thanks to our sponsors for this episode, run pure sports bets, Bert's golf. We will not be doing a Sunday preview for the Houston open because I will be on a golf trip stream song. Cannot wait for that, but all of my stuff, uh,

For Houston, we'll still be up on runpearsports.com, and we will be back on this podcast feed next week. Until then, best of luck with your bets this weekend, and we will see you next time. Cheers.

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