Memorial Tournament 2026 Bets, One & Done | US Women’s Open Picks, Driver Swing Tips

What you're saying about Kalamora Kawas that the doctors apparently have told him that his back is fine, but he's out doing his own research. That's why he can't play this week. I know that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that he, he, he said it's on the transcripts that he doesn't trust it yet. And if he doesn't trust it, but the doctors say it's healthy and he's still not playing, that seems odd to me. Welcome to the Pat Mayo experience. This is the final word on the memorial tournament from Mirafield Village, which is where Keith Stewart from Read the Line.com is situated right now. You even got yourself a fancy room all by yourself. It's nice over there. You know what, Pat? Good afternoon and our good morning wherever you are folks. People are starting to understand what the final word is all about. You know, they're rolled out the red carpet for the Mayo Stewart experience. I like it a lot. Question one, you've been around the grounds. How is the rough this year compared to other years? The rough is super healthy. You know, I know we're going to get to the field notes and we can start right there if you want, but it is juicy as ever. On Monday afternoon, I had a chance to play at a local golf club and, you know, they had the rough cut to like two inches and it was pretty much unplayable. What most people are probably missing is that this region, this area Columbus got an S-load of rain last week. And, you know, when you have a place like Mirafield Village where they can take very good care of the golf course where they have precision air under the greens. You can just you can just take perfect growing conditions and you could grow the grass as much as you want. And then from there, you can kind of manipulate massage the golf course, how you want it to play. But there is like, you know, when we went to a ronumick and the players were complaining about, you know, the rough and then it was and I was saying it was spotty and everything. I don't see any spotty rough. I mean, it looks like a perfect flat top and it's super lush and dense. So hitting fairways some of you want to do this week. Yeah, I would I mean, if I was doing a highway job, I would hire Seawoo as my foreman, you know, man, you just need to paint some straight lines to this week for sure. Do you have big advantage? Do you like do you think you need to be because it is a long course Mirafield Village. It's almost 7,600 yards, but it doesn't seem like the bombers ever really prevail here. I mean, you hit the secret sauce, you know, over time, I mean, it's not even a very heavy driver course on holes like two and three. Some of the par five, I mean, it's so important to hit the fairways guys choose to scale back and they just used their three wood or they use some sort of driving club. Number nine is another classic example of that. So, you know, overall, I certainly don't think of being a bomber really matters all that much. I mean, people are always like, oh, Bryson one year. Well, in 2018 Bryson wasn't the version of Bryson. We all know and love now. Or hey, but the point being is it like he was like 25th or 28th on the PGA tour and driving distance that year, like right around 300 yards. He wasn't the 325 guy that he is now. So even back whatever was 2018 when he won. You know, that was, you know, it was above average, but it certainly wasn't a bomber. I think you really, I think you really have to be accurate this week. So you'd be looking at some of the guys that have won the past few tournaments. Well, see who's been in contention the second most accurate player in the field this season. Aaron Rye won a PGA championship. He is the third most accurate player and the guy who won last week is the most accurate player in the field. I mean, the Russ Buss makes sense if he didn't close that thing like, you know, Tiger Woods in his prime. He made all the sense in the world this week. You know, spawn, small. I mean, you know who looked really good on the range today. I couldn't stop watching it. And I'm not the biggest fan of him, not like personally, whatever, but like his game. But man, Ben Griffen looks like he's got it going on. He looks so overconfident about what he was doing. And at times, and I even sent you a picture of, you know, one of my favorite guys to watch on the, the practice team. But Ben Griffen looks like he looks really, really content with what he's doing right now. And then coming into a place like this. And it was blowing this afternoon out on the range, you know, like 20 miles an hour, gusts over that. And he just looked comfortable. He was just hit shot after shot. He was firing at pins from long range. He looked like you knew exactly what he wanted to practice. He felt comfortable. He's bouncing from club to club. I think anyone who over the last couple of weeks, Rye, spawns, small, a Henley Griffen, the guys that have really been good. I think they will continue to be good this week. And those are the people we should be talking about. The other one who hits a ton of fairways that just kind of cracked all over himself last week is Ricky, who has been in contention here a few times. But he kind of fits that mold as well. Is it a nice bounce back week for him. I thought I thought we were friends. I mean, honestly, I mean, Rick, Ricky looked like on Friday. He was fighting his way back into that tournament. He goes out in 31. And then I don't know what happened. It unbelievably shot 42 on the back. I know why. Why do you know who picked him as a one and done last week? When you're Andrew Kurskieth, there's nothing you can do. That's just how it is. So I feel I wanted to bet Matt Fitzpatrick this week. Now I can't. Do you know you don't believe you don't believe. No, no, no, the viewers believe. I believe. I know I, I um, Santa Claus in the curse. I believe in them both. I mean, with all my heart. That was an unbelievable display. I mean, I was following the whole thing on shot link. And I mean, just to pour salt in the wound. They were like, well, you know, Ricky's been playing really well. He just needs to have like birdie out, which is a possibility. I mean, that's not the hardest golf course in the world. You know, it's difficult. Don't get don't get me wrong. Right. But he could have birdied eight nine. He goes bogey double. He walked off like cocrack at the end. It was like the guys just got I'm like, what are we doing? That was unbelievable. I mean, the curses are real thing. People, you don't believe in it. Look it up. So it's got it. It's curse. So Ben Griffin looks comfortable on the range. When you saw when you saw Hadecki, he didn't look as comfortable. That's what Hadecki always looks like. You just never know. You know, it has Hadecki had enough like finishes between 25 and 45. So no one sees him coming and are his odds around 80 to one. Because then you know, he'll win by like three because he loves this golf course. He's very good here. He's good on comp courses for here. You know, you want to talk quickly about comp courses, you know, Riviera, great comp course Augusta National. Pretty sure he's won both of those places. Sogress, another great comp course. I mean, it had his 2020 opening round not been stolen from him by the plague. I mean, he could have won that year. And then one of my favorite comps here that a lot of people don't talk about. And I get it. The settings are polar opposite of one another. But the leaderboards seem to line up all the time. And that is TPC Scottsdale, which is another place that Hadecki has been really, really good. The Scotty, Sheffler, Patrick, can't lay Nick Taylor, Corollary with those guys. I mean, Jordan, Speed JT. I mean, there's just there's like a dozen guys that are in this field that are good at both of those places. And of course, we all know we get the Scottsdale. We talk about Sogress. We get the Sogress. We talk about Scottsdale. There's like a triangle here. And it's like the opposite of the Bermuda triangle. It's a good thing. The guys that are good at those two of those places are always good at the third one. So does that point you to came young at all? Well, Cam Young is an interesting choice. If you're talking about, you know, guys that like to move it out there a little bit have been putting very good. It almost points me more towards God are up because of his recent history there. More so than Cam Young. Cam Young's kind of like Zander here. You feel like it should match better. But then maybe it comes down to the fact that you have to be way more positional off the tee. And certainly Cam Young is not a gear it back off the tee type guy. He's not. He's definitely around peg in a square hole. And it fits a lot of places on the PGA tour don't get me wrong. But I always find it odd that guys that are that like elite or world class like Xander has one top 10 here. He's played here like eight or nine times that that seems kind of odd to me because it's such a good well-rounded test. I mean his evil twin can't really, you know, has been good here so many times. And like we've said forever like those are two of the most well-rounded guys on the PGA tour. And it always kind of like to the point where a couple years ago it was two or three years ago. I asked him in the pressure. I go, you don't have any top 10s here. And he actually questioned me on it. He goes Keith. You know, he didn't know my name was Keith. But he was like, you sure about that. And I was like, yeah, I didn't want to like explain it to him. But I was like, I was just wondering, figuring with your skill set that you would fit better here. Xander and he was like, yeah, he goes certain things about this place just don't fit my eye. And I think it comes down to the fact that he's a driver heavy guy. Cam's a driver heavy guy. I think some of those guys may be have a difficult time like reeling it back for some of these shots and especially off the tee. So that maybe that's a bit of commentary here. But the numbers just don't add up in my mind for how good those guys are. And of the number one test on the PGA tour outside of the five majors, like this is the place. And you think somebody likes Xander would have a similar record like he does at the US Open and the Masters. Few other player notes from the field Jake nap was expected to make his return this week. He is no longer making his return this week. He has WD that gets our main man. Shooter Sean Yellow Maraju back into the field. So he'll be teeing it up again. the Canadian community. contingent needs more here, Keith. Is that I think Mac Hughes played well enough to get himself into the field? So Tim Taylor and Conner's, that's it. And this should be a great Corey Conner's course, but it's not. Well, it should, it should, it should be like the perfect Corey Conner's course because when you start to dive into the putting, you don't have to be the best putter here, similar to Augusta National, but you do have to be a super good around the green player and obviously ball striker approach player. It's like, it's almost like how many times you've said that to me this year that shooter is like the last guy in the field. I feel like there's like an A on next 10. There's an A on next five and then there's an A on next one and he and and yellow Mirage who's like the A on next one every week. He must be like 11th in those standings. That's the only thing that I can think of for this. I wonder which list they go. Do you know which list they go to first and they go to the five or the 10 first? And I have no idea because he's 17th in the next 10 and he's not on the list for the next five. So I don't know how he keeps getting in these fields. I guess everyone else above him is in this week. McCarty is 11th McCarty heats at Sunay, Wyndham Clark, the Gala, Spieth and Kudy are all ahead of him on the priority list for the next 10 and they're not even on it yet. But I guess the other guys have one. So maybe that's what it is. Like right and has won Jake nap is WD woodland one that's Patrick one, Nico one and Rai one. Since all those guys have victories, that probably gets them in this field rather than just the next 10. That could be true. I mean Jack likes winning. There's no doubt about that. You know it. And even ahead of him on the list, like there would be six guys ahead of him on the list. That's five with the WD and Wyndham Clark just one. So that would get him in too. It's funny. Bring up Wyndham Clark Wyndham Clark a little while ago. It's just in the press, the press room and they broke it. What's that? And he uses driver and smash everything. Hulk smash. Yeah. No. But he got asked a very interesting. Well, when you come here, you get asked a lot of Jack questions, especially in the 50th anniversary of this tournament. So they asked him a question. They said they actually were trying to I think maybe trigger him a little bit. But they said, you know, Jack said 18 majors. But you know, Wyndham, we're not sure if you know this or not, but he had 19 runner-ups in majors as well. If you had had that that record, you know, like how hard do you think it would have been? Actually, now I think about this question. It was like kind of like pointed at Wyndham. They were like going after him a little bit when you think about it because of his propensity for violence. But you know, they asked him like, had you had the 19 runner-ups? And instead of a random thinking about like being in contention or in the top two for 37 different majors, Wyndham went right to the fact that he's like, well, if I had been runner-up 19 times and I'd never won one, which really wasn't the question, but that's exactly where he went with it. He like, he's like, I'd start banging my head against the wall. And I was like thinking of myself in the back of the room. I don't think that's the only thing he'd be banging against the wall. It'd be something else too. But neither here nor there. Wyndham seems like he's in good spirits, which I haven't seen since the TGL days. He loves being in the SoFi center, just ripping it at the screen. But outside here on the golf course, there's been a lot of free agency with golf club equipment and you know, a lot of obviously well-documented struggles by his results. So I mean, he's back at the top. The guy's now won. Well, he's, he won one event with a 60 in the final round. Then he won another event with a 60 in the third round, which was the final round. Technically, they didn't play anymore. So that was it. That was the final round. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Adam Scott has one of those wins at RIV2 in like 2010. Let's not forget that. Oh, yeah. They only played 36 holes that time, right? Or did they play 54? They played 36 that year. DJ won at Capillewa in 54 holes before I believe. Okay. That's why he went to live. He's like, I'm one and oh, in 54 hole tournaments. DJ would understand that math. He would. You know, I think the reason that they went to the, you know, for an official PGA tour win, they went to 54 holes was because of the 36 hole RIV mess that year with the rain and everything with Adam Scott. But I, I could be wrong with that. We're not necessarily dodging the weather this week in Columbus because very nice on Thursday looks pretty good on Friday. Then you get to Saturday with pretty consistent wins in the midteens, gusts up to 30 miles per hour. And then it looks like a lot of rain is coming in the afternoon and then overnight. Well, we're definitely getting the wind forecast for Saturday today, the similar one. And if you're just looking online at weather underground or wherever you go for your forecast, and it says, you know, like basically wind, you know, 14 to 16 miles an hour this afternoon with like gusts over 20. It's like blowing 20 and gusts over 30. The wind was, the wind, the range, the practice range today was directly down wind. Excuse me. So I was back in my pro days. I would have had the like the demo car to drivers out there. I've been like, today's the day to sell drivers, baby. I mean, it was like blowing 20 straight down wind on the range. You give anybody a driver today. They'd buy it. They'd be like, these guys were blasted away. Cam Young was just hitting them over the range. And I'm like, Hey, buddy, like I know they're not your range balls or nor do you care. Actually, look like Cam Young was testing golf balls again today, which is interesting. I love the whole Cam Young story that he's been using a the reduced flight ball and driving at 375 on the 18th hole in sawdress. I mean, I just think that is the best thing ever. It's like the USGA just that might be the most USGA thing ever is that they came up with this design of a new golf ball that's going to like roll the ball back. And one of the most elite players and longest players on tours hitting it further because of his spin and launch conditions. Anyway, sorry. I digress getting that all about the bifurcation of golf balls and equipment, especially as it deals with the rollback on golf balls themselves. I think it's one of the most hilarious topics that people that everyone openly espouses about because I covered, I've been covering all for 15, 16 years. I've been playing since I was five years old. I don't think I can tell you the fucking difference between them. I mean, they've done it time and time again, the time that they changed the groove rule on the wedges. And before the thing was even, you know, before the the wedges that everyone had at the time that they made the rule, because they give you like five years to fill his using it. Fill was using this cheater wedge. So be it, right? By the time they got to the point where Phil couldn't use the cheater wedge anymore, they actually had better wedges that created more spin from the rough because like you challenge those guys and are indeed to do something, they're going to beat you every single time. And because they're so conservative and golf is always like so worried about like, oh, like we're going to have to tell you to do not to do this and do this. I mean, this whole golf ball thing is absolutely comical. It's so funny. And I mean, when that whole thing broke, it was like, oh, man, I can't wait till Wednesday at Shenacock to hear what these clowns have to say because I mean, you know, it's just the Navy jackets, they just, they don't know what to do it themselves. I tell you, they're going to have to run back up to the top of the ivory tower and figure it out. Your feud against the USGA is one of my favorite things. Unbelievable. You know, the, I think that I honestly think they work against the growth of the game. The game couldn't be more popular right now. And this idea that like, you know, people complain that like, I want to make sure I play the same equipment as Rory McAroy. You will never play the same equipment as Rory McAroy. And I don't mean that like literally. I mean, the equipment that they get is custom made for them. It's not coming off the shop wall at PGA to our superstore. And then when you hear those stories that like, you know, Daniel Berger can't putty, then he wins colonial with a putter that he got in the shop because he went shopping the night before on Wednesday because he couldn't figure it out how to putt. Yeah, that's the same as the one you could buy off the shelf, buddy. But otherwise, what they're using is fit to them perfectly. We never use the same equipment. That's like saying, like, yeah, I can go to a footlocker and get the same shoes that LeBron wears in an NBA game. Come on. What are we doing, folks? Well, how often are players playing like the new version of clubs that aren't really the new version of clubs? They're the old version of the club that they like that is made to look like the new version of the club so they can sell more drivers. I would say only about half the guys adopted new club every year. And it really has to be better. Because otherwise control for where they are because most of them hit it so far to begin with. And the golf courses really can't handle as far as they do hit it. They don't have to change. I mean, the vendors surely want them to change. And they get on these one year cycles. I mean, that's why you saw Taylor made pushback and say, you know what, we're going to get back out of two year cycle. And, you know, somebody like title is designed an 18th month cycle. Like, there's just no need to come out with equipment that quickly. I mean, there's a ton of guys out on tour that use ProV1's from the old version of the X and the one before they flipped the way that they were worked under their different spin conditions. I mean, there's guys that use like the 2014 version of the ProV1 out here. Imagine you're a titleist. You have to keep making those as well as make the new ones. Again, a lot of it in golf. It's just kind of funny what people think and what reality is. The Traveler's Championship now is the time. This is the place. 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Back your squad with spreads, handicap for a closer game, or totals higher lower combined score, combined with player picks for bigger payouts. New customers play $5 on fantasy, get $75 in fantasy bonus entries. Code Mayo. Team picks, player picks, all on underdog. As it pertains to the weather, do you think it'll impact your picks at all? Because I'm really having a tough time wrapping my mind around how I want to bet this. I only have three bets in and honestly, I don't know if I'm going to make any more unless you really want to sell me on someone. I mean, I could sell you on a couple of ladies out at Riviera, but I think it's going to be a tight field. That might be the move that maybe I'll, I'll, I'll involve, diversify my bets this week. Because I saw someone tweet at you that, you know, is this a Sheffler Nelly type week, double it up. I mean, Riviera, well, we will, you asked me a question about the weather. There's a couple of things I'm concerned about when it comes to the weather. The ground conditions are going to play from the fairways, obviously the rough, we were, it's well documented. It's going to be thick, it's going to be lush, you got to hit the fairway. You're not going to be hitting a ton of greens and regulation from the rough. The ground surfaces where the turf looks like it, what it feels like in the fairways and we're going to get more rain over the weekend. But, you know, Thursday and Friday are going to play pretty firm, but it's still kind of like there's a lot of moisture and there's a lot of like leaf to the plant, meaning that like it's really spongy, the grass, the fairways and the ball is, and I'm not saying it's going to play like like the way the toys you sit up or anything like that, but I think that the guys have to with the wind and then the wet weather coming in over the weekend and creating more soft conditions when it comes to approach play. And obviously that's our really our number one focus this week, especially from long range. I'm really interested in the guys that control spin and that would be the guys that are hitting the ball the best right now. You're spawns, you're small, these those guys so on and so forth down the list like Scotty problem, but like, you know, like that is really where my focus is when it comes to the weather because as it gets, if it does get softer and softer, but right now you're talking about some really kind of spongy surfaces from the fairway and then you're talking about greens with precision air underneath them where they could suck all the moisture out or they could blow the moisture out of them and they can make them firm. So that's like it jack loves the golf course to be hard. He wants there to be a single digit winner like there was an aeronomic. So, you know, he's going to do everything he can to create that soft surface to head off of which is going to create more spin and then you're going to have to land it on a very very firm and hard surface. Now most people say like, Oh, well, the spin will help stop the ball in some cases, but then you have to control the ball in two different directions. You know, like most guys would just love to throw it like a lawn dart and wherever it lands, that's where it stops. So, I'm really interested in the guys with their iron game that can control spin. It's certainly in the wind. I'm thinking about trajectory, but this is one of those places where there's a lot of holes that are either below where you attack from or above where you attack from. And you know, you could think about holes like 18 on approach or 17 on approach. So 17 and 16 you're going straight downhill into those greens. You have to hit a certain flight in shot and with a certain amount of spin in order to achieve the performance that you're looking for. Then conversely you go into 15 and 18, which kind of bookend those two holes and you're hitting the ball in above you, which is when you raise the landing area, then that, you know, that creates more of a shallow angle of descent where the ball is coming in. So you have to control spin even more there to try to get it to stop and it's on a firm surface. So to answer your question about the weather, I'm really really like want to dig into the guys that are super good at controlling their irons because I think that that at the end of the day is going to lead someone to have the hopefully 20 subpar scoring chances that they're going to need and capitalize on 16 to 18 of them so they could shoot 10 under and then they can walk away with the trophy. For this season, who do you think the top five players in it most spin rate is? It's a very poorly worded question. Top most spin rate is that that's probably measured with the driver though, right? It probably is. Yes. Would it be that much different do you think between players? Like if it was just spin rate off of a driver, who do you think would be tops? Oh man. Wind them Clark. Wind them Clarks near the bottom. So Alex Fitzpatrick, Aaron, Ryan, Corey Conner's, Pendrith and Sheffler are your bottom five. I'm not familiar enough with rightens game, but you could see it with sep and Rory because they hit massive draws off the tee. So you could see where all the spin comes there. Sep's obviously super active. It was funny today. You know, everyone's out there. I sent you that picture of Hadecki at like six guys around him, 12 clubs laying on the ground. He's got his launch modder. He's got iPads. He's hitting balls. They're all joking in Japanese and everything. Great. That's his usual like, you know, party out there on the tee. Sep's truck a walks on the tee with his own bag today puts the bag down. You know, goes and get goes picks up balls then walks over to a to an area where he's going to hit puts the bag down drops the balls down pulls out a wedge and starts hitting some shots. Goes through a whole routine of hitting balls. He never shows up coach never shows up guys pure and it picks up his bag when the balls are done and he leaves and I was like, well, I'll tell you there's one of two things going on right there either that guy knows he's striping it and he's just like, he's into what he's doing or he's got zero chance this week and like he told the cat he don't even bother. Don't even wake up today. We're good. You know, but I think it's more of the former rather than the latter. He looked he looked at the shots. He was hit in the shot dispersion. It was really nice and even even in downwind. He was able to flight the ball very nicely. And kind of that guy hits it on a rope with his driver. It's it's impressive. It's strange. Maybe his caddy isn't there because he just got back from Austria. He played in the Austrian open last week. Could be could be or yes, maybe his caddy comes tomorrow or something. I don't know. It's just it was just funny. You know, he was right next to Matt Fitz who had blackburn out there. He's got his caddy out there. Matt fits the sit and shots. You know, like, you know, Jordan's like two spots over. He's got camo, comic, he's got growler there. You know, like there's all this stuff going on. Zander's got his whole posse. Usually that's three or four guys with him. You know, and his caddy. So it's like it is. It just looked funny and he hit the ball really, really good, which caught my attention. I struck it. It really good on the range today. Man, I felt like back grip and hit it really good. JJ spawn was in wedges at this one flag. There was a lot of wind. I mean, he was just knocking down the flag stick one after another after another. And I mean, that's the level of command that we're looking for with someone's iron game this week in order to try to, I don't think you'll master this place. But if you could survive, and certainly if you get the double digits, I like your chances come Sunday. Well, that leads me to my bets. So I have three bets on the board. And this one I hit it earlier in the week and now it's kind of crushed, but our good friends at coolbet.com, if you're in Canada outside of Ontario, you can use cool bet. Get the bonus, get the link down in the description right now. Justin Thomas 50 to one to win the memorial tournament win only after that. I have that Kurt Kiteyama at 60 to one with five placements. And then I bet Alex Fitzpatrick at 125 to one with eight placement points. I just like the way that he's been playing in these bigger tournaments. And I really wanted to take some mix of elite iron play, accuracy and around the green acumen. And frankly, I think that Thomas has had all three so far this season. It's just can he match his putting up with everything. And since he switched putters, it's been more good than bad. You never have to rely on that. But it'd be nice if he could come out, make a few puts. It just felt like a really big number. And I think the market agreed because he's been beat down to 35 or 40 everywhere. I think it was last year when JT started out with a really bad round and then he fought his way. I mean, he never got to like true contention, but he played three pretty solid rounds after that. And this golf course is much as JT kind of struggles with the driver. It almost plays at time like a shorter positional golf course, which is obviously JT's bread and butter. So, you know, I don't mind the JT play. Yeah, I don't mind that at all. But look at what I were talking a lot about the around the green play here and how it's been very predictive over the years, like good around the green players tend to really enhance their chances. But I was trying to correlate it somewhat with approach play that missing in the right spots is probably more important than actually being good around the greens because there's a couple of these bunkers or a couple of these rough patches that depending on where the pin is, Keith, that if you're behind the hole, there's just no way that you can get it to 15 feet. It's just it's gone. Yeah, your chances are slim and none and yeah, same chances you had with Fowler on the back nine on Friday last week. So the one pushback I would have is that the reason that Scotty is so good here is because he's so disciplined. And I think this is what you're getting at. The guys that are so disciplined on approach. And if you're wondering what I mean by this, like go back and look at the way Alex Smalley has been playing recently. He hits every approach shot to exactly where every other tour player is trying to hit it on every single green. I was backing Smalley on Sunday at Colonial. And I was like, man, this guy, until it's like the bitter end, he's not going to fire at any pins. He's going to keep hitting it to like 18 to 22 feet and try to make a putt. Like he's just not going to take himself out of the tournament, which essentially might not have him win the tournament, but he's going to keep doing that. Scotty does that starting on Thursday in pretty much every week. Certainly now that he's had his approach, I'll give him back. But like, that's the way you have to play this golf tournament. And I think that's kind of what you're getting at there. That would be the only reason I push back on somebody like JT because JT is like Uber aggressive, whereas like the Cantley's, Shefflers, you know, the guys that have been consistently good here all of the time, they just always hit to the fat side of the green. They, you know, they make their putts where they can score on the par-fives. If you go three under on every par-five per day, you'd be 12 under and you'd win this thing probably by two or three this week. So you said, can so. Cantley, I think is a good example of this. Like, why does he do so well at this course time over time? And you can say, the master's corollary, I guess Scottyl is interesting that you bring it up because you can attack those pins. Like, it doesn't really matter where you hit it. You want to be, you have to score so much by and large that you need to go pin-seeking. I always say that the sawgrass is kind of the same way on a lot of holes where this feels like a very defensive course. And Scotty is the best at that. Cantley is very good at that. Who are the other players that you would put in that bucket? Because I have one that I'm not going to bet this week and I really don't know where his game's at right now. But I've seen this version of Keegan do that as well. Keegan does and Keegan has the around-the-green skill with which to compete around this place. I do like Keegan more on Bermuda and like closely-mong lies, but like Keegan definitely, Keegan has the ball-striking chops to be very good around this place. That guy hits it straight. He has very good control over spin. He generally hits the ball exactly where he should. He can play aggressively, but I don't think that he. I don't think that he is that that's pretty much his DNA. You know, I would put him not strictly in the Scotty. Like I hit it exactly where I shoot every time, but like more along the lines. That's the way he's mapping out golf courses. And that's the way he would compete. Yeah, I mean, again, Stracco's like another good example of this. Stracco will kill you like a thousand paper cuts. You know, he's just going to hit every fairway and every green. And then over time, like, yeah, he may not make every putt, but he just doesn't make bogies. And then when you do, he gets a shot ahead, obviously. But you know, like that's the type of guy. You know, well, I think the biggest comp for Stracco is Lowry. Just Lowry's not playing very well. This should be a good Lowry course. Oh, this should be a great Lowry course. You know, one of the guys, it's always been very good here that I've never quite been able to figure out. And this guy would throw like in that KM Young bucket of like a really talented ball striker. Maybe not right now in his career, but Tony Fino's got a good record here. And Tony Fino, you know, you would think you'd favor him more often at places where you're really like, you know, you let the, let the shaft out and go bombs away. But then you look at some of Tony's wins like 3M and Liberty National or Detroit. And you're like, man, actually, no, Tony puts the ball in play and he's able to score. And he's got a very nice short game. So the nice short game, you're like, oh, that kind of rings a bell with, with Fino here because Tony's got a very underrated short game. I mean, I think you're smart. If you take the best approach players right now, let's say there's six to eight of those guys. And then you filter on the, on the rabbit hole for the best short game players with long grass. Like just those two columns. Who are those people? Well, we can jump into approach right now. We have Matt Fitzpatrick, JJ Spawn, Adam Scott, Ludwig, Kiteyama, Sheffler, Straka, Smolly, someone I like, Daniel Burger, Ryan Gerard, and Rory McElroy, then it is Alex Fitzpatrick. So we can just take those guys. How many months back are you going? I'm going last four months. Okay. All right. So a pretty truncated sample, but long enough that you're not going to have like a weird out. Like Adam Scott hasn't been as good the past few weeks. But overall over the past four months, he's been the third best player on approach in the field. So we'll take it that way to start. Then we'll go to short game. So we can go around the green shot type. So we can just go purely around the green with courses with long rough. Or we can just say scrambling from the rough and then turn on long rough. What's the difference? Well, if we just take, because you'll still get the other buckets of stuff. If we just turn on long rough and just look at around the green, it's at courses that have long rough. You're not necessarily hitting from said rough. But we can go into the shot by shot, either be sand shaved or long grass. And that's something that we can do as well. So we should probably just look at courses that have long rough and then scrambling from the rough, right? Yeah. I mean, you're going to need sand there too, though. But I want to eliminate closely moaned rough and I just want long rough. Okay. So if we just look at those players that we were talking about. And what do you think about our sample for this is? Because the last four months is, you know, some guys have 14 rounds in these conditions. Some have 12, some have 20, but no more than 20. Should we make it a year, something like that? Oh, year seems like a long time for around, but for around the green, like the guys get significantly better or worse over the course of a year. No, but I'm thinking about more about the approach. Ask me. I'll keep last four months for approach, but for the, the chipping itself. Oh, geez. Yeah, you could definitely do a year. I didn't know you could split like that. That's good. Oh, yeah. We can look at different time. Well, yeah, because I'm with you. I want who has the hot approach right now, but who historically has been very good around the greens. And now that we have our sample out to a year, we have like 40, 50 rounds from a lot of these guys to go with right now. So scrambling from the rough percentage in courses with very long rough Scotty Shethler's number one. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah. Adam Scott, Matt Fitzpatrick, Mav McNeely, Alex Smalley, Ricky Fowler, Seb Strocka, in that order for the guys that we were just looking at. Yeah, I mean, to quote the guys over there in England, Ricky Fowler's on the post a note of doom right now for me. But the, the other two there have my attention. Strocka and Smalley, for sure. Strocka, I mean, Strocka is one of the more bet on players this week from what I can tell so far. It does worry me that he just played in Austria. Should I just get that end of my mind? Like this guy's going to travel the first class. What's it matter? Because I just came home from Utah. And I was like dead for three days just with the time zones. I don't know how people do this. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure. First of all, he flew commercial and coach Pat, right? You were probably, if you were lucky, you're on like a window seat. There's like never an aisle available. Do you think that I can't keep like, you've made me? Do you think I'm flying economy class? Come on now. Well, excuse me. Never pardon me. All right. That's why you have to listen. Why I'm the king of airline points. I'm never flying economy. All right. So strike that from the record then. Sorry to insult you there, sir. Thank you. But you are coming back to a newborn. And you know, you may have your wife. You take this buddy strip when yeah, like three days after you've had a kid. I mean, whoever negotiate like, you certainly don't need an agent in life, Pat. If you can negotiate for that with your with your wife. I mean, jeez, oh, flip. Talk about that. But anyway, neither here nor there. I don't like sap came back. It was like, hey, honey, take the kids. You know what I mean? The guy took a nap. You know, these guys, these guys are in the recovery truck like all day long. You know, like if you want to make a good business out, I would be an entrepreneur. And I would like put recovery trucks on college campuses. I mean, give them to these kids. These guys are in the greatest shape of their lives. And they're in the recovery truck all day long. I'm like, what are you recovering from? This is crazy, right? Anyway, except truck is not recovering from anything. Then plus the guy he's built like an NFL player. Right? Like he's just going to come out and pound the ball. He doesn't even have to try hard to hit the ball. Exactly where he wants to. The guy's built like a, he's built like a ball striker. I don't think this, you got to get the ostrich thing out of your mind. It's got to go. He checked that thought. He checked it like Fowler on a Friday. So, Sheffel is number one in that scrambling from the rough that we talked about. Yeah. Of the guys that we didn't mention before on approach. Other players that are very good at that, like well above average. Tommy, Denny McCarthy, Adam Scott, Corey Connors, Mac Meisner, Bridgman, Justin Thomas, Ben Griffin, and then you get into Cam Young, Matt McNeely, Matt Fitzpatrick. Okay, so of the guys you just listed there, we'll talk about Sheffler in a second. There's like four names that wrong out there. You had Griffin, you had Cam Young, you had Fits. I mean, these are the guys. Well, young and Fits obviously playing very well. They have been playing all well. They've been playing well all this year, right? Griffin seems to be trending. And I feel strongly that way. There was another name, not Bridgman, but who is the other name after that after Griffin? Mac Meisner? Meisner. And we've seen Meisner play well recently, right? So like, again, I always go with the hot hand. PGA tour players make nearly 80% of their annual cash on the money list within a six week span. If that's the case right now, this is when Ben Griffin's going to be hot. This is when, you know, it doesn't apply to Cam Young because he's a top five player in a world. doesn't apply to Scotty, but like these guys when they do get hot Jake nap or earlier in the season. You know, like one of the things it's been really neat is to watch Seawoo this year and how good he's been and how consistent he's been. I mean, the guy's gonna be, he's still like what? Top 10 on the PGA Tour and FedEx Cup points and like he hasn't won. That's pretty crazy at this time of the year. - It's one of the best seasons I can ever remember anyone having without winning. - It's pretty crazy good. So those are the names on that list that I kind of jumped towards. Top five in the FedEx Cup standings going into Memorial. Go. - Scotties number one. Camp Young's gotta be up there. - Number two. - Number two. - Number three is Matt Fitz. - Number three, correct. Now you get to four and five and it gets a bit trickier. - Four is going to be. It's a player who's not in the field this week. - He's not in the field this week. - That's interesting. Who's not in the field this week? - Colin Moore-Kawa is not in the field and is currently fourth in the FedEx Cup. - How about that? - Is he just prolonging this injury so we can play in majors and then just does something in the off season to get it fixed? That's a good question. I spoke to his coach at Aronement and he said everything was good. And you know, Colin, and somebody's not telling the truth there and I think a lot of times athletes try to talk to themselves or they talk themselves through things. So I'm not saying that someone's lying but like Colin keeps saying that like he goes, I'm told by the doctors I'm healthy but I don't trust it when I'm out there playing. But the fact that he's actually not trying to play is interesting because this would be a great, great Colin Moore-Kawa course the way that he started off his 2026 campaign. I mean, he's Uber Accurate, he's a great long iron player. I mean, I guess it could be better around the green but long rough, he's better than he is at short rough and he's not a bad bunker player. I mean, he's probably an average bunker player. You got to pay attention to the bunkers here. Much like the bunkers at Riviera. They're extremely penal. They're very difficult. A lot of them are very deep and Jack uses a lot of sand which isn't really for better players is the preferable way to do it. I love them. As a bad player, I love a lot of sand in the bunkers. Of course, yeah. But these guys don't because it doesn't allow them to spin the ball as much. Remember when Jack went to those furrowed rakes for like a year and the guys kept getting all those crazy lies? And you like, it was almost like a revolution. These guys were like ready to all boycott the tournament. They were so mad about these rakes. So he had to like go back to regular rakes. But yeah. So what makes every aspect of this tournament as hard as he can, Pat, it's crazy. But what you're saying about Kalamora Kawas that the doctors apparently have told him that his back is fine, but he's outdoing his own research. I'm saying that he, he, he said, it's on the transcripts that he doesn't trust it yet. Starting something new is terrifying. I remember right before launching this show, thinking what if no one listens? What if it completely flops? And that's something that has persisted every time that I hit record and go to edit a show, even as I'm recording this right now. It never goes away. But taking that leap ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made. And honestly, having something like Shopify back then would have made it a whole lot easier. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses. 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Use code Pat Myo at Monarch.com to get your first year half off, just 50 bucks. That's 50% off your first year at Monarch.com with code Pat Myo. There's not a lot of $4 million dollars per se out there. This is the last $4 million per se of the year. So travelers isn't? No, it's $3.6. So Bay Hill, Tiger, and Jack, they get $4 million on the $20 million per se. All the rest of the signatures are $3.6, and then all the majors are right around somewhere around $3.4 to $3.6 or something like that. So this is the last $4 million dollars and the playoffs are $3.6. So this is the last $4 million per se of the year. I mean, you want to talk one and done. This is a week to hit. No, yeah, you need to hit this week. And I think that we've talked about it a few times that if you had not used Scotty at the masters, just save him for here. So if you have Scotty, use him. Oh yeah. But what if you don't have Scotty? If you don't have Scotty, so I was looking at my wonderful collection of options. And I've got Ludwig. So if I'm looking for like a strong top eight, that's probably a good guy to go with. So Blikko and I both agreed on this. And I was going to write this up for spoiler for the golf digest column that comes out tomorrow where we all give our picks and fades. You talked about guys that are strategic around the course. That is not Ludwig at all. No, no. And the short game's not there either. So I don't have to do a bunker. That'd be bad news. I mean, there's 68 very well positioned ones here. I tell you, although the fairer ones aren't a concern for him. The guy launches it so high, but overall, yeah. So I've got Henley, I've got Cantley, Big Ben Griffin, Decky, Burns, God are up. Hey, you got guys in. I'm using Thomas, like I'm just rolling with Thomas here. And hopefully after being second in ball striking last week, the putter somewhat turning around, it's like he's grabbed all these pieces of what you need to do to win. He does, he has the puzzle pieces. He just needs to put them together and this seems like a nice spot for him to do it because you don't need to be 20 under. You can make a, you can make some bogies here. But I do have confidence that he'll still make some birdies at the same time. I use JT at the PGA and I got a good ticket out of it. So I'm happy, but yeah, I've got to go in a different direction here. What would it be? Not for one and done necessarily, but should we be giving Aaron Ry some more consideration? He just went on fast bent. He's super accurate, great around the green and awesome with his irons. Yeah, we should. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I guess it's the old saying like his Aaron Ryga to win twice on the PGA tour. And those two wins are going to be, you know, not win them in the rocket. They're going to be the PGA championship and then a couple weeks later he's going to win the memorial. I like, okay, we haven't really mentioned his name. We have anecdotally, but like, are we just avoiding the conversation about like why Scotty should, should 100% win? I mean, he's, he's gained in the last four years. He's gone third, third first, first, right? He's gained an average of 14 strokes on the field and that includes the year where he lost eight and half strokes, putting Invictor one of that playoff over daddy. I mean, he lost eight and a half strokes, putting and he's still gained total, strokes gained total an average of 14 strokes on the field in the last four years. You're probably right. I do worry about his putter though. It is just abandoned him when he is needed this year. That's why he has all the second place finishes because he's there. He's there every single time. But even to watch it, like he lost strokes putting in the final round last year and so on, winning by a bunch. But to go back and watch that round, like even as something as early as number one in the final round last year, he just, he had a really, he had a really crappy chip on one, let himself like eight feet short. What does he do? Just center the cup part. And every time that he needed to make one of those eight to 12 footers, they were dead center, not a problem. And it just kept anyone from getting close to him. now. What are we going to do? a bit at a contention, then he missed a few and that goes with it. But that's something that he doesn't do this year. When he needs to make a putt, he doesn't. And that's somewhat worries me. And it feels like the floodgates will open and he'll make them all at some point and beat everyone by 12. But we've been waiting for that for four months now and it hasn't happened. And if, well, if anywhere, I mean, this would be one of those places where he did lose eight and a half strokes putting one time that you could have your struggles with the putter here. It's very severe, which is why you don't have to be a great putter to win here because it's tough to make putts. Greens are, greens are difficult. They're always firm unless there's a monsoon and they're always like super, super fast. They're like a gust of fast. And there's a ton of slopes and swells. There's some really good terrain here out here in the Columbus area and, you know, Jack made very good use of it. I mean, this is, this gotta be Jack's number one design of like the 200 off courses he's done in this career. I mean, it's, it's absolutely fabulous. Every hole tests a little bit different part, different aspect of your game. You gotta use many of the clubs in the bag. And he's continued to be able to create a test here. Thanks to the membership and the tournament committee and himself and his vision for what makes difficult golf year after year, you know, he just continues to kind of push the envelope for what championship golf is. And I think that's great. I think if you love the congestion of colonial and erotomy, you're going to see a lot of that this weekend because his putting has slipped a little bit. But man, if there was ever a good fit for a place, it's Steve Stricker at the John Deere and it's Scotty Sheffler here. Well, Steve Stricker, the last player to win the same tournament three consecutive years. Scotty of the chance to do that this time around. His odds have actually dropped, which is surprising to me. I guess no one really wants to take the plunge on him. But I see him as big as plus 350 now. Yeah, you would, you would think that that number would be would be dipping with his history here. But it opens so low like it roaring goes from 9 to 11, Sheffler goes from plus 275 to 333. I guess my issue is and I guess that people are it was always my issue with it. But then he kept winning. So everyone's like, "Male, you're an idiot." But even to look at it right now, I get why he is a, you know, given him a one in three chance of winning this tournament. I get that. I don't think that's true based on the way that he's been playing, especially the gap between him and this next tier of guys. Like, is he really four times as likely to win the Rory? That seems off. I think there's even some guys a little further back that you're going to say are five times and they have just as good a chance. It's been an interesting year for him because he's sat all those second places. He's been, you know, he's how many like five straight top fives or whatever it is. I mean, he's he's played very, very well. But, you know, when it gets to the end there, or well, not maybe it's just the end, but the end of certain holes and he needs to get the ball the whole as quick as he has the last couple years when he's racquet up five, six, seven wins a year. He just hasn't done it. I mean, if they're, you know, the arguments are always going to be, well, like, hey, we all saw this coming at this place because this is the place he plays the best. I'm not so quite sure that he plays here the best. He just plays better than everyone else here and it's that hard. And the skill set needed here is Jack skill set. And, you know, the most the modern golfer that's the most like Jack Tiger included in this argument is Scotty. They play the same way. They just continue to kill you by a thousand paper cuts, which is why going back to the the question earlier or the statement that the reporter made asking or talking to wind them is why Jack had 37 first and second place finishes at major championships. When you make the golf course the hardest Jack, Jack, like was always there in contention because his his game was modeled in his game plan. His blueprint were always modeled after being in contention and being consistent and just not making mistakes. Are there any Nicholas courses which favor moving the ball right to left versus left to right? I don't think so. No, no. I only played a few and everyone's pretty noticeable like, oh, you want to hit a, or you're, you're right handed. You want to hit a cut. Well, again, this golf course here is pretty balanced as far as either like say you can't draw the ball and you hit a hard fade off the tee. The need to hit it straight or scale back because it might be a draw biased hole versus a fade hole, but like overall, you know, Jack sends it, you know, what was Jack really, really good at? He was really good at fading the ball off the tee. He was really good at fairway bunker play. His golf courses always have way too many fairway bunkers. And then, you know, Jack loved, you know, touching around the green plate and everything. And that's why he's always got these crazy green complexes with these different shelves and plateaus for greens and everything. So, you know, you go to some Jack off course that maybe he never even showed up on the property, but like they have the blueprint and you go down to Cabo or whatever and you're like, okay, here we go. There's like, you know, 700 fairway bunkers. I got it like weaving in between. I draw the ball off the tee. So I'm never going to hit a fairway. And then when I get up to the green, I'm going to three putt every time because the place is rolling like 11 at a resort. And there's like nine shelves on a green that's like 3000 square feet. That's it. That's Jack right there. So I'm going Thomas for one and where did you settle on? Oh, man. Um, it'll be between Ludwig and Ben Griffin. It'll be one of those two. I'm excited yet. I don't think you want Ludwig here. Where am I going to go with them otherwise? US open. Oh, oh, with his short game. Yeah. But I don't know how much short game is going to make that big of a difference at Chinacock. Like you're either going to get a good liar of Adly. I told you earlier, do not trigger me because I am in a special room and they're recording more content next to me. And I'm not allowed to yell and scream this week. So like you're saying things like that that short game doesn't matter at Chinacock. You you were just trying to press my buttons, but I'm not going to fall into your trap there, Mr. Mayo this week. I'm not going to outside of Tommy who was able to take advantage of the conditions on Sunday last time around. I would say that bombing it meant a whole lot more than short game last time. Last, well, yeah, I wouldn't consider Tommy was even really part of that tournament. We issued 62 on Sunday to like jump 50 guys in the field. So, um, yeah, no, it like this definitely going to be featured at Chinacock. It's going to give guys the opportunity to take some very, very aggressive angles. And then if they can combine that with spin control and trajectory with their irons and play well in the wind, I'll like a criss-cowder up or something like that, like that kind of mold. Um, those would be the guys that we're definitely going to be featuring in that conversation, for sure. Oh, Corey, Corey Paybun's not walking through that, but walking through that door anymore. I love Garner up at the at the US. So, but I just vividly remember one of the par saves that Capca made on route to winning that US open and he was in the middle of the Fescue greenside on this long par three. I don't know how we got the ball out of there, how he found it to begin with, but he ended up with like a reasonable lie. He was able to just hit it to 23 feet ends up making his par moving on and it just felt like if you didn't have that power that getting it out of that stuff became very difficult versus some of the touch that you would need. Like it's one thing to be greenside and not be in the shit. And once you're in the shit, it felt like the more power you had, the better advantage you had. Oh, there's certainly no doubt about that. I mean, you could kind of use like the 10th hole as a microcosm. So the way the 10th hole the par force design, there's a plateau where you could lay up with an iron off the tea or hybrid or something like that, or you could bomb it down in the gully before the green. So then if you bomb it down in the gully, then you're hitting a very much a flip wedge into this green, you got a control spin, you know, the green sits up very high from that position, but everybody in the field is going to bomb it down there that can. No one's going to lay it back so they can be like, oh, I need to hit a full nine iron to this green. Like over the course of four days, bomb it down below, knock your little wedge on there, take four par s for one of the more severe holes there, and you'd walk on because, you know, that golf tournament's going to be one if conditions aren't soft and if they're not super windy or whatever, if just normal there, it's going to be one somewhere around even par. So like that's that's why power is going to be such an advantage there, and then there's going to be a number of places off the tea where these guys are going to cut corners and like everyone's like, oh, no, no, it's the US open. They're going to play smart like, yes, Scotty might know whatever, but Rory's going to get up there, God are up, it's going to get up there, Cammy on the get up there, and they're going to try to rip the cover off the ball as far as they can get as close as they can, they all of these greens, and I think of what is it 15 is the one where they're going to go way to hell down there, and then the green sloped front to back, but it's going to be like a short wedge in. I think I'm thinking of the right hole, and you know, like that's a super delicate shot, and they're still going to do it every single time, you know, unless the wind conditions are crazy or something like that, like they, that's just the way they play golf. They don't know anything different, even even somebody who I was given like Kudos to earlier, like an Alex Smalley who I said plays smart like Scotty does. The guy still pulls out driver when he can, he bombs it where he can, he just hits it to the exact spot that you should hit it, like if you're using Scott Faucet or something like that, and you're just like, this is the best place to hit it over the course of 72 holes, you'll pick up like a tenth of a stroke on the field, like every time you do this, and then next thing, you know, like you top 20, like every single week, you get a hot potter and you win, like that's that's the way these guys all think and they play, and that's what they're going to try to do to shittacock, shittacock's a very hard golf course, and a lot of it has to do with the wind. If the wind lays down or it gets soft, those guys, they're going to attack that thing with reckless abandon, and it would help to have more power. Certainly, if you miss it, like you just said. I just keep thinking Bryson now. Oh God, oh, Bryson and Gemini, Gemini, yeah. Maybe AI has powered his comeback. Well, you know, here's the thing. When Bryson gets something in his head that he can fixate on, and he can let like, you know, when he's not ruminating, when he's got like something, he's like really narrowly focused on. He tends to play very, very well. You know, remember when he wanted Pyners, he was like totally fixated on his equipment. He's like, this is like the perfect equipment for me. And I'm ready to go and everything. And then like, he just, you know, bashes his way through the golf course. He puts himself in contention. Like, it's almost like he needs AI. Like in his brain, like that's his latest thing. AI is going to fix me. And then now I'm going to go with the US open. It wouldn't surprise me, but it would surprise me less if he missed the cut by like a million. Because you guys all over the place right now. He is all over the place, but I think this leans more into his skill set than both. You're obviously going to need touch at any of these tournaments. But I think that the touch required from the chipping conditions and around the green and what's required from your wedges at Shinnacock to not necessarily resemble what they do in Augusta. If he could have any sort of like break even weak with his wedges on approach and put the putting back where we've known Bryson to be a Bryson's a very good championship putter. I mean, he certainly, that's all he really needs to do. And he can just overpower that golf course. Similar to the way that kind of like Brooks didn't, he overpowered it off the tee. And then he was very patient on approach. And I think that if Bryson can follow some of that blueprint, he'll be in good shape. But speaking of US opens, let's touch on Riviera for a minute. Because the women's US open is going to be in prime time this weekend. I think like five to 8 p.m. on NBC. They're playing Riv first time ever, fourth USGA championship here at a place that we all kind of know. Now I know week after week they go play someplace like the shop right last week, which we want at Pat Selene Boudier, big weekend for France PSG, Boudier. I think Champions League soccer and the LPGA shop right. They're on par with one another. I'm sure Paris is still celebrating Selene. But anyway, back to the point. The ladies are now out on the left coast. We have a chance to watch them a little bit. And they're going to a golf course that we're very familiar with. So if you know what it requires to get around Riviera and you take a look at those ladies that can do those things. Now again, it's very much a Scotty situation with a place like Riv where Nelly is just that much better than every other lady. And one of the reasons she is is that she has a short game. And we know at Riviera, you're going to need a short game. Players aren't going to hit enough greens. The USGA tends to really favor ball strikers. If you go back through who's won, like Maya Stark, everyone's like, oh, she came out of nowhere last year at Aaron Hills. Well, Maya Stark just can't put. But she's a really, really good ball striker on the LPGA tour. Your favorite ball strikers who have any assemblances of short game. And they're going into Riviera, have some sort of championship medal, like those are the ladies. That's my handy capital quick in 30 seconds about what's going to happen at Riviera. What can you give me a name or two here? All right. I love my number one name for this week is, in the immortal words of Jim Morrison, the LA woman is none other than Australian Hanna Green. And I'll give you a couple reasons why. Number one, in the last four years, she's won the LA Open three times. Now, most recently, it's been moved from Wilshire, because Wilshire Country Club is doing a big massive renovation. But Wilshire Country Club is a very classically designed golf course that would have a lot of uneven lies, a lot of short game, a lot of bunkers, a lot of similar green size green complexes, two like a Riviera. She won there back to back years. Great comp course there. We know we have-- everyone loves to say it in Riviera week. We have Cuculea grass. Hanna Green is from Australia, which is where they see a ton of Cuculea grass. She might be one of the few players, her and Minji Lee, and some of the other Grace Kim, some of the other women that are from down under. I don't know how much Cuculea grass they have over New Zealand. It might be a factor for Lydia Coe. But I actually have a great Lydia Coe story about Riviera. But anyway, I'll finish this part. So I love Hanna Green this week. She's going to be in the midteens. Anything that's in the midteens is a good number for her. She's not going to be the direct favorite, like Gino or Nelly. I think Nelly's like 4-1 to win the Women's US Open, which is kind of crazy because-- 4-1/2 to 1. Green is 16 to 1. So 16 is a fair number for her because she certainly is somebody who's won major championships before. She's won in LA many times. And she's already won twice this year. So she's in good form. That'd be a good name. Another great name, ball striking wise. Again, US Open. If you want to go looking on the LPGA website, there's no filters. But you can just look at T-Degrean play. Ronin Yinn is another player that's going to be in the midteens. She's had some very nice finishes lately. And she's an extremely good ball striker. She's not a very good putter. I think she'll be able to get away with that in the US Open, I think, for the most part, the Greens will probably be way too fast. I mean, everyone is going to think back to Jacob Bridgman. But what do we know about that? We can pour all February at the Genesis, right? It was very, very soft. This is going to be a super hard and fast ribby era. And you're going to need a ton of short game. I think either one of those two ladies at the top of the board give you a good chance. Yeah. Yinn 14 to 1 right now. So I'll bet I'll go with you. I'll bet on Hannah Green at 16 to 1 along with you. I'll use my multiplier over a cool bet, too, to get next for 30% and chuck down to that. Always nice. What's your leading goal story? I mean, well, you don't always love going, Nelly Scottie for the winner of Parlay, but Scottie, Hannah Green, might be a nice number at the end of the day, which is probably what I will do to try to stretch it a little bit. Let's see what we got. You tell us about Lydia Cole. I'll work on what that number is. OK. So a couple of years ago, I'm going to go out in the morning. I'm going to walk with Adam Scott during his pro-am round. And his pro-am group is getting ready on the practice putting green. And there's a woman, a man, and another man, and then Adam and his caddy and his manager and a couple of people. And I knew his manager at the time. So he was like, hey, come walk with us for nine holes or whatever. So I was going to go walk with Adam. And Adam's obviously someone to focus on. This was three years ago. Someone to focus on when he come into Riviera. So I was like, oh, let me see how Adam's playing. I haven't really watched him too closely this year. So I'm going to go walk nine holes with whatever. So we go around the practice putting green or whatever. And I'm looking over at the woman. And I'm like, oh, man, that's pretty funny. And it's Lydia Cole. She's hitting puts. And I'm like, this seems kind of crazy. Like, what is she doing here? Like the only people that are on the green are like the eight people that are playing in the next two t times that go off in the program, one off 10 and one off one. We're going to go off the first hole. So Adam walks up to the first tee. And they had everyone basically tee off the top. Because that's a kind of a cool thing to do. And she's teeing off and playing. And she doesn't have a tour bag or anything like that. But it looks like it's her clubs and stuff. And as it turns out, I recognize the guy with her who's like walking with her and it's her husband. And then there's a fourth in the group. So the fourth in the group, he doesn't know. And he's on the practice putting her in. And he's like watching her putt. And he's like, you know, he kind of like walks by Adam's caddy. And I can hear him talk to me. He goes, he goes, man, this woman looks pretty good. And I was like, pretty good. It's like, man, you're kidding me right now. He can't know. Like he doesn't know who it is. So we're on the second tee. And all of us are pulled back because Lydia's up on the ladies tee. And she like smokes a drive. And the guy turns the Lydia's wife. And he goes, he goes, man, he's like, how good is your wife at golf? And he goes, well, she's a lot better than me. And then he just starts walking. He doesn't explain it. I'm like, this is unbelievable. I can't wait to figure out how long it's going to take to this third amateur figures out that Lydia co is playing golf with him. Not only Adam Scott, but Lydia co is playing golf with him. And she doesn't miss a shot like hole after hole or whatever. And finally, it comes out. It took the guy like four or five holes to figure it out. But I just thought it was classic. She just showed up to play. I assume Adam had some connection to her husband as far as Orr. They're both from down in Oceana, like that region of the world. Maybe she was in LA. And I don't know what the deal was. But it was pretty funny that the third am had no idea Pat for like four or five holes what was going on. And then when he figured it out, he felt like pretty much as dumb as you would think he would. But it was pretty funny to watch. I was walking a lot with Adam's manager. We were like, this is crazy. This guy can't figure out that this is Lydia co of all people. So that's probably a ghost story. I can see not knowing, but not knowing you're playing with a professional is so much different. Like I played with, you know, munitour type of like professionals, like PGA or CPGA professional. I guess they're Canadian PGA professionals now. And then I played with a few guys that are like corn fairy level. And then you play with like really good guys, like scratch guys that you know. The difference between like just the sounds that those ball makes every time for the like the professional player, you just have to know. Well, that's the thing. The trick of all this and then going back to the US Open conversation about Riviera is that we're used to the way that the men play that golf course. And they have to beat it hard there and everything. She just doesn't hit it that hard. So think it doesn't make that noise. But her skill was so refined. And to your point, like it would have been so noticeable how the quality of her shots. Yes, were they like super impressive? Like they were from like a point in shoot way. But they aren't the way like if you had teed it up with Jacob Bridgman or something like that. And they're like, man, this guy smokes it, right? This is this is a really, really good player. This guy should be on tour and he is on tour, right? But like Lydia wasn't going to blow you away off the tear or anything like that. It's just her level of acumen with every other part of the game was like so refined to your point. I couldn't believe the guy didn't pick up on it. And her husband was just like having fun with the guy. It was just hysterical. I thought it was it was a really funny moment. And then they're going back there. And you know, if Lydia was having a little bit stronger, season. She would certainly be somebody I'd be interested in because she fits the mold for what they're going to do there this week. Maybe the driver needs to be a little bit longer. The USGA tends to favor some length and trying to make their championships harder for the women by beating them up a little bit when it comes to like, it's like 6,700 yards at sea level there with the wind coming off the water every afternoon at Riviera. It's going to be tough for those ladies, but you know, Lydia goes, "So all the favor." So. I have a swing, my swing tip question of the week for you. Oh, okay. Got back for my trip. And if you ever want to sell drivers, do it in Utah. Drive it 400 yards. After playing Black Desert, I can see how Michael Brennan won there, put it that way. If I was hitting the ball as far as I was considering the guy who's the longest straightest player on tour, yeah, I can see that. Hey, that was a good call on Brennan last week at a place like Colonial. That might be one of my new favorite guys like Ludwig to watch hit a golf ball. That guy is super athletic. That is a neat move for sure, but go ahead. Is he going to be really good or is he going to be like Cam champ? Where he'll have these weeks when he'll win and he'll be like, "Man, that guy is good." And then he just kind of goes away for eight months. Yeah. So Michael Brennan hits normal shots with his irons, whereas Cam champ flights everything's so low with so much speed. It was like when Charles Howell the third first came out, he moved into Iowa and we used to play a bunch of golf together. And like, if you needed a guy at that point in his career, to hit like a one iron or two iron off the tee, I mean, like that was the guy to do it. Like he could hit it straight. He could hit missiles. But then you needed him to hit like a 110 yard wedge and it was like, I don't know what to do here, right? Like he couldn't gear down. Like, that's the way I view Cam champ. Michael Brennan looks like there's a little more athleticism there because he could kind of like have some touch with an eight iron. And that's what I love watching a little bit about it. I mean, like Ludwig hammers it. But then all of a sudden when you watch him hit wedges, like something like C.I.L. and when he shoots 61-61, you're like, man, there's a level of touch and like, you know, death worksmanship that you really have to respect. And I think I would put Brennan more on that level of the scale, like what we can see with somebody like a Ludwig than I would like on the cam champ to answer your question. So to come back for me, I was hitting my driver, I'd say like 75% really well. And then playing 36 every day by the final nine on the end of the second round and that squeltering heat, you lose some body mechanics. And then all of a sudden, like your drivers just off, your whole game is off at that point when you get too tired. But I've been hitting my driver really well. I got the new Taylor made driver, the QI, whatever, whatever, whatever. I don't need, not a big don't care for me. That's the one. And I've been hitting it so well. And I reattached the head when I came back, get out to my course on the weekend. I was pretty tired in fairness, but I started slicing the ball out of nowhere. And I haven't been hitting a slice at all. And I felt like I just kept getting stuck. It wasn't an over the top move, which was slicing it. It was just a blocked slice every time that I was just leaving the club head open when I was hitting the ball every single time. It wasn't a problem with my irons. It wasn't a problem with my woods, but with the driver in particular, I just couldn't square the club face with it. So clearly, my arm's coming through. My body's not getting out of the way. And I'm just kind of reaching out. I'm not having enough time to close the club face on it. What would you suggest I do mid round? If something like that happens, obviously, if I go to the range afterwards, I was able to fix it. But mid round, like there's so many thoughts going through your head. And the only thing that you think about when you step up onto the T is my God, I'm going to slice this into the woods. That's the only thing I was thinking. So the first thing that stands out in my mind is you always want to ask the obvious questions first from my perspective as a PGA coach. When you put the driver back together, did you put it back together properly? Or did you? I let my friend put it back together because I forgot my tool. He had his tool. Okay. Did your friend put it back together? I think. Okay. So it was a catch. I was able to hit the ball with it. One year I played in the road, Island Open, and I kept missing my, and I, I used to hit just the best T shots with my three wood and we're playing, we were playing a Patekuk country club. And it was a three wood like all day golf course for me. And I kept missing to the right. I'm like, man, I never missed this club like this. And I missed it a bunch of times. And then I got to the end of the day. I was so mad. I had my hand on the end of the club and on the grip. And I like turned it and the head just turned right off. I was like, Oh my God, the head was loose. So every time I hit the ball, like the ball would just fade off to the right. I, the first thing I would check is to make sure that your friend put the golf club back together because nowadays with drivers, you have with those different settings, it could be sitting like two degrees open and you're still making good swings. Now, but more to the answer of your question, if I was mid round and I didn't have time to work on swing mechanics, I would take the golf ball and I would move it further forward in my stance. And the reason I would do that is that it would give the toe of the club more time to come around and square. Um, I, first of all, I would check the ball position. Maybe it's too far back in your stance. And that's why you keep hitting it while the golf club is still open. And it hasn't had a chance to square. If you find that the ball position is in the right place, I would move it a little forward. Excuse me. And I would give the, like the toe of the club or the face of chance to square more coming in. And then I would get it into the house. And then from there, then I would start to look at different aspects of your game. But I would try to go with like a little minor fix while I'm out there, not trying to reinvent the wheel. After hitting three consecutive t balls out of bounds, I just started hitting a five wound off the tee. Well, you could do that too. I'm guessing that your friend didn't take necessarily the same care to put the, you know, everyone almost uses around, you know, most people use a round grip. So you wouldn't be able to tell. And if the logo of the grip on top is just like a little off, you're not paying attention. Like it's very easy for the golf club to be like one or two degrees open. And then next thing you know, you're like, geez, I'll flip like I hit all those in the center of the face, but the face is open. And excuse me, the harder I tried to go after it, the more open it was. And then the more side spin I put on it. So now instead of a block, I'm in a block fade, which is even worse. While you're out there, if you don't want to mess with ball position, probably, you know, the next best thing that you can do if you're your block and the heck out of it like that, um, would be to close your stance a little bit. So take the normal stance that you have, take your right foot and drop it back. This is going to allow you to track the golf club more around you. And if it is actually like a swing issue, you want to get the golf club more behind you. And then as you come through, um, that's probably going to promote you to come a little bit more over the top, which would have you pull a little bit more, which we get the ball and play. It sounds to me, like you're coming in like a little bit underneath and everything. And I mean, again, these are quick fixes. This isn't a lesson. But you see, you're, I want to be specific to your question. You're saying mid round. Those of those are the two things I would do. One dynamic and then one static, when it comes to your setup. All right. Got any, got any questions for me? Oh, of course. I mean, got to start with the most obvious one, Pat. Uh, your favorite flavor of milkshake. I don't think I've had a milkshake in like 20 years. I'll say, I'll say vanilla. Forget you then. Jared, your favorite flavor of milkshake. The great question, Keith. Um, recently discovered my favorite flavor is coffee ice cream. I'm assuming that would be a good milkshake as well. There you go. All right. On a scale of one to 10, Pat, rate your MMA fighting ability. Two? Yeah, I'd be a one or a two, for sure. See, I, I give myself zero offense, but I, I, as someone who's, you heard my mouth before, I'm from Canada. We like to fight up here. And there's less chance to get in shot when you go out. So a lot of fistocuffs going down. I've been hit a lot of times. Uh, as of I, yes. Um, as a retired lacrosse player for many years. I've been hit. Um, do you count Patrick Cantley as having two memorial titles? I do. Cause now in less, especially because I had Cantley that week, which was fantastic. But yes. You know, John Rom wanted to win. He should have tested positive for COVID. And that's maybe, hey, listen, he was winning after 54 holes. We should have seen him leaving the live coming. Yep, should have sought that said, he was making a stance against the PGA Tories. And you know what? I had this tournament one and you, you took it away from me. I'm just going to try to win after 54 holes every time. Name one thing on your bucket list. Scotland golf. Oh, all right. Uh, two guys have won the memorial before 1990. Can you name them? I only two guys won before the year 1990. No, uh, one twice. Oh, four nights. You know, two guys won the memorial twice before 1990. Jack and Ernie. Oh, Jack is a good one. No Arnie. Um, the other guy was a really good, uh, the other guy was a two sport player out of Colorado. He was a defensive back. What a couple of US opens. Johnny Miller. Hail Erwin. Oh, Hail Erwin was a football player. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He played defensive back at Colorado as well as golf. Okay. There you go. Uh, how many keys are on your key ring? Four. Do you have any allergies? Yes. What feel? What what's that? What are the allergies? Cats. Oh, man. I don't like cats. I like cats. I like cats and bad news. Puffy eyes. Oh, no good. All right. Uh, what golfer in this current memorial field bothers you the most. I need to pull up the field list here because default answer would be can't lay. But I don't really dislike Patrick can't lay. He's just sort of a nothing to me. Who bothers me the most? Mine is recency bias. It's foul. But just because he burned you last week. Yes. I can't quite comprehend why Min Woo Lee is put into a betting bucket with like really good players. Well, because his approach game is suddenly good, but it's not it's not going to just not the worst anymore. This is like when Cuss says he's eating healthy because he's not eating McDonald's five times. He's eating three times. No, I mean, no fear. All right. Who do you come on? Who who gets under your skin in this field? Maverick McNeely. Oh, that's it. I will dig in on that some other day. This is rapid fire. All right. Will Bryson play golf on the PGA tour next year? No. One more. Jake's, Jack's hand when he gives him the trophy on Sunday here at the Memorial. Justin Thomas. Very good. All right. Pat, take it away. Read the line. Com is where you can find all of Keith's final picks and newsletter coming out on Wednesday morning. You can subscribe to that for free down in the description right now. You can find the other stuff that's all over at Read the line. Com. My newsletter will drop on Wednesday afternoon for reference the Scotty plus Hannah Green bet that I made while Keith was talking a 73 to one in case you were wondering. So that's what we're going to be rolling with here this week. But my newsletter will come out Wednesday afternoon. Smash likes up to the channel while you're here the rest of the week on the PME custom be in studio and we have two soccer guests and we'll be doing a full mega world cup pool and group round by round breakdown. Plus maybe even a prop show as well. So stay tuned for that. All right. I'm Pat Mayer. Thanks for watching. See you next time. ♪ You got it to pass ♪