LIVE: PGA Championship Course Report

Adam and Matt breakdown Valhalla after walking 25,000 steps on day one.

[Music] all right Matt gon jur we are live let’s make sure everything’s working can everybody hear us we’re live somebody in the chat tell us you can hear us all right we’re good we’re live uh Louisville we’re what 10 minutes away from the course here at the Glorious hotel where last night when I checked injures they told me to use the extra lock on the door just to be safe but uh they said that like at the yep y she tried to play it off like it wasn’t a big deal and ciders rod with it and survived and we got out to ball Halla today walked what 25,000 steps and today’s pod we’re do two pods this week one tonight where we’re going to talk about the course mainly we walk like 25,000 steps front nine back nine front nine back nine they’re not close to each other at all no um and then Wednesday we’ll do a deeper dive into players and things like that so we probably won’t have as many like player specific details but if you’ve got guys uh that you want us to check check out tweet at us and then on Wednesday we’ll just be talking guys that we’re thinking about betting uh things like that but Matt you flew up this morning got out to the course give me high level what you thought of the place ball yeah we’ll we’ll surely have take some maybe not as high enthusiasm as you guys want but um yeah high level thoughts of the course at first as soon as I got on the course I thought I was at ke Valley because I went to K Valley a few years ago for the BMW Championship and a lot of the intricacies the elevation changes and just overall scenery reminded me of K’s Valley uh For Better or For Worse I think that could it could really play like that and then overall from there we’ll get into like how the course we think the course is going to play but visually Valley came to mind and I will say I’ve been to now the last two and a half years of major championship courses and I think each one I’ve been to usually the first thing I think within like 15 minutes of being there is I would never ever want to te it up here because I’ll shoot 800 and I would much rather watch the pros play this course uh didn’t get that sense today within about 10 minutes I was like I think I could work my way around here post a reasonable score um which I think speaks a little bit about the course which we’ll get to um I think coming into the I didn’t necessarily I don’t like to do a bunch of research um before coming to these courses because I feel like it’s better to just kind of come in cold I don’t want to really know what other people are saying about the course I think maybe Lac last year an example of where I felt like before I got there I wasn’t hearing a lot about a distance Edge and then I when you see it with your eyes you don’t kind of want to be biased by maybe what you’re hearing uh before you get there so that’s kind of the approach I took I know you dug in a little bit more uh so before we talk about what we saw what was kind of your thinking about the course and maybe the keys that you had uh before you saw it today yeah before I got to Valhalla I thought that this distance would play a really important factor and while distance is never going to hurt you I we Adam and I both do not think it’s going to be the most important thing we think you can work your way if you’re a shorter hitter and I really thought around the green play was going to be really really important uh where that might still hold true with the around the green play because there’s a ton of long irons you need to hit uh the greens were very soft and I think they’re only going to get softer and they there a few there’s a few small greens for sure but there was more average to bigger greens thought there was going to be so I really thought it was gonna be a a bomber scramble Fest but that that doesn’t seem to be case we’re thinking it’s gonna be more of be elite your middle Fest yeah and I think usually obviously first of all like And subscribe if you’re listening uh right now you know we’re here trying to give everybody the insights that we can get and so if you like And subscribe uh that helps us get this out there in front of more people uh so we appreciate that a ton and so what I usually like to do and I write this up on the site uh most weeks or anytime we go to a major what I like to do is kind of just brain dump all 18 holes because that’s the best way to kind of frame what kind of those consistent things are that that come up um so I think that’s probably the best way to do is just kind of walk through the 18 holes what we saw on those holes and we’ll start on the front nine and Matt before we go Ho by hole in the front nine I have to say the front nine at Valhalla is a disgrace it is Unworthy of a major championship they should play the back nine twice not that the back nine is anything special but the front nine at Valhalla is as far from major championship quality golf as I could possibly imagine so before we really dive in I just have to admit I’m a little disgusted by what I saw at Bal yeah it’s a lot of repetitive t- shots lot of repetitive hold Staples and I was talking to Adam this I was talking to this about Adam before we started I watched the quick snippet of JT and Smiley’s pod and obviously JT is from here and smiley was like yeah what’s it going to be like back in Louisville and JT was like yeah you can say whatever you want about the golf course but it usually provides a good finish which I think he wanted to say this golf course sucks and people know it sucks but it could lead to a good result which is which is fine like I’m sure they could think the the property is enormous like it is probably only 30% of the grass on the course is being used for golf the 70% of the rest of it is being used for people about so there are going to be a [ __ ] ton of people I would imagine there this week and like it’s going to be fun to watch on TV I think I think the crowds are going to be good the Roars like kind of echo through the property purely from like Golf snobbery and like wanting a test that like tests a variety of different skill sets that’s not ballalla um and so we’ll [ __ ] on it in that sense but I still do think we’ll get a sick PGA yeah because of there’s gonna you said it might was like a record sales of tickets yeah they I I heard that they selling close to like 200,000 tickets this week which is awesome there’s a ton of room for people to watch there’s honestly good spots to view a a few elevation changes where you blocked out but overall you can kind of walk through that place pretty easily the nines are kind of far apart but a lot of major venues are kind of like that there’s a few that aren’t but um overall I think it’s going to be a fun watch but it’s just a you’re going to see a lot of the same golf shots which for us like we nitpick that stuff but for the regular fan at home it should be a fun week truthfully but there’s gonna be a ton of long irons a ton of forc layups into another oh another 175 shop oh another 175 shop we’ll get to it whole by whole but uh yeah it’s pretty straightforward in terms of what they at what the golf course ask of you whole by whole yeah and I think like the tweets that we always get or always get when I’m here is like first thing it’s always like what’s the rough look like what’s the rough look like uh this was the least rough I’ve ever seen on a PJ Champion or on a major course on day one now with that being said day one both in course conditions from like a firmness standpoint and rough those are the things that can change the most between Monday and the kickoff on Thursday uh by the way people are in the the comments here loving J’s look today and his cannons I will say Jers walked 25,000 steps at the course we came back he found the nearest LA Fitness and went there immediately so Jers has been getting a workout in today uh both mentally on the golf course and then physically off the go of course but those things could change for sure and we will report back on Wednesday to see how those things change throughout the week but last year on day one at oakill guys were breaking their arms trying to hit balls out of the rough like I remember vividly multiple guys just like hacking out of the rough I remember wam Clark whiffing a ball in front of me like it was insane how intense the rough was this week first of all so it’s kind of funny we actually didn’t even see that many guys hit out of the r because the fairways here are magnets these are the easiest driving holes I’ve ever seen you just feel like you could walk up there and smash it down the middle every single time and they’re not massively wide Fairways but these guys just look so chill with the driver that it’s decreased the importance of driving in my opinion just because like from a cam Smith all the way to a whoever you know the best drivers are I didn’t see much difference challenge off the team yeah there was literally like Club Pros playing at a Fairways regular that we saw and it was we think it’s because there’s no there there’s no real penalty like these guys are just confident like whereas like you’re at s grass you know you can’t be in that in the pine straw in the trees that’s not really the case and you’re gonna hear on Twitter this week the the hay the thick rough I’m not sure if Adam really mentioned it yet but it’s not in play like if your guy is hitting the ball in the hay he shouldn’t be in this tournament like it’s so far off the fair there’s very few spots around the golf course where the hay will actually come into play it’s not like the open Championship like they’ll hit it into the wispy stuff like it’s not in play just regular rough the hay was designed to bother the fans who are trying to walk on the course that’s actually the biggest impact that the hay has is uh for people walking outside of the ropes but yeah so like I’ve never seen a day of a practice round in any major where so few guys were in trouble on any and it’s because to your point there’s no penalties like you really can’t get in that much trouble there’s a couple holes with have water but you can’t get lost in the trees so you’re just up there and you feel confident and obviously these guys when they don’t have to have in their head like can’t go here can’t go here can’t go here they’re going to stripe it down the middle more often than not even the guys who aren’t the strongest drivers so it really leads into more of in my opinion maybe not what I expected a second Shot Golf Course with a ton of emphasis on 175 and Beyond yeah which I guess we’ll go into the holes now and also all before we get into that we saw so many guys like Adam said this at Lac when guys hit and Driver they were hitting 110% mph swings there was so many guys hitting easy 75% 85% swing because there’s no it’s not worth the risk you can hit a full driver and be okay you’re just 15 20 yards further in the Fairway like there’s not many bunkers where the the big hitters will cover like maybe two or three but being long is not a priority you can play from anywhere in this Fairway and it’s just not worth worth the risk if you’re playing in the roughers at the Fairway so we saw so many guys hitting easy drivers and Taylor Made posted a video of tiger you probably didn’t see it he hit a driver on 17 looked like he swung 65% but you because you just don’t need to risk it all yeah and I think that’s a great point I think at Lac and courses where distance is the key it’s because distance is taking out a risk that other players can’t remove from the equation right that doesn’t exist at this course I can’t think of a single hole where not one not one besides the part five maybe he want to reach into two but that’s any golf course the longer hitters will have have that Advantage yeah and we’re not saying that longer hitters don’t have it if you drive it long and straight on in golf course you’re gonna have an advantage but to your point it’s a difference between on most on a lot of holes it’s a difference between hitting it from let’s say you bomb one so now you have one80 into the green instead of 195 or 200 yes that’s an advantage over four rounds but you still have to hit a good iron shot I don’t care how well you drive it and so front nine again disgrace they should it’s not too late if the PJ championship is listening to just play the back nine we could take the club Pros out limit the field and let’s play The Back Nine twice uh instead of playing the front nine but first hole dog leg left pretty straightforward hole no trouble birdie hole yeah one of the holes where it’s not a long iron I think it’s just kind of yeah it’s one of the it’s like a 150 to probably 130 shot hit the Fairway and then the green is not too crazy there’s a few spots where they could tuck a pin behind a bunker uh today they had it in the front left which had a entrance to the to the green but pretty straightforward hole I think the first green is actually a good example of how a lot of the greens on the course are the best defense that they’re going to have for the course is tucking the pins yeah in some insane spots and honestly there’s not even that many insane spots they can tuck them but they’re going to find a spot or two on the greens and what they’re going to try to entice you to do is to take on and bite off more than you can chew but if you just play it smart play it safe there’s so many easy bailout spots there’s good spots to leave yourself the we talked about like you got to be a little bit smart just because if you are guns blazing from 200 yards out on half the holes gunning at pins you’re going to get boned but there’s also double like there shouldn’t be many double Bogies like obviously there’s a lot of trash players in this field at the bottom like there will be double Bogies but I can picture a winner scorecard where they make five birdies and one bogey a day or four birdies and no Bogies but one I think is a good example of that where like the Green’s a little bit tough depending on where they put the pin but just play smart play it out into the chipping areas and you can get up and down you you can’t really shorts side yourself too badly because the greens are so kind of flat you don’t really slope away um and one’s a good example that two two is a good example of just step up hit it down the middle you’re gonna have 200 yards in kind of no matter how far you hit it probably one of the toughest holes well two is probably one of the harder holes we saw yeah it’s a drive is pretty straightforward as long as you’re not in the bunkers on the right and even if you are in the bunkers on the right there’s no lip that you have to deal with either way it’s just gonna long iron in and it’s going to be a story of this podcast long iron in so you’ll have 180 to 200 in uh if you’re hitting driver if you want to hit three-wood and just take that bunker completely out of play you have 220 in so it’s a pretty straightforward hole there’s trouble left if you’re but if your guy hooks it left into the hazard on two unstar Blacklist because we didn’t you can’t hit it over there it would have to be a horrible shot their iron shots there though they did but the problem is so this green is it’s actually kind of cool green it sits up above there’s a big fall off on the left side the problem is they’ve grown the rough out deep on the left side it would be sick if it was shaped because you could get rejected and shoot B we saw cam Smith hook an iron almost into the water I couldn’t quite tell if it went in there but like it’s missed opport it’s another one of like it could be kind of sick but it’s not and to your point on The Fairway bunkers there’s I can’t think of a single Fairway bunker where you could get pretty close to the onto the green fromont they’re not hazards like and that adds to the the fairways are already kind of wide the rough the deep rough doesn’t start for another 20 yards left or right of the Fairway and then a lot of times there’s these Fairway bunkers but like they’re not scary because the the sand is super thin too it’s not a problem the only thing that we could that could change our narratives on Wednesday is if Adam and I are gonna be there mon like through Wednesday if we see the rough significantly grow which it’s gonna rain tomorrow it could but how much could it really grow in three days I don’t think it’s going to be anything crazy unless it just gets really wet and Lush which is like could be a problem on any golf course but the rough it was so straightforward for for a Monday at a major championship Adam said at what oill was insane at this time and it’s not right now yeah so two tough hole you you’ll take a part there three and the every part three is the same at those course they’re all like 180 to 220 no one who the designer didn’t go you know what we be sick at this course a short part three with a tough green and maybe a challenge and some risk now they know it’s sick 190 yard par threes kind of big greens pretty straight forward no real problems on three if you missed the green we saw our boy posty and posty was teaching Russ Henley uh how to chip so they uh they played the third pretty straightforward hole but another long iron so three’s long iron four is probably one of the easiest holes on the course that should be a flip both four and five yeah four and five should be wedges yeah there’re similar holes you got bunkers you got a bunker to carry on number four that’s probably like 260 and then from there you have anywhere from 110 to 130 in posty and Russ also did Lay like lay up short of that bunker which they had probably around like 165 in but I don’t really see a world that they’d want to lay back unless they thought they’d run through the Fairway because it’s just a simple carry if you can carry 260 and five was the hole where we thought oh this is the hole where there’s the distance Advantage this is a hole where the big hitters can take a hazard out of play because that’s how it looks from the T however we then saw thorbjorn olison flare one right and still fly the bunker and that’s when I had had some questions and then that was before you got there you had the distances on your phone you realize it’s only like 265 to carry the bunker on the right and then we watched Brooks DJ and Gary hit but they’re not swinging 100% 8% swings and they’re easily taking the bunker out of plane but because they’re only swinging 80% they’re finding Fairway yeah I luckily had my Aros out so I was measuring all the holes seeing what you have to carry what you’re going to have in and it was crazy repetitive what you had into I it was 13 of 18 greens I think you had 180 to 210 yeah which is and then the rest of them are are reges basically there’s kind of just no middle ground between the 190 and above and the like 130 140 shots so four and five those should be birdie holes we think like you can birdie one get a par on two you could birdie three but you’ll take a par there four and five you could birdie like guys could guy could get off to a 200 someone will be 300 through five yeah five yeah and then they get to six and six is a dumb golf hole every guy like it’s Airway that just goes out every guy hits it to the exact same spot they all end up between 190 and 210 the Green’s kind of tough and obviously anytime you’re coming in from that distance you’re going to have to hit a good iron shot and again that’s why I think it it lends more towards a second shot golf course but I watched multiple guys te off on six everything from Lowry hit one that only flew like 180 but then just ran out the way because he played a nice little flighted shot also Lowry flushing it didn’t see him putt so looks good if you don’t see him putt Larry looked good um but then I saw other guys who just kind of flew it towards the end of the fair like it’s a it’s a long par three so three is a long part three two is a long iron six is a long iron so you’ve got multiple long irons within the first yeah six is objectively a it’s just a part long part three you’re laying up with anything from a a soft three-wood to a long iron into a fairway and then from there you have 200 in so it just another long part three number six stupid golle you can’t even you can’t take driver and try to hit any further You’ be in [ __ ] so just a long part three another Blacklist if your guy misses the Fairway on six unstar remove them from the app another hole where the runoff areas to the right easy bailout so like even on that hole if you’re not like a great long iron player like I don’t think you can get by without being a solid long iron player over the course of the week but on this hole specifically just bail out right scrambling should be easy around this whole place like there’s no shaved areas and it’s a lot flatter than you would think like it always looks flatter on TV but this week is going to look so flat on TV around the green so like usually when you’re there in person you can appreciate the slopes and stuff but there was some elevation change but there wasn’t too much like drastic slopes around the green that make chipping tough like you said Pat kley was getting up and down short sided like like it was his job yeah like we I feel like one of the cool things to watch usually first few days of a practice round is guys trying to like test how they could get up and down to a short-sided pin the ball was just one hop check no matter where you’re coming from so um seven is a good example of this because we saw something on seven that I think speaks volumes about the course in the so seven is a split Fairway yeah it’s a sick hole it’s kind of hard to see exactly what’s going on because there’s really no point of walking all the way back to the T to see it but it’s split Fairway if you go to the left Fairway you cut off a little bit of distance but then your approach to the green is clear over the hazard and if you were to come up short you’d have to drop back where you hit not that you couldn’t just nuke one long over the back of the Green from like 230 if you go the right side it’s kind of a curved like beill not as much not as drastic as beill number six or five whatever we kind of curves to the left but so we watched Ryan Fox our guy he uh he was hacking it around on the hole Yeah he didn’t look great he gets into the right there was a rare spot of deep rough right by the cart path it was a spot where you should like if you see your guy there like how how do they end up there he’s near the cart path probably 30 yards right of the green trying to get up and down for par and you can yeah so we watch him he’s he’s just [ __ ] around like the Rope is still almost in his way so he’s just going for fun he hits it we both within milliseconds turn and go in the water the ball didn’t come close to going in the water it landed five yards from the water and rolled a foot yeah they didn’t the green doesn’t want you to go in the water it slopes up by the edge so to explain it a little better like Ryan Fox was was a bad explation he was hitting like a 30 yard pitch shot on in thick rough on a down slope and he hit came out hot and his flag was tucked near the water think of Bay Hill number six when if the flag’s all the way on the left and the and there’s water behind the flag and he hits it there’s a slope behind the water like you can’t stop a ball from thick rough but this green was so soft and the slope helped him out it just stopped like I we were like shocked and as soon as we saw that we were like this golf course is so stupid like you should not be able to stop a ball from where he was hitting it from and it just pays dividends to I think of what we’re saying of these greens being so sof soft and it’s going to be really come down to great long iron play yeah because Seven’s a perfect example like I will say the par five Seven’s an example FES are the best holes the par fives are the best holes because they’re not easy birdies like and they’re going to play to the ball Striker’s Advantage like if you hit one down the middle and you’ve got 230 in and you can hit a nice long iron or wood into the green you’re going to give yourself a great birdie chance especially if you leave it on the right spot right of the green it’s going to be an easy up and down but they’re not fives where you just the bombers automatically yeah you got to play out of the right spots the par fives are by far the maybe like the hardest SL best holes that actually ask you real questions uh different to whatever other hole asks you so that’s number seven number eight another we we’ll go through this one quick guess long par three 180 to 200 depending on where they have the T box straightforward green uh that’s it nothing more to put in it’s another example of like there’s going to be one pin on the front left there that will be tough and you you can either choose to go after it which I would not do I just play it long back into the middle of the green but just cuz it’s 190 like we saw guys stuffing it all day it’s just there’s no Challenge on that part three yeah and like it’s really weird because this golf course is unique in such an odd way like it’s Unique in such a bland way I’ve never seen so such a high concentration of long iron so consistently it’s they usually you see cookie cutter rinse and repeat like wedge frest CPC courses but this is like rinse and repeat long iron long iron long iron to like what our soft greens right now truthfully unique so we’ll see how it PL pays out but that’s what is that number eight yeah and yeah we were talking the whole day you know those charts that they show um of like the approach distances I’ll be very surprised if it’s not one of those that’s heavily tilted towards the 175 and above like when it comes out after the tournament and I was actually looking today that’s not uncommon of PJ championships over the most recent years I don’t think this course will play as difficult as recent PJ championships I think we’re ballpark again this can always change because it change depends on the course conditions I think we’re ballparking 13 14 under par winning score maybe somebody can get if somebody’s white hot with their long irons they can take it deep um but basically Eric Van Moran yeah EVR every single lineup ESL uh first round leader all the all the ways you can get van royan on the card then number nine another example not that tough of a drive every guy’s gonna have about 170 uh to 210 in depending on where you want to put it there’s bunkers on both sides of the Fairway again not very intimidating and then there’s certain pin positions on this ninth screen that are funnel pins yeah it like from the T box it looks like kind of a hard hole because it’s like it’s a dog leg right super uphill and we looked at the adjusted numbers you’re coming in from about 175 but it’s so uphill we we adjusted it to like around 200 if you want to go a little further you want to carry something maybe you can have a little less adjusted to like 180 but either way the back left of the green is an absolute funnel pin like if you hit that green in regulation you have a birdie putt no further than 20 20 feet if it’s in the back left and yeah soft yeah and I think on most of the holes if you’re hitting your irons swall you’re going to have 15 to 25 like yeah the winner is going to just have a boatload of 15 to 25 foot putts because you’re still hitting it from 180 200 yards like even if you’re flushing it you’re gonna you’re not going to stuff a ton of shots and so where you again this can adapt but I like to try to Ballpark like what I think the winning stat line is going to look like and I don’t think you’re going to need to gain like four to five Strokes putting but you’re not going to be able to get by not gaining anything either because enough guys are going to hit these greens are going to hit 70% of the greens in regulation it’s going to become a putting contest amongst those guys from 15 to 25 feet um but that gets us off the front nine we move to the back nine the first few holes of the back nine are up on a hill and you can actually feel some wind like every time we were there we felt wind uh you don’t really feel that when you’re down in the the Farmland of the the front nine but par five straight away uh we saw again everybody’s driving the Fairway there because there’s not a lot of risk there’s just like you can’t get in trouble yeah anytime you could get in trouble you can get out of trouble so guys just aren’t afraid off the te um it’s a tough second shot into that green though like that is one where I don’t necessarily know if it’s better to try to gun it onto the Green from 260 or if you’re just better off laying it up to the 100 yard wedge shot where by the way Michael block absolutely stuffed one that I saw you you unfortunately see that but I think that’s another one of the par FES that just ask some question it actually does ask some question yeah that’s one of the tougher Greens on the golf course that we saw number 10 because I don’t think you’d want to go I mean the guys are going to go for in two just because that’s what the numbers say but you could actually get yourself in trouble on that green because there’s actually some fall off on the back it’s super sloped on the back and then on the right it’s super uh falls off and then the Green’s really small uh they could tuck a behind the right bunker I think but if you lay up to 100 you can’t have more than 15 feet for birdie right I would say that like depending on the pin a 100 yards from the Fairway might be an easier shot than greens side in the bunker depending on where it is like we saw Nakajima in the greenside bunker and I don’t know who was playing with who was 100 yards out and I almost would have taken the wedge shot it’s up on this hill it’s a pretty straightforward shot so but again the par fives are nice 10 both seven and 10 you want to make a you should make birdie but you better to make Birdie on like four and five than you do on the par fives so that’s 10 11 along par three another 190 yard par three the exact same as uh number three and number eight uh exact same story on that one nothing we need to talk about there number 12 similar to number six a t-shot that from the te we were like oh this looks like a tough hole Yeah but no we watched Tom hogy drive it to the end of the fallof on this Fairway so it’s up above Hill and then it dips down there’s this Valley and then the green goes back up but the valley has a Fairway in it that is pointless they should put a buffet table down in in the middle down there have some concession stands because it’s pointless and now every single guy is going to hit it again and we’re all hitting shots from 190 yeah it’s another Force layup and Tom hogi probably a hit a driver which if he’s hitting a driver guys aren’t like bigger hitters are going to be hitting three Woods or even irons because no matter what you’re going to have to hit a 200 yard iron shot into this green that’s a little elevated hogi shed by the way hog hogi did flush one like and there’s you’ll see it’s like a dog leg right uh there’s a fairway like down in this Valley that you have to Pro it’s probably 360 to get to but it’s worth zero risk because if you just miss it’s a like a square Fairway it’s like very weird it’s like a piece of Saw that’s just sitting there it makes no sense we were trying to think of guys who might just absolutely YOLO it and no one is going to try that shot I don’t think unless they’re like 10 shots even if you hit it there then okay then you just have a 150 yard shot super elevated that probably plays closer to like 170 yeah and that Green’s tough that green is very very small but that it’s another one of those greens where like if you miss the green you can’t miss the green by very much you’ll just be a little bit off to the side so another just so of that that’s another hole Within These first 12 holes it’s effectively a long par three so six and 12 are par fours but just think about them as long par 3es because that’s what they are and the drives on both of them you should be in the Fairway yeah on both of those so and that leads us worle in the course the worst hole in major championship golf history potentially in my opinion the 13th hole it is actually they should they don’t why do they even have to play the hole it’s purely there to show off the waterfall so we could just skip 13 and everybody could walk by and we could take photos in front of the waterfall but it’s beautiful waterfall aesthetically pleasing but you hit like a seven iron off the T and then you hit from 130 in yeah to a green that’s this big circle green with water on every side and I guess they could put the pin close to the water and you maybe like but if you don’t give yourself a 10 to 15 foot birdie putt on that hole all four days it’s legit think of 17 at s grass it’s literally that whole and it’s not like you have to that the t- shot is hard you’re laying up to like like you’re laying up to where you’d be teeing off at 17 at s grass with a an eight or seven iron you can you can hit a Hybrid if you wanted to stretch it out to 20 yards further and hit a hit like a 60 degree W into the green if you wanted to but it’s in a it’s just a stupid golf ho because everyone’s going to be hitting an iron off the T everyone’s going to be hitting a short wedge into a it’s like like 17 atog cool Holo looks yeah visually appealing senseless I I I yeah there could I mean if they wanted to move the T box up all the way you can if you you want to drive it onto the screen but that like there’s no risk for war at all in that whole it’s very stupid yeah I asked you I was like will anyone try to drive this and you were like what the [ __ ] are you talking about no one’s GNA try to drive we could definitely we’d make por on that hole I think three out of 10 times Well we suck at golf so we yeah we’d probably hit in the water with our wedges but we saw one guy he was too far the problem is there’s all these Club Pros in this turnour in the field so you can’t tell who everyone is we were trying to put together a Miss cut parlay um which didn’t go well last time so you maybe do the opposite and and bet these guys the worst guy on the course today Dustin Johnson he started the day with a multiple hour grind session on the Range where every single Club was out of his bag and he was like recreating his swing um and then we saw on the course some problems so he’s we’ll have our Our Miss cut parlay on Wednesday but he’s an early Contender 14 Matt it’s a part three it’s a long part three could have guessed it long part three it’s like and that stretch what is it 11 through 14 is like objectively three long part threes in a rowc besides 13 including the force layup hole yeah nothing to no very very little Nuance in this course so Nick Dunlap can [ __ ] um yeah just a long par three hit your long iron good and around the greens aren’t an issue we saw your boy oty uh the winner of the that was the longest part three well we also don’t know because otegi was hitting a wood but egi also doesn’t have the distance but you gave a shout out to the winner of the Volvo open you hit him there uh he also completely iced uh like a six-year-old girl for an autograph but he did acknowledge your Volvo Championship yeah I mean OT otegi cares about uh he there to win he’s not there to sign autographs everyone knows that shout out TS and then we get to 15 16 17 which is the best stretch in my opinion yeah on the course by an extended margin 15 uh hor Drive the first horor drive started in 15 yeah 15 16 17 looked like when you go to other major courses and every hole looks like this this is what 15 16 17 look like 15 there’s a creek running down the right there’s a bunker but it’s only like 440 and so even though be it looks like the first visually challenging drive it’s still going to be yet again a long iron this time off of the T to set you up with about 130 yard uh 130 to 150 depending on where you put it but really a birdie hole I would say Obviously 13’s a birdie hole 15’s a birdie hole you want pars on 14 12 and 11 sorry I’m I I meant I meant the hardest hole in the start uh core starts on 16 yeah yeah yeah so 15 another pretty straightforward hole just because the it reminds me a little bit of 16 at oakill but shorter and you don’t need to hit driver but just kind of the way it shapes is similar um but that should be a birdie opportunity and then then the course starts on 16 yeah we’ll also say on 15 we walk to the green we see Hideki and I turn to Matt and I say Matt hii is going to be winning this golf tournament because up until that point it was just it’s Ste like hii just strip your irons he’s putting he’s he’s looking not great on the greens we get to 16t Hideki is not actually golfing hadi’s basically caddying for Rio Heats boy so uh we’ll see what happens is injured we’ll see what happens with Dei who was not hitting golf shots today so um if you’re worried about that we’ll keep you updated if we see more of that but yeahi wasn’t hitting shots but 16 yeah 16 you actually need to step up yeah and hit a big boy Drive uh probably one of the first times and only times on the course where like you have to because you got trouble left you’ve got trouble right that’s a whole down the stretch you’re going to need to both 16 and 17 you need to step up and hit good drives down I mean 18 too yeah the the final three holes are legitimately good but everything else is like kind of what we’ve been saying just like rinse and repeat at the end of the day though 16 the driver is really emphasized more than any other hole but still you got another long item to the green and then if you miss it you got plenty you got not plenty room you got some room right to bail out left you can get up and down two it’s more about the drive I think on that hole but it just sets you up with another long iron yeah that it’s a good example of yeah a good driver will get it down to 180 170 and we saw Rio from probably 230 so like that’s a whole where yeah you’ll see guys going full bore at the driver um and then 17 17 looks serious from the uphill Drive bunkers both left and right um not probably a little bit easier of a drive than 16 just because there’s no Hazard and even if you go in those Fairway bunkers you should be okay and no one’s going to try to go for those Fairway bunkers because those there’s no reason to go for the Fairway bunker it’s a super uphill uphill hole to have a a six iron instead of a five iron like it’s just not worth risk so you guys are just going to ease it in front of those bunkers most likely yeah so 16 17 long irons again and then 18 everybody knows 18 water down the right not the most intimidating drive from the te just because you could if you could hit it a million yards left in worst case you’re just going to hack out and hit wedge into the green but the back nine overall like if we just go over the holes 10 you could birdie but they’re not going to give it to you 11 you want to make par 12 you want to make par 13 you’re gonna give yourself a birdie look 14 tough 15 yeah probably birdie 16 tough 17 tough 18 you should make birdie but overall the back nine a much sturdier test I think first round lead six under what’s your thoughts I think we like we kind of walked through trying to imagine the best round somebody could shoot I think you could fire eight under if you were cook like you were absolutely cooking um but yeah for first round Le yeah you definitely can shoot eight under I’ll go with six on because it’s a ton of long irons like you’re gonna miss greens and just like not not get every one of those up and down so I think six under will lead there’s a ton of Birdie chances on the on the first few first four holes um yeah we’ll see how the rain I me obviously like we said it’s Monday if anything’s going to change it’s going to be the course firmness and the rough and obviously those things will have impact and it’ll be interesting to see to your point of if the rough gets more challenging does that put more stress on the drives we just just saw no stress on the drives today and so we’ll see how that changes as the week goes on but as we said our main goal today was kind of walk all 18 holes and and take away the keys and I think the keys we took away are yeah you’re obviously going to have to gain off of the te you’re not going to need to gain I think Infinity Strokes off the te but I think you know a half stroke to a stroke let’s say a half stroke per round off the te but i’ would be surprised if you don’t need a significant approach number to someone said sounds like Tory Pines Kentucky and that’s exactly you said guys who play well at T should play well here yeah I I agree with that and that’s when we shouted out STX we we haven’t got eyes on STX the other thing was and this is probably not true but I’m going to give the take anyway I’ve never seen fewer guys playing the course on the Monday of a turn of a of a major like no one was really practicing today which to me points to the fact that they know this isn’t a course with a lot of nuance or tricks or things that you need to find out everybody was kind of grinding on the Range and it makes sense they know what they need to do they need to hit their long irons good and I would just go get those groups zero people were practicing From the Rough like it was like no one was like yeah this rough’s going to be thick we gotta learn how to hack it out like you’ve seen in other Majors like everyone was either hitting the fairways or like Russ Henley hit one in the rough today and kicked it into the Fairway and played from there yeah just because like yeah usually in now obviously guys will always hit a ball into the rough they’ll try to hack it out of the rough just to see how it goes and then they’ll go in the Fairway and hit from the Fairway just to like try to get in that mindset but yeah guys weren’t even when they would go in the rough they might hit a few shots but no one felt like they needed it wasn’t unpredictable rough it was just regular straightforward rough but we’ll see we got a few more days to see if it glosson up and like I like Adam said today was just for the course drop [ __ ] guys that you want us to see follow us and we we’ll cover those guys based on what you saw today going into tomorrow and Wednesday give me like Target names that have just kind of popped into your head based on what you saw and also like we were just we grabbed some Mexican food across the street shout out to Louisville and there Mexican restaurants we had to choose between that or the Cracker Barrel uh we neither of us had ever been to a Cracker Barrel but maybe we’ll give that a shot yeah one of these days the thing we were kind of saying we were sitting there we were scrolling through the odds get over to golfop and.com and and check out the the odds all the the best odds there but let’s start with Scotty I saw a course that that and obviously we come on here and we say Scotty’s going to win almost every time we go to the SP rounds we didn’t see Scotty we’ll probably see him tomorrow and be like it’s over the tournament’s over but without needing to bomb it down the middle every single time which has been the foundation for everything that he has done this year I have a slight hope that the field has a chance because he’s not going to quite be able to differentiate there now also he’s goingon to stripe his long irons and hit like close every single time but if we can get past Scotty and Rory I don’t see much difference between the guys at 20s and 30s to the guys up to 200s one yeah and like we were scrolling through the odds and people were tweeting about like people’s odds were inflated everyone’s odds are inflated it’s a major and I think this is like you said Phil won in the PJ championship and what was the last PJ Championship you said and Meo almost won the PJ Championship is it the core setup is it coincidence I think that guys are Al I think if you want to build a card with longer odds they’re alive because as much as like TPC Saw Grass Scotty took that driver middle of the Fairway every single time this is going to boil down to a long iron and a 25 foot putting contest yeah and I think it kind of takes the driver out of yeah you were saying you’re considering starting a card 4050 and building a lot of guys and the other thing about this field is there’s so many guys many in the field like we turn the corner and we’re like what is yes Sven doing here like every guy who’s ever won on the DP World Tour is in the field all the live guys are here uh I will say some of the live guys uh Lucas Herbert specifically rocking the LIF gear so hard John ROM very lowkey his live live gear he’s 22 to one we again we haven’t seen a lot of these guys individually that’s what we’re gonna do the next couple of days but it’s you were you’re leaning towards a bigger card and when you’re leaning towards a bigger card who are those names tomorrow that you’re looking for get I want I want to take a look at sah I want to take a look at suu Kim I want to take a look at Steven Jagger I want to take a look at those types of players who can Flash with those middle irons don’t necessarily need to be the best s te but can Flash and then get out with the putter but we’re gonna do our best to see everyone and cover everyone get eyes on someone and I was thinking too like you know we love to I do this but anytime I say we love to I’m usually talking about myself because I do the most stereotypical like statistical things that you could do like you’re going to go data golf for weever and you’re going to sort by Strokes gained approach and you’re going to go like who’s Strokes gained approach you know l20 or whatever I think you have to be careful doing that because of the fact that you have to realize how many long irons they’re hitting this week and that like recent courses they may or may not have been playing built into those averages I would go hunt down courses where there are more long irons obviously we we talked we somebody said Tor I think that makes sense um but finding those courses where there are long irons and seeing guys who have spiked there because I could easily see this being a weak where there’s a guy who like he was gaining two on approach and then he gained one on approach and then he gained four on approach he went down and he gained zero on approach but then he shows up here and he gains seven on approach because he just [ __ ] with his long iron so I wouldn’t worry too much about like the steadiness of somebody’s iron plays Trends because we’re just going to see a shift of the type of iron play Shots you want so guys who have spiked on those courses with a lot of long irons and then obviously going and looking at guys who are good 175 to 200 200 plus um in the stats but another guy we were talking about Cory Conor yeah I was going to mention him when we talk about the hole he’s going to have a 15 foot putt on every single hole just a matter of how many will he make but yeah this is definitely a week to like we’re we’re kind of [ __ ] on the golf course but I really do think it’s gonna be a fun week and that’s why I think like I think it’s a hard week to handicap honestly like I think I’ve been at Majors before and gone like I get the the the group of players who have got chance here right obviously there’s we’re biasing towards iron play and long iron play but somebody like you could just get hot and have a week like it just feels like one of those weeks where there’s going to be some guys that you didn’t expect because yeah is it great if you’ve got some distance so you’re hitting from 180 instead of 200 definitely but a guy striping from 200 can match a guy who’s hitting from 175 sure if they’re hot um we’ll talk again guys but Aaron Ry was a guy guy who popped into my head as a guy who he also plays good at Tory uh watch out for Aaron Ry have not seen him have not got eyes I reserve the right to remove any guy from my list once I look at them and they suck um but yeah so that’s fall Halla but for Vibes so that’s all everything about the course that we’re gonna get to today like I said Sending guys and we’ll obviously I’m sure some things will change there’s never been there’s never been a practice around boots that I’ve been to where things didn’t change a little bit throughout the week and I didn’t look back on something that I said on Monday and said it’s different by Wednesday so I don’t think a lot of things are going to change but some will and we need to keep track of the weather it looked like it was going to rain earlier it’s not we’re hoping it doesn’t rain tomorrow so that we can get boots we’re going to be there 7:30 sharp uh when the doors open the best thing about this about the PJ Championship is that wristband that Matt is wearing unlimited yeah unlimited food and non-alcoholic beverage at the PGA Championship it started I saw it last year at oakill they’ve got it at bhalla if you’re in the greater Louisville area if you’re in the Commonwealth of Kentucky I saw a lot of people coming with with uh like Indiana and Ohio gear if you can get down to the practice rounds yeah first of all I’d like if the PJ could send us a commission for this pitch that we’re giving after I guess we did [ __ ] on their course really really hard so they probably don’t know us anything but unlimited free food and drink and that’s the normal ticket everybody gets it you just walk in and you grab whatever you want easily you can easily out eat and drink your ticket price in two two two trips they have these little markets all around the course you just walk in show your wristband and grab whatever you want burgers hot dogs chicken uh they had like BR worst I had a breakfast sandwich this morning breakfast sandwiches not the best breakfast sandwich I’ve ever had but it was pretty good who the best in the world but it’s freaking free what did who did I tell you that was the name that I heard the players’s name most commonly spoken among the crowd today do you remember who I no I don’t John Daly I heard the name John Daly more today than I heard any current golfer I mean good like I I would if I was a regular person I would also ask about John Ley I’d want to see him it’s a shame did he he used up the rest of his uh exemptions I think I don’t think he’s in the field this week but it would be sick if he was [ __ ] so yeah that’s Valhalla that’s day one boots on the ground PGA Championship I think we covered a lot hit your long good please stripee your long irons if you’re flushing long irons you’re going to mix I don’t care who you are I don’t care necess I don’t think back to the distance thing because every major it’s about the distance can you be below average tour distance probably not I would want to be that guy you could but you need to just be absolutely guns blazing I would I would prefer from slightly above average but if you’re slightly above average you’re you’re under consideration for me I I don’t need bers this isn’t a week where Rory and Scotty start on second base because of their driver which they do a lot of weeks and anyone can mix if you’re a little bit above average hitting your long iron as well yeah and and we also see a path for some scramble like yeah again you don’t want to do this if you don’t have to but the chipping is easy enough that there’s going to be one guy or two guys in the top 10 who just gain Infinity around the gain Infinity uh short game and that keeps them in it and then they take advantage of those par fivs and they take advantage of the wedge Hol so a lot I think I think I came into this course expecting not a lot of styles of play to be in play there’s a lot of styles of play and we’re going to go find as many guys as we can we’re going to come back and report on Wednesday what we’ve seen Matt Ganon jur appreciate it appreciate you let’s do it again tomorrow yes sir oh yeah thanks everyone