John Deere Classic Mega Preview | Picks, Storylines, Best Bets

The boys are back to preview the John Deere Classic at TPC Deere Run in Silvis, Illinois. It’s news, it’s storylines, it’s best bets!

#golf #pgatour #podcast #JohnDeereClassic

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⏰ Timestamps
0:30 – John Deere Classic Mega Preview Intro
1:44 – Which Time Zone Rules Golf Viewership?
3:25 – Sensible Time Zones & Evening Golf Talk
5:00 – ‘What A Week’ Hat Launch in Second Cut Merch
6:55 – Wimbledon & Zverev: Tennis Talk Break
10:23 – Why PGA Tour TV Ratings Are Surging
11:50 – Signature Events: Good or Bad for Golf?
15:22 – Should PGA Tour Signature Events Have Cuts?
18:58 – Why Friday Cuts Still Matter on Tour
21:34 – LIV Golf’s Big Dallas Crowd & TV Audience
23:45 – Rumors on LIV Golf’s South Africa Expansion
24:31 – John Deere Classic Betting Board Breakdown
27:30 – Why TPC Deere Run Is a Birdie Fest
29:14 – Zach Johnson’s Best World Golf Ranking
30:43 – Ben Griffin’s Hot Streak: Elite Consistency?
33:13 – Ben Griffin’s Ryder Cup Confidence
35:16 – Most Underrated Ball Strikers on Tour
37:39 – Greg’s Take on Lesser-Known Flushers
40:42 – The ‘Strokes Gained Sphincter’ Metric?!
41:40 – Kevin Yu vs Davis Thompson Matchup Picks
43:32 – Andrew Putnam vs Kevin Roy Betting Pick
45:47 – Kevin Roy vs Keith Mitchell: Who Wins?
47:25 – Best Finishing Position Bets This Week
49:36 – Outright Picks: Kevin Yu, Knapp, Gerard
53:02 – Why Denny McCarthy Could Win at Deere Run
54:41 – Why Michael Thorbjornsson Is a Popular Pick
1:00:30 – Deere Run Concert: Zac Brown Band & Dierks Bentley
1:02:30 – Fireworks Talk for July 4th
1:05:30 – DFS Strategy: Is Denny McCarthy a Lock?
1:08:30 – Lucas Glover’s Secret Deere Run Edge
1:12:30 – Kevin Yu & Ryan Gerard Breakdown
1:16:30 – Deep Value DFS Picks: Ventura & Chan Kim
1:21:00 – Golfers Naming Challenge – Fun Side Segment
1:27:00 – Final Thoughts & 4th of July Wrap Up

🎤 ABOUT THE SHOW
The Second Cut gets you everything you need in the world of golf on the PGA Tour and more! Tournament previews, storylines for each week, and in-depth players reviews. Hosted by Rick Gehman (@RickRunGood). Joined by Greg DuCharme (@therealGFD), Mark Immelman (mark_immelman), and Patrick McDonald (@pmcdonaldCBS).

Heat. Heat. Welcome in. It’s Tuesday. I’m looking at my watch. It says five o’clock. It actually says two o’clock. That’s how time zones work. But this is the mega preview pod for this week’s John Deere Classic. We’ve got news, we’ve got storylines, we’ve got best bets. We’ve got Mark Gimmelman. Hello, Mark.
Hi Rick. You know, you were doing that intro so great and I’m like, “Yeah, it’s five o’clock.” And then you ruined it by telling us where you were. You just should have kept going, bro. The you were selling the whole thing like a professional.
All right, I’ll sell it. I’ll sell it a little bit harder next time and leave my own time out of it. We’ve got Greg Ducharmm. Hello, Greg.
As they say, gentlemen, it’s 5:00 somewhere.
That’s right.
I’m glad that it’s here in uh what I would consider to be the time zone, which is Eastern time. Um so, yeah, fired up about that. Looking forward to the John Deere Classic. Total Birdie Fest. Can’t wait to chop it up with you guys.
Um how did Eastern time become the time zone? Uh I just think there’s the most people in it.
Yes. My Yes. And here’s my take, too.
The two major broadcasting systems, terrestrial, are both based in the east. Yeah,
that’s how I think it is.
That’s how I think it is, too. All right. Well, hold on. I can do this. Uh, population by time zones because I bet you it’s close.
You think Pacific you think Pacific’s pretty big?
Well, I mean, California alone has a tenth of the population of the country. This is true.
Well, well, here’s what I need to say to you while you’re figuring that out. Because I live right on the river in Georgia that splits Georgia and Alabama. So, if I drive over the river, it’s central time. If I stay in Columbus, it’s Eastern time, right? And um my old boss Lance Barrow from CBS used to call Central time because he lives in Fort Worth. He calls it sensible time. So, so, so I’m kind of partial to to sensible time a little bit to be really honest with you.
Well, I must um I must put my hand up. I am very far off on this. So, uh coming in, this is United States population, uh by time zone from the first Google result that I found. I not going to vet it. I’m sure it’s correct. Uh, coming in fourth place, Mountain Time, 6.7% of the population. Very predictable. Okay. Very predictable. This This was tough. Uh, Pacific time is is is third. Only 16% of the population. The vast majority of that coming from two counties, Los Angeles County and Orange County. A lot of empty land on the west coast with not a lot of people in it. 16
in out in them hills.
Out in them hills. Sensible time.
Sensible time
for Central time. Look at this. Coming in second place with 29% of the population living in central time. They get a lot of help from Texas. They get a lot of help from that looks to be Chicago and kind of
Yeah.
Yeah. those those uh populated areas in the middle of the map. And then Eastern time, a whopping a whopping 47% of the population living in Eastern time. Of course, all the major uh metropolises on the on the on the East Coast, they get Florida, they get all the states that are, you know, the big ones. So, yeah.
Yeah.
Well done.
Well, that’s why it’s the time. Uh, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. I’m not sure if I should be proud to live in Eastern time, but it certainly makes things a whole lot easier. There’s a lot of conversions for you, Rick. There’s not a lot of conversions in my life. I actually just refuse to make them.
The cool thing about where I live in the Eastern time zone is we’re as far west as you can go, right?
So, at this time of the day, I’ve got a lot of golf playing time. I mean, it it stays light for a long time. My buddy’s in Florida on the east coast there. um it’s already kind of duskish, you know, in the glaming and we’ve still got bright sunshine. So, it’s one of the benefits of being so close to the sensible time zone.
Yeah, that’s the thing. Depending on where you’re at in the time zone makes a pretty big difference. I mean, central time goes from basically Chicago to western Texas, which is that’s got to be like a thousand miles. That’s a big difference when it comes to daylight. So,
it matters. Doesn’t matter what time it is. Doesn’t matter what day it is because it’s always going to be a great week. A what a week cap has now made its way to the Second Cut merch store. Of course, second cutmer merch.com. That’s embroidered. Mina, is that correct? I think I heard her say yes. You want to unmute yourself and come in? Is it?
H. Yes, it is embroidered.
Thank you very much. Did you I don’t know if she knew she could do that. She can come in without uh with just Mike alone. So, the recap dad hat what a week is available. Not just that, all your hoodies and t-shirts and uh everything else that you could possibly think of with new additions coming every single day seemingly. And um Greg, this is really a tribute to you because you have you have now said a phrase so frequently we have embroidered it on a hat. Well, uh, the the funny thing about this going back to its origins is I said it very frequently without even realizing it. Um, and I never put a whole lot of thought into my intro. Like for instance, you say, “What’s up everybody?” And I on Sundays I was like, “What a week.” And then and then some somebody noticed it and I guess it became a thing. So I’m glad it’s a thing. I can’t wait to get that hat and wear it proudly. I don’t know if I’ll wear it on the air or not, but I will be wearing it.
Well, Greg, please don’t get one because there’s one arriving at your house in just a couple days because it’s an early birthday gift. Oh, well, thank you. Yep. The surprise is ruined. The surprise waiting. I was wondering what you were going to get me. Yes. Well, it is. It is on its way. Uh we are going to get to golf at some point here, but um I’m noticing a comment here, Mark, uh in the chat. It is from
It is from someone named Patrick McDonald. Uh serious. Yeah,
he would like he would like a word about a uh I believe it was a five setter this morning with your man going down at Wimbledon.
Yeah, it started last night. Um but Sasha Zerv is my favorite tennis player followed closely by Yanuk Ser and um when we were at the Canadian Open that Roscll Carlos Alcarez knocked off center in the final and Frank Nobel and I were just absolutely so despondent and the rest of the crew was over the moon. But I held, you know, Sasha, you know, bowed out early there at the French. And I was holding uh fingers crossed, thumbs holding thumbs and stuff for a big run here in Wimbledon. And he was so lethargic. I actually was texting with Patrick this morning because this is the time of the year that Patrick and I pay less attention to golf and and way more attention to tennis. And cool thing is next week when I’m in Scotland, it’s the second week of uh of Wimbledon. So, it’s going to be cool. I’ll be in the correct time zone, the BST. Um, so anyway, so I’m texting with Patrick and he, as usual, is going on about Emma Navaro because he’s got such a boy crush. It’s crush.
It’s a joke, right?
And so eventually I’m watching the Sasha game and it’s it’s crickets. There’s nothing from Patrick. So I figure I got to send him something. So I’m like pulling for Sasha’s Verv is like making me want to pull out my hair and I cannot afford to do that really. So we had some banter and then Sasha bowed out and um now I’m kind of sad but anyway center is still in thankfully. Yeah, there’s been a quite a few upsets already. A couple matches that had to be resumed today after stopping last night. There’s a strict curfew Greg 11 p.m. local time. Did you know that? strict or maybe it’s 10 o’clock, but there’s a strict curfew at women 11.
Uh I did know about the curfew. Uh I couldn’t have told you if it was 10 or 11, but look, that’s the coolest event in all of tennis in my opinion. Um and not close. So I I appreciate it. I appreciate the tradition of it. And this weekend I will probably tune in. I’ll probably watch some.
Yeah, it’s it’s the best. Okay, I guess it’s time to talk about golf. Let’s let’s get right into it. Let’s look back before we look forward. And uh Mark, I assume this is all thanks to you. But CBS Sports has delivered the most watched final round of the Rocket Classic in 5 years. 2.8 million viewers, up 13% from last year. This is the thing that I am more interested about because I don’t We’ve talked about this a lot. The It’s really hard to figure out what numbers are good, what are bad, does it include streaming, does it not? What would what was it against this time slot last year? What was the weather doing? Who was involved? All those questions. But this one has me interested. Golf on CBS has the most watched season to date since 2018. 3.2 million viewers on average. What is going on? Why are people watching more golf?
Gosh, I don’t know. First off, Alex, your question about uh who on the PGA Tour would be the best or worst tennis player. I would say Matt Coocher. Um I’ll just kind of leave that there. Um regarding
the best or the worst.
No, he’s the best.
He’s also a good table tennis guy, right?
Very good. I mean, he’s a good tennis player. He’s his father was the family was very much into tennis and his wife Cibby played tennis at Georgia Tech, I believe it is. So, there’s a lot of tennis in the family.
Okay. Um, regarding these ratings, it’s been nuts. I mean, we’ve got these messages over the last few weeks. Travelers had the same thing and it’s just cool to be a part of. I think a lot of it I think the algorithm of how they measure has changed because I believe they’re now counting streaming which is a big deal um because of Paramount. And then and then we’ve been really lucky with the uh with the signature events and we’ve had some great champions in the signature events. And so it draws eyeballs and draws attention. And then I think a lot of the well I think this is just me. I think it was it’s also a part of the fact that I believe a lot of the viewing public are sort of over the whole live PGA tour debacle and now they’re realizing that the tour has got some really cool players, some good names and there’s been some sweet storylines. So, we just been been lucky to be on the receiving end of that thing in all these great events we’ve gotten to cover. The signature event portion of this, Greg, I want to mine into a little bit. I think the tour would argue signature events have been a great success. I think I would argue they’ve been good, not great. I think there are still some adjustments that could be made. Give me 80 golfers with a cut to 50. I 72 to a cut to whatever. But that’s the one thing that I would fix. I think however a some portion of this is a benefit of the signature events and the fact that now the non-s signature events are getting statistically stronger fields. We saw the Rocket Classic and the John Deere basically getting some of the best fields they’ve ever gotten. I think that bleeds a little bit into the viewership as well. I I I think that’s at least one spoke of the wheel.
I think it’s a really big spoke of the wheel. Um, and you’re starting to see in this separation. Well, I’ll put it to you this way. A lot of a lot of those that are inside golf have something that they would fix with signature events. And I’m just going to leave myself out of it for right now. Um, but you mentioned a cut. That’s very common. Some people want more players, you know. Um, I I hear those kind of issues taken with signature events all the time. Uh, a lot of the players have issues with signature events. You know, they don’t they don’t necessarily believe in less golfers um being a good thing, but when you look at numbers like this and and look, it’s it’s mainly the for the year, the one you pointed out, Rick, uh, right? um up their their best year since 2018 across all CBS events, which both CBS and NBC have signature and non-signature events,
right?
So, you’re seeing a a rise on both networks. Um you’re seeing a rise in signature and non-signature events, and I think it’s generating more interest in the game in general. Um, and look, I I have long wondered, um, is putting all the guys together really the best thing, or is it good to have them spread out? Like, you might have gotten a handful of other guys. I’m not even going to name names, but you may have gotten a handful of other guys at the Rocket Classic this past week, but it doesn’t necessarily matter because we’ve gotten to know, you know, you you take the Rories and the Scotties and the Xanders and the real big heavy hitters, you and and you mix in some of these other players and and when they play well, now all of a sudden we know who the Ben Griffins are, right? As a and I’m saying we as the casual golf fan. Now, when Ben Griffin’s playing in the Rocket Classic, it’s a little more interesting and it’s a great way to develop stars. So, look, it’s it’s hard for me if I’m in the PGA Tour offices looking at this business. It’s hard for me to say, “Yeah, you know, the signature events need to be fixed.” It’s hard for me to say, “We need a cut.” Because it’s like, well, why does CBS need a Well, Golf Channel’s not going anywhere, right? Golf Channel lives on the PGA Tour. They need the PGA Tour. Um, but CBS, what why does CBS care about a cut? They don’t want a cut. I guess we kind of we kind of do for pace of play. Okay, but you take care of that with 70 players or 72 players, right? So, you get the same thing. So, now you’re looking at, well, I I’m CBS. I have the coverage for Saturday and Sunday. I’d rather have uh a greater chance of having bigger name players. I’d rather know who’s going to be playing regardless of what time they’re playing. You know, from a business standpoint, there’s a lot of good that comes from this. And the evidence that I’m seeing is that, hey, the fans like it, too. Whether it’s the fans that are on Twitter or not, this is working. So, they they’ve got something really positive going on. I I I I want to add to that a little bit too because I was trying to find the list of winners that we had. But you know going through the events, Sedeki opened up with a victory in the first one that was Golf Channel and then um the next one we had which was the Genesis and Ludvik won that one. So you got Oberg who’s drawing eyeballs and and I remember this both Scotty and Rory were in the mix cuz I had them Sunday afternoon. Um, then the next one was Bay Hill, which Russell won, but there was
Well, you had you had Rory at Pebble before that.
Oh, Rory. Yeah. Shucks, I forgot Rory at Pebble. Yeah, that was what opened the season for him. So, we got Ludvig and Rory. They’re on the West Coast. Then Russ wins and then the players Rory wins. Um, and then of course then we go to Truist, am I right? Uh, Heritage, RBC Heritage,
JT wins over there and and you got some big names involved
in a playoff. Yeah, exactly. And then you go to truest and we got sept sucker and a bunch of big names in there. Then from there I think it was the memorial, right? And then Scotty
and then from there it’s Travelers which is always popular and you got Keegan, you know, vying with Tommy Fleetwood who is low-key popular. So So from from our point of view for television ratings, we had those names when you you sit in production meetings and go, “Yeah, these are great storylines.” And you’ve always with a tour got a mix of one or two sort of upandcomers or other names or or people that make the story line interesting. So it’s not like Rory v Scotty every week, but we had that essentially um in the Masters there for a bit. So, it’s it I think there should be cuts in every single one of them, but right now just having cuts in the three main events, which are player events, you know, the Arnold Palmer and the Jack Nicholas event and the Tiger Woods event, I think cuts there are good, but the cuts add something to it because there’s always something to play for. Cut day is a great day on on the PGA Tour. I mean, we experienced this last week at the Rocket where you got a guy like Will Gordon, which was one of the stories of the year, and it became a story because he had to earn like a point,
a FedEx Cup point to keep his playing privileges on a major medical and he’s coming down the stretch there and Birdie’s the last two. Then he’s got to sit the entire afternoon and wait to see if the cut’s going to get to seven under. And the drama of all of that is what entertainment is about. You know, you I will argue with people a lot when they start say, “I want to see more shots.” And I’m like, “Yeah, you do.” But then you’re going to see a bunch of putting. I want to see stories, you know, because there’s a story to everything. And every shot makes someone happy and someone sad. And there you had the ultimate in the drama with Will Gordon. And if there was no cut in that thing, you wouldn’t had that drama. It was one of the stories of the year. So the cuts, a Friday cut is a thing. And it must not go away. Preach, Reverend Immelman.
I’m here.
I get to say that this time. All right. Well, it’s not just the PGA Tour that’s putting up numbers. Live golf over 300,000 on both Friday and Saturday on Fox. And they released uh the note that 50,000 fans in Dallas, single day record on Saturday, 20,000 fans. And then Josh Carpenter of SBJ, Greg, who’s I mean he’s the ice cream man. He’s all the scoops. That’s what Patrick McDonald that’s a Patrick McDonald calls him to his face. It’s actually quite funny. Um has has released the the tentative schedule for live golf in 2026. No Dallas. Uh which which is seemingly a place that they would have leaned into. We’ll get to some of the newer places that they’re going, but after setting a record in Dallas, they as of right now will not play there next year. Uh, no. Um, I guess they’re they’re not going to play in Dallas. That which is I don’t know. Like I understand moving around if it doesn’t draw a lot of attention. Perhaps perhaps this was uh decided before they drew all this attention.
I think it was. Can they amend it?
I guess so.
Uh I I mean I I don’t see why not. So that is a curious thing. I doubt they looked at this and said, “Yeah, we’re not going to go to Dallas.” You know, I I doubt that because they they definitely had good numbers there in person. And that’s an important thing to lean into when you’re a new league, right? You need to get any traction you can grab, you need to grab on to and dive in deep on. like Adelaide isn’t going anywhere,
you know,
right?
They would be foolish to leave that. And so if you can come up with a couple good events, maybe it uh maybe it helps. But I I really don’t know what the direction is. I I will say those numbers are a lot better for them. Like what like four or five times better than what you normally see out of live golf ratings. Um, the problem is a lot of these things are pushing them into the US, right? Like the metrics are going to push them into the US, which there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason the PGA Tour is in the US, but they want to be global. So, I, you know, I don’t know. I’ll be very curious to see how much they hold on to that.
I’ll That’s a good point. And I’ll just say this, and I’m not being a PGA Tour Homer. I’ve got the t-shirt on, but I I’m I’m looking at this objectively right now with the fields that they have. It’s not a competition. If you’re a golf fan, you’ll tune in to maybe see Bryson or definitely see Bryson, maybe see Rahm Wen Neman over here. I’m like, yeah, he’s a great player, but really am I turning on to see him, Phil perhaps? So, the PGA Tour is riddled with stories and great players. So, I think the head-to-head contest for the United States market is kind of one-sided. Um, but maybe I’m being myopic here. And I will say this to that schedule because if memory serves me, this um this Dallas event last week was played at Marido, right?
Correct.
And that’s a private golf course. So, getting on to private places means that your membership have to give it up for a while while they’re putting up stands and then for the week and then while they’re taking down stands. And I’m not so sure members are up for that sort of thing if they’re paying what they are for their golf course. And then I will say this too because there were two other events in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex that were CBS events in the CJ Cup, the Byron Nelson and then of course Colonial, the Charles Schwab event. And there was a plane flying around the grounds dragging a live banner in the air basically saying, “Yo, golf fans, we’re going to be here too in just a few weeks time.” So they were advertising over the top of PGA Tour events for this little live event Dallas. Now look, more power to you. Do what you got to do, but that sort of speaks to where the market is. But they’re like, “Hey fans, we’re here too, you know. Um, so we’ll go buy the PGA tour thing and sort of guerilla market a little bit about what we’re doing here in in this area of yours.” Uh let me bounce this back to you one more time, Mark, real quick here because in between Singapore and Augusta National is a brand new event in South Africa and we don’t have any uh information about what city or what golf course, but this is going to be Livolf’s first foray into an event being held in South Africa. How do you think that is going to be received?
From what we’ve heard, this is conjecture. This is rumor. So don’t quote me anybody on social. What we’ve heard is it’s not going ahead. That’s just that’s again that’s rumor and and rumor amounts to nothing. So right now I don’t think there’s anything etched in stone. It would be a lot of sense to go there because you’ve got a South African team. It would make a lot of sense to go because the South African market is starved for global sport just like Australia is. And um it’s a great place to go and play that time of the year because that time it’s kind of late fall so the golf courses will be great over there.
Um so I I don’t know but I I’ve I’ve heard rumblings that that events not happening. So we’ll see what happens in 2026.
All right. Yeah. That the
maybe that’s when they go back to Dallas. There you go.
The schedule that was uh released via SBJ um was yeah it was tentative. It was like, hey, this is we’re pretty sure about this, but definitely some things could change. So, we’ll keep an eye on that. TPC Deer run this week, John Deere Classic. And Greg, I’ll use this as a bit of um context here, but I could not believe the betting board when I saw it because there are 14 golfers between 25 to1 and 35 to1, which you know, odds aside, it is almost like Vegas just said all these guys can win it. Good luck. Is that is that the way you view this field? Um, yes, in a lot of ways. you know, we’ve gotten used to, but just go back and look at my betting cards, okay? And there’s a there are some very similar uh theories that I very clearly have when a certain someone is playing.
Um, and when he’s not playing, things get much more wide open. And so, I look at the top of this and you have Jason Day in there who’s I mean, the probably the biggest name player, right? He’s a former world number one. I don’t think there’s another former world number one in this field. Uh I didn’t see at least nobody’s jumped out.
I doubt it, but that was a nice It was a fun challenge that made me start scrolling through the list.
Yeah. So you you know that’s a a really strong caliber of player and Jason Day. Um but you have someone like Ben Griffin who’s been playing maybe a little better. And I’m not looking at the official odds. I’m looking at the DraftKing prices because I’m on rickr rungood.com. You got Ben Griffin who’s been just incredibly consistent and steady and could win any week. JT Poston who’s won here before. Danny McCarthy who has three straight top 10s here. So, you’re you’re kind of in this level. Davis Thompson who’s hitting it really well and is the defending champion. Uh Cebu Kim, Jake Knap, right? like a lot of these guys just they’re they’re not in a place where they’re dominant, but they are very much capable of winning an event amongst this field. They’re at the top of the field. And it’s a little harder to separate them amongst amongst that group. I it it’s interesting Mark because we’ve seen TPC Deer Run um offer up a lot of scoring opportunities and I think when you get that like all these guys can go low right some of the things that we see separate at major championships at at the memorial at events like that are are more difficult golf courses allow the better players to figure it out. So when you get a situation where all these guys can go low and a golf course that is going to uh make that possible there are a lot of guys who could win this thing. Yeah, they really are. Um, to me, this golf course, this you get this this time of the year when you have golf courses that are in the Midwest where it’s now summertime and you get afternoon thunderstorms and stuff and all of a sudden you’ll have some thunderstorm cell that dumps a bunch of water on the golf course and it changes personality in the space of about two hours. And when courses are soft and the greens are receptive and then two, the greens are good because the greens last week were tremendous. The greens at John Deere are always great. You would think the turf conditions there would be good given who the tournament sponsor is. Um, and the greens are sensational. So, when you got a a receptive golf course where a guy who’s hitting the ball well and hitting it his distance, if he gets comfortable numbers, they’re going to hit 25 ft 25 feet and in all day long because they’re hitting the ball the right distance and they’ll be sort of 25 ft left and right, lots of birdie attempts. Then you have reachable par fives. Um, so it’s always going to be a bit of a bonanza. Um, and we’ve seen some crazy scores over the last few years. Davis Thompson, I think was 28 last year. Um, 28 under.
Seer, who I had the year before, double bogeed the last for 64 the final round.
And I think he went to the turn in like 29 or something like that.
Um, so it’s it is what it is, but you know the examination and you know, okay, I’ve got to hit an irons well and I’ve got a putt. And if you do that, you too can get yourself a PGA tour trophy and a wellrespected one. I’ll say that too because John Deere have just re-uped their sponsorship and this tournament’s been around for a while and the fans from the Quad City show up on mass. They love that place. They call it the fifth major and so it’s always fun to go to and it’s a great it’s a great event to to to call. Certainly.
You too can get yourself a PGA Tour trophy. I like that. Um, Alex in the chat asks if Zack Johnson ever got near the top of the official World Golf rankings. Greg, do you want to take a stab at what Zack Johnson’s best owl rank ever was? My guess would be fifth.
Okay, Mark, do you like that? Would you take uh better, worse, or would you like to stay the same for fifth? Which is like
a little worse. A little worse than that. I believe
a little worse is right. Sixth is correct. Very good. I also looked up a couple others. Ricky Fowler got to fourth in the world. That was uh the closest I could find. I I thought maybe I I don’t know what Coocher got to.
Hey, see uh Master McDonald Patrick that is is watching slashlisting slacking off somewhere.
Yeah. Shouldn’t he be working right now?
He should be working.
Yeah.
Well, I guess he is working. Well, in honor of him being a fan,
we got to give a nod to Russell Henley, who’s now what? Seventh in the World Golf Rankings. Yes.
Is that true? Let’s see. He’s been top 10 all year. He’s sixth.
Oh, sixth was pardon me. Well, I was actually just with his trainer SL physio earlier this afternoon and Russell’s got the week off and he goes abroad for the open and he goes, “Yeah, Russell, man, how about that? What a great year.” I’m like, “Yeah.” He just shows up every time he plays. It’s incredible.
Uh, it is incredible. You know who else has been incredible? This Ben Griffin guy who I’m convinced if his name was Griff Griffins, we would be anointing him the greatest player in the world.
We can, you know what? We can change that, Rick, because every great golfer who had a nickname, that nickname was given to him by a member of the media.
Okay? you know, the great white shark, the golden bear. Uh, well, well, Tiger was his dad. Um, but yeah, we we can call him Griff Griffin. Why not? Griff Griffin. I think it’s sick. Um, you know, he’s Listen, he’s he’s playing he’s playing like he deserves a nickname. I’ll tell you that.
Last week, uh, last week on the air, I called Thor Bjönson Thor a few times,
trying to get it to stick.
I like it.
Yeah. here. You know what’s amazing about Ben Griffin, Rick? We talk about this a lot. Like Mark will love this too. If you look at his strokes gained numbers, Mark Mark loves this. Just for you, Mark. He’s he we really like to see two straight weeks. Like it’s very impressive. Have you got two straight weeks gaining strokes in every category?
That’s a that’s extremely impressive
and rather rare,
right? It does not happen very often. So Ben Griffin in his last six events has lost strokes one time in one category. It was 1.75 strokes around the green at the Travelers where he finished tied 14th. This is this is top 10 player of the world kind of consistency. Look at all that green. It’s a lot of green. That’s what like I mean Scotty Shuffler doesn’t even look like that.
Oh boy.
You know, it doesn’t it it this kind of thing doesn’t happen and it’s six weeks in a row and there’s two majors in that stretch. You know, this is legit. I need to say this, too. Um not strokes gain, but if you’re looking at data, he is sneaky long. Ben Griffin hits it a ton off the tea. And and the cool thing about his game is he sort of just hits a draw, you know? He’s not trying to fashion certain shots. He hits the T- balls hard. He draws his irons. He’s got a lot of um a lot of moxy, man. He’s not afraid of anybody when he plays. He’s he’s impressive. Truly is.
Yeah. He said uh real quick on that, Mark, he said that if he was going to be on that RDER Cup team, he wanted to go there saying, “Yeah, you can put me up against Rory Mroy on Sunday and I’ll be confident.” Mhm.
You know, and and he’s he’s there. He’s there right now. Um you know, whatever example it is, I agree with you, Mark. I don’t think he’s afraid of anybody.
And to the people,
that’s a good place to be in.
Yeah. And to the people in the chat who are asking about him taking a week off, he’s taking next week off. He’s not playing the Scottish Open. He’s going to play some other He’s going to play some other type of
Yeah, exactly. He’s playing some member.
Well, he’s going over to the United Kingdom. He’s going to play a little link stuff before the Open Championship. Why not? Why not? Ben Griffin, somebody in the chat said, “I He’s He’s printing money. I’d be out there every week, too.” It’s like, yeah, I’d be out there every week, too. It’s a good It is a good point. Um, let’s pod through for a second, Mina, because I’ve got a question from Ryan. This comes from Patreon. So, these are our our questions. Way to support the show. And this one uh is from Ryan. And he says, “Luke Clanton with a T.” That’s his words, not mine.
Clinton
and Carson Young both struck it great here last year, averaging over 1.48. I’m assuming that’s strokes gained on approach. He says, um, “With all the stat nerds nowadays, which is offensive, is there such a thing as being an under theraar ball striker anymore? And if so, do any guys come to mind?” Now, Mark, I hope you’re reaching for your phone because he Mark Mark Immelament, who uh is not a stat nerd, keeps a note on his phone, something called underrated flushers, I think it’s called,
and he updates it as the year goes on. So, um, are there any under the radar ball strikers that come to mind for you, Mark?
Hold on here a second.
Okay.
Okay. Keegan Bradley. Wow. Okay. Um, Nate Lashley. Wow. Was not expecting that.
Yeah. Nick Taylor. Okay.
Yep. Totally get it.
Hold on. Can I stop you, Mark? What has to h What like what has to happen for a guy to get on this list? Is it a sound? Is it you see him hit a shot over a tree like the Michael Thorbjornson story? Like what what has to happen to get added to this list? No, it’s how reliable the ball strike is. Uh these dudes don’t miss the center of the club face very often. Um it’s the sound of the strike and then it’s the pattern of the golf ball. Um well, you know, nowadays with a less spinny ball, everyone hits something that’s kind of geometric and it’s flight and it doesn’t spin up or or or knuckle or anything like that. These guys just hit the ball really solidly all of the time and they hit whatever they need to. Um, so Nick Taylor, Johnny Vegas, he is a flusher.
He’s a big dude.
Lucas Glover, Glover, but everyone knows he flushes that. And this is a great place for him. A lot of success around Dear Run. Thought about him. Um, Shane Lowry. You wouldn’t think so when you watch him sort of swing, but he can flush. He really can.
That feels like it’s that feels like it’s um developed really well over the last couple of years. I I don’t remember him five years ago being as just absolute Yeah. nutnut as as he does now.
Okay. Well, yeah. Look, you got to have a good short game to win. But you don’t win on windy links golf courses if you don’t hit the ball on the button every single time because when you’re playing in heavy winds, if you miss striking balls, you’re going to see your rear end. And look, he’s grown up in the windiest of spots where he’s played. Salari or old-timer Boo Weekly. Gosh, he never ever missed.
Ever missed.
This this list predates the iPhone. How old is this list?
Well, it’s as old as me. Okay. I mean, Alex Narin was on.
Is is old Tom on there or just young?
Never saw him hit. I missed him by a few weeks. Anyway, so yeah, I I add I add to this list um actually haven’t really lately. Thor Bjöson’s will he’s going to go on there pretty soon. Um that I have no doubt.
Well, when when someone gets added, let us know. Ryan would uh very much very much like to to hear as well. Greg, that’s going to be tough to beat. Is there anybody under the radar that you might consider a flusher that uh that others might not know about? Um, no. So, I am a stat nerd. I look through the entire field every week. I look at all their stats uh every single week. Go ahead, Mark. Then I’ll finish.
Find your stat there. I There’s one I missed. This is going to surprise people and I don’t know what the numbers show up because someone’s like, “Is this data or just the eye test?” This is just my eye and air test.
I confirm stuff with Rick afterwards and most times I’m right. Right, Nick? Uh Rick?
Yes, you are. Tom Kim. Yeah.
Um I hope that that I hope that he went on the list
when he went on the list last year. I hope
man that Tom Kim can hit an iron. This this was from Windham a few years ago.
Okay.
And I called him to that victory.
Yeah. He hit a three iron on the par 31 12th when everyone else was hitting like five and six irons that this thing when it left the face was painting the flag nearly went in landed by the flag rolled up the hill came back to like tapping range then he stuffed another one on like 14 from 200 something plus Tom Kim can really flush. He can
Yeah.
I think of the I think it was a two iron he hit at Quail Hollow uh in the President’s Cup. Yeah. On the 18th the 9th 18th Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. So, here’s here’s my thing with this, Rick. I look through all these guys every single week, and I put out um some of my favorites on Twitter every week, and if there’s one thing that happens to me that uh you know, people give me they, you know, give me a hard time for, it’s that I’m too chalky. Right now, I’m not looking at projected ownership when I do this. Normally, it’s not out yet. So I um I don’t I I think that they know I think people know who the flushers are at least from at least because of all the data nerds like like me.
Yes. And listen, there are a spot for the data nerds indeed. Um okay, very cool. Well, I’ll tell you what, we’ve got a couple more questions, but I’ll get to them uh later. They’re probably better for the fantasy segment anyway. So, Greg and I will take a couple of those uh at the other side. allow us to discuss more golfers from this week by looking at the grid. Mina, release the grid. And if you’re paying attention, if you’re watching on YouTube, the uh our photos have changed, Mark. We got caught in a screen in a screen grab the other day during a a strokes gain sphincter segment. Rick, you need to you need to figure out a way on Rick Run. Good to add that data metric in there.
Yeah.
You cannot tell me that when some guy um I don’t know, we’ll call him Joe Pro who’s never been in the final group or at least never had a cadre of CBS camera people and announcers show up with his group when they just show up and bring their best. No. And these folks wilt like it’s summertime and 150 degrees outside. So, there’s something to be said for the uh the sphincter tightening factor.
I will uh I will find a way to get the sphincter stats into the database actually. So, Mina created this um graphic and she doesn’t even know that this was producer Josh’s photo. So, Josh sent me this screen grab because he thought it was funny and then I guess Mina just saw it in the folder and thought it was funny and she rolled with it. So, yes, it is uh Josh who who hit me up with with that photo which I thought was which I thought was pretty good. Okay, matchups, finishing positions, two separate outrights. Greg, look at you. You little dog going against the defending champion in a matchup. What do you got? Last week, I went against the defending champ of the week before in Keegan. Now, I’m applying my rule again. This time, I’m going against the defending champ, Davis Thompson. I’m going with Kevin U over Davis Thompson at minus 105. Now Kevin U is a flusher. I’m not gonna say an underrated flusher, but this guy can really hit it. And what I really long man, he hits it a long way.
Yeah, which I don’t necessarily think you need here, but it doesn’t hurt anywhere. So, um, so he’s got some he’s got some power. He’s an elite driver of the ball, an elite pedigree. problem is he’s not a very good putter, but in he has not lost strokes putting in in three out of the last four weeks. There’s only been one other time in his whole career he did that. That was in early 2024. He had back-to-back top six finishes in that stretch. So, he’s figuring something out on the greens. Davis Thompson, also a flusher, uh has not been putting very well at all. Um he’s been struggling on the greens all season and it was a lot better last year when it was a lot better last year when he won. So I I think there’s a little down tick for Davis Thompson with the putter. It would take something special to figure it out. I think you’s got it figured out. So I’m I’m rolling with him. Kevin U minus 105 over the defending champion Davis Thompson. Mark and I have the same golfer in our matchups. I’ve got him winning. Mark has him losing, but we don’t have the same matchup. Mark, what’d you find?
Well, as long as um my guy beats your guy and your guy beats Keith Mitchell, we’re good.
There’s a path to this. That’s
both right.
That’s right.
Yeah. I’m I’m going with Andrew Putnham um over Kevin Roy. Both guys. And if you look at my card here, you’ll see there’s a lot of carryover from last week because I feel like the conditions under foot are very much the same. The rough conditions between these golf courses are very much the same. The layout varies some. This is a lot more undulating, but still the examination is there. You got to hit good irons and you have to putt well. Um, and Andrew Putnham, he was in the he was very much in contention. Final group Saturday in Detroit. And then on Sunday, he was alongside Chris Kirk, who I had. And Andrew was just kind of lurking around the show there, not very long, but hitting the ball on the green every single time. and when he’s inside 20 ft, he’s lethal. So, I’m playing with a lot of confidence right now. And then we had a really cool interaction with him because he’s a lovely guy. Um, uh, the playoff, we took a big selfie of our group out there on the 18th fairway and and Doy and I posted it and Andrew comments, he goes, “We like it when we see you guys out there with us.” And that was so cool because more often than not, someone is kind of moaning about the fact that there’s camera people around and there’s announcers talking and all this sort of stuff where Andrew is like, “Man, we look forward to having you out there.” And I look forward, Andrew, to calling you on the weekend here when you beat Kevin Roy because that’s going to make it even sweeter. Andrew, if if Mark Illeman’s around, you’re getting a payday, my friend. You should be very happy to see him out there uh calling the shots. Andrew Putnham over Kevin Roy. Uh I’ve gone Kevin Roy over Keith Mitchell. So yeah, let’s just, you know, let’s just figure this out. Let’s thread this needle. We can all find victory here. Kevin Roy very quietly putting together some good finishes. T18 at the Canadian Open. T8 last week at the Rocket Classic and the uh the ball striking metrics, Greg. That the nerdy stuff are just absolutely off the charts for Mr. Roy. Now, I did not look at the grid, and I’m certain Mark didn’t look at the grid. I think he just text his pick in. Is that true, Mark? Uh, no. I email with your wife. You better look out.
Oh, boy. Okay. So, Mark emails. So, we are very much sympatico this week. Our grids are are very very similar. So, Greg, I’m going to give you first crack here at the finishing position market. What’d you find?
I’m going flush flush with uh Lucas Glover, top 20
at plus 175. Now, Glover last two weeks has really hit it nicely. Um, I think this is a great fit for him. I like when the course gets a little shorter for Lucas. Um, his accuracy is phenomenal. I think he’s seventh on tour in driving accuracy and um, he’s always great with the irons. The really cool thing about Lucas Glover is in his last four trips to DPC Deer Run, he’s gained strokes putting. So, I I think he’s pretty comfortable on these greens. And while he hasn’t been putting great, I I also wouldn’t say it’s been atrociously bad. I I think it’s there. So, it’s enough for me to think that when he gets on a course he’s comfortable with, we could see we could see him fill it up a little bit this week. Lucas Glover has played here a lot dating back to 2002. Not every year, but darn near every year. Winner here in 2021, 2019, that was a T10. This event was not played in 2020. uh and in the last two years, 23rd and sixth. So, absolutely feels it when he shows up in the Quad Cities. Mark, you and I found the same golfer. You picked him to finish inside the top 40. I one uped you said, “Let’s do top 30, but you and I are both quite high on whom, please.”
Tristan Lawrence. And remember how I said that this week I spent a lot of time watching tennis and not golf? Well, when Mina asked me for my picks, I essentially just looked at the top 40s. I didn’t look anywhere else. If I had seen Tristan Lawrence top 30 like your number, I would have went there, too, cuz he’s just that reliable. He’s playing with a lot of confidence after the big finish at the US Open. He was in the mix last week again. So, I got him at a top 40 plus 105, which is like stealing in my opinion. And I I’m inclined to say your bet may be better. Yeah, he’s he’s been there are a couple of guys who are playing like very quietly very good golf. 12th at the US Open, eighth in Detroit. He finished fourth at a DP World Tour event at the end of at the end of May. It’s plus 105 for top 40, plus 180 for top 30 on Tristan Lawrence. So maybe also, you know, there there’s a real thing of like, hey, I saw my buddy do it or I don’t know if they’re friends or not, but I saw my countryman do it, Mark. Now I’ve I’ve beaten that guy before. I could do it.
No doubt. You know, when you see your homie win and you’re like, “Wow, shucks. If he does it, I can do it.”
Um, they play different games naturally. You know, Aldrich kind of smashes it some. Tristan’s not short, but he’s very, very accurate and he’s and he’s pretty sound around the greens, but the thing that struck me watching him play a little bit was he makes very smart decisions and he’s not going to beat himself. And so, um, I’m I’m liking our picks this week with him.
All right. We’ll uh make sure he’s favored in the PGA Tour app so we can keep an eye on him all week long. Two separate winners. Let’s go, Greg with your first winner, please. You’re doubling down on somebody who’s already been on your grid.
Yes, doubling down. I’ll keep it quick on Kevin U. Um, I think there’s such high upside with his ball striking, and I like what I’m seeing with him on the greens. So, I I think that’s a it leads to a really good chance of of uh popping off and winning one.
Uh 35 to1 for Mr. U falls into that category of like here’s everybody and so so does your first uh outright here. Mark, who is it?
I believe everyone on my grid finished inside the top 10 last week in Detroit, I believe. So, my first pick is Jake Knap, who made it look so easy last week. The guy is swinging it as well as what I’ve seen him swing. When I was talking with him on the range, he just seems cool with life. All he’s got to do is just make a few putts cuz he flushes and he’s not underrated. Everyone knows it. He is good. And it’s time now to uh to what’s the word I’m looking for? To um prove that first victory wasn’t a fluke. You know, he’s he’s going to prove it this week with a win.
Does everything cool. Makes everything look cool. Does Jake Knap. 35 to1. I went just a touch longer, but ton of guys in the 40 to1 range as well. Ryan Gerard, I’m just going to be around when he stops losing five strokes putting, right? He’s just like I’m I’m just I’m going to find it. And maybe it’s this week, maybe it’s not. We’ll try again next week. But, uh, he is knocking the cover off the golf ball. So, I’m going to roll with Mr. Gerard here at 40 to1. And now if I could combine him, Greg Gerard, with your second outright, uh, we would have ourselves quite the player. Who is it?
Yeah. Uh, Scotty Sheffler would be looking over his shoulder if he did that.
Uh, it’s Danny McCarthy. So, I I love Danny McCarthy. I I have a little theory here at uh at TPC Deer Run.
Okay. The field hits on average over 70% of the greens. Um the winners have hit about 77% of the greens. So like not a huge difference. There’s I mean when Dylan Felli won here, he was 60th in strokes and approach. Um Davis Thompson was 29th last year when he won. I I think the real there’s a there’s a st like I I believe everybody can hit it well here and there’s an opportunity to really separate yourself on and around the greens.
Um I mean it it’s very strange and it’s just based on data so I apologize Mark but three out of the last five winners have been top five in strokes gain around the green and putting which is a very uh interesting category. three out of the five in both around the green and putting. I normally lean way heavier to iron play in events like this and and I still am. You can see from my betting card, but I I’m just getting the sense that Danny McCarthy is going to see an uptick in his ball striking on a golf course like this. And uh and I I think you’ll see Danny McCarthy putt like Denny McCarthy. Quick uh napkin math tells me that the average then is about 50 greens in regulations and the winner’s average is about 55 greens in regulations. There’s about five.
Not not a huge difference.
Not a huge difference. That is Denny McCarthy 28 to1. Kevin you 35 to1 for the Greg head. Now Mark, you’ve done it. You’ve infiltrated my brain. You did it on you did it on Sunday night. I can’t stop thinking about him. I can’t stop looking at him. can’t stop tweeting about him. Uh so he absolutely made the final spot in my outright card and you promised us that he would on Sunday for you as well and you have lived up to your word. Round us out here with our outright. Before I do that, I have to give some love to Chris Kirk.
Okay.
Um because there’s one of the boys out of that Georgia house. We had Davis Thompson, we’ve had Chris, we’ve had Seb Striker. They all stay in this house and someone seems to win. So, I thought about Chris Kirk, but I was remembered to say I was going to bet Michael Thorbjson, and I’m going to do it. I I actually misspoke in the last show where I said he finished third. He actually finished runner up. Mhm.
And he birdied the 18th hole. I was watching some of the footage earlier this morning. No, yesterday, whenever it was, he hit driver and a wedge to a back left hole location, water on the left, about 15 feet behind the hole, long and left. And I was like, “This kid is not only good, he’s brave.” Um, because he was playing to win. He was in the mix last week, had a quick start, fell away, but then finished real strong. So, he showed me a little something. It’s time for Thor Bjönson. Thor to do the trick, and he is playing well, and he’s going to a place where he’s played well before. I’m ready. I’m ready.
Let’s do it. Let’s just do it now. Let’s not wait any longer. Let’s do it now. Michael Thorbjornson 30-1, Jake Knap 35, Kevin U35, Denny McCarthy 28, Ryan Gerard 40 to1 rounds out our grid and our outrights for the week. Mr. Immerman, this is where we part ways and continue the show doing some fantasy stuff. But I want to give you any final thoughts, anything that you need to get off your chest, anything that we’ve missed before I let you out of here. Yes. I’m not sure what night it is, Saturday or Sunday, but uh John Deere always put on a very cool concert. And this year is the Zack Brown Band and Dirk’s Bentley.
Wow.
So if it’s Sunday, I’m not going to see you guys. So I love you very much.
All right. We love you. Uh safe travels. Are you going to shoot off? Do you have a favorite firework that is gonna that you’re going to shoot off on the 4th?
No, sir. It’s tomorrow, isn’t it?
Uh Friday.
No, Friday.
No, we Tuesday. It’s on Friday. Forgive me. It’s that it’s that time of the year. We’re nearly at the end.
All good. All right, Mark. Thank you very much. We will see you soon and uh enjoy the concert no matter what day it is and I’m sure we’ll talk to you very soon.
See you guys. Take care.
All right. See you, buddy.
Thanks, Mark.
All right, Mr. Gregor’s. Uh I actually when I asked when I asked Mark that I I I didn’t know if I could name a fire or so. So maybe a Roman
Roman candle.
All right. Yeah. Yep. Um, I was thinking about that, too. Like, are there commonly known fireworks?
As soon as I asked him, I was like, “What is he going to say?”
Yeah. Oh, I Yeah, I like the the blah blah blah.
Uh, sprinkler or no, not a sprinkler. Sparkler.
Sparkler. Yeah. That’s not a firework, though. Your kids could play with those.
Do you let your kids play with sparklers?
No. But Well, they have they actually have No,
you can hold them. Yeah, you can hold them. I wasn’t there, though. Okay. Well, uh, we are going to enter a little bit of the fantasy portion of the show. So, this is where we’re going to go through kind of each of the tiers and I can show you some of the stats from my website and we’ll go through and just get a conversation about some more of these players in a in a different perspective. And before we do that, um, I’ve got to give Ryan from Patreon a big shout out here. So, he I assume is playing in the Jimmy John’s Invitational. I believe he is team old guys and um they’re playing at True Blue in Paulie’s Island. I don’t none of that makes sense to me, Greg. I looked it up on the internet. I couldn’t find anything. So, I think we’ll just say good luck, Ryan.
I have played True Blue.
I went to college down there and went to Jimmy John’s a lot, so it makes sense. I don’t know anything about the event, but True Blue is a great golf course. Uh, and that will be a blast. They keep it in great shape. It’s hard hard track. Um, kind of, if I remember correctly, not the 18th hole is not dissimilar to the 18th hole here at TPC Deer Run. So, uh, water left to the green. Should be pretty cool. Synergies. Synergies indeed. Before we go through the tears, I ask you for a golfer that you cannot live without. We dub him the golfer of the week. We put his uh face and name on a graphic and I will reveal it as soon as you say his name. His name has already been said tonight. It is Danny McCarthy. There he is. Yes, this is Denny’s time. I believe. Uh I did hear that he’s staying in the quote unquote trophy house. So maybe not not just Georgia guys.
How many guys can they fit in that house? I I believe I heard seven.
Oh, of course they win so often. That’s like half the field.
We’ll get the seven best guys and we’ll see. You know, one of them can say, but it’s the same house. I guess Denny’s staying there this year. Um I don’t know if that’s 100% true. It has nothing to do with why he’s the golfer of the week.
I outlined this before. I look I I just think that um you separate yourself on the greens here and you have Well, you at least have the opportunity to do that. you have the opportunity to separate yourself with driving accuracy here. Denny, I I believe can do that. Um I I like where his game is. He hit it well at the Travelers. I I think it’s time for him. I don’t think you’re going to find a guy with a better three-year run at TPC Deer Run than Denny, who is T6, T6, T7 over the course of the last three years. As you can imagine, during that stretch,
putted the lights out. But but to your point was very strong off the tea in all three of those years. It’s it’s I I agree. I think it’s a good setup for him.
You know, um could this be are there any parallels to Zack Johnson or Steve Stricker who had great success here at this event? Possibly. The other thing that I want to point out here is that he is on DraftKings $9,900. Greg. So, he is um just obviously just out of the 10K group. Are you finding yourself skipping the 10K range when building lineups and starting with Denny? Absolutely. Open to that. Um I’d love to get Ben Griffin on a team, too. Yeah. Uh having both and I think you can get both of those guys on a team. I don’t you Well, we’ll see when we get to the six, but if I could build something with Ben Griffin, Danny McCarthy, and load up on sevens, I’m thrilled with that. Thrilled with it.
Yeah, the 6K range is a little bit ugly after that. Okay, well, we’ll continue. Let’s let’s just go um let’s go to Ben Griffin because, you know, we we talked about it a little bit, but what he’s doing right now is stupid good. Uh this is the most expensive he’s ever been, but he is going to be the favorite in this field. Let me phrase it phrase this kind of a different way. Is there anything to be worried about? Like what’s the case we make against Ben Griffin this week? He he withdraws. I really I I don’t I can’t think of anything else. He can make birdies. He can go play on, you know, he he plays well on golf courses where you got to make a ton of birdies, like the Rocket Classic last week. He plays well on courses where birdies are hard to come by, like the Memorial and the US Open. I mean, he’s done all this in the last six weeks and he was pretty darn good before that. So, look, this is uh I mean, is he tired? I mean, I’m grasping at things here because there’s nothing statistically that you would be worried about,
right? And I agree with you. I I agree with you. It’s just like he’s answered every question, right? It’s it’s easy courses, it’s hard courses, it is um oh, he’s playing a lot of golf. Is he going to be tired? It doesn’t matter. He has just answered every question. So, it’s it’s hard to think that that’s going to stop anytime soon. and now he’s getting one of the weaker fields as the favorite. Yeah, it’s just I don’t know. Seems seems to be really good at um just keeping the process, right? You know, you see guys that win and you know, the job’s done. I don’t think he thinks the job is done. I think there’s a lot more stuff he wants to do. Yeah, it feels that way. You know, he said um what was it at the US Open like bring it on, bring on the rain. his attitude is in that kind of place and it it gives me the sense that he just wants to compete. He loves competing and you know I remember this thing um I think this was Brooks Kepka. Brooks Kepka talked about this when he first started playing professional golf his eyes were always on the cut line. His goal was to make the cut and he always finished on Friday. He was always around the cut line. Then he started thinking about I want to finish top 10 and he was always finishing around, you know, he was always in the hunt for that top 10 spot. And then he started thinking about winning and he put himself in contention to win tournaments all of a sudden when he shifted his mindset. Ben Griffin’s mindset is about winning trophies right now.
And that’s why I think you can you could watch him like if you were backing him last week at the Rocket, you might have felt disappointed. maybe the same at the Travelers, but it’s a T14 and a T13. You know, that’s the disappointing week from his perspective right now. It’s it’s incredible.
Uh the third man that that made your uh 9K range is is Lucas Glover, and I want to turn this a little bit into a conversation about something that I referenced earlier, but the course history for for Glover is is uh complete and good and and better recently. Is this a golf course that you care a lot about course history? Like where do we rank this on how much you care about it this week?
I’d like to know that you haven’t missed the cut every time you’ve been there.
Okay.
Um I’d like to know in the case of Lucas Glover like is there a sign I’m not just looking at course history like course history is important here or not important. I really when I looked at Lucas Glover, it’s what? Okay, he’s not putting great, but how does he putt here,
right?
You know, and okay, well, he’s putted pretty well last four last four trips here. He’s putted pretty well, and it hasn’t been bad for the last six. So, like he I I look at that as he knows how to putt these greens. Now,
I don’t think I could find uh and maybe I’ll go look at this for my newsletter or something, but that is 48 12 16 20 22 rounds. I’m going back to 2017. 22 rounds where he’s like a pretty significant positive putter for him. I bet you I can’t find another 22 rounds on any golf course where he’s putted that well. No chance. It just It doesn’t He struggles. He struggles with it from time to time and it it like I it’s very strange but I’m looking at his putting stats. It’s like he lost 1.92 at the Travelers, 2.81 at the US Open, 2.16 at the Memorial, uh gained.71 at the Charles Schwab. And I’m like, it’s not bad.
Right. Right.
For Lucas, right?
You know, it’s all relative. Yeah, it’s relative when you combine that with his course history putting if that makes sense. The AK range. Um, we’ve talked about Kevin U a lot that he made your list. I want to mine on Chris Kirk a little bit because I was a little bit surprised here and I never really know what to do in these types of situations. So Chris Kirk objectively playing very well in his last two, the T12 US Open and of course he gets into the playoff in Detroit. You are not at all concerned about the quote heat of the moment, the quote hangover effect, the you know whatever else you want to call a guy who gets close to the top of the mountain and does not prevail.
Yeah. I I uh this is a feel thing for me which I hate this answer. Right. Sometimes it really worries me. It doesn’t in the case of Chris Kirk because he it’s like it’s almost like he just started climbing the mountain again at the US Open and then he goes to Rocket and plays great. It’s like something just started to click. He feels like he’s playing well now for the first time after missing two cuts in a row. Tied 55th at the PGA, 42nd at the Truist. like there there was a while where he wasn’t playing very well and all of a sudden he starts to and and this still feels like only being only two weeks into it like a pretty new journey and I like his fingerprint as a player. Um he striped the driver and he was very accurate off the tea last week. Accuracy is important here. Uh there there can be some pretty good separation from hitting fairways versus not. So, I I just I like what I’m seeing with the metrics and I think he knows how to handle a loss like this.
Chris Kirk will be graced with the presence of Michael Kim and JT Poston for the first two rounds. That is uh the three ball that goes out on Thursday together. Um I’ll pull up Kevin U’s profile here, Greg. Now, you know, Kevin, I think Kevin, you a lot for you is like Ryan Gerard for me, which is I don’t have a lot of questions about how he’s going to get to the putting surface. Then then questions start a little bit. Yes. Uh that is very true. The good thing is now look, you could see with his ball striking, it’s like, you know, it’s been better before in his career, but we know what he is as a player. Uh we know how good he can be T Green and I think he’s showing signs that he’s in a fine place with his golf swing. He was third at the Canadian Open, 25th at the Travelers, but I love what he’s done with his putting. I mean, two of his four best career two of his four career best putting tournaments happened in the last four weeks and he was he was he gained 0.0 strokes put in at uh the Travelers dead even to the field. This is a much better looking profile than ever at any other point in his career. So, short window, but I think he may have found something with the putter. And that could that’s the kind of thing that leads to a win. And yeah, the spike ability is something that some of these guys don’t even have. So, I’m I’m cool with it. Two, we’re going to get to the 7K range, but I got two things I want to um get to first here. So Jordan has a question from the chat which I think is kind of interesting. Uh says are you buying into Strokes gained caddy narrative with Thorbs which is a variation of Thor Bjornson variation of Thor. He has opted for Thorbs first tournament with JJ referring to Jackovic Commat’s old caddy was amazing. Now we have seen a little bit of the caddy bump. Joe Grryer, Justin Thomas, JJ Jackovic, Michael Thorjornson. Real or feels, Greg? Gez, I I feel like it’s a little early. I trust what Mark says. Um, and I know he came in tied second here last year. I know what the hype was about him as a player. It If so, if you came out and told me that Michael Thor Bjornson is feeling healthy for the first time since May, now I would say, okay, that’s real.
So, you’re saying you’re saying this this um kind of like sudden change is not really for any reason, which makes you nervous?
Yeah, like he puted great last week. Um, he has been hitting it better. There are other things that make me say, “Hey, this is really good.” But it it feels like way too big of a jump in the odds for me. Like you were he was third the third favorite. And now that and now that things have settled, um, I mean, he’s the fourth f I mean, he’s got the third shortest odds because it’s Ben Griffin and then Jason Day and Danny McCarthy are the same and then Thor Bjornson’s with the next group of guys. So it I mean yeah I’m it’s really a weird situation how f most the in a in a in an era where it takes odds makers and like the public to ad like a little bit longer to believe they believed Michael Thorjson immediately is that just because he finished tied fourth last week
and maybe because he finished T-2 second last year.
Where’s Clanton? Clanton uh 35 to one. All right. So, just in the next group. Yeah. It just feels a little strong for me. That’s all I’m saying. Now, I I there’s a lot that I like. There is. It’s a It’s a viable option. If you wanted to go Michael Thorj Bjornson over Lucas Glover, they’re $100 apart. Or Michael Thorjornson over Chris Kirk. I I could see the reasoning behind it. The other question is not necessarily from me. It’s from Chris who says, “Hey guys, I wanted to see what you think about uh Nico Etchavaria to finish inside the top 20.” So, this would have fit for Mark’s uh you know, Mark was looking at this trying to get guys who finished top 10 last week. Nico finished T6. He did it. It was all right. And we lost strokes off the tea and and gained throughout the bag. Is this a profile that moves the needle for you, Gregor? Um, well, I’ll tell you what. I I studied his final round on Sunday, and remember we were talking about how so many guys made mistakes that they were ruined. Um, I’m not sure anybody hit it better than Nico into the greens.
He had 13 feet for birdie on every single hole. Uh, and could just couldn’t get any of them to drop. No, it wasn’t like he was missing eight-footers. It wasn’t the Scotty Sheffler with seven three putts like the US Open or Colin Morawa losing five strokes putting in a day, but he just had so many opportunities. After seeing that and seeing that he hit it pretty good at the PGA, pretty good at the Byron Nelson. I think there could be something there for a top 20. I I am not opposed to it. I he makes me a little nervous in general, but um I’m not opposed to it at all.
Okay, let’s continue through your tears. And this is uh we’ve got a handful of names here because this is almost as far as you would like to go down the board. Let’s start with let’s start with Mark Hubard here who checks in at 7,700 bucks.
Yeah, I love what I’m seeing from Mark Hubard. Um I feel like this is the time of year for him to really start excelling. you look at what he’s done off the tee, it’s um I mean he’s played a lot of non-measured events, but you’re talking about gaining strokes in four out of his last six off the tee. The ones that he lost were he barely lost. Um it’s four out of the last five approaching the green. Uh and his putting has been phenomenal, right? Six in a row he’s he’s gained strokes putting in six events in a row. So, he is not at the level of consistency of a Ben Griffin, but this profile is starting to take some shades of that uh where it’s across the board performance for a number of weeks in a row. Um, US Open being an exception.
He too has played well here in the past. Um, Lee Hodgeges is next and he was shot out of a cannon last week. I think he was uh yeah, he was very much in the mix after 36 holes. He picked up four strokes in round one, 1.6 in round two. Did not have as good of a weekend, but still ended up finishing in a tie for 34th.
Yeah, this is um this is three straight weeks off the tea and approaching the green, gaining over a shot, which is phenomenal. Uh it’s a lot of weeks in a row gaining strokes, ball striking. So, he’s been striking his irons really well this year. The putter was cold for a while. In the last two weeks, it’s gotten a lot better. He gained nearly four strokes at the Canadian Open and just under a shot at the at the Rocket Classic last week. I really like this combo. Uh and and I like a I like this kind of golf course for him as well. You look at his record here and it’s a little underwhelming, but I think it’s still a I think it’s still a pretty good fit if we can get that putter rocking this week. Uh, you and I are in line on this man, Kevin Roy, who checks in at $7,400. A profile, Greg, that is getting greener by the minute. Yeah, it’s like dark green. Dark green. Um, so tied eighth at the Rocket Classic, tied 18th at the RBC Canadian Open, like you mentioned. Um, hasn’t missed a cut since the Zurich Classic, which was clearly his partner’s fault. clearly.
Uh, whoever that was. Yeah. So, yeah, I am loving what I’m seeing with these ball striking metrics. They’re just phenomenal. And the putt ending’s not bad at all either. So, this is this this is a very high floor play for a uh at 7,400. And I don’t think it’ll be chalk. Maybe it will be. Ke uh Kevin Roy. I could I could give you a thousand guesses. You probably won’t get to this because I don’t think I would. Played with Trevor Conn. Yeah, I I never would have gotten there. You could have given me a lot. How many How many Okay, if I said um if I gave you like a Mr. Beast challenge, okay, and I said um you’ve got eight hours. We’re gonna do it on live stream. Eight hours. You have to name as many professional golfers as you can. And for everyone, I’ll give you 100 bucks. How many do you think you could name? And that I’m going to say they have to have played in a PGA Tour event, a DP World Tour event, Cornferryy, uh, Liv, like you know, like like five or six of the major tours. A ma a major. Sure.
So, have you qualified for a US You have a lot of guys. You probably know a lot of guys who have qualified for US Opens.
Yeah. Yeah. You could get there pretty easily. The hard thing about a challenge like that.
Yeah.
Oh, that
no re like just like No, I spring it on you one day.
You have a pen and paper. That’s what you have. I could fill up a couple sheets of paper for sure.
Do you think now how would you do it? Would you think of the OWGR? Would you go alphabetically? Would you what would you do? Uh, well, a mix of both. It would be a mix of both. Like I might start a column that’s alphabetical.
Mhm. But so, see, sometimes if I do that, I get hung up like, “Oh, uh, who’s the, uh, it’s Anders? Um, uh, Albert, uh, uh, and then I’m off track.
Yes.
Whereas if I was just like Oberg, um, okay, let’s go Sheffller, maybe that would work better for me. Oh, well, maybe there are some. So, maybe it’d be maybe I’d have to do columns, like an alphabetical column, guys. I know column.
Mhm. Uh, best players in the world, major winners, fantasy favorites.
Oh, nice.
See, I I tend to be like, okay, Kevin, that’s a common name. How many Kevins can I name? Royman. That’s Kizner.
Ker, right? Yeah.
You go in historical. Historical, too.
Absolutely. Old Tom, young Tom. Uh,
yeah. Now you got like major championships.
Willie Anderson.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If if I could stay calm and think it would be a lot.
You think?
Eight hours is a lot of time.
You think like like a thousand I think would be like an incredible number. I think 500 would be a ton. It’s so hard to say.
Yeah. Like I know a lot of professional golfers, but I don’t know how many of that is. And how many you could get like Yeah. Re you could recall in the moment.
Oh, that right right under pressure.
Yeah. Okay. Um, where did I leave off? Okay. So, Mark and I were big on Tristan Lawrence and it looks like you are going to join us and make it a clean sweep.
Yeah, I like I really like Tristan Lawrence at 7,300. This seems like he’s a little undervalued. Um, I like the way he drives the ball. It was the suit all open that you mentioned earlier, the DP World Tour event that he played great in. Um, but this is a guy that I was very high on after um, he qualified for the PGA Tour from the DP World Tour last year. I thought he was going to have a big year like maybe a Matthew Pavone kind of year coming over to the PGA Tour and it did not happen. But lately that talent is starting to shine through seemingly out of nowhere with the US Open. but he answered the bell at the Rocket Classic. So, like I’m I’m believing my instincts from January and maybe now I’m reconsidering maybe this is just the time of year for him. Remember he he uh gave it a pretty darn good run at the Open Championship last year as well. It was the back nine Sunday. If you were like a fan, if you cared who won the major championships, you might have been worried that he was actually going to win. Yeah. I remember thinking I remember thinking like,
“Holy crap, is he gonna win this thing?”
Yeah. Yes. Like through 11 on the back nine Sunday. Yeah. Yeah. Like I’m I’m preparing for that like pod of Tristan Lawren’s The Open.
He was Yeah. Like what do we know about this guy?
Yeah. Um, h here’s a name that doesn’t pop up often and hasn’t popped up in quite some time. It’s Chan Kim, who you’ve seen enough, Greg. Miscut, miscut, miscut, miscut, miscut. T19. That’s all you need to see. Uh, yeah, I love Chan Kim.
Yeah. Okay. I love Chad Kim. gainer all the way across the board and is a flusher by nature. An absolute flusher. And what I really like is what he’s done on the greens. It plagued him a little bit earlier in the season, but uh it’s been better of late. He’s gained strokes putting in his last three. Of course, some of those were parts of mis cuts. Um but it’s also four out of his last five. So, I think he’s I think he may have found something on the greens and now his ball striking level is going to come back. He’s going to put it all together this week and you’re gonna say miscut, miscut, miscut, T19 win, maybe maybe T5.
You would you I think you would take a T19 again. Just like give me give me
that 7,000 flat. Yes, absolutely.
And I think you’re going to see it again. I think he’s going to parlay it into a another top 30 or so. Now, the 6K range is a problem. There are a lot of tough names. Kyle Stanley’s in this field. Did you see that?
Yeah. Um, wait, can I say one thing before we go to the 6K range?
You can say more than one thing if you want.
It’s just one. Max is 7,000 flat in this field.
I know.
And he didn’t make my list. It’s bad for Max. And this is where it doesn’t really matter who you’re playing against, you know? It’s just the game. He’s fighting the game and you’re not going to beat anybody fighting the game.
He’s fighting himself. Yeah, he’s not beating himself right now. So, it’s it’s tough. Um 6K range, I got one name from you and quite honestly, it is the name that I also have starred and I have also uh circled here. It is Chris Ventura and I’m with you here, brother. This is about as as frisky as I want to get. Yeah, it looks pretty good. um two out of the last three weeks he’s gained both off the tea and approaching the green. Tied 34th at the Rocket and hit it great. He’s sprinkled in some good putting. Uh look, I’m not making a very strong case here because there’s not a strong case to be made, but I do believe in the talent. Um you’ve talked a lot about this with Chris Ventura as well. So he’s he’s more of an unknown and I’d rather go with uh more of an unknown than like Luke List who’s right below him who is an unknown. We know what we’re going to get uh when it comes to that or Adam Sedson. You might think, well, he’s underpriced. You kind of know what you’re going to get. I don’t know what I’m going to get with Chris Ventura and I’m kind of okay with that.
Agree. Just give me raw talent and I’ll I’ll take it. I’ll go to battle with that. I think I struck a nerve with Mina. She doesn’t usually chime in on pod related things. Unmute yourself, please, Mina. And you I you want to go at this challenge of naming golfers?
I mean, for a hundred bucks a golfer. Yeah, I want to.
You know, it’s like out of your bank account, too, right?
We got to find someone else to fund it.
What if it was a dollar a name? How many do you think you could name? I could probably I think I could hit a thousand.
No, you could not.
Is that a lot?
A thousand? A thousand?
You guys missed Kevin. You
okay? Yeah. Find me 999 more. All right, we should try it. Just to give you an idea, Mina, there are 200 players as about 200 players on the PGA Tour. So you need to name like five generations of
currently.
Well, young and old Tom Morris. That counts as two.
That’s two fact.
I I set the line for Mina at 68 and a half. She’s done a lot. I mean, she’s done a lot of graphics, but I think I think
68 and a half golfers. Yes. You have to come up with them off the top of your head. Not just like not just like when I read a leaderboard and you’re like, “Oh, I’ve heard of that guy.”
Okay. I
Right. You got to name them. You got to pick them out and name them. Who? Who?
Spelling. Do I need to spell? No, I’ll spell them. You just have to say them. I’ll type them.
All right, I’m in. Let’s do it. 68 and a half. Easy. This is easy money. Like I don’t want to have to spell Pearson Cudy, but say it. I’ll give you uh two $3 a name if you can get to 68 and a half. You get nothing on the under. And I’ll if you go over I’ll give you three a name.
This is going to be a walk in the park. But you don’t get eight hours. Phenomenal.
You don’t get eight hours. Why? What about my nap? I got to get a nap.
And you also It’s going to be in like six months because I don’t want you studying for it. I want you to forget.
You got to forget about it.
I want her to forget about it. And then like in December when we’re struggling for
We’re not doing it tonight.
I don’t have any plans. Are we canceling that round? We can talk about this later. I got plans. I got things to do. Um,
so Greg’s line, I think, is like like 10 10 times that. I think it’s like I think the line’s like 600. It’s just such a big number.
I know. But I’m giving you eight hours.
I I go for a long time on this and I’m like, this is a lot. How many is it? 150. But you know what I’m saying? That’s
you’ll be demoralized.
Yeah. Yeah. See, you you just don’t you just got to go. Don’t count.
Um you know what would be a good idea for trivia, you know, a stump the Schwab is there are like you pick a stat category. Uh in uh Greens of Regulation, there are 185 golfers.
Name them.
Name them.
Just go. The other thing is, so if I there’s a lot of variations of this. If I just showed you head shot of golfers, I think you could name like 1,200. Oh, that would be a big number. Yeah, because you’ll you’ll know Dylan Fertelli, but that might not be a name that you’ve recall,
right? But there’s another way to build your list like who who are the recent winners of every event.
Every Yeah. Start going through events.
Yeah.
Right. I’d have that that’s the way to do it. Like I like your Kevin thing. Oh, is there are there any other Dillons? I Dylan Woo. The only other one I could think of.
And then will that get you Brandon Woo?
Then that gets you Brandon Woo. Right.
Which get you Kevin U.
Which gets you Kevin U. Or maybe Brandon Matthews. Yeah, you just like you just keep chaining them together. Oh, Brendan De Jong. Brendan. Uh Brendan. Um
Brendan.
Oh, I think she beat you do that one. Wow.
You just got sniped on Brendan. Todd Saunders.
You can still move my line. I don’t know. I think it’s a good line. I like the line. Um Okay. Okay. This is We’ll figure this out. This will be a thing.
68 and a half.
You think You think she’s got it? It’s not I have no doubt she knows more than that. She knows way more than that. But it’s not a I heard of that guy game. It is I have to say their name game. Yeah. Or sit and write them down.
Yeah. Not an easy thing to do.
It’s going to be so hard.
I almost want to do it just to test myself.
Okay. Okay. Well, don’t do it without us having you on camera and I’ll write down I’ll type in all the names and keep it straight, but because it would be great content. So, don’t do it without me.
I will. I promise.
We’ll figure out a way to do it. H. All right. Anything else? I think that’s it, Rick. I’m looking forward to it.
We are going to do a Friday show. I will admit it’ll probably be tight. It’s the fourth. Uh, we’ll probably get people out of here pretty early, but the plan is for right now to still do a Friday show. It’ll be Mark and I. And then we are still we’re going to do, of course, the Sunday show as usual. So, um, we’re wishing everybody a happy and safe fourth. Don’t don’t be the guy who blows off your fingers, please. Right. There’s going to be thousands of people who do it this year. Don’t blow off your fingers, please.
Watch the professionals do the fireworks.
Yes.
You don’t need to set them off yourself.
Thank you. That’s great advice from the Greg Head, Mr. Ducharmm. That’s Gregor’s. You can find him at the real GFD. You can find me at Rick Run. Good producer Mina. She’s behind the scenes studying her golfers. This has been the second cut. We’ll catch you next time.