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[Assistant] And my wife was out of town and so my three boys were with my mother-in-law. So I had to call my mother-in-law and she had me on speakerphone and I wanted to like, it was an emotional moment and I'm trying to like tell them that I love them, but I didn't want to like, I love you and I'm not sure daddy's going to be here in 15 minutes.


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[Assistant] And so I kind of said it as best I could and hung up and like my mother-in-law called me the next day after everything had quieted down. She's like, they thought you had lost your mind. Like we hung up the phone and they're like, what in the world is wrong with that idiot? What is daddy smoking in Honolulu?


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[Assistant] My clown has been up drinking all night long. Yes, it was, it was very, uh, it was very shocking. It happened quick. I remember getting a text message from a player.


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[Assistant] Uh, and the queen was surreal for a lot of different reasons because having, uh,


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[Assistant] Having come from America, it hit me so hard that, you know, there was like whispers in the media center early on Friday. Oh, something's wrong with the Queen. And like everybody in the media center was just 100% certain like, yep, they're going to cancel the tournament.


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[Assistant] And I go, they're going to cancel it. Like that's, it's not even up for discussion. Like should I just book my flight home right now? And like for the longest time after the news came out, like even I remember interviewing Richard Bland in the parking lot and he had packed everything in his locker.


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[Assistant] That bad University of Texas team that seems to be coming for everybody in the SEC. You nervous?


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[Assistant] Uh, the porch is done. We still have a lot of work that needs to be done. We need to fix our screens. For those folks who don't live in Florida, fixing your pool screen is like an annual...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As opposed to what's going on behind you right now. You wanna tell us what's happening?


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[Assistant] Uh, I had p- uh, heheh. I had bunkmate- I don't wanna talk about that.


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[Assistant] Uh, she was out of town, the wife was out of town for the weekend, my youngest son was up at Florida State, he was going to the game. So essentially it was just me, and I have to tell you, I have never cooked so much food just for one person in my entire life. Now Cole, uh, my middle son was home on


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[Assistant] Sort of that patty melt smash burger thing that was absolutely delicious. Uh, found it. Look at that. Can you read that?


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[Assistant] Agonizing. And with two minutes left in the game, and that's my middle son that I played against.


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[Assistant] Who uh, who has an inappropriate team name. It's not terrible, but it's inappropriate. Uh, and I was, uh, I had a 99% chance of winning with two minutes left in the game on Monday night.


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[Assistant] Well, and it's always the highlight of the year. I think we had this conversation last week when you start talking about, okay, what was the shot of the year?


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[Assistant] And what was the moment of the year? And inevitably it always comes down to the Ryder Cup. Like there's no reason to even have the conversation right now because it comes down to either the Ryder Cup or the Solheim Cup, even the Walker Cup.


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[Assistant] Like anyone who watched that will tell you like there's just something about the team events that draw more interest, more emotions, more sort of that fan experience that you get in other sports that you just don't get in golf.


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[Assistant] Maybe that's not getting on a plane and flying to Rome and doing something for free. Maybe that's staying at home and taking care of your body and working on your swing and being with your team that's more important. That's all I'm gonna say and that's all I was throwing out there. I'd love, this would, this is the ultimate fan. Write that column. Write that column.


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[Assistant] It's ultimate fan privilege. Every fan wants to go, why can't he take, uh, probably the best example was Jones with Kansas City. And after that game, everyone was like, well, he just needs to sign for less than his market value. Why? Why does everyone else have to work for free?


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[Assistant] I don't know why, like, when it comes to golfers and money, it's so dirty. And I mean, this is obviously


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[Assistant] This is touching a nerve over the last three years when everyone who walked away from the PGA Tour did join Live Golf took the dirty money and was doing something wrong. Name me another walk of life where if you wanted to walk away right now and make 10 times as much of what you're making at golfchannel.com.


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[Assistant] Well, sorry, NBCsports.com backslashgolf. I'd be, I'd be so happy for you. Like I, I'd be the first one in line to give you a high five. I don't understand why when it comes to golf, money has such a dirty connotation.


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[Assistant] It's an off week. That's not true. You and I both know that they're off week. There was nothing to play in last week. That doesn't mean you can't show up for a corporate outing.


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[Assistant] Like, let's say if this was a real corporate outing and they were having to fly all the way to Rome to do this in one day and play 36 old.


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[Assistant] Any idea how much Patrick Cantlay and Xander Chauflay would make? Cause I kinda do.


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[Assistant] And look, it's not about money. It is an honor to be on the team. And once the actual, the plane leaves on Sunday to go to the matches, you gotta be locked in. Like, you're part of the team, you agreed to do this. I just don't see why this scouting trip was mandatory. Real quick, what's Tiger Woods' record in the Ryder Cup?


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[Assistant] No, no, no, give me the specific record. Give me the number. Give me the X, Y, Z.


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[Assistant] Yes. How many majors has he won? Now I'm kinda curious. You know that one, right?


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[Assistant] Oh man, I was close. But you know how many majors these won. It was my turn. Like that's always the line that I come back to.


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[Assistant] No one makes their career in the Ryder Cup. We love it. We just got through talking about it for 40 minutes. No one makes their career in the Ryder Cup. Ian Poulter and Sergio Garcia certainly did.


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[Assistant] I would say Sergio Garcia's career was defined by other things. Certainly the major championship winning at the Masters. I would say Ian Poulter is the outlier in that and I'm going to go, here's another one that's probably not going to age well because I did think this through as well. And it's because Ian Poulter made his career at the Ryder Cup because he didn't do anything else in his career that was of note worth it. Right? Fair? Mic drop. Sorry. It's fair. It's fair.


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[Assistant] I mean, he won a match play, I think he won the Houston Open. I'd have to go back and look, like, it's just not, it's a good career. It's better than 99% of the golfers on the planet.


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[Assistant] But of noteworthy, that's the reason why he's remembered for his Ryder Cup. And because he's fun to watch. Like, man, it was entertaining when he was back in the day. But no one does that. Like, imagine, let's take it a step further.


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[Assistant] Imagine if you're Adam Scott and every year now the international team wants you to do one of these scouting trips and your career has been made nothing but a nightmare.


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[Assistant] I just don't see what the big deal is. If you, if you're Brooks Koepka. They did it last year. The international team did it last year. I know. If you're Brooks Koepka and you felt like it was important to be on that team because you haven't been around these guys in a while, you haven't been playing a lot of golf.


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[Assistant] To get on that plane and go to Rome for the scouting trip? Great man, that's fantastic. You're doing exactly what your captain wants you to and you have to like, where you're going. If you're Xander and Patrick can't land and you want to stay home and you feel like that's the best preparation? Try our family commitment. Chef's kiss.


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[Assistant] No, no, I don't want to be paid. It's the expectations. It was the expectations of the folks on social media who were just so sideways that how dare Patrick and Xander not do this. When, why is it okay? And again, this goes to sort of


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[Assistant] The fan privilege. They want to give away everyone else's money when it comes to athletes. They want to tell you


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[Assistant] So, and look, I think in this particular case, I even like my allies even better because you and I both know.


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[Assistant] That you could have put in, Pat and Xander could have gotten on that plane.


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[Assistant] They could have flown all the way over there and played the 30 holes and gotten on the plane and flown all the way back. And the interaction between those two probably wouldn't have been a whole lot more than it would have been without them being on the plane.


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[Assistant] You know what? I have to be honest with you. When that happened to Pop Pop, we're talking about Alex Maselli for those who don't know. He's a reporter that's been around forever. We have a lot of respect for him, but he's the reporter who is over 60 that of course got fooled by Zoom like most over 60 year olds do. And as a soon to be 60 year old,


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[Assistant] I was in the queue waiting to get called and panicked as soon as that happened. Because in my mind, I'm thinking maybe I'm not going to get it right.


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[Assistant] And there was suddenly someone, just the weight of, this is too much pressure. I literally put my hand down. Luckily PopBop kind of asked my question, so I got the answer that I wanted, but I was terrified.


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[Assistant] And we used to, I remember specifically like going straight from the playoff event in Boston and driving, actually driving down to Manhattan to do it the year that Tom Watson made his picks. And, and I think that we got away from that during COVID. We really need to go back because that's awkward. The players have to sit there and just stare at the zoom blank.


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[Assistant] No, he didn't. No, he did. I sent you a screenshot because he had the President's Cup flag when he was answering it over his right hand shoulder. It was, it was beautiful. I sent you a text about it.


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[Assistant] Uh, to answer the question about the pics, and I guess we're going to kick them around here, there were no surprises whatsoever. And look, I don't want to be that reporter that goes, oh no, I knew exactly what it was going to be like.


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[Assistant] I mean, I wrote it Sunday night before we left Eastlake. You probably wrote it earlier in the week. We kind of knew four or five of those picks, locks, if you want to go that far now. Uh, it kind of came down to four or five different players for that last pick. I think we both agreed that if you were going to, here's where it gets weird.


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[Assistant] Who do I feel like Zac should have picked versus who he picked? He picked Sam Burns and if you're creating a team and you're trying to create a winning atmosphere and you're trying to win for the first time in Europe in three decades.


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[Assistant] Then yes, you need to factor in the idea of if I'm going to pick this guy, who is he going to pair with? And Sam Burns is an easy pick to pair with Scottie Scheffler. They're best friends, they're in each other's weddings, they vacation together, all of the things. It makes


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[Assistant] Perfect sense, but when you start going down and we can get into this later, I reached out to a statistician who had actually worked for Henrik Stenson who was when he was the Ryder Cup captain and had put up a profile of exactly what they plan to do with the golf course in Rome and exactly the type of player you would go for. It's statistically.


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[Assistant] Zach didn't go after the players, he probably should. And this, this is, you have to give sort of history and hindsight, the benefit of the doubt here. You have to see how this plays out, but it's feeling a lot like Paris right now.


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[Assistant] And before we continue this conversation, I also want to point out a funny thing that I didn't get to yesterday on golf today when you and I were doing the roundtable, uh, going to the last question, and this was hilarious to me. And if anybody wants to go back and look, you can see how I'm laughing and you see the joy on my face.


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[Assistant] Because Ayman Lynch asked you, asked both of us, for a yes or no answer. And I immediately thought to myself, Labner has never answered yes or no to anything in his entire life.


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[Assistant] Uh, it's clear which way you're coming in on this one, by your tweets, by what you've said so far in the podcast. Like, you're all in on JT and I'm not going to debate you on that. Like, heart and soul of the team, whatever cliche you want to throw out there right now, it's really, really hard


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[Assistant] Five. That's it in PGA Tour events. Exactly five top five finishes since that time period. Lucas Glover on his own has five top five finishes. Keegan Bradley has three top five finishes. We can sit and keep going down the list. I'm not even saying that this was a bad idea because the hot hand makes no sense in this particular context.


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[Assistant] Going back to the Billy Horser Rule in 2014 and then when it was implemented in 2016, if we were all crawling on a plane on Sunday night,


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[Assistant] In Atlanta, which thankfully we weren't because we definitely wouldn't have made those flights with the way the TSA line was in Atlanta airport. If we were all getting on a plane to go to Rome on Sunday night from East Lake, then yes, I think Lucas Glover, Keegan Bradley, those two players specifically had a really, really good argument to do this, but because we're going to wait a month.


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[Assistant] Who had already qualified on Tuesday night in Atlanta. Other than that, nothing happened at Eastlake. I would argue that nothing happened at the BG, uh, BMW championship the week before. I would argue nothing happened in Memphis when Lucas Glover won because it's clear.


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[Assistant] That Zach Johnson has had these picks on his mind for quite a while. I would say at least a month that, okay, this is the way it's going to play out. And it might be brilliant. We may get to Sunday night in Rome and just watch the entire team high five Zach Johnson.


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[Assistant] And talk about how you put him right alongside some of the great captains of our generation, right there along Paul Aizing, right there along any of the great captains or.


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[Assistant] It can go the other way. And sort of that's the cross that Zach has to bear. I'm a little dubious right now when I look at this dance, because I do think they matter. I was in Paris. You were in Paris. We saw how.


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[Assistant] Not a good course for Bryson. Not a good course for Bryson. But you're gonna leave him off? Uh, well, I mean. It was his best year on tour!


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[Assistant] Again, I'll go back to you. What are we trying to do here? Are we just trying to reward good play? Cause if that's the case, why don't we just take the top 12 off the final FedEx Cup points list? Honestly, I'm not even being facetious here. Like what are we trying to do? Are we trying to actually win the Ryder Cup over in Europe for the first time? And I'll lean into this every time. Three damn decades it's been since the US team won the Ryder Cup in Europe.


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[Assistant] Or, are we just trying to recognize that, hey, you guys had a really good season, you've been loyal soldiers to the PGA Tour, all of those things. Like, what are we trying to do here? Because,


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[Assistant] I'll keep coming back to the idea, and again, hindsight is wicked.


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[Assistant] And I hate playing this game right after the picks have come out, but we kind of knew what they were going to be. So we've had time to digest them. If you look at the four stats, and again, I went to the statistician.


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[Assistant] You went to the four stats that really, really matter. It's accuracy off the team. Again, Rome's going to play a lot like Paris and we can go back and revisit that. It's going to be putting, it's going to be putting, it's going to be greens in regulation and it's going to be scrambling. JT, your boy, JT.


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[Assistant] Ranks outside the top 100 in every single one of those categories on the PGA Tour this year. Every single one. So again, my question is what are we trying to do here? Are we trying to make this a fun guys trip? Where I, Jordan clearly likes playing with JT. Is that what this is about? Are we trying to win?


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[Assistant] I'm just looking at, let's look at this clinical. Cause again, I, I don't want to make this personal cause you, what you're going to try to do is turn this into, oh look, you're looking, you're looking objectively.


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[Assistant] Based on how many data points? Based on what else would you do it with? Who do I want to pair it with?


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[Assistant] In the Ryder Cup, three, seven, and five. So again, I can sit here and pick apart all of these data points that you want to throw at me. Three, seven, and five. I know JT has a good record. Jordan has an okay record, by the way. It's not great. I mean, 71% apparently in four ball play.


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[Assistant] He's eight, seven and three. So he's in the grammar scheme of things. He's barely above 500. So if that's the litmus test, we're going here. I just keep going back to the idea that, and I, to answer your question, I would say Keegan.


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[Assistant] And if we're going to go back, forget about last week, forget about the last two weeks. The stat I just threw at you suggests that Zach doesn't care what's happened since the US Open. Again, those six picks combined five top five finishes. Lucas Glover on his own has that many. So it's obvious.


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[Assistant] That he hasn't been really paying attention individually to what's happening here. And my guess is a lot of that does have to do with the idea that we're more than a month away from the match.


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[Assistant] That's so much could change a player's form, a player's health, uh, lifestyle choices, whatever it is you want to factor into this.


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[Assistant] So much could change between now and then, which is, makes this kind of an outlier year.


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[Assistant] Cause again, I'll go back to almost every other year in recent history, we've gotten on the plane and we've flown straight to wherever the matches are. And we're having a much different conversation. You would agree with that if we had just gotten on a plane, correct? Yes. Then you would have the Billy horse.


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[Assistant] Well, and I'll, I'll flip that on, you keep coming back to that with Lucas, and I will counter that.


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[Assistant] Again, these are key stats who were thrown at me by someone who actually prepared these stats for the European team.


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[Assistant] Driving Accuracy, he's 9th on the PGA Tour. That's his season-long average. That's not his last month.


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[Assistant] Pudding? We all know. He was not very good at putting until he found the magic formula thanks to the Navy Seal. 156 strokes game putting. And in GIR, he's 12. He's also inside the top 30 on tour and scrambling.


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[Assistant] If you're taking all of those four stats, and again, you're probably going to debate those four stats, but those four stats are going to be the ones that, that we've picked to look at.


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[Assistant] Zero in on by comparison. And again, this is not personal. I understand why JT's on the team. I think you probably have, end up having a really good match.


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[Assistant] Driving average this year, he ranks 132nd. Putting average, 137th.


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[Assistant] I know you seem to think he's gonna find the magic formula between wherever he finished up at Wyndham and by the time we get to Rome. But man, it's hard to see how he gets there.


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[Assistant] Why do you think that? Give me a rational reason why you think that. Other than, oh my gut tells me. Cause I'm tired of hearing about people's guts.


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[Assistant] Exactly. We do not know. There is no comp whatsoever. There is no reason for Zach Johnson to sit in that big boardroom and be like, no, no, no, he's got seven weeks. He figured it out just like this guy, this guy, and this guy. There is no comp to this.


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[Assistant] I, well, his play also matters. He didn't even qualify for the playoffs. So that, that factors in here. He didn't qualify for this team. Like I, there's plenty of things. Like I'm pointing to actual facts. You're going back to, oh, he's done this well in the past. Yes. That's your argument.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, no, no. What you did is you talked about your gut. He needs to be on this team because my gut tells me. That's what you're telling me. I just said six different things!


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[Assistant] Well, because past, past performance is part, it's a data point, but I don't know that American captains need to put much stock into that based on what they haven't done overseas. Like he has played in a Ryder Cup overseas and he's come up short. He was one of the few players who actually played well in Paris.


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[Assistant] And I'm not even, that was a different JT at a different time. We can both agree with that. And you're right, it seems like I'm picking on Sam Burns, so I'm gonna go ahead and transition here. Jordan Speed, those exact same stats. I don't have to tell you this one. 123rd off the tee driving accuracy. Not his best.


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[Assistant] You're gonna be surprised there 880th in strokes game putting this year g i r.


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[Assistant] 146 in GIR. It's not as though, and look, we all know what this is about. Yes, JT is the heart and soul of the team and I'm not, I'm not debating that at all. I know you're right. He is, he's going to be the emotional leader in that team room and he's going to make it fun. And this goes back to what we're trying to do here.


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[Assistant] The idea that you pick them as a package, which I think we can all agree to, that Jordan and JT are a package, right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sure, but Jordan and Jtier package, I don't know if you've heard this, but they're pretty good friends. So I don't even know how much I like that pick, to be honest with you, and I think you're right with Sam Burns. Who do you want? You want Adam Schenck on this team?


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[Assistant] No, I'm trying to pivot here because we've sort of worn this one out. So what I'm pivoting to is just the idea that because of what LibGolf has done at the highest level.


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[Assistant] And we've seen the way that it has already, look at the way it's impacted this year's Ryder Cup team. Only seven of these players played at Whistling Straits two years ago, and that team at Whistling Straits was really, really good.


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[Assistant] Like that was probably one of the best American teams in recent history.


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[Assistant] You kinda lost a big part of that when you lost DJ, when you lost Bryson. I guess you can make the argument when you lost Patrick Greed, December Greed. You can't shake your head and say no. I mean, they were a big part of that team.


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[Assistant] And now you sort of flip the other side and you look at what the European team is going to look like. And look, we'll have this probably the same conversation next week after Luke Donald makes his picks. Liv Goff is going to force them to do what I feel like the Americans probably have to do. Because we had this conversation about your boy, Ebert, that he's going to end up being on that team.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And it, had it been maybe a different scenario, a different time without Lev Goff.


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[Assistant] I don't know that that comes to pass, and I feel like it's almost going to be a seminal moment when we get to these matches, because it will be clearly with the European team, still top heavy with your Victor Hovland, your John Rahms, your Roy McIlroy, but they will have such new looks on there. It'll be with one of those Hogar twins.


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[Assistant] We'll end up being on there. It will be such a different team. And again, this is all hindsight. I'm not even saying that, oh, it's going to play out better for them than it is for the United States. I don't know that's what's going to make these matches so fascinating to me because it is going to be a seminal moment between these two sides. You have the Americans who are still kind of clinging.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Did this idea that this is the way that we decided coming out of Glen Eagles, we were going to make it work.


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[Assistant] By God, we're gonna continue down that road where the Europeans are just going through this huge sort of makeover and not by their own design. I'm sure Luke's not loving what he's having to do with his team right now, but you can see how it could play out a lot of different ways.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sorry, I went on a deep dive on Can You Pick Knits?


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[Assistant] I don't know if that's correct or not, but if any, if any, please.


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[Assistant] Regardless of what you found. Take that, Bauer.


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[Assistant] Can you, uh, can you pick nits? Can someone please let us know in the comments? You guys are so kind. When it comes to the comments, please let us know. No, I'm not doing that. You're trying to do the thing where you're backing me into a corner and I'm not saying the U.S. team should not be favored. They're going to be favored just because- They're going to be favored but I do not think they will win.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not even doing that thing. I, it's more interesting to me now than it probably was a month ago. Now that we've gotten here and you start sort of taking a deeper dive on just the idea of how different these two teams are. We're at an inflection point in time where the Europeans are having a zig while the United States, why the United States team is going to zag.


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[Assistant] The United States team is going to fall back on all those players. You're right. Wyndham's new. I, I know Harmon is a rookie, but it's hard to sit here and look at him that way. But basically this was, and I know I'm not even trying to dismiss what Zach Johnson and the rest of his vice captains have done over the last week or two. I know there's been a lot put into this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But essentially what he did was fall back into that same sort of idea that we had coming out of Gleneagles. That there has to be continuity between the teams. And that's just not with captains and vice captains. That's clearly with players as well.


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[Assistant] I'm not going to sit here and tell you any of those guys shouldn't have got a pick because that by definition is what it is. Zach Johnson has those six picks to decide how to make his team better. What I'm questioning, did he make his team better?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think, well, no, I would go two-fold. One, I'll give you two with this answer.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The idea that six picks is probably kind of silly now. Now that we've moved on from COVID, there was a reason why we did this. So let's go just, let's just go top 10 right there off the top. So the only difference- Come on!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What are you shaking your head at? The only difference on that is Cam Young. And I do believe, rather if you want Cam Young, or you think Cam Young should be on that team, or what not.


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[Assistant] Essentially what the PGA of America, and this is maybe it's Zach Johnson.


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[Assistant] What they've done is move the goalpost in the middle of the game. What they've essentially done is turn the par 5 18th hole into a par 4. Just because we don't like the scoring now, so we're gonna mix it up. Because in almost every other year,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Either JT didn't qualify for the playoffs, dude. We can keep going down that road. You keep throwing counter arguments. 16-5 and 3.


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[Assistant] Take it easy, Brando, because what you're doing is you're digging into the stats to decide which, which stats you like when they're convenient for you. Yours is, okay, Cam Young didn't make it to the tour championship. Well, JT didn't make it even to the playoffs, but you seem to be fine with that one.


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[Assistant] Popular. There it is. He's popular. So what you've gotten to is this is a popularity contest.


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[Assistant] That is a part of it. That's why I listed five or six. Is that the best theme?


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[Assistant] Is that the best team? I'm not saying it's not, but if it's going to be a popularity contest, are you getting the best team?


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[Assistant] Uh, to answer the second part of your question, it's Keegan Bradley, was the one, and who I would leave out would be a combination. We can sit and, again, how did you put it? Knit pick? Pick knits. I don't think that's it.


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[Assistant] Uh, again, this kind of boils down to any combination of people. It could either be Justin Thomas, uh, it could be Sam Burns, it could be, I mean, how far, how deep do we want to go on this one?


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[Assistant] Uh, could be. Uh, I think Morka was top ten. Wouldn't he have qualified within the top ten?


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[Assistant] Uh, he would have qualified. So yea, any combination of Sam Burns, Ricky Fowler, and Justin Thomas, who were all picks and outside the top ten, for Keegan Bradley, for the reasons that I've already argued about. And look, again, this is just kind of hindsight in 2020. It'll be fun revisiting this when we get back from Rome, because I do think there will be something set on here, because I have nothing against the idea that


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[Assistant] You want to go down the list and create the best possible team? And maybe that is a popularity contest, because who do you want to go spend the week with? Is that what, and if that's the conversation we're having, I'm perfectly fine with that. Do you think that creates the best team? Because I'll go back to the idea, and I think I've said this story before.


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[Assistant] I remember talking with a coach for a European player and we were talking about the Ryder Cup.


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[Assistant] And kind of the old cliche came up about the Europeans just seem to get along better than the Americans do. And he laughed out loud, loudly, like a guttural laugh.


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[Assistant] And I was like, what are you talking about? And he goes, at the last Ryder Cup, he goes, you had players yelling at players, almost getting in fistfights. You had wives crying, running out of the room. You had vice captains accusing each other.


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[Assistant] Of making bad decisions or being homers or whatever the case may be. The idea...


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[Assistant] That it's just, it's all happy and roses and rainbows over there? Absolutely not true. Did they find a way to put everything together when the time comes and play as a team? Apparently, because they've done a really good job of it over the last decade.


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[Assistant] Or so. So the idea that you need to get everybody in this team room that gets along, I think that's wildly overstated.


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[Assistant] It's a difference between Cam Young and whoever else you want to pick. Sam Burns, Ricky Fallick, eh, JT.


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[Assistant] It's not as though he completely went outside the boundaries here, like he made one decision that was different from what the automatic 10 qualifiers for. Like I don't get, how does that work out? I mean, he picked Ricky who was 13th, he picked Justin Thomas who was 15th.


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[Assistant] No, I'm looking at just the top 10. You were saying that, okay, you don't want to go back to the top 10 automatic qualifiers. He, he colored outside the lines just once in that scenario with Cam Young. Like, why?


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[Assistant] You would just want to use the FedExCup point from this season. Just, just, let's cut to the chase.


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[Assistant] No one wants that kind, I mean, this is where the problem lies. And we can go to our conversation, which we've had in the past about the Walker Cup. And I think I've been outspokenly critical about that process, where there has to be some, some.


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[Assistant] You have. I know you have. And there has to be some level of transparency. And I will tell you that yes, there's some captains. My guess is Paul Aisinger would love to have 12 captains picks. I can guarantee you that Davis Love would just rather take the top 12.


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[Assistant] Because if you've played well enough to be inside that top 12, you've probably played well enough to be on the team. Does that make for the best team? Probably not.


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[Assistant] And we can sit and have a debate about what the best number is, six or two or some combination.


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[Assistant] Inside that, but I don't think the idea that he only made one change outside of that top 10 leads me to believe that, oh no, he has to have this flexibility. I don't buy that. No captain in recent history has gone outside the lines like that. None of them. And they will not go outside the lines like that.


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[Assistant] I think we do, uh, no, alright, go ahead. I feel like we should be here for the fans, but clearly you don't...


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[Assistant] I want to put that theory to a test right now because you touched on it. So let's put that theory to the test that maybe we'll see who's actually listening to this podcast right now.


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[Assistant] Yes, that seems aggressive that CBS, and this is a normal thing that TV networks do, that they do not want to send players off early and run at tape delayed. That seemed dangerously close to not being able to finish up on Sunday night at Eastlake, which would spill over till Monday morning.


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[Assistant] Which, you and I weren't going to be there anyway, we both had flights out of Atlanta, which we almost did in May thanks to TSA. However, I cannot believe that a tape delay finish on a Sunday afternoon, because you finished up early before the storms came through,


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[Assistant] Is worse than a monday finish i could be wrong here but i don't believe that.


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[Assistant] And I know you wrote, you took a deep dive in sort of Victor's, I don't know, origin story, whatever it is we want to call it in his work with the Trackman Maestro, and it is fascinating to me, and I might have said this before.


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[Assistant] That, and I was having this conversation with an equipment rep Sunday morning about the idea that


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[Assistant] Normally, when a young player shows up on the PGA Tour, they're close to fully formed. All of them work hard to get 1% better. The idea in every aspect of your game, like that's why they're really, really good at what they do, because they're always working even at things they're really, really good at. In this particular case, I asked this rep to like, put a number on how much better.


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[Assistant] Victor's short game is now versus, I don't know, two years from now. And it was somewhere around 80 to 90%. Like depending on.


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[Assistant] How you want, I mean, you can break it down statistically, but just the idea that he turned something that was a, that was an issue.


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[Assistant] I think so too, and it was kind of amazing. We've kind of ran this into the ground, but the idea that we're not getting on a plane to go to the Ryder Cup on Sunday night.


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[Assistant] I can tell you that there's a couple of Europeans that would really, really have liked to have gotten on a plane and gone play the Ryder Cup this week. And they're all tired. It's been a long four weeks, uh, three weeks of the playoffs. It's been hot. It's been humid. It's been just awful. However.


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[Assistant] Like if you look at how well that European team, and Xander has been playing well too, you can't take anything away from that side, but between Victor and Rory,


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[Assistant] And you would think that his back would be okay by the time we come around. And even John Rahm, he faded a little bit on the weekend.


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[Assistant] I mean, it's going to, it feels like one of those teams that's going to be top heavy, but man, the top's playing well right now.


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[Assistant] I don't know if anything's gonna be on the grill. You've, you've probably heard this. I should have said it out of the top of the podcast, but so the pool, the deck, everything behind my house.


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[Assistant] It's being redone. And, and the, the crew showed up this morning at 6.30. Like I will give them credit. And they're, they're, it's kind of a sprint. Uh, I'm going to get to why it's a sprint. There's a hurricane coming and it's only going to, we're going to catch.


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[Assistant] Well, it's gonna, we're gonna catch the southern edges of it. I think it's heading, are you not hunkered down? What's going on?


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[Assistant] Why didn't you just go to meteorology school? Why didn't you just become a weatherman?


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[Assistant] You sent me the AI rankings this morning, which I did find were interesting. Mine's a B-, which in sort of my history and fantasy, I'll take a B-, what was your score? I didn't even see it. I was a B+.


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[Assistant] That's not the text you sent me after the first round when I got Nick Chubb and C.D. Lamb with pretty much back to back picks. Yes, that was a good start.


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[Assistant] Uh, Aaron Rodgers is probably not the quarterback I had, I had in, when I envisioned how this draft was going to go, but I also had in my mind, I was not going to pick a quarterback anywhere in the first five to six rounds. I, I think Aaron Rodgers in the eighth round. I'm actually perfectly fine with that. And then the backup, my number two guy who will probably end up finishing the season for me is Kirk Cousin.


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[Assistant] Which if you go to any draft board will tell you that statistically he is wildly overlooked. And I also got Kirk Cousins in the 11th round. So I'm perfectly fine with my quarterbacks. There's plenty of issues that came up last night, but the quarterbacks weren't one of them.


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[Assistant] I don't know if I can, because my entire back porch, everything that I own is either in my backyard or in my garage. Like everything had to, like they had to pick everything up and relocate it. They're working very hard, you can probably hear them, but I don't think they're going to be done in time for the weekend because of the storm.


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[Assistant] Breaking down the picks. Yeaah, I mean a lot of what we just talked about right now, and again, this is not being overly critical because you have to sort of let this thing play out, but there's certainly bits and parts of what Zach has done that I think are interesting.


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[Assistant] It was not easy. Uh, no, I don't think I remember it during, certainly not during tournament days. I think I remember one year when we got like a really bad storm, like on Tuesday night and it got cool. But by the time Thursday rolled around, it was fine. And we talked about this last night. Today was even worse. It was cold. It was a stinging rain.


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[Assistant] I don't know that I've ever had an occasion to feel that sorry for tour pros in my life, but certainly watching many of them sort of slog around that place, Tiger Woods being the primary example, it's just the kind of day you don't want to play golf.


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[Assistant] And it's not, and even if it's at Augusta national, it's still not the place you want to play golf. What's amazing to me is you still have the top players, which in this case is it's a two man race. I'll give it to you now. John Rom and Brooks Koepka still playing phenomenal golf.


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[Assistant] I'll still go back to what Rory said the other day about he would rather if you're chasing it to be difficult because that means if you shoot a good score you're gonna make up ground whereas if it's easy and you shoot 66 everyone is shooting 66 but because


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[Assistant] You have these two particular players, and as you pointed out, they're horses, they're going head to head. I don't know that it really matters one way or the other. I mean, if it was playing easy, I think they would both start trading birdies, and if it's hard, then...


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[Assistant] They're gonna start grinding out for pars. It just looks like that's the way it's going to work out. I guess the more interesting thing for me and as you pointed out, one is facing a birdie putt, one is facing a bogey putt.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, so you end up with a scenario where it seems to me like it's a commanding lead, but I'm sure Brooks is not going to bed thinking, oh, this is going to be a cakewalk tomorrow. You pointed out it's going to be, it's going to be a marathon. It's going to be difficult, but at the end of the day,


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[Assistant] I don't know that any two players are better prepared for that. It's going to be muddy. Both of them seem to be mutters. They both hit it a long way. There's no parts of their game that you would think, oh, this one has an advantage over the other one.


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[Assistant] I would agree, just because it's so exacting. I mean, this isn't about hitting greens. It's about hitting the right quadrant of the greens, right? Guys talk about it all the time. I mean, you, at Augusta, you don't aim for the middle of the green and just play it safe. You've got to go at a certain section of the green or you're going to give yourself essentially a three pot. So now all of a sudden you're talking about, instead of having six yards.


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[Assistant] To sort of aim at and to work with you, you've probably only got two or three yards and then you add a mud ball.


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[Assistant] To that and you're starting to guess and that's the last thing tour players want to do. I remember talking with players about this earlier this year in Palm Springs and the idea it was funny because if the mud is on the left side of the ball, the ball is going to go right. If it's on the right side of the ball, it's going to go left. That's sort of the general.


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[Assistant] I had so many players tell me that they don't know. Like what if it's on the front or the back of the ball?


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[Assistant] Like, they don't know. And even the best players who ever play the game, these people are better than the top 1% of the top 1%. They don't know and it frustrates them so much. I mean this, this sends them into shock. This is a triggering moment.


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[Assistant] I mean, it's a triggering event for these guys. And when you talk about John Rom, yes, he is a fearsome closer. And in this particular situation, if we were having this conversation about anyone else.


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[Assistant] I think that's kind of the end of the list. If there's anyone else we're having this conversation with is John Rahm is paired with this player, we're like, nah, John Rahm's gonna catch him, like he's gonna win this thing. But!


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[Assistant] Brooks is still Brooks. I mean, we can all still remember 2019, 2018 when he was at his absolute best. It's been a minute. We've seen him play some really, really bad golf.


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[Assistant] I think we've also seen him play something that looks a lot like 2018, 2019. And so it's going to be interesting because it's going to, this is going to be more of a contest between wills and patience and all of the things that we always look at John Rahm and we wonder, wow, how much of that does he actually have? He could actually prove a lot of things if he's able to somehow pull


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[Assistant] Which by the way, it wasn't a good split. I think both coach and player will admit to that. And when they reconnected last year was at the Bedminster live event. It was back in July and it was kind of reluctant first, I think on both sides, but Brooks was searching for answers and I think Claude had finally come around and he wanted to help.


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[Assistant] And the way Claude explained it to me, it didn't take a long time that these are things that they had been working on for years.


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[Assistant] Probably the bigger deal, and Claude will be the first to admit this, is that he was healthy. That he wasn't dealing with all the injuries that we've documented so much. And once he was healthy, that yes, you could get him back on track, and that's what they've been able to do. And when he won in Saudi Arabia, I think it was late last year,


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[Assistant] Uh, he was immediate that, oh, we got the band back together and everything was comfortable. I think the thing about this week that Claude told me, and I wrote about it tonight on golfchannel.com is, Brooks feels most comfortable when there's chaos.


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[Assistant] And I think you and I both can love that idea and the way in the context that


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[Assistant] It depends on how strong you are, how quickly you die, but you are dying and you start making bad decisions and people start panicking and no one wants to get to 26,000 feet. His argument was, Brooks loves it at 26,000 feet.


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[Assistant] This is where he is at his absolute best. If you put him at 5,000 feet where everyone plays pretty much the same golf course, you got to make a bunch of birdies. That pretty much bores him. We know that about him and I love the analogy of.


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[Assistant] The way he explained it is, he loves the lack of oxygen. He loves the challenge. He loves the physical goals.


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[Assistant] I know and you go back to that comment and he's the same guy now that he was back in 2019. I think the biggest part though that stood out to me and this goes beyond the bravado, right? This goes beyond the perceived indifference that Brooks tries to make the world believe that this is the person he is.


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[Assistant] Heard what he said that he thought he was so watched that the, that lived golf and the money that they offered offered him was the best option. However.


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[Assistant] That also taught him that you gotta appreciate this more. And Claude said, the greats all understand this doesn't last forever.


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[Assistant] That greatness is not a thing that you just cling to for eternity, that you need to make the most of it. And I found that the most interesting because he doesn't portray that to the world. You don't get that sort of thoughtfulness.


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[Assistant] When you hear Brooks talk, I'm not trying to make any other comment, but he doesn't seem to look that far into the future. I love the idea that he showed up here this week thinking to himself that I don't have a lot of these left. I can probably start adding up how many majors I can play. I'm going to make the most of it. And this is what we got out of.


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[Assistant] I want to answer that. That's a really good topic. Before we get there, however, I don't want to skip past just the reality that


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[Assistant] It wasn't the error. The error was trying to put it back into place. And the point I'm trying to make is neither one of, neither you nor I are tough guys.


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[Assistant] And I can tell you right now that if I stub my toe walking into the other room, which you are 10 yards away from me right now, I'm not going to try to put it back into place myself. I'm going to scream and yell until you take me to whatever the nearest medical facility is and they're going to put it back into place. I mean, I would, I would at least, I would at least use Teladoc to see like, hey man, what do you, what do you suggest here?


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[Assistant] No, no, I want you to take me to an expert right off the top. I don't think I'm qualified for this. I went to journalism school, I didn't go to medical school, and I'm pretty sure Brooks didn't go to medical school. So I didn't want to skip by that.


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[Assistant] Not, not doing that, uh, to your point, what does it say? Uh, uh, we talked about this early in the week and I think I kind of surprised Todd Lewis. He asked me on air during live from about what would it mean if a live player won? And my immediate response was it would be good for golf, which kind of surprised Todd Lewis. I got a really.


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[Assistant] Kind of like you got from Steve Sands the other day when you picked Bruce Koepka as a player to watch.


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[Assistant] And the reason behind that is in, I think you and I talked about this on the way home, the interest level from the conflict is going to go through the roof.


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[Assistant] And I think we keep forgetting and we keep wanting just to walk straight by the idea this is an entertainment product. And if you don't think that if Brooks wins somehow pulls this out on Sunday that going into next month's PGA championship that it's not going to be a topic all over again and that we're suddenly going to start thinking about


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[Assistant] These players are only going to get together four times a year. It only makes those four events, which are the most important events in golf that much more important. Look, I know it's bad for the PGA tour and you and I talked about it on the drive home. I have no idea how they're going to handle this if Brooks does win, but I do believe.


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[Assistant] For the entertainment product, for the fan, for the players that play both tours, it's going to be good for them. Cause now you're going to end up with a scenario that


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[Assistant] We don't know. We talked about it. We don't know how to gaze these players. We don't know how to handicap the field, but now you put them together and that's going to be fun.


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[Assistant] And I'll go back to what I think I said earlier in the week, that I still believe that Cam Smith is a top 5 player and that DJ is a top 10 player and Brooks


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[Assistant] Is a top 10 player just because we don't see it doesn't make it not real and the hard part for us, for you and I, we have a very specific way we can't quantify solid play, right? We want to watch PGA tour events, nothing against live events like that. That's just a different model. We want to look at shot link dead data. We want to see strokes gain. They don't have any of that. And so we're already.


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[Assistant] And so to be fair, and this isn't like, I think you and I both have done a very good job of trying to avoid like, I'm not passing judgment on whether 54 holes and shotgun starts are, are a truly competitive outlet or not. Like that has nothing to do with it. This just has to do with how historically.


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[Assistant] We have gauged if a player is, is worthy of, oh, you should watch this guy. Because we simply don't have that. Last week when Brooks kept a one, I think we both kind of took notice. I think we talked about it as we rounded that beautiful layout at Palmetto Golf Club. Thank you so much, Brooks. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Brooks. Mr. Moore. Love you. However.


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[Assistant] I think this is going to sort of change that narrative. It's going to make us look, probably look a little bit harder in how exactly.


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[Assistant] What is Cam playing like right now? And is Dustin ready? To your point, you're right. I would probably be more interested to see how the meter per errors.


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[Assistant] Yes, that's why I think he's going to show up tomorrow morning. I get what you're saying. I understand what you're laying down. I wish you wouldn't have again because I care about you. But yes, if this was, if this was Genesis Invitational, I'm not expecting to see him tomorrow morning. I do think he'll give it a go and he did not look good and we've seen him all week. In the best of conditions, he hasn't looked good. However, I do think this is special to him. Real quick, who wins and by how many?


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[Assistant] I think Brooks wins, but it's not a runaway. I think we ended up with a very exciting Sunday between he and John Rahm. And for all the reasons we talked about, I don't see either one of these players separated by much. The only difference here is a four stroke lead. That could be two.


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[Assistant] By the time that, you know, most people are having breakfast tomorrow morning, which is even more fascinating. The masters does a really good job of saving all of the drama until Sunday. And I would imagine in this particular scenario with the extra holes and the rain and the cold and all the conditions, it's only going to be that much better.


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[Assistant] Welcome back to this edition of the Golf Channel Podcast with Rex and Lavag. Folks, we got a fun one today. This week's episode, we're talking another Tiger Woods surgery. That's not necessarily fun. Live players on the U.S. Ryder Cup team and most importantly,


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[Assistant] If the NFL draft approaching, we're gonna draft not just our top picks.


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[Assistant] For 2023 or 2024, we're going for the next five years, essentially a rookie contract in the NFL and also the top five prospects, guys who are still amateurs who would want to buy stock in right now and draft them. It was beginning today. I can't wait to see who Rex was very much not.


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[Assistant] Get into Tiger. Had another ankle surgery last week that's fusing some areas together around his right ankle, which of course was the one that was mangled in the car accident in February 2021. This surgery, according to medical experts, is going to mean less mobility


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[Assistant] But hopefully also less pain. It almost certainly means that his major season is over. He does not have a timeline for his recovery. Does this also spell doom for his career?


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[Assistant] 1.0, we have not been, we have not been workshopping this over the past couple of months. We've not been making money. We haven't been hiding this behind a paywall, hoping you'd get excited for potential trades.


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[Assistant] You're, you're right. That would have been career ending. I think everyone agrees. Had that been the case now, he probably wouldn't even attempted to come back. He initially injured his left angle in that car accident. I highly encourage everyone to check out Bill Mallon, former PGA Tour player, uh, now.


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[Assistant] Uh, current medical expert on Twitter had some great thoughts. He said that the recovery for this, it's been anywhere online.


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[Assistant] Three to six months, right? You can start getting out of the cast, putting some weight on it, which would obviously put him outside the major window for 2023. But what Bill Malin said, Tiger Woods should expect.


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[Assistant] A full recovery in about a year. And so next year's masters, that's kind of a realistic time to, will we see him at the PNC championship? Probably. Probably.


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[Assistant] It should be less of a stress. I also don't believe that this is career ending. It does seem, Rex, that unlike other surgeries, this is more about quality of life.


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[Assistant] At Augusta National, he initially cited it as


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[Assistant] Uh, the recurrence of plantar fascia is obviously this was more significant than that. Hopefully this does mean less pain, less discomfort, because that has been the one.


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[Assistant] Thing with this recovery rex, he's played five official events since coming back at last year's masters. He has worn down.


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[Assistant] On the weekend each and every time when kind of the toll of walking 72 holes has caught up with him. So hopefully this does mean that for the future, but I'm with you. He wasn't, he was not going to play the PJ championship anyway because of a variety of reasons. LACC was going to be a very difficult walk. Would have loved to see him at Hoylake.


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[Assistant] Because of his past experience there, uh, but unfortunately it does seem like a little bit too much too soon.


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[Assistant] Last I checked, Phil Mickelson, 52 years old, just tied for second at the Masters. Now, on the opposite ends of the spectrum physically, Phil, long swing, long career, has maintained his fitness at an incredible level. Won a major championship just two years ago. Tiger Woods has been under the knife.


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[Assistant] Boy, this has got to be somewhere between like 15 and 20 now combined, at least the ones that we actually know about when you consider his back, his knee.


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[Assistant] Uh, and now, uh, his lower right leg. So hopefully a speedy recovery. Hopefully we can get him back to the PNC Championship to end the year. I see the sausage finger. Well, go ahead.


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[Assistant] No, it's 73 degrees if there's any sponsors who want to appear on this video. And also it's almost time for the draft, which means...


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[Assistant] We'll be playing that, uh, ad nauseam. The draft is coming up, as you can see on this banner, uh, that I was very clever in adding to our street art feed here. Rex, one other newsy thing, the Zura Classic, if we really want to talk about that, uh, you can go, you can go to golfshall.com.


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[Assistant] And see your column, uh, up on that right now. But Zach Johnson did make some news.


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[Assistant] In the pre-tournament press conference when he said that no decisions have been made regarding the eligibility


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[Assistant] For the U.S. Ryder Cup players in terms of can live players play their way onto that team. So even those players, now the PGA of America had to follow up on that, even those players like Brooks Koepka,


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[Assistant] Uh, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Patrick Reed, all former U.S. Ryder Cupers. Even if they've departed for live, they do maintain affiliate PGA of America membership through summer 2024, which means they can remain eligible.


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[Assistant] And another high finish, so I guess if Brooks, you know, wins the PGA.


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[Assistant] U.S. Open or Open Championship like you'd think in addition to his time for second at the Masters. He may be able to crack that crack that top six, so they almost certainly won't qualify.


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[Assistant] But do you think that they could actually be picked? Would Zach Johnson reach across the aisle and say, DJ Brooks, we need you in Italy. You think that, you think that could happen?


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[Assistant] Bryson, Bryson's a no, Patrick Reed's a no. Like, I think even if they're like seventh in the point saying, it's like, it's hard to imagine.


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[Assistant] I can't do that. It is, it is a pop, it is a popularity concept. You just talked about how these guys remain loyal to the PGA Tour. That's basically, you're making it political.


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[Assistant] It's still, it's still playing politics. It's still playing politics with the room. Like, do you want the best player on the team or do you want the player who's going to mesh, mesh the best in the team room? That's what, like, I think, I think DJ and Brooks are the only possibilities for this, not just because of their style of play, but I think how well that they've bonded with their, with those, uh,


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[Assistant] So let's, so here's, here's a hypothetical, and I think we're now with Will Zaltour out for the year because of the microdyssectomy. I think it does open up.


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[Assistant] An opportunity here. So you're telling me if we get.


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[Assistant] To September, or excuse me, August, because that's when the pics are gonna be made following the BMW Championship. If you get down to a, a Kurt Kidiyama.


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[Assistant] Who is currently 11th in US point standings, Chris Kirk, who is 12th or Sahith Tagala. You needed to pick two of those three guys or.


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[Assistant] You can have a Dustin Johnson or Brooks Koepka.


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[Assistant] Which one are you gonna take? A guy who doesn't have any experience in that arena?


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[Assistant] And could be overwhelmed as the Americans try to win for the first time in, oh yeaah, three decades on European soil.


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[Assistant] We're going to go back to the well with Dustin Johnson, who, yes, he was five and O at Whistling Straits in the most recent Ryder Cup. He's maintained friendships with a lot of those guys. He is not bad mouthed, just as Brooks Koepke has not. He's not bad mouthed any player who has remained loyal to the PGA tour. I can certainly see it. I think it's unlikely.


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[Assistant] But dismissing the possibility that a Brooks or DJ could be on that team, I think is, I think is reckless.


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[Assistant] DJ is a proven commodity, right? Like DJ and Brooks are proven commodities. You know exactly what you're gonna get.


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[Assistant] I quote Keith Pelly, it would be quote, incredibly difficult for any of those lived defectors to qualify, uh, on Luke Donald's team. Just like the US team. It's going to have six automatic qualifiers, six wild card selections. I'm not even sure.


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[Assistant] Who would be a possibility? Like there's been so many burned bridges.


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[Assistant] Over the past year, when you think of Lee Westwood, who just turned 50 by the way, happy belated, I know he's your boy, uh, Ian Poulter, Sergio Garcia, I mean they have bad mouth, not just...


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[Assistant] The Roy McElroys of the world who have fiercely defended-


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[Assistant] But bringing in a polarizing figure, a player who has been caustic in his comments, not just about the players, but about the European leadership.


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[Assistant] As well, I think would be a monumental risk, uh, for a team that's already gonna be heading into these matches, uh, presumably.


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[Assistant] As the underdog. I don't think it's gonna be an enormous underdog like we maybe thought.


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[Assistant] Uh, a year or two ago, but I do think there'll be slight underdogs nonetheless as they typically are.


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[Assistant] Adrian Moran, Thomas Detry, I mean there's- The Hogars, I mean there- Yeaah. There's a lot of guys like under 27 years old who can inject some life.


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[Assistant] You think that there should be some sort of handshake agreement between the two captains of like, either we're both going to have a live player or none of us, or is it, or does it not matter? Like the actual winning of the Ryder Cup is so important that if DJ gives me the best chance to win, we're taking him regardless of what you do on the European side.


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[Assistant] It's going to be a very interesting decision. I think in particular, I think Luke Donald, I think it's, I think it's set and they're, they're, they're moving on from kind of the old guard on the European Ryder Cup team. I think. And they're fine with that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, which I totally agree with. I think, I think Zach Johnson has a prudential.


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[Assistant] I think chances are he's going to figure it out. I think the back injury that he suffered earlier this year in Saudi.


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[Assistant] Uh, Arabia, uh, that knocked him out of that event. I do think that's lingering a little bit longer than he would have liked. Clearly he did not, uh, put in the reps during the off season, uh, which was longer than he's ever had, uh, during his PJ Twerkery. He's just, he's just out of sorts, but I am assuming that he is eventually going to find his form as we get into the heart of the season. Yes.


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[Assistant] No way. You're cutting that off right there. He could be, he could finish seventh.


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[Assistant] Seventh. And lose, and lose out the automatic spot by like a half point. And there's, and there's no way he's on that team.


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[Assistant] Excuse me, Kurt Katiyama is currently 11th, the Arnold Palmer Invitational winner. Uh, obviously a very good player. Could have actually had a handful of victories over the past year. Like he very, he very well qualify on his own. That very much is to be seen, but he is, he is the player who has like inserted himself in the Ryder Cup conversation for the U.S. team, who would be inexperienced, uh, who would be heading across


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[Assistant] Uh, the pawn for the very first time, playing this format for the very first time, like that would be a little bit of a risk. I think regardless, he would be buried, uh, on that U.S. lineup sheet.


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[Assistant] Uh, for Italy. So I, I just think it's a very interesting dilemma.


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[Assistant] That he is going to have. I can't wait to see it, uh, unfold over the next couple of months. I'm sure there'll be plenty of podcast material later this summer. Rex, it is time. We've been teasing it.


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[Assistant] I had the banner going this entire time. We are going to draft. The NFL draft is on Thursday. Mock 1.0.


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[Assistant] We're, we're, we're very excited about this. Uhm, because I typically whip you in these things. We're gonna draft our players. As I mentioned at the top of this topic.


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[Assistant] This is just, this is just a thought, this is just a thought exercise, but we're not, we're not going to draft or who's going to have the best 2023. This isn't the best player for the next year. We're going to do, who would you want to draft right now for the next five years? Who will have the best window?


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[Assistant] In the next five years, you have to take into account a lot of things, right? Age, current form, uh, projecting form, major championship venues in the future, whatever the case may be. I will give you.


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[Assistant] The first pick, we're going to make about 20 picture. We're going to try and keep this brief and then we're going to go in the top prospect, but I will give you.


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[Assistant] I will give you the number one pick in the draft. You can say, whoever it is you like, who is your pick? For the first round. Oh, excuse me. Let me queue it up. Give me the imaging.


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[Assistant] You're saying that John Rahm's a big man as a reason for your health concerns. Scottie Scheffler is the one who dealt with some pretty serious back injuries throughout junior golf.


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[Assistant] And college golf. That's something to monitor as well. Look, I had Sky Shepard number two.


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[Assistant] On my list, it's not like this was necessarily a reach for the first pick in the NFL draft. Obviously you've talked to talent evaluators, your scouts, uh, your, your entire leadership, uh, team with Rex Hoggard, uh, was, was incredibly, uh, happy with that selection. For me, I'm not going to give away the rest of my big board.


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[Assistant] I have John Rahm, Rex, at the top of my big board. He's the guy circled all along. I'm absolutely making him the number two pick.


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[Assistant] In this draft, I think he's going to go down as one of the all-time greats. I really do. I think he'll, uh, potentially supplant Roy McRoy as the best European, uh, best European player of his generation. Dude does everything well. He's played well in every single major championship. Uh, I actually think.


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[Assistant] Here's a hot day. I actually think John Rahm is going to eventually win the career Grand Slam. He is that well-rounded. He is that motivated. He is that fiery. He kind of, unlike the other players who are going to be drafting here, like,


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[Assistant] He's already settled in his life, he's married, he has, uh, young kids now, like, he's gotten that phase behind him, so to speak, and he's, he's, he's figuring out how to, to, uh, adjust that and still play what right now is the best golf of his career. So John Rahm, I'm very happy that he fell to me.


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[Assistant] At number two, if you, if you like go, if you, Rex, if you go into our, our, our war room, you'd see like guys, like high five at each other.


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[Assistant] And, and, and hugging, because John Rahm felled us. We are very very sad.


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[Assistant] Uh, my big board, Patrick Kenley, uh, number 18, uh, the back injury, uh, that he, uh, has been dealing with it. That's still.


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[Assistant] Uh, requires significant pre and post-run treatment. Uh, that is a little bit of a warning sign for me as we're looking, not just this year, not just 2024, uh, but through 2028 in this five-year window. The reason why we're doing this folks, just to, to back the curtain, a rookie contract in the NFL is typically four years. And so that's why we're looking for the next five years. Uh, for me, next up is Zander Schauffele, 29 years old.


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[Assistant] Uh, consistent winner on the PGA tour. I think he's only getting better. He was my pick to win player of the year in 2023. Of course he has not yet won. Uh, but he is a perennial factor in all of the major championships. He is way too talented to not pick off a couple here in the next five year window. He is so complete.


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[Assistant] Uh, and he just has a perfect comportment, I think, for competitive golf. There's a guy who was overlooked in his, like, high school class with JT, Spieth.


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[Assistant] Olly Schneider, Jans Patrick Rogers, like he's very much coming to his own. I think he's a world-class player and I'm very happy to have him with the fourth overall pick in our draft.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I agree. He turns 34, I believe, in a couple weeks time, so he's still very much in the athletic prime of his career. He was actually next on my big board. I had him in fourth overall, so yeah, who I was going to select next as well. This is where I think it gets interesting.


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[Assistant] In terms of the draft, if you're looking over the next five years, at this point, you have to look at a guy who obviously has an established resume, but you're also projecting


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[Assistant] A little bit. And for me, that guy who I'm gonna be taking 6 overall here,


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[Assistant] Is Sam Burns. I like the fact that his age, he's 26 years old. He's a five time winner on the PGA tour. He just won the match played just a couple of weeks ago, but this is a guy who has championship pedigree, a former, uh, number one ranked junior player, uh, in the country, a great college player as well, shared player of the year honors in college. Like he has.


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[Assistant] The background and the pedigree to suggest that he is going to be a mainstay.


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[Assistant] Uh, at or near the top of the world rankings for the foreseeable future, uh, big, big hitter, uh, good on and around the greens as well. So I'd like Sam Burns with the six overall pick.


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[Assistant] Uh, in recent weeks, we'll, we'll pay dividends. Obviously had a great partnership with Vijay Singh, with Webb Simpson, kind of elevated him to new heights. Cameron Young, uh, is arguably the most physically gifted player that Paul Tesori has worked with and if he can just access


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[Assistant] Uh, Cameron Young's inner genius. I do think that that, uh, is a great pick as well. I had him coming up.


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[Assistant] I'm very tempted to take Jordan Spieth here. The only reason why I'm not. There it is.


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[Assistant] Great, with the most important clubs in his bag, that I like, Ka Morikawa, with the eighth overall pick.


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[Assistant] Are you saying, are you saying it doesn't matter? Are you calling it an exhibition? Are you tal- I mean this is just-


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[Assistant] Whoever, whoever looks the best in shorts, which is essentially what the NFL combine is.


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[Assistant] You can almost call him Tom Kreen as we're keeping with the college theme. Uh, as someone who is currently working on a Tom Kim feature, I've been impressed. The guy turned pro at 15. He's been a winner at every level.


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[Assistant] Uh, the only question that you would have moving forward, how does he deal with stardom? Which is currently upon him now. He has not had the best 2023 as he's dealing with his new normal. He is not the longest hitter by any stretch of the imagination. And you also have to wonder about burnout. He's been a pro for almost six years now.


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[Assistant] Despite his young age, you just wonder if he can maintain the sort of youthful exuberance that is so far defined his early career. He fell to me. He fell to me.


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[Assistant] I have no choice. I'm contractually obligated to take Jordan Spieth. He turns 30 later this year. That is amazing. I've been covering this kid since he was, uh, like 14 years old. That's now I think he's, he's turning 30 is crazy. Uh, he's another guy who is, who is settled, uh, who is actually,


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[Assistant] Uh, improving his, his ball striking, getting back to where he was back in 2017. Uh, does the scar tissue on around the greens? Uh, does that begin to compile? Probably.


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[Assistant] But this is still a five year window. He'll still be 35 by the time his rookie deal expires as it relates to this draft. He still has so many more great spief moments left in him that I'm happy to round out the top 10.


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[Assistant] With one, Jordan Spieth, the golden child who is no longer a child, but still golden.


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[Assistant] He was next to my big board as well. Those guys have been inextricably linked, right, for the past two decades. No reason why they shouldn't be in this draft as well. Here we're going. We're talking upside. I don't think there's a bigger upside.


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[Assistant] Uh, over the next five years, then Will, Zala Taurus, he's currently recovering from that microdiscectomy.


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[Assistant] It is not a huge concern. If anything, it should alleviate some of the issues that he's been dealing with over the past two years. He was my breakout.


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[Assistant] Uh, is it a concern in the short term? Yes, long term I think this actually helps him to go onto the knife and get that area dressed in his lower back. Yes, I think letting that linger


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[Assistant] And, and going under the knife and actually having the surgical procedure I think actually helps him as opposed to trying to manage it for the next couple years.


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[Assistant] Uh, Wills Althorst right now, well, I shouldn't say right now since he's currently recovering from back surgery. Wills Althorst is a better iron player than Tiger Woods right now, yes.


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[Assistant] It was a better iron player than Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods won in 2019. Tiger Woods won in 2019 following a microdisectomy at the Masters at Wills Out Tours as a better iron player now.


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[Assistant] I think his upside, I think his upside is enormous.


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[Assistant] Look, this is a 5 year window. I like the upside. I have great first round. I have great picks in the top 10 that could carry me for the rest of 2023. Of course, you forgot, uh, John Rahm, who's the presumptive favorite, uh, for player of the year. I like John Rahm. This year, I like...


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[Assistant] If you watch the Netflix documentary, aren't you worried that his family is going to potentially cost him victories? No.


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[Assistant] That story, I'd never heard that before, uh, before we got into that show. Uh, I do like Tony Fino. There's nothing but the best for him.


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[Assistant] I uhm, a little bit uncertain where I wanna go here. I have a player who's next to my big board and now I'm having second thoughts and so I'm going to pivot.


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[Assistant] To Matt Fitzpatrick, the reigning U.S. Open Champion, recent winner at the RBC Heritage. Look, he's not the longest player. Uh, he doesn't do, I would say, anything like exceedingly well, and yet,


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[Assistant] I like his tenacity. I like his tidiness. Uh, I like his work ethic. Uh, he plays well on a variety of different golf courses, whether it's kind of a claustrophobic layout like Harbor town or wide open spaces of Augusta national. Uh, I think, I think Matt Fitzpatrick at this point.


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[Assistant] In the draft number 14, he's still just 28 years old, uh, is a very good pick. I don't think he's done winning major championships either.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I have him in my next range here. Obviously the upside is enormous. A world-class ball striker. The only thing that scares me is like the two, the only two times in his career, which is obviously still young at this point, the only two times he's had an opportunity to win a major championship


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[Assistant] He really flamed out. I think 74 on the final day at St. Andrews on a day when everyone


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[Assistant] Everyone was getting it, including Cameron Young and then did not play well when he was in third place heading into the final round at Augusta National earlier this month. So that is a little bit worrisome, but you're right. He's 25 years old. He'll still be very much in this great window for him to succeed. Another guy.


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[Assistant] Who is 25 years old, who I'm going to take in this spot, Rex, is Sung JM.


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[Assistant] An absolute ball-striking machine does everything well. If you listen to Keith Mitchell last week, they were partners at the Zura Classic. He predicted that SunJM is going to be a future Hall of Fame player. If that's going to be the case, he needs to start racking up wins at higher rate that he has done. Just two PGTOR titles.


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[Assistant] Uh, to his name right now, but he has played well at Augusta National over his career. I'm actually surprised he's not played better.


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[Assistant] Uh, in the major championships today, but I do like SunJM over the next five years to continue to produce and to be an absolute ATM on the PGA Tours. That's what I'm taking with this pick.


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[Assistant] I like Sahith, I had him at the end of my picks here, so you are squeezing him in before I was eventually going to nap him with the 20th and final pick.


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[Assistant] Some warning signs. And I don't feel good about where he's going to be in five years.


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[Assistant] But I still like the production that he's capable of in the next two to three. And so if you're drafting at this point,


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[Assistant] I like the production that I can get in the next 2-3 years and for me that guy...


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[Assistant] Is Cameron Smith, he's coming off the best year of his career, reigning players champion in 2022, the reigning open champion, champion golfer of the year in 2022.


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[Assistant] Yes, he just got a boatload of guaranteed money. Yes, he has interest outside of golf. No, I don't think.


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[Assistant] Uh, that it's going to be a necessarily long and fruitful career. Like I don't see him playing competitive golf into his forties. I think he would be more than happy to just, uh, fish and be on his boat all day. However, he is still an exceptional golfer who's not had the best start to 2023 granted, but he is still an exceptional golfer.


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[Assistant] One of the best on and around the greens, if he can stay motivated.


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[Assistant] There was obviously talking to my, talking to my scouts, talking to my talent invaders, talking to the general manager.


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[Assistant] There was definitely some concerns that we had in terms of motivation, uh, for the duration of this rookie deal, but I do like Cameron Smith at this point. I still think the next two or three years could be very good.


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[Assistant] Draft a player? We know he is congenitally obligated to play 14.


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[Assistant] Didn't think of that. We could, we could do this by, we could do this by earnings. We could do this by earnings. I like Cam and Smith's earnings. We're not changing the game now.


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[Assistant] One live win? Like, does that, is that half of a PJ Tour win? Is that how we're gonna rank them? Like, a win's a win.


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[Assistant] If Liv gets world ranking points, we're gonna have to revisit this draft, because if Liv gets world ranking points, it's gonna be measured somehow.


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[Assistant] This is Rex, Rex, Rex Hager GC. This is, this is the prime example of golf cheerleaders noring lip.


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[Assistant] I have the 20th, I have the 20th overall pick. This is up to you at number 19, your last pick. How you get around up your, uh, your, your team. Uh, what did you call it? Uh, your, your youth movement? No, no, no, process.


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[Assistant] That is an incredible reach. I can't believe we've reached this point of the draft. Godspeed to you and the Rex and the rest of the fellow Rex Hogwarts.


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[Assistant] And with the final pick of this year's Golf Channel Draft.


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[Assistant] I'm going, you kind of glossed over it and I'm like, ha, I'd never, never take him. Complete red flag. It's Max Homa.


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[Assistant] He's still 32 years old, like he is playing the best golf of his career. He's up to number seven in the world ranking. Like I still want to see him do it in a major championship. I think he and everyone else were, was very disappointed by the way that he played, uh, at Augusta national.


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[Assistant] You have to put him on the top 5 list of favorites at the US Open this year at LACC where he holds the course record that he shot back in his amateur days. Like, the dude's really good. Uhm, he's, he's kind of...


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[Assistant] Reaching the point in his career where a decade ago, right, like this is the prime of your career.


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[Assistant] Early thirties, life settled, you know exactly who you are, you know what your strengths and weaknesses are and you can just kind of hammer those home and play the best golf.


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[Assistant] Obviously the game has skewed younger and Max Holm was on the older end of that, but he's still going to play on Ryder Cup teams. He's still going to play on President's Cup teams. He's still going to win a, I think a boatload more PGA Tour events. Can he do it in the majors is the big question. I'm a believer.


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[Assistant] In Max Homa, and I think with the 20th overall pick, I think it's absolute.


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[Assistant] The shocker to me that he was even still available at this point.


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[Assistant] That's not, that's not true. He hit a top 20 finish last year at the PGA championship. Uh, I think, I think the upward, the upward trajectory.


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[Assistant] I promise you, people still, still view me as young. That may be ancient in golf years, but it's not like tennis where- As a golf rider. Not, not, not as a golfer.


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[Assistant] It feels, it feels like in tennis, if you're, if you're older than 28, like you've, you've fallen off the cliff. Like, Phil Mixon's 52 years old, he just nearly won the Masters.


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[Assistant] It is still possible 37 is not that old. I still believe that Max Homa is capable of great golf. And in fact, I still think he's improving. It's not like he's, he's plateaued.


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[Assistant] I would still rather have Max Homan because he has now proven that he can be among the very best players in the world. That is still an open question as it comes to Taylor Montgomery. That was great fun. That was great fun. We're not done. We're not done. Let's go.


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[Assistant] I like Caleb Surratt. I think that is a very good pick. Uh, I had him number three on my big board, uh, all, all everything freshman, uh, at Tennessee. It was an absolute stud. He's proven himself in the PJ tour, uh, shot a couple of low rounds, uh, earlier this year and obviously he's dominating at the college level as well. Since you somehow overlooked Ludwig.


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[Assistant] This one, the one that's being played in like five months.


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[Assistant] He will turn pro. He will turn pro in a month's time. I think he could go out there and rip off a win or two. Do you think Ludwig Aberg knows who Ludwig Aberg is? If he's doing his job, he should know who Ludwig Aberg is, yes.


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[Assistant] It would not surprise me if Lou Big Aper is on that European Ryder Cup team. It's unlikely.


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[Assistant] But he has the talent, he has the pedigree that he could rip off a winter too, once college is behind him.


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[Assistant] And he can focus, uh, wholeheartedly, uh, on his pro game. I like Ludwig Aberg, thrilled to get him at number two. Uh, and I will star at the next level.


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[Assistant] You know who also didn't win a bunch of couch? A lot of players. A lot of players. You're right.


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[Assistant] Yeah, first, uh, freshman to win the NCAA individual championship in about 15 years. It's incredibly hard to do. And so for him to do that is certainly, uh, shows just how talented he is. You're right. Like he cruises at like 190 ball speed. He actually reminds me he's like a more technically sound Matthew Wolf who burst out of the scene.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, about four or five years ago, obviously Gordon Sergeant has more technically sound golf swing than Matthew Wolf does, but kind of the hype.


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[Assistant] No, we'll keep, we'll keep the civil picks, it's already at an hour. For my, for my fourth overall pick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I will go Michael Theor Bjornsson, the 21 year old junior at Stanford. Finished fourth, Rex, at the Travelers Championship a couple years ago. Also was in the mix through 36 holes, I believe in Dubai, earlier this year. Like, the kid's proven it. He's been great in amateur golf.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Once you put the rigorous academics that he's had at Stanford, like once you put that to the side, once that's behind you and you can focus headlong and dive headlong into professional golf.


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[Assistant] He's a, he's a guy who's going to be a very special player, a future U.S. Ryder Cupper, for sure, uh, potentially a future major champion as well. And so I'm very happy. This is going to take me a minute. Michael Thjormjørnsson, see if I can spell that right.


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[Assistant] Better version of Brian Harmon. I was gonna say like a, a better version of Mike, I was gonna say a better version of Mike Weir.


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[Assistant] I think every lefty has a good swing. Every lefty except Jay Coffin has a good swing.


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[Assistant] Like that pick, some players we did not mention, Ben James, former, uh, number one junior ranked player, uh, freshman at Virginia, Austin Greaser.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, former U.S. amateur finalist, uh, is going to be getting corn fairy torch status at the end of this for your Fred beyond the, we didn't even mention Rex, the dude who blew up.


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[Assistant] At the Masters, Sam Bennett, uh, currently number four in the PGTour University rankings, uh, prolific winner.


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[Assistant] In college golf, great backstory, uh, as you well know. I think the best player. So obviously look, the prospects that we have coming out on the men's side are utterly ridiculous. Like the game is very much in a great place moving forward. The best player we didn't even mention is going to be on the women's side.


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[Assistant] It's Rose Zhang. She has won literally everything.


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[Assistant] At the junior level, at the amateur level, at the college level, Rose Zhang, when she decides to turn pro, and all indications are that should be after her sophomore season at Stanford. Like, we could be looking at, like, the next Lydia Ko. She is a phenomenal.


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[Assistant] That was not a stretch to say the number one ranked player in the world, uh, was going to win the Augusta national women's amateur. The fact that she was able to do it though, uh, shows just how special she is. She is like an absolute, not just a world beater.


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[Assistant] But like, she's a, like a smiling assassin. Like she'll kill you and have a smile on her face. Like she could not be a more charming individual. Uh, I can't wait to see what she does in her pro career. Rex here at the Outdoor Kitchen.


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[Assistant] Which is behind me. I am in my backyard. We had white. Black. Throne on the right there.


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[Assistant] Uh, that is the Blackstone, get the Yoda over here. Yeti, other girls lined up here. We had a crawfish boil. I hinted at it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] On last week's podcast, we were going to do a crawfish boil. I did not wuss out.