In this week’s RotoWire Golf Rundown, Keith Stewart of Read The Line and RotoWire’s Len Hochberg examine why so many long shots are winning so far in 2024. They then turn to the Cognizant Classic and what it takes to win at water-laden PGA National. Keith and Len finish it off with their favorite DFS and betting plays.
Here comes the Roa wire rundown from Mexico and the West Coast Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic we are heading to Palm Beach Gardens and the cognizant classic in the Palm Beaches a really official name of course I’m Keith Stewart from RE the line I’m joined by Len hawber from
RotoWire Len there’s a lot going on in golf right now right we’ve had this match number nine last night it’s two weeks to the players seven weeks to Magnolia Lane Anthony Kim is coming back he’s in Saudi Arabia what what do you got for me in all this this
Like the rundown it’s like we might need two hours okay I’ll re I’ll rearrange my schedule but uh yeah there is there you know the match last night I didn’t happen to see it but I got a little bit of a report on it and uh you know
Apparently it was fun and Light and all of that that sort of thought so uh you know Max Hol is enjoyable and Lexi Thompson and you know the whole gang so uh you know if that’s your thing that’s great and if Anthony Kim uh is your thing that’s great 2010 called though
They want their Anthony Kim back and um and and and I defy anybody to tell me what a cognizant is but I digress that’s well I tell you what um I guess my highlights from match number nine uh first would be DJ khed because he thought he was playing uh number two
Is that Lexi Thompson um she was she was she was great selling herself I thought she did a fantastic job and of course all of these matches if it not for Charles Barkley I don’t know what we would watch three and a half hours to
Play 12 holes was a little brutal and uh uh not nearly as ex life yeah yeah pretty much not nearly as exciting about as all the talk about Anthony Kim but 12 years is a long time I can’t think I mean you know you know Sports in and out
Can you think of an athlete that’s ever taken more than a decade off and then came back and and has ever been relevant uh no and I think this came up on Twitter uh maybe at my uh urging uh I started the discussion who came back
After who has ever come back after 10 10 years 12 years and has been good or anything and and I don’t think there is and um there were some names involved there but um you know I mean he’s 38 he’s 38 I don’t know how much he’ll be
Bouncing around the course like he was then um you know I I don’t know what to expect from this and uh it’s a very soft Landing you know half a world away in Jetta 12 people there um you know he picked a very easy spot to come back if
There is an easy spot to come back yeah his re-entry is definitely at a spot where there there probably won’t be too much burn that’s for sure and you know I mean he he provided great stories in theater back in the day I remember when
He set the record at I think it was like 2009 when he played Augusta one day and he made 11 birdies in one round I mean that’s what we remember Anthony Kim for it was 12 years ago but hey I 2024 we’ve got some great stories in golf Jake knap
Here’s another one in Mexico we are now what seven weeks into the year and Jake knap has the lowest pre-tournament odds of any winner so far this season I mean ah will will a favorite ever win in 2024 you know uh you know there’s two
Sides to this coin here I mean you know as sports fans I think many of us most of us we all root for the long shot the underdog the the wonderful story um and we certainly gotten a heavy dose of that on the PGA tour so far this season uh n
Bigger than Nick Dunlop but Jake knp maybe right there one and onea but I don’t know how happy the PGA Tour is about this they like it a little bit but where are the stars on Sunday afternoon on TV um you know a lot of the biggest names um sheffler schofl Klay spe
Thomas um these guys haven’t won in well sheffer’s the of the those names coming up on a year and everyone else is a lot longer than that so I don’t think this is great for the PGA Tour uh if you’re in Pon aidra no well I tell you it’s interesting because you
Know now he’s the favorite bu long shot last week but that doesn’t move the needle you know and is great as this Jack uh this Jake knap story was right like I mean we’re coming into the cognizant classic we’ve got in the last 14 years at the cognizant classic there National
We’ve had seven winners at plus 3500 or less and seven winners at 8,000 or more so I I think score for another wild week you know I can’t even imagine I mean when do you think we’ll actually get a favorite I mean Rory at the match last
Night didn’t look greater he didn’t look really focused you know I ODS on favorite this week but do you see him pulling it off uh I would have to say no um you know one out of 144 golfers so you know the chances of him winning he you know
He won already this year I believe in Dubai on the DP World Tour so so he’s got some game and he didn’t look great at uh Riviera got off to a slow start there and didn’t really do anything um yeah no I I I I’m you know I’m not
Not to get ahead of ourselves with our picks but I don’t have Rory on my on my list this week and it really wouldn’t surprise me if somebody much farther down the uh the betting pole uh won again this week it seems like that type of week could happen again
Well you know everybody wants to hear your list and my list and in building that list we got to look at the skill set now we’ve been coming to PGA National since 2007 in the Champion Course very difficult Golf Course a lot of history there to go through Bermuda
Grass all of that in your research this year I’m I’m sure you’re going to give me a couple of skills that have stood the test of time there but did anything new pop up so what are you looking at this year when you start to build your
LPS as far as skill set need needed in order to do well at the cognizant classic we do have one new wrinkle and maybe even more than a wrinkle they changed the long par 41th into a short par five um you know very often the winning score at PJ National is single
Digits or close to it not last year 14 under the guys put it out of their mind and they got to 14 under um but maybe those singled digit days are over when you sort of get four Strokes uh you know from the Par Four to the short par five
But uh but overall 15 holes with water just this course is the opposite of a birdie Fest it’s a bogey Fest and maybe even a double bogey Fest it traditionally either leads or is very near the top on the PGA tour in double Bogies collectively in a tournament
Every year there’s just so much water and there’s so much trouble so what you know looking for for guys who can get the ball in the Fairway get the ball on the green make your two putts you know get from point A to point B as economically as possible take your par
Your occasional birdie and move on not looking for any Cowboys this week I don’t want any guys you know which is sort of the opposite of draftking scoring that rewards risk uh I think that could be trouble this week so it’s a difficult balance but I’m looking for
More conservative golfers this week and guys who are good at both avoiding Bogey and guys who get the ball in the Fairway and get the ball in the green and get to the next te well you brought up one of my new facts and that is the change of
The par from 70 to 71 I’m with you I I I don’t think that that’s going to change much from a scoring perspective the guys might shoot you know one or two more under par but we have to remember at this golf course or this tournament if
You shot 10 under par you’d win seven of the last 10 years so this is a tough spot and I I think the guys are getting get a little bit of a break this year it definitely caught my eye in the superintendent report that they’ve gotten a ton of bad weather down there
In southeast Florida lot of rain a lot of cloud cover the turf seems pretty sparse that Bermudagrass rough is really what causes a lot of the trouble for the guys off the tea and around the green if it’s a little thinner than it has been because of the difficult winter I think
We’re going to see a little bit more driver heavy little more power Laden lineups that are going to score better and you know I think that in and around the greens it may not be as difficult to get up and down if the Bermuda grass is
Suffering a little bit and you know the weather looks great this week a typical week there at PGA National we’re going to get some wind um you know the bear trap is going to play downwind which is a good thing which is their predominant win there you know I always want to keep
Keep an eye on five six and seven those holes as well because it’s like the front bear trap it it almost plays more difficult that well it does play more difficult historically than the bear trap on the back nine and I guess the really the place that I focus this week
Is that that par three scoring holds five seven 15 and 17 are your par threes this week and you’ve got to be able to survive these four holes over the course of four rounds especially the first two rounds in order to make the cut and I think they kind of provide or they
Encapsulate what you need to do well here which is you’ve got to be a great approach player if you miss AG green on a par three which your are you’re going to do over the course of four rounds you’ve got to be able to get up and down
From that Bermuda grass and you have to be able to putt that Bermuda grass and I’m sure all of those factors are going into your model when you came up with the names let’s you know let’s go through it we’ll start at the 10K range certainly Rory’s at the top of the list
You know I gotta call you out last week you said we never get 12K Tony was at 12K and then Rory’s 122 this week I mean what’s going on with this pricing it it seems so topheavy start the breakdown focus on the 10K range what do
You got for me yeah just to to your point about the the pricing we we may be this is the second week in a row we’ve had golfers in the 12s and we have a ton of golfers in the fives so I probably need to make a call or get some
Information and see if this is the new model for DraftKings is this if this is the way they’re going to do things their algorithm or whatever has changed but it’s it is a very big change 12,2 is a very big price and really I think it’s if unless you win that’s tough to
Pay up for that he’s 1,500 more then the next guy which is Cameron young um and Cameron young is a you know he is a terrific player in a lot of ways but he is really ferocious off the tea he just lets fly I don’t know if that’s the best
Combination for this course where you’ve got to take your foot off the gas uh you don’t need distance as much you’re it’s only 7,100 yards um there’s really only one guy in the 10,000 the other guy number three Matt Fitzpatrick not playing well Russell Henley is really my
Only call in the 10,000s you know he’s won here uh number of years back but just a very steady tto green player this is a course where you can get by with mediocre putting uh a lot of the year you don’t have to putt great you just
Have to putt okay and if you do everything else well which he pretty much does you can come away uh what I really do like is the nines and I’m very heavy in the nines with Eric Cole JT Poston Ben on Chris Kirk Daniel burger and Corey Connors uh you know there’s a
Lot there and you with the you know you can certainly get three of those six or three of whoever you want of those nine into your lineup quick question on burger right he’s making this big comeback and you know has he shown you enough I mean I know he’s been very very
Good at the Honda which is now the cognizant over the years we remember him having a bunch of top five finishes one year he had the lead and he lost it but like has Burger shown you enough that now that he’s back someplace comfortable that you feel pretty you feel pretty
Good about playing him huh you know as I wrote In My article live on Roa wire right now the rotowire.com uh you know when I take my hunches and he’s kind of a hunch for me this week I don’t like my hunches normally to begin with a price
Tag of nine I’m much more hunchy in eights and sevens or even even sixes but you know I I’m sort of taking my Cube from will zalatoris who you know showed us a 13th at the farmers and that told me he was back uh and Daniel Berger
Hasn’t had a 13th but his best was his last time out 28th at Phoenix so in combination with his history him getting better his best time La his best uh result last time out his course history here the field even though there are a lot of good names here it’s still it
Falls off pretty far pretty fast to a lot of bad guys uh you know in the second half of this field all those things led me to believe that he could really make a dent this week maybe not win but certainly be on our television sets on Sunday afternoon I tell you you
Know from an outright perspective or even from a placement card perspective I’ve spent way too much time thinking about Daniel Burger already this week because I’m with you the the whole zalatoris recency bias and how when he got back to someplace really comfortable like Riviera he just kind of took
Off really catches my attention Jake knap caught our attention last week he’s sitting there in the 8K range you’ve got another guy who just everybody loves in DFS and Stephen joerger he’s got two top threes and his last three STS s break down the eights for us yeah
I’m very interesting that I discovered what I discovered with with my research here and where I led myself only W 10,000 nine guys in the six are in my picks one guy in the eights just not liking a lot there and it is joerger who
Has made 22 straight cuts uh on tour uh really coming into his own and you know would not be a total surprise to see him win not maybe not this week but soon but I do like him in the eights and he’s the only one that really caught my eye and I
Try and get all price ranges but I also don’t want to pick a guy I’m really not really on board with I have four guys in the sevens senson Biden hoot Brendan Todd Doug gim so maybe you can pair your nines with your sevens if you want to
Follow along with my uh my picks yeah I mean the sevens run the Gambit all the way from Tom hogi to Billy horel and I think that there’s way more value there than the eights I agree with you as I looked it over and and got ready to have
A conversation with you about it today um we’ll bump down to the sixes then since you just listed your sevens um on a week like this now we’re getting into a really difficult Golf Course the sixes the fives what’s your strategy here they just have to make the cut how how are
You building the remainder of your lineups how are you researching these guys because some of them um they’ve they’ve had more popularity than maybe they should recently with all of these kind of long shot winners but these guys aren’t the best players in the field of 144 so get after it with
The sixes and the fives for us and give us some names you know I think when the courses get more difficult and this certainly is that uh the better golfers are the ones that I gravitate toward the birdie fests and that we see a lot at the beginning of the year and then
Sprinkled in throughout the rest of the year that’s the real opportunity for the long shots to win um you know Hawaii uh AMX uh you know that met last week Mexico Big Time birdie Fest that’s where guys can get hot and go but the real skill shows at a PGA National and stuff
So uh it is a little bit tougher to to find guys this week um in the 6000 eckroad uh he gets the ball in the Fairway you know that’s a guy I’m looking at this week uh Carson young hey he’s the second best C young on the PGA
Tour I’ll give him that uh he had a good week last week he’s very good on approach play Justin laow very good on approach play these guys seem like conservative golers I’m not expecting a really big week from them I’m looking to make the cut and then maybe catch a
Little bit on the weekend and go from there you know not really talking to people who are playing the million dooll games and stuff I think the V majority of people want to get six for six through the weekend make a little whatever you know go out to dinner after
It whatever um and these are the guys who I think you know foot soldiers if you want to call them and two guys in the 5000s I don’t know what’s going on with these 5000s but Sam Ryder has been a great iron player approach player back
From when he was at the corn faery tour um you know not having the greatest year this year and all the way down to 5,400 Patrick Harrington who won this tournament uh granted nine years ago but he made the cut last week at Mexico he
Made seven of eight cuts on the PGA tour last year one of which was this tournament I love Patty Harrington this week I’m glad you brought him up and you know the 56k range is interesting it’s that whole kind of question like everybody was really into Davis Thompson
Last week out there in Mexico right and then all of a sudden we come to a much harder golf course he’s sitting there in I believe in the six K range like do you still because that guy seems like he was trending or you really want to go back to the
Guys that are just the best players and have proven it more over time you know you know candidly I did not considered Davis Thompson this week but but when you said his name I I said maybe I maybe I should have maybe I overlooked him it’s it’s easy to overlook when they’re
144 uh you know but um you know he didn’t play badly last week he you know you when you’re on Davis Thompson in a field like Mexico you’re thinking top 10 what did he finish about 25th or close to top 25 some something like that which maybe from our
Perspective was a little disappointing based on all the other characteristics of the tournament but um you know I mean that’s a that’s a decent week and the obviously comes in on form yeah I think though I I hear your sentiment in between the words though
And that is is that we’ve got to take guys at a place like this with um forget the ceiling as much as where’s the basement right you know like a mark hubard versus a Davis Thompson I get that Davis has been popping lately but Mark hub’s been pretty Steady Eddy down
In that range and he seems to me like he’s going to get you closer to a six for six so I mean that’s kind of like when I read between the lines for what you’re saying there I I get it and and I do the same thing when it you know when
I’m going to talk about who who’s going to win from an outright perspective right sometimes the same names repeat and there’s a reason why that you know most guys the the average player on the PGA tour makes roughly 75 to 80% of their yearly earnings and about a
S well if you look at a guy like JT Poston who’s sitting there right at plus 3,300 look at his start to the year right fifth at the century sixth at the Sony 11th at the AMX you know 20th at Pebble then he misses the cut in Phoenix
And he comes back and he’s finishes top 10 at Genesis and I started thinking about it you know last year I was all over Chris Kirk plus 3,000 and he won Chris Kirk went he went third third miscut at Phoenix and then he won at Honda so like these guys coming in they
Have to be in good form another name that I you know JT post Bermudagrass all day long and the way that he’s striking his irons I think makes him really dangerous this week um Guy Tom hogi the two best ball Strikers I saw at Genesis were Adam senson and
Tom hogi comprehensively speaking like the guys that hit it the absolute best now senson didn’t put it good and hogi was a he had a couple doubles which were kind of like loose but you know hogi was right there finishing seventh senson was 10th but hogi at 5500 I still think this
Guy is a huge threat because he is a winner he can play berm I mean he set the course record at s TPC Saw Grass last year you know I mean like there’s a lot there’s a lot going on there he he’s had four top 20s at his last five starts
I think he’s the type of guy when I go back to that like par three blueprint that guy from 175 to 200 yards is just going to knock down flag sticks all day any he Canen putt Bermuda so for me those are going to be my two names
Poston and hogi that I’m sharing this week um you know thoughts on either one of those even senson if you throw him into the mix well I did mention Poston and senson so yeah I’m very high on both of those guys this week I you know poston’s just been
Playing we think of Poston as a Putter and he is but his putting is actually a little off this year you know he’s not one of the top 10 best Putters statistically but if the rest of his game is greatly improved sort of like Denny McCarthy last year although Denny
McCarthy didn’t you know he was always a great putter he started to do some other things well last year and he became a better player and um JT Poston is doing a lot of things very well this year and I do like him again this week uh you
Know certainly in this field Tom hogi I really gave him a lot of thought I really gave him a lot of thought I have a lot of trouble with Tom hogy who um some guys we pick them and they don’t play well and then they play next week
And uh it’s just sort of you know just no Rhyme or Reason there but he has a lot of good weeks and and then he T like then he turn you know the clock strikes 12 and he goes back to Tom hogi from three years ago so um but yeah he’s only
7900 uh Tom hogi I know because I looked at him a lot and he certainly could uh is is a viable option yeah there’s no doubt and you can see it in his facing too you know at Genesis uh he had a couple good weeks and he was still
Sitting in the 125 range and now he’s less than half that so um we’re going to a ball Striker Golf Course you’ve brought up a bunch of ball Strikers today so have I folks load your lineup with guys that can hit their irons and can definitely play on Bermuda grass I
Know Poston and Henley I mean Henley you know Henley and Poston have had great starts to their year so far and they’ve been on a grass that they don’t like to putt on you bring them over to Bermuda grass and it could be lights out so I
Like where your head’s at another great week on The Rundown Len um cognizant classic was the Honda forever I think 1982 now the cognizant classic and I think we need to be cognizant of the fact that some of these big names need to be playing better two weeks to the
Players seven to Augusta The Rundown next week I’ll be at Bay Hill for the API anything before we sign off I think everybody should do their homework and try and figure out what exactly a cognizant is because uh I had no idea and I went and I read and I
Still have no idea what cognizant does but I’m sure they do it very well well hey I think they print money and if you follow our names you’ll print some money too we’ll catch you next week on The Rundown everybody
