In this week’s RotoWire Golf Rundown, Keith Stewart of Read The Line and RotoWire’s Len Hochberg turn their attention to the Valspar. But not before looking back at THE PLAYERS and wondering whether to fade the top guys after a tough week at Sawgrass. Then Keith and Len will identify the type of golfer to target at Copperhead before doling out their favorite DFS and betting plays of the week.
Back in the studio and it’s time for the Rota wire rundown my name is Keith Stewart from Reed the line I am of course joined by my counterpart in crime none other than award-winning fantasy sports writer Mr Len hawber from rir Len the players it’s behind
Us give me a couple of thoughts what were your big takeaways from Scotty’s back-to-back victories from API in Aon ofra Beach and all that took place well I guess one of my thoughts is uh I don’t want to be a professional golfer unless my name is Scotty Sheffer
These days because everybody else is going to be playing for second for you know as Larry Bird said in the three-point shooting contest many years ago which one of you guys is playing for second um that’s what it feels like here um and with the Masters coming up wow
But no it was a fantastic tournament is what golf fans all we wanted for so long big names big names with a close finish uh in a big tournament I mean everything came together it couldn’t have been much better than that uh when wendam Clark might disagree but uh it was just
Fantastic and how was it from your perspective on the course well you know what the weather was very good the golf course was completely under control so that did not become the headline story the headline story was your final four were in the top nine in the official world golf
Rankings and what more could you ask for we had four names there we had major winners we had guys that you know definitely were names that everybody knew on St Patrick’s Day Sunday uh the only downside for me and I’m still kind of reeling from this is that in my
Complete card at read the line I had Windam Clark at 55 to one so when that putt I don’t even know how that thing comes out uh it takes me back to the’ 08 US Open where tiger putt drops in on the low side and that’s the side that Clark was
On right and his drops and Dives in and I’m like man it’s just another example how somebody’s not Tiger Woods but h i digress it um we have to move on to the valpar and you know it’s just one of those things where um I I thought it was fantastic
It’s the flagship event of the PGA Tour um my biggest takeaway is that they are great at running events they they are just absolutely fantastic at running events promoting events it will probably take another podcast to figure that out um you know not their strong suit but but taking
That golf course and that field and having and have that much entertainment um surely was was just an awesome awesome week from my perspective being down there and even the way they take care of the media so um great week all around and but you know what we gotta
Move on we’re on to Tampa it’s time for the valpar championship so before we start to paint by the Numbers Len I got a question for you whether it’s like the Heritage the week after the Masters or it’s the colonial the week after the PGA or I know this isn’t a major
Championship but this was a big deal last week it’s the largest person men’s professional golf on the PGA tour the fifth major when you start to build lineup and you start to construct what you’re doing your articles and your Insider takes and all of that do do you find
That the week after a major that you steer away from some of the guys that were in the Limelight or you know do you just treat it like any other week and you kind of put it in a vacuum yeah I I I think there’s certainly yes I do
Consider that I mean you know a guy this week like guys like Jordan spe and Justin Thomas who didn’t make the cut I mean yet that that’s not a concern for them and if you’re playing Major minutes on S Sunday afternoon if you’re on TV on Sunday afternoon you’re in the pressure
Um especially the three guys who finished second is so close in such agonizing fashion you know it’s definitely a consideration can they get back there can they refocus can they get over there woe is me if they do have that in less than four days so it’s certainly a consideration if it’s a
Younger player uh would be more likely to fade them they might have trouble but a guy like you know Xander shop and Brian Harmon are in the field this week they’re veteran players they’ve been through Xandra schley’s been through a lot of Heartache uh in his career of of
Just coming close so I don’t think so he’s made every cut for you know going back to early 2022 so for a guy like Xander schafle no I I don’t think so I think he’ll be able to to refocus and and do the proper things to get ready
For a golf tournament come Thursday morning but it’s a good question and it’s certainly something I consider just quickly from a betting perspective I’m always GNA go with the hot hand you know statistically outside of the Scotties of the world and the tigers um you know guys on the PGA tour
They make about 80% of their earnings in a six to eight week span so if they’re warm you got to stick with them so when it comes to like the question you know I I started thinking about this because I was like do we want Sam Burns’s history
At vpar or do we want how hot Scotty and Brian Harmon are you know and you answered my question and I think in many ways you have to kind of consider all of them and when we go to consider what’s going to happen this week in advance of
The valpar championship you know I mean is this the toughest I mean let me go more big picture is the Florida swing the toughest four weeks that we see in any stretch on the PGA tour it’s crazy these these golf courses are really hard yeah they are all hard I mean you know
Saw Grass was a little bit easier we’ve seen it you know now 20 under uh the conditions were perfect uh for scoring I don’t know maybe you know with more wind it would have uh you know negated some of the uh the scoring but yeah Bay Hill
Is a beast PGA National is a beast and Copperhead may be the hardest of them all um you know last year 10 under the winning score very often single digits the winning score um you know they only four holes played under par at Copperhead last year and
They were on all the par fives every par three and every Par Four played over par Taylor Moore one and 10 under he was seven under on the par fives three under on the rest of the course uh you know there is trouble lurking and difficulty
Lurking so yeah I I think you can make a case that this is the hard you know the hardest course maybe the hardest non- major course the golfers will see all year yeah I concur on that and when I opened last year the uh gcsaa report and the superintendent was talking about how
They were going to raise the rough three4 of an inch from three inches to 3.75 I was like these guys don’t tear this up to this place up to begin with and then this year they decreased the range of the intermediate cut around the greens from 72 Ines to 21 inches so now
You’re going to get into the rough real quick and these greens are about the size of those at the stadium course they’re small this isn’t Bay Hill so I mean for for me I think it’s it’s going to be a really tough Challenge and when
I look at the skill set a lot of positional um t- shots which get you very long approaches here uh the past you know five to 10 winners the the biggest separation that they find against the field comes in two places one it’s approach shots over two yards
And the second is putting in that like five to 15 foot range you know certainly I think the movement of the or the move in of the intermediate cut is going to add more to the around the green play but what are you looking at as far as
Skills that you think you know that you’re favoring in building out your lineups yeah it’s interesting because it’s not especially long it’s in 7300 yards plus it is only a par 71 though but they do do things to blunt distance they have dog legs there and the fairways are narrow there’s water on
Nine holes uh so they do some things and we’ve seen some guys uh who aren’t the the big hitters have won this tournament Through The Years uh so and you know so it it’s kind of an interesting test in that um you know it opens it up to other
Players as well which in some ways makes our job harder some ways makes it a little bit easier uh you know and one of the things that’s that that’s really really strikes me is how difficult it is to putt you just mentioned 5 to 15 feet
You know in that 10 foot and in range it’s uh it just seems to be so difficult at this course and quite frankly I don’t know why it’s Bermuda grass you know for the most part uh so it’s not you know it’s the Beloved Bermuda that these guys
Love and so what makes that so hard Keith all right well um they have Bermuda grass most of the year but in the winter time they overs overseed with that poet trivialis the same grass that we saw last week at Saw Grass the same grass that we see at TPC Scottdale um it
Kind of Smooths things out I I I think for the most part when you start to see guys not make a ton of putts between five and 15 feet that there are some subtleties in those greens that they’re just not seeing you know how many times have you watched coverage when the
Announcers who get to sit and watch the hole you know time after you know the guys that are positioned on each hole they go everybody keeps missing this on the high side these guys are so um similar in the way that they approach what they do like if you and I when we
Were out at Rivier if we went and we sat down on one of the par 3es like 80% of the balls are going to land in one area I mean these guys just always play to the same part of the hole and when they putt they tend to read The Greens in a
Very similar fashion and as a result I think that there’s just some subtleties in these greens that they haven’t seen at least in some time probably not since a place like Riviera which is also a tough place to putt I I think if you hit the greens at PGA National or you hit
Them at Bay Hill or definitely if you hit them so like last week there’s a lot of shelves but the areas that they’re putting in are aren’t very challenging right getting to the green at the Players seems to be more of what has really you know caused problems over the
Year or as a headwind for those guys but once they get on if they’re in the if they’re in the proper section of those greens you saw those guys make a ton of putts I mean Sam Ryder made 27 birdies Rory made 10 the first day I mean so
Like if these guys get it going that trivialis is super smooth so I think in a lot of ways not not everybody comes to this event all the time I don’t know that there’s a ton of familiarity and for those that are like a Sam Burns he
Wins a lot you know I mean we had I mean think about it if you knew the greens here then you’re going to do well and we’ve only had three winners in the last five years Paul Casey back toback and then Sam when I see that and when you
See that type of predictive nature of the field then you know that it’s it’s probably kind of tough to read those greens there’s some subtleties to them um this event moved a lot remember Len it was in September it was in October like they’ve had different fields it was
In May the first time Burns won it and then now it’s in March which is probably the best spot for it but overall I I think it just has a lot to do with you know the habitual nature of these guys the way that they all stereotypically
Read greens and there’s some tricks here that the superintendent knows that if you don’t play here enough and and these guys just simply don’t play here enough then they’re not going to get there and you know even at the top of the board as we move on into the names you know let’s
Talk about you know we’re talking 10K land not 12K land or you know at the Masters what’s Scotty gonna be like 13k I mean it’s G to be crazy right but 10K land your favorites Xander at the top of the board where are you going as we
Start to give out the names yeah Xander is at 112 he’s the top guy and you know some of the things that you asked about earlier were the very things I asked about Xander shopy well as well you know can he regroup four days later less than
Four days later and get out there and play he’s been through the situation so many times he’s clearly the class of the field he’s only played here once before I think he was like 12th or 13th a couple of years ago but he has come he
So close to winning uh and he’s had a number of good weeks already so far early in 2024 so I do like Xander shoplet this week Sam Burns I mean I’m not going to overanalyze it win win sixth place last year you know do we have to get into stats and everything
There’s obviously something here he likes yeah he plays well but one thing I do like about Sam Burns he seems to be more consistent this year you know he had a lot of big weeks he’s won a lot of times but he misses a lot of cuts for
One of the top players but I see this year that he’s he’s just sticking around more even when is you know he’s grinding more and that comes with experience and age and being on the tour a number of years he’s only in his mid-20s still so
I really like what I’ve seen from him just in general this year and Justin Thomas when we think you’ve got to make putts we don’t really want to think about Justin Thomas it’s uh kind of hard to watch him uh standing over a ball on the green but
Statistically uh in this field which has some big names at the top but drops off very far very fast he’s actually in the top third by my model in putting inside of 10 feet so and we know about the rest of his game so I like those guys those
Three in the upper half and people ask me have asked me about Jordan spe who was putting great but his approach play is terrible I mean you it’s like being on a roller coaster man take take your life into your own hands when you play Jordan spe
Man it could be fun it could be you could be sick when you’re done you know so I’m not going there this week well I gotta ask you more along the lines of your definition for you know been playing good for a while and had a couple close calls Xander hasn’t won in
Two years 2022 um sometimes those things weigh on you a little bit but you know you know there’s one guy out there that um in the 9k range that I mean he’s he’s become a big game hunter and we all know what he loves to do with his free time but is
Brian Haron your lead guy in the nines or are you focusing somewhere else because he’s probably gonna be super chalky yeah you know I’m not really looking uh at Brian Haron this week I did I did look at him but I’m I haven’t landed on him there’s not a lot in the
Nines that I really like I mean we’ll get to the what my sweet spots are in the eights and the sevens I think there’s a lot of choices there but the one play I like is is Nick Taylor uh at all the way down at 9100 and liked him
Last week he just missed the top 25 he was 26 you know one thing we do we look at Nick Taylor and one of the thing I I look at every week is how is it you know course history how’s a guy played at this course and with Nick Taylor we have
To sort of throw that out we absolutely have to throw that out because he’s just been a different player in the last two years and so it doesn’t matter what he did because he’s a better golfer now and um you know he is uh he did have a
Couple of weeks off recently I looked has he been playing a lot no he’s had a he took the first two weeks off of uh where he missed Mexico and then he Mi missed PGA National so this is his third week in a row not terrible I’m sure
He’ll take next week off so I do like Nick Taylor in the Nines in the AK there’s a name there and it reminds me of you know our golf Twitter betting world where um you see Keegan Bradley there and this was the original site where they came up with the full Keegan
Which is you know he went out in 68 and then he missed the cut I think he shot hockey sticks like 77 the next day um so in order to stay away from the full keegans in the 8K range who are you focusing on you know there’s some guys
In the eights who’ve just really been playing very well this year and maybe we’re just seeing them turn the corner to become I don’t know real PGA Tour golfers for lack of a better term Christian baz who has played very well this year and had a good week last week
He’s up around 8,800 and you might look at that and you go wow that’s a big price but really that’s a fair price for him in this field the way he’s been playing Doug gim NE top 16 five in a row just a great ball Striker he all he’s
Had to do all he’s had to do is putt less horribly to you know do better I mean you know we all know you know how hard that is but he’s seems to be putting less horribly and he’s been sticking around on the weekend and even
Getting on uh and TV and Maverick mcney um you know maybe the shoulder injury was a blessing yes he missed a lot of time and we don’t wish injury on anybody but he seems to come back now as a better golfer he just got himself back
In the top 100 he was on The Fringe of the leaderboard uh last week at the Players um you know these guys are G my NE the concern is they can’t they’re not going to play well every week they’re not Xander they’re not Scotty they’re
Going to have a clunker but I like to play guys when they’re playing well to not predict it’s going to end GNA predict it’s going to continue down in the 7K land we’ve got Taylor Moore our defending champ he’s played better as of late made some Cuts
Top 30s top 40s um does he come back to a place that you know obvious viously he has his first career win last year was a big deal does he come back like Burns and does he blow up or does he you know kind of still continue with his average
Play Down in 7K land sounds like you got some more people to Target from what you said earlier who do you like they do have guys in the seven and they do have a Taylor but not Taylor Moore Taylor Montgomery uh keep up with all your Taylor and your tyers and even your
Taylor GES who spell it differently it’s uh there’s a lot going on there but I do like Taylor Montgomery is one of the guys I like Andrew putam you know he’s a short hitter and you think on this course that’s going to be hard but we
Just see you mentioned Paul Casey uh you know not a long hitter he won here a couple times Adam hadwin um going back a lot of years Luke Donald uh I mean kind of maybe not a fair comparison that was more than a decade ago uh so much has
Changed equipment wise and everything in that time but there you know you don’t have to to be a super long hitter but Andrew putam he’s kind of boring he gets the ball in the Fairway he’s a pretty good putter you know I always like to say we don’t want any Cowboys this week
There’s a lot of water you can blow yourself up pretty fast and Sam Ryder I’m a little scared to pick Sam Ridder because I picked him twice recently when he was in the 5000s and he made the now he made the cut he had two top 25s even
Had a a junky back nine uh killed himself on the back nine on Sunday at The Players and he still finished 16th tied for 16 so he’s up in the 7000s now and again he he’s just a ball Striker so a good fit for this course but like I
Said with gim and mcney clock is going to strike 12 at some point for these guys it wouldn’t be surprising if it happened but I’ll still be on him this week does local boy Jimmy Stanger from Tampa make your list in the sixk land or
Who I mean this is where this is where the rubber meets the road we get down to K 5K and you start dropping Sam ryers and some of the other ones you know last week it was Francisco molinar in the five what was he 5100 and he made the
Cut break down the sixes and the fives for us yeah a lot of people have not been happy that web Simpson’s been getting a lot of sponsor invites and getting into a lot of Signature Events and stuff like that but I don’t think anyone has any problem with web Simpson
Playing this week he’s a bit of a name and maybe if he was on can make it to the weekend and and be on the leaderboard he would draw some eyeballs uh you know not like a Jordan Speed but he’s a name a name guy but he’s played
Pretty well here again he’s a conservative player he likes to get the ball in the Fairway and go from point A to point B is economically as possible he’s at 6,700 uh Bud colie um you know he’s come back from injury he was gone for years
And he was what 21st last time out I forget where he even was was it Honda uh excuse me the cognizant he finished 21st so you know down here at 6 down there’s not a whole lot to like for me so why not let’s see if bud colie can do it
Again Grayson Sig is very interesting he is maybe the worst short putter in the field by my model I mean there are like 150 guys better than him but he’s also really really one of the best long iron players he he he grades very high in the
Long parth threes all the par threes are long they’re all at least 200 well one is only 195 and there are five of them so that’s a big thing to consider and he’s and he’s a good iron player so can he get a high finish with his putter probably not but at
6,300 maybe we can get him to the weekend and the two guys in the 5000s I’m going to start trying to throw out two guys really really Bargain Basement guys who could possibly get there NI at javaria and he’s a tour winner you know that counts for something and uh the guy
The guy I mentioned earlier Luke Donald Luke Donald has played this tournament well through the years uh he won it back in 2012 he’s had some other good finishes I think he was 16th a couple of years ago uh you know and he hasn’t been
Good for a lot of years so look for Nick Donald to make it to the weekend at 5200 I think up on the betting board I got a couple names for you Len the first one is going to be an easy one and I’m going to try not to overthink this Sam Burns
And I love the way you put it earlier the way you framed it he’s been playing much more consistently he had those four straight top 10 and then he was he was on path to do it again at Bay Hill and he had kind of an abnormal Sunday I’m
Gonna throw that out the window he was also a little roller coaster at the Players but the players can be like that and he still can make a ton of birdies and you got to make a bunch of birdies here because there’s going to be some bogeys I mean the guy’s course history
Five starts he goes what 12th 30th first first six so I mean there’s a lot to be said there and there’s a lot to like there he obviously likes this surface to put on and if we know for a fact that other guys struggle here with the putter
I think it gives him an edge and then the other guy is you know he’s not gonna take any gimme putts but Doug gim man this guy I mean he’s been on a roll five straight top 20s he started the week over 60 to1 he’s now down approaching 40
To1 I’m not the so that means I’m not the only one one that’s seeing this but the ball striking suits this place to a te and you don’t always have to be the greatest putter here you have you know the be the best putter on tour you just
Have to be a good putter here and with the challenges the other guys face I I think it kind of it allows an average putter to putt better than some other people if they’re having a good week um I mean this guy in his last five starts
He’s gaining like seven strokes on the field and strokes gain total I mean it’s it’s unbelievable this run that he’s on and then I looked to last week where you know all this Focus was on him in our world in your DFS world and in my betting world they’re like well you know
Doug gim’s a great placement guy here he’s had some great success at SASS and everybody knew it coming in and then he still performed and the chip in on 17 showing a lot of poise there I mean you know is that better than Tiger’s putt because tiger was putting and Doug gim
Chipped it in you know where was Gary KO on that call I don’t know but those are are my two guys but you know real quick before we wrap before I wrap this thing um the valpar paint company right we all know that I’m curious we do this
Every week but you know sometimes I might want to take a minute or two to get to know you so quick one quick rapid fire question for you what’s your favorite color on haberg I I guess it would be blue it would be blue uh I don’t know I know
Valbar wouldn’t call it blue they would call it midnight blue or ocean blue or and they got 47 other other Blues but I’m just a simple guy I’ll say blue well I tell you I was feeling the blues on Sunday when windom’s putt lipped out but hey such is life in our
World you know the calendar you turn the page we’re on to the vpar it’s a pleasure being with you this morning everybody thanks for checking out thanks for checking out the rundown with Len and myself we’ll see you next week out in Houston we’re going to do the Texas
Children’s Houston open not a new event an event from the fall but a new place on the schedule we’ll have some fun with that Len all the best to you I’ll see you in a week nice blue windbreaker there Keith see you next week
