Welcome to “Fondling Cardboard,” a podcast for sharing collectors’ stories and reflecting on why we collecting little pieces of cardboard with pictures of athletes. I’m your host, Mike Lakusta, known as the Golf Card Collector. This show is for anyone with a soft spot for nostalgia and the stories behind the cardboard.
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expect anything different ridiculous fondling [Music] cardboard what is up welcome back to fondling cardboard I’m your host Mike lausta aka the golf Card Collector happy Master’s week yall we just finished round one of the Masters and let me tell you there’s some exciting stuff going on we’ve got Bryson to Shambo shooting the low score of the day at seven under par we’ve got some people nipping at the heels we’ve got some guys who haven’t managed to finish their round some guys who haven’t even made the turn so this is definitely uh barely the beginning of the Masters it’s kind of unusual there haven’t as many storylines as I’m used to seeing no Crazy hole-in Ones in the par three Contest no Billy horal slipping and falling into the mud but we got three more days to make memory here folks I’ve got a special episode for you as friend of the show James peacock comes on and we talk about a handful of golfers that I did not get to get into last week with Connor and it’s funny because when I looked back at that recording I had with Connor some of the picks that I had as favorites or even Darkhorse picks at the Masters didn’t have trading cards when I looked at the top 40 players in terms of uh betting odds the the guy when I deleted the guys I talked about last week everyone left actually had a lot of great cards so I’m going to do something really special this week I sat down with James for pretty lengthy recording and we went over a a good number of those players talked about our brief takes on the players and dived into some of the details of their trading cards and rather than just all dumping that on to you at once in this one episode I’m going to be chopping it up and we’re releasing a podcast episode this week after every round of the majors if you’re just tuning into to this episode as a participant of the fond Milling cardboard fifth annual or the all majors golf pools welcome to the show I hope this helps you get a taste of what the podcast is all about feel free to pursue my catalog of past episodes and tell a friend to tune in if they like golf or Collectibles even if they’re not in our contests all right guys before I get into the conversation with James before I talk about a summary of our round one recap in the pool I have to give a quick shout out to a sponsor sponsor of this episode that’s right we actually have a sponsor it’s not a financial sponsor uh it’s a friend of mine Paul hickey at nooffseason docomo of the sports card strategy show and uh Paul generously donated a John ROM Sports illustrator for kids rookie card PSA 7 as a draw prize for my Master’s pools thank you so much Paul for that generous donation and in exchange I’m here to tell you all about his premium membership at Noah season.com Paul and his guys will help you learn to make money flipping cards not exactly for me but hey Paul would be the first one to say that making wise financial decisions in my personal collecting is basically the same thing as investing or flipping in cards so there you go all right let’s dive into some recap of the actual Master’s pool we have uh to start off the fifth annual Master’s pool which is with my friend friends family co-workers colleagues customers Etc so in the pool we have a a clear leader we have Keegan at 14 underpar JB at 13 underpar tied with JJ flurry fourth place we’ve got Rob schilz at minus 12 James lay at 11 underpar and round off our top six Rory at 10 under to look at the spotlight of Keegan’s roster as the leader he has Scotty sheffler of course 600 par will alores at 300 Ryan Fox at 300 and Max hom at 3 under what I find really interesting about Keegan’s roster though is that his two other golfers because this is a six pick only top four uh pick six top four score uh his two non-scoring players are Peter Malnati at four overpar and Nick Taylor at five overpar so Keegan you really better hope that your top four continue to pull we for you all right moving into the funing cardboard Master pool this is of course where we have sports cards as the prizes we’ve got Thomas rean in the lead also at 14 underpar although he is tied with Dean fortino then we’ve got Ryan seoc and Todd Larson tied for third both at 10 underpar and we’ve got a back log of four guys at nine underpar that’s Brandon Brandon Kaiser obol co.com Justin Lee and Rob schilz Rob thank you so much for actually participating in both of my pools right on man um a spotlight on Thomas Ran’s roster uh he’s got Scotty shuffler six under par Danny Willet at 4 under tiell Hatton three under Matt Fitzpatrick one underpar sep straa uh is only one overp par and that’s his fifth best and then Hideki matama at four over and as for the all majors pool it is actually different style of scoring we are going based off of total earnings of your roster not score relative to par so it’s actually difficult to project um if I’ve got some time uh maybe tomorrow evening I might try and work out some uh some programming to actually have it have a live leaderboard based on a projection of the earnings at the end of the tournament but we’ll see if I can really get to [Music] that all right now I did mention that uh Bryson to Shambo is in the lead at 700 par but how did I not actually give a little brief overview of what’s been happening so not only is Bryson in the lead but we’ve got Scotty sheffler in second place at 600 par as anybody predicted uh Scotty has the best betting odds since Tiger Woods in his prime that was at the beginning of the tournament when everybody was even par now that he’s sitting near the top of the leaderboard as anybody could have predicted I’m sure you can’t make very much money betting on Scotty because he is I’m sure the favorite to win uh moving along though is a guy that I picked in one of my pools Nikolai hodg guard uh this is a guy who I also actually just sold one of his cards I had his Upper Deck artifacts RPA dual patch uh just the base RPA out of 149 I pulled that card myself so it does have a little bit of sentimental value but you can’t hold on to everything in life so some other person can enjoy that card he’s sitting at 500 par then we’ve got a couple guys overnight at 400 par Danny Willet as I mentioned actually just gave away a Danny Willet card in the pool draw prizes so check out that draw Prize video on YouTube uh just search for the Golf Card Collector something like that should pop up uh or if you’re in one of the pools I’m sending out uh nightly post round Recaps with a link to the YouTube video and lastly we have Max hom sitting for under par this is one of James peacock’s favorite golfers and in the interview James shares a little bit about uh we’re also going to be talking a bit about Rory mroy John ROM will zalat torus Victor havland in fact I think it might just be those guys that we get to today you might need to wait until uh one of the next few days for us to actually get to Max Homa without further Ado here’s the interview happy Master’s week you excited happy Masters week oh man I’m stoked I usually don’t like go on vacations or block out time but this is the one time here on like Saturday and Sunday uh I’m doing my thing I’m blocking out the days awesome so last week I talked with Conor Barnett of the sports card strategy show just doing some picks some favorites in the Masters some Dark Horse picks and something that was interesting is a lot of the guys that I picked don’t have cards I wasn’t approaching that conversation with cards in mind and I really should have because this is a hobby podcast but once I took the top let’s say 40 players in the Masters and I deleted all the players that I talked to Connor about the remaining players literally only like one or two didn’t have any so um it it made me realize I need to talk to someone who loves cards and we need to kind of flip through this list how’s that sound yeah man let’s do it again this is the best time of the year I think to again be be involved in the Hobby and if we could just chat about some of these key players and some of their key cards I think that would be a lot of fun so we’re going to call this rapid fire uh knowing that we we may not end up being too rapid but let’s give it a shot so I’m going to go I’m going to name a name and then we’ll just give me a quick take on the player and then let’s talk about what their cards are so first off Rory moloy uh Rory so quick take on him uh you know this whole this whole live controversy has kind of put a tiny bit of a sour taste on mouth for Rory in terms of you know a lot of his opinions but I I can’t I can’t look over his track record right he’s a great player he’s typically a good Ambassador for the sport and he’s overdue for a masters win I would not be upset if he won um I think it would just be good for the sport it’d be good for him and anyone completing a grand SL I think is is pretty cool yeah that’s his defin the Masters is his remaining major to win before he has the career gland slam and just you know I I honestly don’t have a sour taste about him I feel like it was J Monahan who really was the the you know the two-faced person in this situation I don’t feel like Rory was being um uh inauthentic I feel like he was taking his his stance and and really wanted what what he believed in I think now maybe he’s being forced his arms being Twisted to take a more more moderate or middle ground stance on the whole thing in in my eyes I I I don’t feel like his legacy’s tarnished I don’t I don’t personally hold anything against him but I could definitely see how others were there people who are fans of Liv definitely have it out for Rory yeah and I think any negative feelings I get about him it’s it’s actually like you said good intention he just has such love for the game and he’s such you know a pure love of the PGA that that’s all that’s coming from so no no what about Rory cards yeah he actually has a ton so he’s one of those players that has like hundreds of cards so if you’re a Rory fan there are tons of options there um you know going back all the way to his very first card which you know is kind of a trend here is Sports Illustrated for Kids he has a 2011 so if you want to go all the way back I would consider that his pre- rookie and then his actual true rookie um a lot of people think it’s the SP authentic Auto but there’s actually a 2012 game used like base card that I consider his his true rookie you know what’s interesting about base cards in golf is that the only one that I really hear about much is the Tiger Woods 2001 number one unless we’re talking from the 80s like Don Russ Jack Nicholas rookie card but nowadays it almost seems like rookie cards aren’t talked about uh or sorry base rookie cards aren’t talked about all that much what do you think yeah I think that’s fair I think when people think of like rookie cards in the Modern Age A lot of them you know people think of autographs or rpas uh so that’s fair because he has a beautiful 2014 sp sp authentic that’s numbered to 299 so that’s iconic but you know I’m I’m kind of you know I’m partial to things that come really early so I love pre- rookies and true rookies those are like my outside of set collecting those are my favorites so I think it’s kind of cool and refreshing that it’s a base card um good thing though is that they weren’t like printed to the moon like the 2001 set was so they’re actually still pretty rare for being a base card nice nice so that was 2012 SP game used and then was there anything in 2013 or just 2014 suddenly his his yeah he had a ton of Goodwin right so that’s when Goodwin came out and there’s tons of good win cards from 2013 for Rory uh and then we get to 2014 with all the s P authentic and and all that fun stuff awesome right on okay next name John ROM quick take on him uh I’m a big fan of John Ram I I love watching him play I love his swing every time I’m on the Range I try to replicate that short back swing I could never pull it off so um yeah I mean I think he’s a great player I think I have no ill will from him for joining Liv I think that was a really cool decision and it’s going to help grow that so overall big fan of John and and love seeing a win last year so yeah what do you think John well I find it funny so your your gut instinct on Rory was a little bit of not negativity but a little hesitancy uh John ROM love him so now I see what side of the fence you’re on no I’m just kidding uh the the whole live versus PGA thing is has gone too far so I I I’m like you I don’t hold anything against him I was shocked when he joined uh to be frank um I was listening to a podcast recently uh and and the guys were talking about uh the golf analysts were saying John ROM almost he doesn’t seem like he regrets going to live but he seems frustrated at how slow this whole agreement is moving along it almost seems like when he joined right after uh the Masters last year or maybe not right after the Masters but you know this time last year is he thought that he was going to be back on the PGA tour come January 2024 that that’s almost the impression they’re they’re getting is that this framework agreement would finalize on schedule because it was supposed to be finalized in like December and that you know he would just get this big payday and then be able to kind of playing on both sides of the fence um and so you know it almost seems like in his interviews he is saying two different things one of them obviously he’s being a script given to him by Liv so um you know but on a personal level I don’t hold anything against him I think he’s a fantastic player um you know another aspect that you and I should probably just ban her about right now is is what are the chances so uh we can skip on Rory but you know what do you think uh Ron ROM’s chances are on a back toback uh I I think backto back is so hard to pull off and even the best players in the game um you know we’re barely able to pull it off once so I think I think it’s a pretty low chance I think there’s too much pressure I think he’ll play well but if I was a betting man I I don’t think he has a good chance of winning this week well I would say there’s uh 87 other qualified candidates to win The Masters so you’re probably uh I I would probably have to side with you there you know he very well may come top 10 he may have an excellent finish but at the end of the day only one guy can win uh so what about ROM cards I mean I know what I know what the answer is but let’s hear it from you yeah kind of the polar opposite of Rory um there’s very few cards um we have a sports illustrator for kids back in 2019 um you can either get that cut or you can get the uncut sheet and that’s kind of your options I know um anecdotally there is some old sets that the USGA used to put out that used to hand out cards apparently there’s a John ROM version of that card so that’s a 2015 card but I don’t own it and I’ve never seen it so it’s something I’ve kept my eyes out for there’s a couple other players that have this like usgaa set as some of their pre- rookies but again if you’re like talking about official licensed pack pulled cards there’s nothing until you know later in the year and the sports Soul TR for kids was 2016 is that raid uh I think it was 2019 oh 2019 wow so he had to a little while to get his rookie okay he did um all right not not much to not much card talk with ROM so next and I know there will be some chat with this guy will alores will yeah I will say I want to know your take on him as a person cuz honestly I I haven’t listened to a lot of his interviews or followed I’ve only watched him play throughout the round so I don’t really know about a lot about his background but I will say from the card collecting slash sort of Upper Deck World they are pushing him hard so I’m kind of curious your take on that as to why you think he had so many cards compared to other players um around the same age he’s an interesting guy I did an entire episode on will zores uh number of months ago when he made his return uh at the Genesis open in January at the same time as Tiger Woods made his return to action both of them were coming off pretty significant injuries and you know it’s interesting when he first hit hit the scene he was an absolute nobody like nobody was talking about him leading into the uh whatever random PGA event it was um but like within a few short months suddenly he was contending at the master his name was at the top of the leaderboard um he has won one one or two events I forget which ones um and so he kind of went from RS to riches like pretty quickly like and and with that you know you’re he had a lot of like people trying to figure him out and so I don’t know if he’s really put his full personality out there I feel like I don’t feel like he’s super guarded but I just I feel like we haven’t really got to know him yet um especially since we missed out on 6 10 months whatever it was that he was injured sure but what I can say from this year is that uh when he returned he came dead last place shot like 10 over par or something terrible and he really he looked shaky but I am so impressed with how he is bouncing back he has some strong mental and physical fortitude to come back completely crap the bed and then week over week make incremental improvements to the point where after a couple months he’s playing fantastic golf again and it was really he just really had to shake off the rust so I’m really I’m happy to see that and the one kind of interview that sticks out of my mind is um it was an event gosh I don’t I don’t think he won I think he came second place and he had just had a family member pass away like that Thursday like the first day of the event and it was someone he was close to and so he wasn’t you know holding back his emotions he didn’t go on and on about it but his interview was very heart moving and you know definitely gave me a lot of empathy for what he went through and how somehow he managed to have an incredible tournament nonetheless and you know that I it just resonated with me on an emotional level that’s awesome yeah that’s so inspiring like that that makes me just that right there you know I love rooting for the underdog I love a good comeback story so I would love to see him win again that’d be really cool so as you said has really been pushing him in their products so let’s talk a bit about his cards yeah I mean shockingly like when we when I went into this sort of conversation when I was looking up some of these cards he actually has the most cards of anybody we’re going to talk about other than Tiger Woods wow um over 480 cards unique cards does that includ does that include serial numbered parallels different colored Vari that includes everything that includes all the superg glow stuff that isn’t as you know official as the Upper Deck stuff but that includes everything um so that’s that’s a a huge amount of diversity there again more than three or 4X than most of the people on the list or more so I thought that was pretty interesting um and again just like most if you go back to the the very start there is a sports illustrator for kids uh that’s actually 2019 so that’s actually a year before ROM uh which is interesting so if you wanted to go back early for him it’s a Sports Illustrated for kids and then from there you have your pick of so much other than that so you have superg glow uh you have upper deck game dated moments and then you go into the sky Skybox metal universe and you can get all those parallels in the pmgs and uh yeah so there’s there’s actually a ton of diversity probably more than any other young player so zator is interesting with his cards because his first pack pulled cards I mean other than super glow I don’t know if I’d call that pack pulled they I think the super breakes or whatever the company’s called does package them up and and maybe have some randomization to it but in terms of like uh mainstate companies um his first rookie pack pulled cards were for metal Universe Champions that’s interesting hey that is very interesting I I think it’s pretty rare for having for someone to have a pack pull the rookie card be from a multi-card set I think that’s pretty cool so then eventually he ended up in other multisport sets like Goodwin Champions I think he’s been in a couple years of Goodwin Champions if my memory is right yep and then we also got him in the new Upper Deck golf releases of 2024 I assume he’ll be in the others as well is that kind of an exhaustive list yeah that is so again unless we go into the details there I think that’s I think that’s a perfect explanation of it’s like we have superg glow which if you’re not a fan of that’s okay and then yeah the sky medal stuff I would consider his his true rookie stuff and then yeah there’s a couple years of Goodwin and this latest set of 2024 and I assume the next two stats with 224 I’d be shocked if he wasn’t included in that but we’re going to have to wait and find out for that right on let’s talk talk about somebody who was crazy hot at the end of the season last year and then and then so it’s Victor Hind and it’s interesting because Upper Deck has a challenge on their hands because he you know was playing so well I don’t remember if he made it to world number one maybe three or four but he was on fire he couldn’t lose and then this he takes a break for the fall comes back I’m not going to say he’s playing poorly but he he just he’s not making any splashes and upper deck has to to predict this cycle to say who’s going to be our poster boy for you know the big rookies this year and if they you know were to pitch their Wagon on havland it just released at the wrong time yeah that that’s always been a struggle over there is if you look back to the early early sets you know you can look at the rookie cards and you know maybe 10 or 20 10 or 20% of them are relevant right so I think that’s an issue they’re always going to have um they do their best but yeah I agree that like back in 2022 2023 he was super hot that’s when they started coming out with the the game dated moments card so you know know print on demand where you purchase it and then they print it so those are really cool those are like my first cards that I owned of Victor havin were those game did moments so I loved watching him I love um he’s very like Relentless never gives up never really shows too much frustration on the course very even killed and just a really strong player so I’d love to see him bounce back a little bit and and play better but but yeah I agree with your assessment there that like he would he’s a perfect candidate for like a young gun and like rookie cards but it’s unfortunate that it didn’t come out in like 2022 or 2023 hopefully turns it around a masters win would sure help him with that in terms of cards you mentioned game dated moments he’s got cards this year you know what can you tell me about those yeah I mean he’s he’s in the in the latest 2024 sets which is cool he has a couple base cards in the uh one through 100 set there’s like two of them like some season highlights where they kind of highlight certain moments of his season so those cards are really cool and then he has a young gun um So Young Guns are great like you kind of told me they’re iconic from other for so I think if you’re a fan of him you got to pick up one of his Young Guns and then you have lots of parallels um there’s like clearcut parallels he’s part of the clear cut Legends which is this cool kind of portrait where they just have their kind of head on this Crest and it’s kind of a clear background which is cool he has an extremely rare cleared for launch card that’s like one in 4,000 packs so you can get a little bit of everything if you want just base cards if you want parallels or if you want really rare Chase cards it’s kind of all there for Victor huge thank you to James for joining me anybody that I can nerd out about golf cards like that is going to be a great friend of mine and honestly worth listening to for any of you listeners just because you can sense his passion and hopefully mine as well so uh card of the week this week is a giveaway it’s actually the first place prize for the funneling cardboard Masters Pool and it is a tall booy card so it’s not a stand trading card size it’s a 1997 to 99 Grand Slam Ventures Tiger Woods rookie card this is uh not a pack pulled card these were basically came in a set a couple of years of release one of them was a gold foil version one of them is kind of like a regular version uh this one just happens to be a high grade so this is a an SGC 9 with ultramodern cards you hear SGC and you just see the number nine and you think oh that’s not a high grade but looking back at the n it’s crazy to think this card’s over 25 years old um they actually are notorious for sticking together like you know how cards in the 7s 80s whatever would brick together and you have to peel them apart and the surface would kind of tear a little bit um anyways these are notorious for that so to have a card graded as an SGC 9 is fantastic this is actually the card that’s been in my Instagram profile picture for a long time uh I really loved this card I had a great time uh owning it but uh the the winner of the fonding card board Masters pool uh hopefully will enjoy it just as much as I did as I mentioned earlier about some other card uh the Nicolai hodg guard that I pulled myself out of an upper deck uh artifacts hobby box you can’t keep a card with you when you go uh the cards aren’t going to get buried with you so uh I have so many cards that I enjoy even the ones that I’m still enjoying it could be time to to let go I mentioned it earlier to the new listeners check out the catalog of my uh backdated episodes but for you regular list listeners you know the deal um and for you newer listeners especially those of you who came here because you heard me on stacking slabs in the words of Brett McGrath tell a damn friend about the podcast I would keep doing this even if there was just you a single listener out there but the more listeners that join the community the more rewarding this journey feels for me I don’t know why I don’t need a million listeners but the more messages I get the more people who are enthusiastic about golf cards the more people who want to reflect on their own colle ing habits and understand why we collect cards just makes me feel better about it all so anyways I would say see you next week but actually I’ll see you again [Music] tomorrow ridiculous golf cart collector
