The boys are back to preview the Bank of Utah Championship at Black Desert Golf Course in Ivins, Utah. It’s news, it’s storylines, it’s best bets!
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SHOW INDEX
0:00 Intro
3:52 Pizza Talk
8:53 Xander Wins in Japan
12:03 Tiger Woods’ Surgery
21:28 Good Good Golf Will Sponsor PGA TOUR Event
27:18 NFL Talk
35:14 Bank of Utah Championship Preview
42:26 Grid
42:53 Luke Clanton over Takumi Kanaya
44:12 Ryan Gerard over Max Homa
44:41 Mark Hubbard over Bramlett and Hossler Round 1
46:26 Taylor Montgomery
48:04 Preston Summerhays
48:45 Sahith Theegala
49:12 Max Homa
50:05 Patrick Fishburn
51:05 Elevation of Ivins, Utah
52:01 Alex Noren
52:55 Longest Driver Kyle Berkshire
55:15 Kevin Yu
55:30 Christiaan Bezuidenhout
56:00 Outro
🎤 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).
[Music] Welcome in. It’s the Second Cut podcast. I’m Rick Ga. This is technically your preview for the Utah Championship. It’s your mega preview pod. It’s your storylines. It’s your best bets. But it’s going to be so much more than that because it’s been quite a long time since we’ve been able to fire this up. At least by our lofty standards. Greg Ducharv is here. Gregor, good to see you. Uh gentlemen, gentlemen, great to be back. Uh, it’s been too long. I mean, this off season is just dragging on. Can we get to some golf? Um, cuz I’ll tell you what, I know that we have a little Survivor League going in um with Splash. He’s just rubbing it in. Look at him. He’s just rubbing. He has it going. I have it going. I’m just saying thank goodness for that because my football team Yeah. is the worst team in the league. And I didn’t see that coming. I didn’t think we were going to be very good, but I didn’t see embarrassment of the league status. And that’s where the New York Jets are now. It’s pathetic. So, thank God for something like Survivor to keep me entertained on Sundays. The New York Jets Jets are still looking for their first win. Is that right, Craig? Yes. Yes. And we’re better off not even getting it. I don’t know why. I don’t know who they’re going to draft. I don’t know if it even makes a difference because they got good players, but my goodness, uh I I’m rooting for whoever I pick in Survivor for the rest of the year. So, I hope to God that continues. Yeah, we will uh we’ll get you an update here shortly. Markman is here. Mark, it is good to see you. Likewise, Rick, I don’t know whether to say ciao Rick or Buenos Das Rick. I mean, look at you. You’re all tan and all European and uh traveling the world, man. And I was looking vicariously through the pictures. Yeah. You testing apparently you got a thing for pizza and I had no idea. Oh my god. I love it. Yeah. I mean that and that like Roman style. Yeah. Very thin crust like you’re like it is just it is just the best. So yeah, we did uh we did Italy. We did a little bit of France. We finished up in Spain. We are home. I think Mina and I are both a little sick as tends to happen when you travel. So, we’re we’re this is our uh our flu game episode that we are powering through right now. So, quickly, so so I I I saw every picture of you with this cheesy grin on your face holding a slice of pizza and it looks to me like the pizza has to be crispy and firm for you to really smile. Am I right in my assessment? Yes, that’s right. Uh I I mean, the thinner the better for me. And yes, if it’s got uh a nice char underneath and you can hold it up and it’s, you know, it’s flat, that’s uh that’s what I go for because you can just eat, you can just you eat the whole thing and you don’t feel bad about it because, you know, it it just goes down so easy. So, how does it compare? Because there, look, there’s been a lot of debate on this. Is pizza Italian food or is it American food? I I see both sides. Um when when you look at you were a Philly guy, right? Yeah. So, you’ve spent some time in the Northeast. Yeah. I don’t know if you’ve been in like my neck of the woods. For sure. I have. Pizza. New is the best, man. So, so, so Greg, you’re probably closest to that Italian style, right? New Haven is like that’s what they do. I mean, that’s that’s what happened, you know. Um, immigrants from Italy came over. They all moved to one spot basically in New Haven. They opened up their their bakeries and and kind of created pizza over there. That’s probably the closest thing in the States that you’re going to get to what you get in Italy. So, you you by proximity probably have more of that than most people. Yeah, I go there all the time. I mean, a couple times a year I hit up uh Frank Pepes, the famous one up there in New Haven and it’s fantastic. I I think I love pizza. It’s the best. My good. I mean, I eat pretty healthy, but pizza is I I look at that as a health food. I think it’s good for you. Listen, it’s it’s got all the food food groups, right? It’s got like grain and it’s got dairy. You put a little meat on there. Like, it’s it’s all the pyramid. Yeah. So, I’m all for I’m all for pizza. Um, and I was just curious, what is the what’s the comparison? Is it that much better in in Italy? How do you view it? I find it to be um lighter, right? like you you you eat it and you don’t feel like you just ate a greasy pizza, right? And because you’re naturally, you know, you’re walking more, you just feel better after you eat over there. And and I think pizza is the biggest here. You’re you’re sitting home watching football, you eat pizza, and you’re like, you can’t move like you can’t move after that. Uh it’s very different from that. So I I I find it to just be um very fresh, very light way to eat pizza. All right. Sounds like I’d have a lot of it. That’s the problem. And it’s available everywhere and it’s incredibly cheap. So like you can just Yeah, there you go. Mina is throwing up the pictures. Oh yeah, that’s fantastic. On YouTube, but yeah, it’s and it’s available everywhere. It’s like the cheapest thing on the menu. Even the worst of it is very very good. So like it’s it’s very hard to go wrong. Yeah. I mean, you just go into one other shop along the side of the road and you walk in and just buy a slice of pizza and then you leave. Yeah, it’s great. A lot of places actually do it by the the pound or I guess like the by the gram. I guess they actually do it. So, it’s just a sheet. Yeah, just a sheet of pizza and then you just the guy has a pair of scissors and you just tell him where to cut and how much to cut off. Oh, very cool. And then they charge you by the weight. How about those deli there that have got like the the the ham hanging off? Oh my god. I thought I thought Mina’s head was going to explode, Mark. So, we were Yeah, we were in We walked through like um like a locals market in Valencia in Spain and they had the full pig head in there and they had I mean like the full skinned like rabbits with the eyes were still in it and like it it was I thought she was like lose it. It’s it’s a little jarring. Yeah, it’s kind of wild. You know what the coolest thing is about all the the Italians and the Spanish and all of them when they go to the store and the store is not like we experience there very few supermarkets. Right. Right. You go to the store and you buy your food for the day and then there’s no storing anything. Then you go tomorrow and you buy the food for the day. It’s it’s it’s that’s why I feel like it’s so healthy because there’s no preservatives in anything. Yeah. Everything you eat is incredibly fresh and it it has no chance to go bad because you’re right. You’re going to the market basically every day or every other day. So, all right. I got I got one last pizza take. Yeah, please. I noticed in that picture it looked like uh maybe a margarita or a cheese. That’s right. That would be a margarita. Yeah. All right. So, my theory is the the better the pizza, the fewer toppings you need. Now, I’m all right with one. If you want, you know, if I like pepperoni, I’ll get on there. you know, you want to get a a sausage on there, I’m fine with that. Yeah. But if it’s if I’m like getting airport pizza, I’m getting a meat lovers, right? It’s got to be loaded with all as many possible toppings, right, to mask the badness of the of the pizza. So, I like that all these are limited toppings. It’s a good sign. The ingredients stand alone. Now I like to, you know, basically where so when we were in Spain and they’re famous for their ham, like you get ham on the pizza as well, which kind of takes it up a notch, but you’re right. It is mostly I eat like like over there like 90% margaritas and over here like uh yeah, like buffalo chicken and how let me dip let me dip this in ranch and let me like Yeah. All that stuff because it is Yeah. No, that’s a good call. I didn’t really think about it that way. Yep. The better the pie, the fewer the toppings. Airport pizza. I’ve never heard that. Maybe I’m showing my age, but I like a thin crust vegetarian style thing with like olives and spinach and, you know, mushrooms, that sort of thing. Okay, that’s at least I’m fine with that. A healthier version. Yeah. Than most of the stuff that I’m eating pizza-wise. Um, all right, Jets. We got a lot of items to catch up on. Let’s rapid fire through a couple of these before we get to Utah. Uh, Xander wins in Japan. Boom. Just like that. 2025 looks a lot different. Greg, he holds off uh Max Graaserman. He holds off the charging Michael Thorbjornson and gets his first victory of 2025, which the season was almost a little bit of a lost year. It probably didn’t go the way he wanted to. Obviously, the rib injury um set his his his year back to begin with, but maybe a little bit of a a nice little takeaway trophy before we get to the end of the calendar year. Yeah, it’s it’s always great to win, but I also think the way he did it um was very beneficial for Xander going forward in large part because you know the a lot the things that I noticed with Xander’s game that made the biggest difference between 25 and 24 where he won two majors was um his driving accuracy was significantly worse. He got a little Aaron off the tea this year and his putting took a huge slide. you know, from going from a guy that’s routinely a top 30 putter on the PGA Tour to outside the top 100. And all of a sudden in Japan, he’s great in both of those areas. He was top 10 in driving accuracy. Uh I think he was eighth and I believe he was sixth in strokes game putting. If I’m off on those, you can reverse them. He he was sixth in one and eighth in the other. Um but so winning with, you know, the improvement in the weaknesses is a good sign for Xander. Yeah. And he closes strong, Marcus. 64 on Sunday, seven under one of the better rounds of the day. We saw a new golf course in in Yokohama Country Club. But this this, you know, the 2024 was so good for Xander. It was unrealistic to to pencil him in for two majors again, but we were certainly expecting uh his first win to come a lot earlier than the first week of October. Yeah. Well, a couple observations for me. First off, injury is a bear. And there’s certain injuries that even though you’re beyond them, the ill effects still linger a little bit. And often time those those are more mentally mental where you don’t want to challenge your body for fear of what might go. And especially when you’re doing a rib like he did, you know, there’s so much rotation and torque across the middle at the speeds they go at. You know, you I can understand why one would always be a little circumspect with the the high-speed movement, but he sort of cobbled his way through the season a little bit. And then you get to Japan. It’s going to sound cheesy, but I just love the pictures of him and his mom’s family and all of them there getting to celebrate watching him play and win because that’s kind of the only time they see Xander playing golf when it’s not on television. So clearly there’s something in the water there and it’s not just the family where he goes there, he loosens up a little bit. The golf course is clearly suiting because this is the second victory over there, but I feel like you know some of the pressure being uh leaved a little bit and having the family over there lightens the load a touch and so he looked like he played more free. I didn’t watch much but I saw highlights enough and it looked like he was swinging as freely as what I’d ever seen. Yeah, it it it looked really good. But I’m excited for uh what 2026 could bring. Speaking of injuries, speaking of the body breaking down, great segue into the latest Tiger Woods surgery. And Mark, here’s the official thing. It is a uh L4 L5 disc replacement surgery on his lumbar spine. uh as almost always it was uh successful, deemed successful. It always always uh gets thrown out there as well. This is the second back surgery for Tiger in 13 months, but it’s not even his most recent surgery. Uh that was the Achilles that he ruptured. Trying to keep track of all this back in March. So, I mean it is just uh another blow, another surgery, another press release, another injury bug for Tiger. I when I saw this, I was like, my gosh, what next? And then I got some text messages from people and they were like, did you see this news? And I was my response was more like, heck yes, how much more can you tolerate? Uh because you know, the human body is designed to fix itself. But when you’re doing all this stuff all the time, I’m wondering what’s going on inside and how strong he is mentally and how eventually when he just goes, “Okay, enough already. I I’m done. There’s no need for me to get up.” Along those lines here recently on my other show, I interviewed Chris Ko who’s worked with Tiger for a while, and he said what struck him was how hard Tiger worked despite the tremendous pain he was always in. And Chris used those terms. He’s like, he worked so hard despite the pain. And I remember thinking, golly, um, clearly he must still have goals if he’s working this hard or otherwise he just doesn’t have another gear. That’s exactly who he is and it’s who he defi how he defines himself. So this is horrible news. Now, I’m no doctor, but I just can’t see how one human body can tolerate all of this invasive stuff being done, especially to your spine, which is the center of your being. And and I I I’ll be honest with you guys, and I’m sad to say this, I don’t hold out very much hope for competitive golf. Golly, how many of these surgeries can can one still have and be competitive with the youngsters out there? Yes. and the this con the constant state of rehabilitation, Greg. I mean, it’s it’s the surgery and then the months of rehabilitation, which is always painful. It’s always difficult for what even Tiger must realize is the absolute smallest chance of getting to the top of the mountain again. I I I mean, he he only cares about wins. He only cares about major championship wins. He’s highly competitive. We are so far removed from that, we can’t even get the guy on the golf course. Now, I will mention because Mark’s Mark’s uh words, whether he realized it or not, were very specific. He said, “I don’t know how he’s going to be able to compete with these young guys anymore.” Well, doesn’t necessarily have to, Greg, because he’s going to turn 50 in two months. He will be eligible for the Champions Tour. Um, I didn’t even I didn’t even think about that to be so honest with you. I I am thinking it’s a pretty big dog that uh Tiger’s going to play any type of regular schedule on the Champions Tour if and when he gets healthy. But, uh, that will in 2026 technically become an option for him. If he plays PGA Tour Champions Golf, which look, I if you asked me about this five years ago, I would have said there is no chance Tiger plays PGA Tour Champions Golf. Maybe he tries to play a US Senior Open to win a US Junior, a US Am, a US Open, and a US Senior. That would be cool. Has anybody ever Has anybody ever done that? Not to my knowledge. Okay. Say that again cuz Hale US Junior, US Am US Open. I think the only guys to win a US Junior and a US Am are like Tiger and Nick Dunlap. So, Nick Del could technically still do it. Yeah, but I I think that list is very short and then you had the US Open on there and then Right. You know, it it’s uh it would be very a very cool accomplishment which I could see being a goal for him. Check on Hail Irwin for me, Rick. Yeah, I don’t think Hail has the US Junior. Yeah, I’m not sure he has the US Am either, but I know he’s got the senior in the regular and the Right. But they’re very small lists and I could see Tiger having an interest in that and I could have five years ago. Although um now at this point the there’s the love to compete and you don’t know where that is for his barometer. But it sounded like before this surgery it was pretty high. Um you know the willingness to get involved with TGL is a sign of his um ideals uh and willingness to go and compete in in any form he can. Uh I’m I’m sure that he’s fierce on the ping pong table kind of thing like he just wants to compete. The question is what is the toll what what is it do to his body to play a 54hole tournament in a cart like PGA Tour Champions? You know, is that like going out and playing with Charlie or or is there is there more to it than that? Because what it’s felt like over the last couple years since 2022, it’s felt like however high Tiger got up that mountain, he had to jump off from there. It was like the higher he got, you make the cut at the Masters, it’s just a farther fall. Uh and and it’s harder to recover from. And it it doesn’t make you stronger. It’s like like normally you go through stressful things and you get stronger as a result when you recover, but he’s crossed this line where it it’s it’s too difficult to recover and he doesn’t get stronger from it as a result. He just gets more broken um more hurt, which is a I mean, he’s 50 years old. You’d think we’d get, you know, 20 years of ceremonial Tiger golf, right? That’s what that’s what typically happens with golfers. You go compete 65, 70, you’re playing and and that stuff seems really far-fetched. Ceremonial golf for Tiger seems really far-fetched. Yeah. Um Well, yeah. I don’t know if that’ll settle with him. And I love your points. And to build on those, Greg, I would say this as well because the recovery is such a big deal and he’s actually spoken of it whenever he does play in major championships. He talks about how long pre-round and post round he has to work on the recovery and the setup and the preparation aspects. But then after the week, like when he made the cut at the masters for human sex, I think then he had to pull out after Saturday. Well, there was one of the majors that he did that because like we talk about the walk around there and then he takes a few weeks off and doesn’t play or might practice or whatever. But the truth is right now at 50 and chronologically he’s in fantastic shape cardio wise I’m certain but you know he’s all the he must be so misaligned from all the um surgeries he’s had done and muscular misalignment and spinal misalignment is a big deal because it becomes nerve pain then too. And so then you don’t play or you don’t practice. You just can’t spot these kids a few weeks and then come out and expect to compete with them anymore. It just isn’t. I don’t know if you could spot the old guys, that kind of stuff either. No. Well, well, that’s the thing. I’m talking about the PGA Tour. And then to TGL, look, TGL, he plays one hole every three or whatever in the first segment and then you play singles, nine holes. So, he’s not hitting that many shots. So, it’s not that invasive. So, if there is ceremonial stuff, it’ll be sort of that way inclined where it seems like you’re not putting that much stress on the body. The only walking you’re doing is to and from the tea and over to the big putting chipping green. Yeah, he may as well be in your house. I’m sure it it’s that kind of walk from the master bedroom to the kitchen. I was going to say that’s smaller than his house. He’s got it home. I I I do know this. I’ve been proved wrong by Tiger countless times and I’ve made these comments now and they’re out there in the internet. I guarantee you he proves me wrong again. I mean, that’s the Tiger Woods I know. couple of uh no uh notes there. So Mark, you are right that 2023 Masters the WD after the third round that was remember the really bad weather he had to play he had to finish his second round on Saturday and then go straight into the third round and that that was kind of a bridge too far. He ended up withdrawing after the third round. Hail Irwin, I do not see the amateur uh victories for Hail. So, uh, that as far as we can tell, still safe that Tiger could become, uh, the only man to to capture all of those all of those championships. The good news out of the PGA Tour is they are adding new sponsors. They might not be the ones that you would have thought. Good. Good. That’s Yes, that’s the YouTube channel, the Mega Merch brand. That entity is sponsoring a brand new PGA Tour event in Austin, Texas. that will debut in November of 2026. Uh I don’t know how much this costs, Greg. Multiple mill multiple millions. That tells me the state of good good is very good good. And it also tells me what has kind of been happening a little bit over the course of the last couple of years. you know, these creator classics. I think we’re doing a lot of um throwing some spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Hey, are people going to tune in for this? Are people going to be interested? As much as the PGA Tour was watching those, I’m sure the GoodG goods and the other, you know, YouTube channels, the other creator, they’re seeing what comes out of those as well. And I guess it got to a point where uh Good pulled the trigger and said, you know, we we’re we’re going to do this. They must think that there is uh some meat on the bone to to to sponsor an event like this. I I think it’s uh interesting. And I mean, one, it’s it’s shocking that this that a a what started as a YouTube golf channel, right? These are guys, some of them are good players, some of them aren’t. They play golf and videotape it. And it’s created a business that gets Payton Manning and a multitude of investors to put up some like $45 million. Yeah. In an investment for this company. Uh it’s amazing how the world works and I can do nothing but admire it what the good good people have done. And then from another standpoint, um I don’t know if there will be a more beneficial like like a a direct benefit from uh this sponsorship to good good. Yes. You know, I I I I think with many of the other ones there are like ancillary benefits like take travelers for instance. I’d be very curious when the Travelers Championship happens, how many new people sign up for car insurance with travelers, right? You know, it never even crosses my mind, Greg. No, no, no, no. But at the same time, they can do a lot in their community. There are engagements that they can do. It it feels to me like they have um very worthy goals that are achieved by their uh involvement in the travelers more than like hey look at how many more uh subscribers or look how many clicks travelers.com got during the week of the travelers. Um, I I think it it has different motives, but with Good, I could just see the YouTube subscribers go up almost immediately and their sales of hats go up immediately. Seems like it’d be very beneficial. Th This is This is what I think is really interesting, Mark, because I think Greg nailed it. The Bay Current, I don’t even know what type of company that is. They are going to get none of my business for the rest of my life, I imagine. Okay. But they are going to make money from hosting their VIP clients and there’s going to be a lot of great networking things. And that’s the the more traditional way that sponsors make money sponsoring PGA Tour events. Good might make their money back in the merch tent alone that week in Austin, Texas. They are presumably going to have a ton of access to create content around the week that is in turn going to go on the YouTube channel and make them money. I I think they might turn a profit on this thing, which I think is pretty rare for most uh event sponsorships. I don’t know. I don’t know if they’d turn a profit. It’s just more eyeballs. That’s the thing. And as I understand the YouTube model, and you’re involved in it, and I’m sort of small fry in there, too, that it’s just it is 247 content creation. There’s no time off. And and clearly I got to commend Garrett and company because they’re thinking ahead because I have to wonder like when do people start tiring of watching them play nine holes of golf. I mean think of the reality of it. So clearly they’re thinking okay we’ve got to stay ahead of this whole content creation thing and you know now being a PGA Tour event you just you’re widening your net. Basically that’s the way I do it. They’re doing it and it’s commendable that they’re thinking so far ahead. Clearly, they’re businesssavvy young men. If if you’re having PGA Tour players wearing your clothing, I was surprised when I saw that. And then when I saw that the PGA Tour is going to have a good good sponsored event, I was like, gosh, these guys are business mogul. So, so my hats off. I understand how hard the industry is. They’re doing a great job. They’re nice young men to be really honest with you. and and and I’m just wondering with boss Mina how long it is till uh the second gut sponsors the PGA tour event uh she’s working the phones you know we they got they have to meet our demands but uh she is she is working the phones that event is going to be played at uh Omni Barton Creek which is a golf course in uh Austin, Texas. It’ll have 120 players and again it’ll be in the fall of next year. Speaking of Mina, she’s alive in the Survivor. Speaking of Greg, Mina, he’s alive in the Survivor. Gregor, Gregor, uh Mark and I are out. I as soon as the words the Rams came out of my mouth and I realized it was a Thursday game in the division. I knew immediately on the show it was wrong. It was. You did call it as it as you said it. I just hated it. It It rolled. I don’t like this at all. It passed my lips and I just hated everything about it. Uh, so down I go. You two I will tell you this, Greg. Um, we’ll have your picks. Do you want to do them now, Mina, or do you want to do them later? We can do them later if you want. But, uh, she only cares about beating you. Okay. She has made that she has made that very clear. I get it. She doesn’t really care. uh with 140 some odd people left I think it is on Splash right now in our contest. Um if she wins that she just wants to outlast you so that she can be kind of the survivor of the of the quad here. I totally understand that. Um, I am like hanging on by a thread. And I watched there was a week, one of the weeks that you guys went down, there was a huge chunk of the contest that went down when the freaking Giants beat the Chargers. That was me. I was out of there like in the blink of an eye. That was a big one. Yes. There was like one week when, let’s see. Okay. Week five, they lost. I remember. I remember. Yeah. So, here it is. Here it is. Week five, 27% got knocked out by the Rams. 20% got knocked out by the Cardinals. Five or 6% got knocked out by the Bills. 2% got knocked out by the Eagles. So, you’re talking about 47 plus 6 is 53. So, over half of the whole contest got knocked out in week five alone. And now, the last couple weeks, nobody’s getting knocked out. Like, three people got knocked out last week. Yeah. It’s like Oh my good. So, I just have to I’m in between these strategies of take the obvious one and save teams cuz it’s looking like I’m going to have to to win this thing to beat Mina alone. It’s going to have to go to week 18. Yeah, but Mina Mina spent all her big bullets already. She was she was getting like Ravens, Eagles. She opened up big Yeah, but you don’t know if they’re big bullets. Uh, you know, she opened up using Eagles. Ravens Chiefs were the first three that she used. She was not going down in week one, two, or three. And I appreciate that strategy to some degree. Um, but there are too many. There are there are a lot of smart people who probably I’m looking at theseund I’m like, how are they going to get knocked? How are they going to get knocked out and me not? So, the hope was like last week, I’ll take the Bears when the Chiefs are the obvious choice, right? But, you know, 25% of the people who are left take the Bears. They’re right there with me. So, I I’m gonna have to take like somebody to beat the Ravens one week on a Monday night game. It is uh it’s like in a cartoon, you know, stepping on the rake and it comes up and smacks you in the face. It’s like you just have to avoid stepping on the rake every single week. There’s no gain. You cannot make up ground. Yeah. I mean, so this so this survivor is down to 146 out of 556. So just a smalish percentage left. Mina, throw up that graphic again because uh Greg, I will tell you, you and Mina will win and lose or lose together because you’re both on the Colts this week. So neither of you will make up grounds. You’re both hoping for survival and advancement. This is Colts uh hosting the Titans. Yeah, which seems like the right play. Uh, I feel better about this than I did the Bears last week. And at the same time, feeling good about it leaves me feeling terrible. So, I’m very nervous about this one. Well, well, I hope the Colts play well because I’ve got Daniel Jones as my fantasy quarterback and he’s been dealing lately. So, keep it up. I’ve got Jonathan Taylor as my running back. My god, he never stops scoring touchdowns. The uh they are the biggest favorites on the board. They are 14point favorites. two touchdowns. They are the biggest favorite of the week. The Kansas City Chiefs are 10 and a half point favorites. Mark, you and I are making gh It’s disgusting, but we we make ceremonial picks, which is so annoying. Uh you and I have gone with the Falcons over the Dolphins. That Miami team looks like they cannot stand each other. So, let’s hope that your Atlanta Falcons can find a victory for us this week. Well, remember when I was still in the contest, I was like, when are these I going to use these Falcons because they’re like Jackal and Hyde? I mean, they lose to Carolina by 30. don’t score. And then they beat the Commanders away and then they beat Buffalo but badly on on on Monday night. And I was like, gosh, we’re on a twoame win streak. And then they look average again on Sunday against the 49ers. So I’m hoping a little trip to Munich will get the Falcons back on track a little. Yeah, that um that Falcons game, I guess it was the Monday night game, we were in Europe, so like it’s on at like 3:00 in the morning. So, I woke up in I woke up in the middle of the night and I checked to see who won the game and I saw that they had beaten the Bills and I thought it was like a like a bad dream. I was like, “No, that’s there’s no way that they beat the Bills on on Monday night.” Sure enough, sure enough, they did. So, let’s get uh some of that good play from the Falcons this week. Uh we also have a golf contest on Splash this week. So, it’s tiers. You pick one golfer from each of six tiers. There’s a link in the description. Splash has been very good to us. I have a call with them. I will tell you boys, I have a call with them. uh I think on Friday, Friday of this week to discuss the details of the one and done for next year. That’s the good stuff. And I have my list of demands and we will see how many I can get. But I will tell you that we are very close hopefully to having that available. And I I I think it’s going to be pretty spectacular. That’s awesome. I I love the one and done contest in golf is it’s it’s the survivor equivalent. Yes. But you play through the whole year, you know, you don’t get knocked out. So, it’s it’s even better. I love I love love love one and done. Do do you think people would be receptive, Greg, to basically NFL Survivor, but you never get knocked out. What happens is you just have a running total of the point differential. So, if your team wins 21-7, that’s plus 14. If your team loses by seven, now you’re down to basically you get to play all year. It’s basically turning Survivor into one and done. Yeah, because you stay you stay involved for the year. That’s cool. Yeah, right. Then you and I wouldn’t be on the outside looking in, right? Correct. I’m trying to find ways to get us back to that’s pretty smart of you there. That’s it. That’s trick. Predicting scores in the NFL is insane. But you’d still be taking the biggest favorites on the board. Yeah. Yep. strategy would be similar. My guess it would just keep you it would just keep you involved, right? I Yeah, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Yeah. And and to that I still don’t understand how Vegas and all these bookies calculate the over and under and how close they are more often than not. Huh. Those uh those those casinos don’t get built by, you know, winning winning betterers. They’re they’re big and they can pay the electric bill every single month. No problem. Uh we’ve got an event in Utah this week, the Bank of Utah Championship. This is Mark, this is the resort. This is Black Desert Resort. They have made a big push for professional golf in just the couple of years that they’ve been open. I think they’ve hosted a uh two or three LPGA events, uh a senior tour event. This is the second year in a row the PGA is going back. Matt McCarti won this event last year. It is um desert golf, but in the sense that if you’re missing the the the grass, you’re in lava rock because southern Utah is basically a different planet. It’s so cool. I remember calling this event last year for PGA Tour Alive and you’re calling this incredible golf course in a lava field in Utah of all places. And at that stage was when Hurricane whoever she was was rumbling across North Florida. So they evacuated the PGA Tour Studios in Jacksonville, Pontedra, and they shipped us up to the NASCAR studios north of Charlotte. So we called PGA Tour Golf from the NASCAR uh broadcast network in Charlotte. I didn’t know that either. It was nuts. I mean, there’s me and Lisa Cornwell and Matt Every staying there right next to Lowe’s Motor Speedway going down the road to the NASCAR headquarters. freaking incredible situation sitting there and in one of their booths calling golf on the on their screens. It was it was crazy, but but long-winded to say I I want to see the golf course. It’s one of those places that I would just like to see. Now, I’ve been to Hawaii, I’ve seen lava fields and stuff, but you sort of expect it there where here in the desert to see lava fields and stuff is it’s bananas. So, I’d love to see the place because it looked incredible on TV. Yeah, it it really does. It looks great. Um, I haven’t been to this resort, but I’ve been to other places in southern Utah that are do not look like they are on Earth. And this opened up an interesting conversation through the Patreon channels. Greg Oliver sent in a message basically saying that, you know, the fall schedule opens up a lot of different courses that we that we don’t get to see on a regular basis. Um, now El Cardinal is coming back for the second or third year. That’s a Tiger Woods course in two weeks. Uh, this one here. and if there are any other courses that you would like to see that are not on there. Now, for this purpose, we could suspend reality of infrastructure. We could suspend reality of weather, all of that stuff. The one that I came up with was Wolf Creek, which is Oh, you got to be kidding. That’s what I had, too. It’s the best. It would be the absolute best, wouldn’t it? Well, I only know it from like it was on an old video game, right? Tiger games. Yeah, exactly. And there are crazy shots you can hit. Like you can you take some of these lines. Yeah. And you know it’s like a 480 par4. Uh but if you go and cut the corner, you got to hit like a 3-wood. You can hit it on the green. Yeah. You just got to hit it like over that mountain and then it’s down like 200 ft of elevation. It’s absolutely vid. It’s They made a video game golf course in real life. In real life. And it’s a public like you think about what they do this time of year. There’s a lot of resort golf courses. Yes. And it’s a it it’s another interesting conversation that’s going on in the game right now where you know what’s the future of the fall? Are is the fall going to continue um with with Brian Rolap and and his ideas. Um, but some of these a lot of the purpose in the fall is if you go to a resort like this, you get some notoriety of um of having a PGA Tour event, you get your members an opportunity to play and you don’t necessarily have to worry about ratings. you know, they the Golf Channel ratings do what they do and um there are golf fans that’ll always watch golf, but essentially the resort can benefit and and so it’s like a everybody kind of wins and and if you want to watch football, you watch football. You don’t have to watch the uh FedEx Cup fall. So I I think Wolf Creek would fit that mold, too. That That’s perfect. And and Greg brings up a couple of good points here, Mark, because you look at the schedule. So you’ve got either new courses or resort courses for a lot of the fall. So Yokohama, that was a new course in Japan. You get Black Desert Resort. El Cardinal, that’s a resort in Cabo. Port Royal, that’s a course they want you to come play. The Tourism Board of Bermuda wants you to come play Port Royal. You get Albany for the Hero World Challenge. That’s a resort style golf course that that works on tourism. You throw in the Grant Thornton Timuron, get yourself down in Florida, play a little bit of resort. It’s that kind of year. It kind of fits. And where’s Mexico going? Vidanta. Yeah. Move into the fall at some point. Is it not becoming a live event? That they got rid of the course, right? El Chameleon is uh No, because that would have been Worldwide Technologies. That’s what El Cardinal called Vidanta. Anyway, I don’t vant I I think uh I had heard that the Mexico Open is moving to the fall. Oh, okay. Cool. I have rumors of that. Greg’s breaking the news right now. Yeah. Right. If we’re going to keep it global, I’m going to sound like a golf nerd here, but I’m going to go either right after um Procore or whatever it is now. Yeah. Safeway. Yeah. and Nappa. We just go up the coast a little bit and we go to Pasato. Okay. And then from there then you go I don’t know can’t remember where the next one was was not Mississippi but it was down that way. But I was so Sanderson. Yeah. But I was so so enamored by watching the Alfred Dunnhill challenge when they’re playing Carnoui and they’re playing Kings Barnes in the old course. I’m like, “Come on, PGA tour. Do a do that whole um what’s the deal they’ve got with the DP World Tour? Make that partly PGA tour as well and then then let’s go and do a few days off over there.” Yeah. And then while we at it then Yeah. You know, then we just travel across the equator down to Australia and you do Kingston Heath or Royal Melbourne or one of those sorts of places. Then you come back uh to Mexico and to Bermuda or you go up to Japan from there. Yes. Now we cooking. Yeah. This is simple stuff. Just just bring it to us. We’ll get this whole thing figured out. Well done, Oliver. I did not know that was going to create that level of conversation. I will steer us back to uh Mars, I mean Utah. Uh and this will look like a grid. If you haven’t seen it before, Mina puts together our selections for each week in the form of a matchup, a finishing position, and two separate outrightes. It really gives us an opportunity to talk more about the players who in the who are in the field for this week. And there’s some interesting case studies here because there are guys who resumes are a lot better than what you would think you’d get in a FedEx fall event, but that’s good for us. So, Mina, whenever you are ready, drop us with the grid. Thank you very much. Let’s start with matchups. and Mark. Oh, look at this. Uh, the shiny new object who kind of people forgot about has made it into your matchup section. Yeah. Um, he has gone missing. And I’m speaking of Luke Clanton a little bit because remember every single one of us was crowning him the next king of the PGA tour. Yeah. And then, uh, all of a sudden he started playing for money and and he wasn’t swinging as freely. Um, and I got to tell you, it is hard for me to bet against Takumi Kaya because I love the boy like a son and he’s been playing great, but it seems to me like he only plays his really best stuff when he’s over in Japan. So, I feel like, uh, this week, um, playing in Utah, uh, Luke Clanton is a great driver of the golf ball. The fairways are wide there, but if you do miss, um, you know, you’re in trouble. Yeah. And the greens are sort of surprisingly smallish with a lot of movement. So that um I think that plays into some power off the tea. So I’m going with Clanton over Tkumi. Uh plus 100. Yeah, Takumi is a menace overseas in the Far East, but has not yet translated that to success in the States. I’m taking Maxoma over Ryan Gerard. I want to be early. I’m ready. I think if he keeps it in play off the tea, which like Mark said is, you know, you can be a little wild, just don’t be lava rock wild. Hit hit those fairways. Everything should be fine for Max Home. I’m getting him at plus money over Ryan Gerard. I’m going with Pedigree. You’ll see that a couple more times as we get through my grid here. Go ahead, Mark. How about I mean, what sort of world are we living in when Ryan Gerard is favored over Max? And I love Ryan Gerard, but my goodness, you You nailed it. Yeah, you you nailed it. That’s what sixtime PGA Tour winner Max Homa. Um Ryder Cuppper guy. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t need to read off his off his resume. Uh Greg, you are opting for precision over power in your matchup. What have you got? Well, uh you know, looking at the players that were in the top 10 at this event last year, there’s definitely a handful of them that were powerful. Um, you think of the Stephen Joerger, Mattie Schmid, um, Nick Hardy was also there. Um, you know, you had a couple of those guys, but you also had some guys just absolutely fill it up on the greens, which I find to be really interesting. So, I I’m looking at Mark Huard, who is starting to put together this iron play and putting combo. He’s he’s gained strokes putting in every single event since the Valero Texas Open April, right? That’s in April. So, he has been putting phenomenally well and it has carried into the fall. Uh putted great at the Procore, putted very well again at the Sanderson Farms. I I think that iron play is percolating too like uh you know like molten lava underneath the underneath the surface and to explode this week that He got percolating and moltant lava in the same sentence. Lance, it’s coming out in Utah. There’s there’s about to be an eruption. Mark Harvard, we are done here. That is unbelievable. Well done. Well done. Just switch off the show, Rick. We’re done. Just cut it. That is that is awesome. Uh Greg was he he took those those days off and he he put together some I was reading the dictionary. No, no. He’s somebody of his is like, “Big eye, you got to get these words into the show.” I I bet you. That’s exactly That’s exactly right. Finishing position, any one of our choice. We’ve got two top 20s and a top 40. Greg, I’ll bounce it right back to you, brother. Where you going here? Yeah. Uh, I’m going with, you know, this is very risky and I have not been a big proponent of Taylor Montgomery very much at all, but it’s a similar concept to that of Mark Hubard. He is the best putter on tour. I mean, it’s hard to say there’s anybody better than Taylor Montgomery. His driver is a is a problem, but I’m I’m thinking that he can keep it away from the lava rocks. And if he can, if we can just keep it on grass on God’s grain earth, he will make a ton of birdies this week. Uh, so I like Taylor Montgomery plus 230 for a top 20. I I’ll just spoil it right now. I have him to win at 60 to1. And yeah, we need this inside the lava lines. Uh it’s not it might not be simple. He is short and inaccurate. It is a very bad combination on the PGA Tour. He loses like a stroke per round off the tea. The rest of his game’s pretty good. And like you said, Greg, he’s like one of the best putters on planet Earth, if not if not the best one. So, uh that’s Taylor Montgomery. Top 20 for Greg. Mr. Mark, you’ve got a top 40, please. I do. Uh, first off, I just found out here recently that Taylor, I knew he was struggling injury in 24, but I found out he had two torn uh ligaments in both shoulders. I was like, “Holy cow, how is this guy playing?” And he swings like it, Mark. No, I’m just kidding. No, last year he he did. It looked painful watching him play. Yeah, I felt so bad for him. He’s fleshed some form. Now, speaking of, I’m going with a homeboy here in Utah, uh, in Preston Summers, who is a little bit of a stud. Um, all America at Arizona State. His father Boyd is a tremendous golf teacher and a great player in his own right. His uncle Daniel, um, played on the PGA Tour, won on the PGA Tour, and he’s big and he’s strong, and he’s a great player, and playing in comfortable surroundings, I think getting inside the top 40 is going to be a bit of a dodle. So, plus 330. I’m in on Preston. Yeah. 3.3 to one for Preston Summer Hayes. Uh long line of Summer Hayes coming out of of Utah and playing high level golf. Uh I’m going with Sahit Thala, the newly engaged. Congratulations, Sahit Thagala. Top 20 at plus 190. Talk about injuries. Injuries basically ruin his entire top 25. I again, I alluded to this earlier. Give me pedigree in this field. He’s starting to play a lot better. declared himself 100%. I’m I’m in. I’m trying to be early on Maxoma. I’m trying to be in on Sah Thagala. Uh winners, two separate outrights. Greg, you have found a couple of very intriguing options. Please reveal who they are. First and foremost, Max. Uh like you said, Rick, you’re trying to be early on it. I I think this is really close for Max. I think he’s undervalued and uh and a lot closer. Objects in mirror may be closer than they appear. Like he’s he’s hitting the ball really well and he’s had a couple rounds where the putter has let him down entirely. And I think that on a golf course like this, I want that that talent. The putter catches fire. I’m going to take a chance on it. You’re not going to see M if it happens, you’re not going to see Max at 40 to1 again. Um, so I I really like the number on it and I think what I’ve seen is a guy that’s really close. The other a little longer at 60 to1 is Patrick Fishburn. Um, this is that distance recipe that I see. He’s got a guy who’s been hitting the ball really well. Um, you know, every area of his game has been good in flashes, uh, but he hasn’t had the ability to put it together yet. And I’m thinking he’s also a Utah guy. Yep, he is. Uh, and so he’s going to hit the ball forever this week. Just to give you an idea how far the ball goes here, Matt Mccardi last year averaged 325.5 off the T. You know where that ranked him? Uh, 112th. Well, 41st. Yeah. Let’s see. Uh, no, that’s never mind. I don’t have anybody in the top 10 that was outside the top 100 cuz they all made me cut. Oh yeah, cuz they finished in the top 10, right? Uh elevation closest without going over. What do you think the elevation is of Ivan’s Utah? 3,000 ft. Greg, I think that’s pretty darn good. I I’m gonna risk it all. Uh 4,275 ft. Okay. Uh Mark wins. It’s 3,156. Hey, Greg got cold air in last year. Yeah, I was going to say that was probably not fair. I know. I knew you were right on it. I knew it. To put to put that into perspective, Las Vegas is 2,000. So, you’re getting an extra thousand feet of elevation in Utah. It’s also why they host a lot of the uh long drive competitions there. Not saying they’re trying to pad their stats, but they pad the stats a little bit uh when they go to Mosquite. But yeah, I like this Greg. Patrick Fishburn was one of the most popular players to bet last year and he’s playing much better now and he still has all like, you know, all that same Utah narrative stuff that everybody went down. Uh, I already said it’s Taylor Montgomery for me at 60 to1. It’s Alex Norin at 20 to1. Alex Norin has won twice in his last four starts. He’s played great across both PGA Tour and the DP World Tour. Uh, trust him. He’s playing some of the best golf career right now. and I got him at 20 to1. Mark, take us out of here with your two selections to win the Utah Championship, please. Quickly, two things. I We all were high on Max Homer for Mississippi. Mississippi and he played solid. I’m still a believer, but if I was looking at Greg’s two, I’d pick Fishburn over Homer at this golf course. And Fishburn hits two wood off the team most of the time, and he hits it that long. And then speaking of long driving, do you know without going over or give me a guess what the longest drive measured is and who hit it? It just happened, right? It It’s happened in like the last month. It would No, it was re in it was 2023 according to the according to my podcast that I put out this morning. All right, Greg, you go first. I’m pretty I’m I’m pretty confident I can get the person and I can get pretty close on the number. I don’t think I can’t get the person, but I’m I’ll guess uh 483 yards. It’s got to be more than that. So, I think the person is Kyle Birkshshire, correct? And I bet you it not PGA Tour event. Longest ever. No. Yeah. Longest drive. And incidentally, Kyle Burkshshire is working on trying to play competitively. Yep. Well, he’s going to have some gap issues in his clubs. Mark, remember that Remember that post that he put up where he swung every club in his bag up to the lob wedge faster than the PGA Tour average with a driver? Yeah, he hits his lob wedge like 200 yards or something. It’s outrageous. He swings his lob wedge faster than PGA tour driver average. I I think the I think it is probably 537 579.63 yards. That’s a freaking par five. He’s driven it. That’s wild. And he did that at altitude. That’s what got me thinking about. I mean, there’s a lot of par fives where he’d have to throttle back. Yeah. Go with a mini driver. Yeah. Need a fairway finder. Exactly. Like if he was going to play, there’s an argument to be made for no woods in the bag at all. Well, he’s long. or or like a a drive you’d go like driver seven iron, which is crazy because that’s his it’s his best weapon, right? But but not Yeah, you would have a drive. You would you would go with like a maybe a mini driver or something because if you’re hitting at 450, hit it over a lot of buffer. Yeah. Yeah. So, you need like a mini driver or a two-wood like fishburn. And then your next club would be like, what’s his seven? I’ve seen a video of him hitting a like a 280 yard 7 iron. Yeah. All right, Rick, I’m going to I’m going to wrap because boss lady is telling us she’s giving us the Yeah, she’s giving us the countdown. That’s my fault. I’m going with one long driver and one not so long driver. My long driver to win is Kevin Hugh, who’s been playing great golf. He plays desert golf. He lives in Arizona plus 2200. I feel like it’s time he’s won once. He can win again. And then Christian Bad Note, I was with him recently here. He’s got the golf clubs dialed, golf swings there. He’s healthy. He’s had a couple top 10s I feel like in the fall here. So come on, CBZ. Let’s get a victory plus 3500. 3500. CBZ, Kevin U, Patrick Fishburn, Max, Alex Norin, Taylor Montgomery. I guarantee asterisk that one of them will win. Uh no guarantees here. Uh it is correct. I have the heart out tonight. So, I’m going to wrap this show right now, gentlemen. Well done. We got through a lot. We got through the the Utah Championship. We will be back on Friday. We will be back on Sunday. And we will get into more shenanigans along the way. Big thanks to producer Mina who does all the hard work. Mark Illeman, Greg Ducharm. I’m Rick Gaiman. This is the second cut. We’ll catch you next time. [Music]
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This was a fun one!