Arnold Palmer Invitational 2026 DraftKings Picks, Lineups | Different Way of Thinking About Ownership in Each Lineup

too much ownership for Nikolai Huygar, would you say?

Do you think he'll crack 20%?

Is he going to crack 10% because sometimes I do feel like we overestimate and give too

much credit to what the field is going to do with some of these lower end names.

This is I think maybe a more complicated answer than you're looking for, but it's not so

much, it's not so much whether or not I'm going to play Nikolai.

I think I'm probably playing him regardless of his ownership, but what role is Nikolai

playing in my lineup?

Is he just a high probability play that's there because I really like the rest of my lineup

and I think the rest of my lineup can give me the separation that I need and now Nikolai

is just trying to preserve that advantage that I have or is Nikolai one of those reasons

why my lineup can very quickly get to the top of the leaderboard and now I can just

surround him with high probability plays that are just designed to preserve the advantage

that I've already created for myself.

If Nikolai is one of those separators, low-own, it's a little bit hard to just give a specific

number, but certainly under 10%, he's a separator, under 15%, he might still be a separator.

If he's 15 to 20, now he probably can't be a true separator for you anymore.

Now he converts to a high probability play and basically if you just assign separator

or high probability play to everyone in your lineup and you have, let's say, three of

each or two of one and four of the other, you're going to build a pretty good lineup.

If you have too many separators and not enough high probability plays, it's probably

too contrarian.

If you have too many high probability guys and not enough guys, you can actually help

you separate.

Now you're too chalky and you're going to cash a lot at a good rate, but you're not going

to get those actual takedowns that really create the year for you.

At Mayo Experience.

Welcome to Pat Mayo Experience, Traff King's picks, Arnold Palmer, Invitational, plus some

deep dive, talk about the players.

Thank you all for joining us.

If you joined us last week with myself and the newly minted fantasy golf writers association,

golf writer of the year, Alex Blickel, you probably won some money, didn't you?

That was a good week.

It was a fun week all around and I was very happy to see you have such a spectacular week

because a lot of that came from the discussion we had on the show and I feel like you

learned it as well.

The entire body of work, maybe you didn't get the golf writer of the award, but you're

every bit as deserving as I was and we're working as a team here and making a lot of really

good stuff out.

Listen, we can work as a team.

If I was deserving, Alex, I would have won the award.

I would not be a 13 time loser of that award.

I feel like you can't be a 13 time loser without doing something well, right?

It's the same argument of people wanting to diminish LeBron James career because he lost

in some finals as if it would have been better for his career and his legacy to have lost

in the first round or something instead of the actual finals.

So I think you're doing some pretty good.

I appreciate the recognition.

I do have one of those awards, so that's always nice.

That's all I need.

Maybe I'll stop submitting myself.

I'll be like, you know, I'm over this now.

I'm sick of losing.

I don't want to go anymore.

Cele's got a way worse than me.

I think he's lost like 25 times with zero wins.

At least I have like the eight wins that that that does help across having the podcast

does help.

And you know what does help this show smash and the like sub into the channel and subscribing

to the Pat Mayo experience on Spotify and Apple and leaving a five star review.

If Alex and I helped you win money last week, then please, for free, you can go to that

for me.

You can sign up for Blical's Discord as well.

That's down in the chat.

There's a bunch of places we can start.

I do want to give another special shout out to Joe Burman, put a single bullet in the

$25.

Alex and came second.

That's 100K insane ROI, just unbelievable.

That's that's part of like why we all love DFS so much, right?

It's like you, you can't get that anywhere else pretty much.

And yet you don't need to just shoot for the stars in the miracle, like a, you know,

like a lottery ticket, you can also build your bankroll in it in a smaller way and more

consistent way.

But DFS kind of offers all that and I think it's part of why we love it so much.

I came third in the sixth, third and seventh in the sixth.

I saw Kyle Robert came first and second across contest.

The viewer who came in third behind Joe ended up winning 50K in the $25.

So it was a great week all around.

Can you guess Joe's lineup that came in second for $100,000 because it's very this

show coded from last week?

Well, I know it's going to have smotherman in it.

Correct.

I think it's going to have probably three stars up top then.

So let's say Lowry, Nikolai and oh, man, I'm not sure you have a pick between three guys.

You're three for three so far.

And you know, I know it's not.

I know who it's not.

It's not Thor Bjornson.

No, it's not Thor Bjornson.

And there's one you're obviously missing here because you would have needed it to get

to the top.

Oh, of course.

Yeah, Nico.

So you're you're you're four or four or so far.

Can you get the last two?

Probably not.

I'm going to say I'm going to say Mitchell.

It was Gerard.

Okay.

Okay.

I obviously Mitchell ended up higher, but it was it was harder to land on that combination.

I think it was last.

The last time I must have been I think if he actually played Mitchell, I think he would

have won instead of Gerard.

I would.

Yeah, I would assume so.

Who is the elusive sixth man at 4.6% ownership who wildly outscored his finishing position?

I think.

Oh, that's a good hint.

Uh, man, there were a lot of guys who did that this past week.

Who did I love last week?

Oh, Ford.

Bart.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

Three champions in a row.

That was the craziest round of golf.

I have ever witnessed from anybody and you know, the money qualifier account, money Q info.

He loves posting, you know, just scorecards that look crazy and saying like, I shot even

today must have been a, you know, a boring round, right?

And you see like 11 birdies, six bogies and a triple or something like that, whatever

it is.

He, I think he did talk about this one, but there's no way that you could even do the

round justice just from the scorecard because of all the whole outs and the similar to

Lowry, like some of those water balls were, we're insane.

The whole that he, I think he ended up making either a triple or a quad on, but he was

in the water where he would have been better off if he had hit the Lowry type shot and

it was 80 yards in the water than where he was because he tried to play it out of there

and it just kept rolling back to his feet like three times than he went and took the drop.

It was so wild and such a cool thing to watch because we knew that like so many people

yourself included were really counting on him and so not only was it a really entertaining

round, but it was an entertaining round in the coolest way that they really, really needed

for him to come through.

So that was a really fun watch.

Have you ever missed a shot as bad as Jimmy Stanger did on 17?

I'm sure I have, but I can't think of one off the top of my head.

That was, I didn't know it was possible.

Just to be on the other side of the water and the commentary was like, I'm pretty sure

that's out of bounds because you can't get over there.

And actually, we know that it's not like the worst shot ever hit because I think his

there made the point of like, I remember that being out of bounds, which means he at least

witnessed someone do it before.

So it wasn't a first time, but it was really, really impressively bad.

Well, you can't physically get over there from the tee box, but I guess that determines

that it's out of bounds because I don't think it was state.

Could he have jumped in the water with a club and swam over and hit it?

Well, that's, that was the question I was about to ask you.

It's like, what would you have needed to jump in?

Would you jump in with your club or would you swim over there first and have your caddy

chuck the club to you?

I think it was, I think it was too far.

I think he would have had to bring the club with him.

I think so too.

And yeah, then the, then the grip is ruined forever.

You got to go re grip that thing and the good chance there's going to be water in the,

in the shaft or something like that, yeah, given where he was in the leaderboard, I think

he probably would have done it if he had the opportunity.

For sure, it was probably like a $200,000 swing and like, and he, he's on playing on medical

exemptions.

So he needed those points.

Yeah.

And not only that, but he only had one whole remaining.

So it doesn't matter how, you know, how, how wet and gross you feel, you only have to

play one more hole.

So go, go, go for it.

Yeah, go and figure that out.

You actually gave me a great tip, which I gave out to the people over the weekend, catch

an underdog with their pants down.

It was great.

Yeah, that was a good one on 16th or 18th reading that I think that was on Saturday.

I was actually looking forward to potentially going in the opposite direction yesterday.

But they were, they were a little bit more ahead of the curve and prepared on Sunday,

as opposed to Saturday.

But yeah, that was a, it was a really good one.

We kind of noticed early on, but the biggest thing that I noticed early on was after

playing like the absolute monster that 17 can play the day prior, 17, the, the T box

was up.

The pin was all the way up.

And there wasn't much wind.

And so all of a sudden, 17 became a real birdie hole.

And 18 was playing really easy again.

So we, we really kind of hit across the board.

I think, I think the, the staff that you pulled from, from it was they, they offered, they

offered 11, they offered 11 players in that market.

Nine of them went under on the 11.

They were all, and I think that like seven of the 11 were at like plus money to do it.

Unfortunately, I put writing in a whole bunch of them.

I played enough combos that it made it worth my while.

But writing was the only guy because he drove it out, he drove it into the water on 18

somehow.

I mean, I mean, guys were, guys were making easy birdies from the left rough and from

the bunker because it was like a 220 yard shot based on the, the set up that day.

And he, he hit it 330 down the right side of the fairway through into the water.

Oh, man, that was so annoying.

But I was with you.

My, my only regret was, was not playing more combinations because the, the read was perfectly.

We really had, you know, that opportunity and, and it's one of those things like we talked

about in the past where props is really a game and, and pick them as well.

Of course, it's really a game where you are rewarded for being patient, you're rewarded

for being picky and really finding your spots to, to really, really attack.

And that was very much one of them.

And that's usually how I play underdog pick.

And I like to throw entries because you know, there's a boost, you can play a $50 max

on it and you get, you know, just load up with four or five, whatever guys try to make

some anti correlation, try to get the big, a lot of payout.

But when I see an opportunity like that, and it usually does materialize in those types

of markets.

So you need to be diligent in looking on the app, looking on the site to see if they offer

these markets because it's not consistent round-to-round, weak to weak, whatever it might

be.

But we actually had real intel on how the course was playing and then no one was touching

these markets.

Like, oh, if they're offering these markets, let's go heavy on this and go win some money.

Yeah.

And it was, it was kind of hard to tell if it was because we were hammering it and I gave

it out in my discord or if it was because like the whole industry was starting to catch

up at the same time and underdog was starting to realize it at the same time.

But as soon as we put some plays in, it was like, lowery went from 1.05x to 0.88x.

Everyone else was just nerfed just as much and all of a sudden it wasn't beatable anymore.

It wasn't playable anymore.

And so we were very happy to get in on that as much as we did.

Again, wish I'd gotten in on it more with more combinations, but it's always still fun

to have that read and know that a lot of people were able to hit some winners because of

it.

Yeah.

I put in 600 bucks towards it and I walked away with 1,600 if I did that every day of

my life.

I wouldn't need to do this show.

Very true.

Very true.

And yeah, we've been doing the same thing in NBA with free throw-offs.

So if you're interested in that sort of thing, definitely check out the discord because we've

been having a lot of fun on the free throw-offs and it's basically like we get the the 16th

or 18th edge almost every single night in NBA.

Okay.

Well, I need to get it on that.

That sounds great.

You're already in the discord.

That's right.

I made it.

I can go get these plays.

You can join it too.

You hit the description.

Get the discord.

The Betsbridge Golf, the rabbit hole simulator last week.

It had Nico second in odds to win and it had smotherman 11th, I believe, in terms of overall

win.

Had Lowry at number one.

What do they know?

It wasn't even close.

It wasn't even close to winning.

But the tournament simulation, that's just one of the tools on the rabbit hole.

I would get in right now.

BetsbridgeGolf.com slash Mayo.

It's an easy way to construct your lineups and use the optimizer to build as well.

If you want to get in on that, we got the play.

We got a million dollar contest coming up on DK pretty soon.

I do just want to quickly circle back with you.

We talked a little bit about what we needed on underdog last week and I got screwed by those

WDs.

It absolutely tanked me.

I advanced 35 teams in the scramble and if those guys just want to, if Griffin, Kudy,

NAP or who is the other one, Bridgeman, if two of those four played, I probably get

like 55 through.

That was strong.

I mean, even as it was a really strong performance, I got five of 23 in the big scramble and I was

really happy with that.

I kind of felt like I wasn't building optimally to advance through M1 like I was building

more for if I happen to get through M1, then I'll be in good shape.

So hopefully that comes to fruition and those five have some some real likes to them.

But I think just overall, like very much, very pleased overall with the process.

I think our read on the just the right strategy, how to attack this contest was was really

good across the board.

You and I did a show together at least one.

We might have even done two together where we really talked through some strategy and did

some drafts.

So another area where hopefully we helped some some people, you know, really get in position

to win some money watching, watching golf, which is a great thing to do.

And we're going to have more opportunities because the major season drafts on underdog

are coming up.

On underdog yet, the crazy if you're not show a sponsor by underdog help us out here,

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So the deposit bonus plus that annual probably get a free pick along the way and there's

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Mayo at underdog.

Yeah, I played in four contests.

So in the big scramble, I had two teams advance out of the 20 that I played.

I had a bunch in last place and fifth place like, what the hell happened here?

I did well on every other contest.

I drafted this one first before I started really digging into the scramble.

I have so much Ben Ann in sung J.M. it is ridiculous.

Yeah.

I think I only have one sung J team and I was looking at it and I was like, I don't even

think I noticed that there was no sung J until like three weeks ago.

I was like, where the hell is he?

But apparently he's close to returning.

Apparently he's back this week.

He's in the field.

Well, we'll see.

We'll see if he actually teased it up or maybe it's one of those things where he's

going to hit his first tee shot and then say, okay, I'll collect my paycheck and go home

now.

But yeah, I'd like, I'd love to see him back is, you know, we miss sung J and hopefully

when he does come back, it's, it's the old sung J not the one who is basically just

men will leave with the irons and everything is 30 yards left for 30 yards right and never

straight anymore.

So I was 35 of 148 in the, in the scramble.

I was six of 12 in the PME open, which was nice, advancing and I was three of three in

the 150 PME, which I'm very excited about.

One all three of my pods there wasn't a problem.

That's great.

Especially, I mean, winning your own would be, would be a really, really cool thing to

do.

I would rather win the scramble win the 50 grand or whatever it is though, in fairness

instead of the five.

I'd take the 50 K over the five K, but just advancing, having all three bullets going

through is really nice.

Yeah.

And even though, you know, the top prize is lower, it's, it's a $150 buy-in.

So, you know, if you end up fifth place or something, you're going to get still a very

nice payout.

Yes.

Because both of the PME contests that underdog ran for the drafts are all flat payouts.

So it does reward you for just being, being close to the top, not just at the top, which

is always a hallmark of any Pat Mayo sponsored contest, be it the one and done underdog drafts,

the old DK contest, flat payouts, I always like it because, hey, I don't want to come

in second and feel like I lost.

That would be terrible.

And then two, after beating, you know, 100,000 other people and be like, oh, yeah, there's

a million dollar difference between first and second.

That's no fun.

And especially, even with the weekly draft contest that we have on underdog as well, it keeps

the ecosystem going.

It's not like you play once and then you're at a money, like you're probably going to

come somewhere near the cash, double your money, then you're back for next week.

Absolutely.

And that's, you know, it's one of those things where I wish, I wish some of the larger

contests thought of that as well, where it would be nice if the entire expected value

that you're kind of chasing after isn't just in trying to get first place.

And, you know, I think that's especially true for like football best ball, where the playoffs

are so random when it's just about one week and it'd be nice if there was a little bit

more weight to actually just getting there and advancing into the playoffs.

Two holdover things from the Monday show that I put out to two hour long epic with me

and Jeff being fired up the entire time for winning a bunch of cash on the weekend, hopefully

everyone out there ended up winning money as well.

That'd be nice.

Although I can see why people wouldn't want to tail me after the heartbreak of the first

two months.

When regression hitsplickle at its big time, but why were they pronouncing Ricky Castillo

like that on the broadcast?

Apparently, that's how he has suggested that it be pronounced.

My, my thought is the only way this makes any sense is if Castillo does pronounce it Castillo

and said, I don't know if Americans are smart enough to get that pronunciation correct

because of the L. So I'll say Castillo, but it doesn't make any sense.

There's no way that's the right pronunciation.

So it's an Americanized thing.

It's like when people pronounce the last name Leblanc, Leblanc, like one of those things

or they pronounce foyer.

Yeah, but this is like, this is from him.

This is how he said you should pronounce it like this on the broadcast.

It's wild stuff.

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The other big thing that I wanted to look into and I went on a rant about this, but I wanted

to get your take was Scotty, we're going to get to him on draft kings, he's 14,000 again

like he is every single week, but he's three to one again in the betting market against

all these same guys.

He has not been adjusted for, I don't want to say it's poor play, but it's not Scotty

three to one favorite.

The guy that we're seeing on the course right now is not the guy who wins once every

three weeks.

Now, he could win this week and it's going to feel stupid when you don't take him, but

he's just watching him, you can tell he's not the same.

Yeah, it's a stark difference than when he was not quite winning yet like early in the

season either last year or especially two years ago when the ball striking was there

every single week, the tee-degree game was there every single week and he just wasn't

making enough puts to win.

It was like there's one thing that he has to do better, but now the approach play hasn't

been dominant.

You and I were talking before we started that a big part of that is like even the distance

control is off a little bit.

It's one thing when he has a little bit of a left miss, sneak in either off the tier

with the irons and okay, he's going to figure that out at some point, he's going to make

some more consistent swings, but the distance control has been weird.

He keeps looking at Ted Scott, like confounded by the mistake he just made.

He's very unscoughty like and beyond that, the results on the leaderboard have ended up

being pretty good, but it really seems like he's been extremely fortunate to end up where

he has on leaderboards because it's taken not just like a bunch of chippins or longputs

just to get there, but he's really relied on those to create some good mojo in his

round and actually get things kicked off and started where.

Let's say he's been even par through 11 holes or something and then he gets a chip in

on the 12th and now he rattles off four birdies in the next six holes.

It's like, okay, were those four birdies going to come if he hadn't chipped in or was

he instead of five under through 16, going to be one under through 16 and now way, way

back.

It's been this really, really weird Scotty where he's just struggling to get anything going

and the things that have gotten him going are the most unsustainable part of his early

quote-unquote success that he's had.

I compared him to speed after speed stop being speed is kind of the way that he's getting

it done right now where speed would still come T4, but it would all be 35 foot-puts and

chippins and the T degree and Scotty's T degree isn't bad, he's still like the best driver

right now so far this season, but it is that iron play that you just expect from him,

what separates him and it's it's there, but it's not there, I guess, is the best way

to put it.

It's the confounded looks that he's having, like even when he was hitting the balls

in the water and phoenix and just like turning around and be like, I don't know, bad lie,

I guess.

Yeah, he's he's also adopting a little bit of that like speed desire to blame something

other than his own execution that that speed has become so famous for.

I do think he's going to figure it out sooner than later.

I don't necessarily, I'm not suggesting that he's going to start winning as frequently as

he has in the past two years.

I think we all kind of knew that that's an extremely impressive rate and is more likely

to regress than sustain or especially than to improve, but man, he's the difference

between, because I actually agree, I think the the speed comparisons are really good one

because before speed started falling down leaderboards, we saw that hold on, like this

stroke's game profile no longer makes sense, he can't sustain this even though he's

still finishing well and being at least close to contention.

The difference between that and what Scotty's doing now is, speed was actually like losing

strokes with driving accuracy, for example, where Scotty's not as accurate as he's been.

His iron play hasn't been as good as it has been, but it's still quite good.

So if this is the new baseline, he's still going to be fine, he's still going to contend

and he is still going to win at times, but it's not going to be any more close to what

it was the last few years.

As of this moment, with the way that they're playing, it's shocking to me to see Rory

3000 or $2,500 less on draft kings than Sheffler because it feels like Rory and Sheffler

neck and neck at the moment, and when we speak in a month's time, we'd be like that was

really silly, but with the way that they have been playing so far this year, Rory and Sheffler

are basically the same.

Yeah, they definitely don't deserve this massive difference in price, however, this is also

the most intriguing, the six and seven K's have been, at least in my mind, for who you

need to use if you are using Scotty.

So as even though he looks worse and actually he's going to project worse relative to his

peers around the industry than he probably has for most of the season, this is probably

the week that I'm most likely to actually play him.

Now that doesn't mean I'm going to play him.

I say the most likely, it's basically been 0% up until this point in the season.

So I don't know where it is now, but it's not zero anymore.

This was the roundabout point that I wanted to get to.

How do you think this affects his draft king's ownership this week?

Because we've been seeing it slip basically each of the past three tournaments where he's

been in especially at the elevated events.

Are we going to get, hey, Scotty doesn't have the juice anymore?

Or is it Scotty's one here two of the past four years?

This course is designed for him.

Yeah, honestly, my instinct is kind of that it's going to be in between just as it's been

the last couple of weeks where you probably have a faction of the player pool that just

thinks Scotty's still Scotty.

And they're still really going in on projections and projections still love him.

He's still in a tier of his own of projections.

And then you're going to get this other faction of the pool that is in the camp that we have

largely been in so far this season, which is he's just not that much better than everybody

else.

And the lineup as a whole looks better without him.

And so I think it's going to be somewhere like 20, 30% again, just as it's been, I don't

expect a crazy high number and I don't expect a crazy low number.

I would be very intrigued with a low number though this week.

I think this week the the matching number might be more like 15 to 20% for me where below

that I'm going to be in on him and above, I won't be.

Whereas to this point this season, it's probably been more like 5% as the magic number,

which is why it's basically been 0% that I would actually use him because there was no

chance he was ever going to be 5%.

So let's put in a guess right now.

It's still early on in the week.

You haven't run your projection just thinking about it.

Would you, if I set the over under at 17 and a half, would you take the over the under?

Over.

I think it might come under just based on two factors here.

One, Rory's been playing great and Rory's significantly cheaper.

Rory also has a win here in the past.

So people are in on Rory at the moment.

And then Fitzpatrick is $9,800 and he's going to be the most own guy.

Yeah, I again, I think that the best argument against Scotty being popular is that there

are so many guys that people are going to be interested in playing not just the 9K

range, but even above that.

I think this is probably the most interested people are going to be in Tommy so far this

year because now we've seen him play twice in the US and he was great in both.

So it's so now it's like, OK, yeah, this is still the same Tommy that we saw at the

end of last year.

Xander looks better.

He's still not the Xander of two years ago that won two majors, but he looked quite good

at the at the genesis.

He's played better golf this year.

Now the fact that he's playing well so far to start the year, I think gives a little bit

more credence, a little more merit to the the win he had in the fall.

So there are just so many guys that appear that people are going to be interested.

Maybe they're going to be back in on more Kawa.

So yeah, if you're in on these guys, you can't play Scotty mathematically.

So I think it'll largely come down to how many of those guys are popular and then also

how strongly do people feel about the 8K range and the 9K range because it's not so much

like am I playing Scotty or am I playing Tommy?

Am I playing Scotty or am I playing Tommy and more Kawa and Fitzpatrick or something like

that, right?

So it's really about all of those guys and how much conviction the field has on that

entire range.

Well, let's start off by trying to build out the non Scotty, what we think is going to

be a common build with the rest of them.

We'll cross him off and then we'll circle back to see what those lineups end up looking

like.

I feel like Fitz isn't all these lineups.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

And I don't think he, I don't think we need to make like a hard and fast rule of he's

either the first click or the second click.

I think we'll see plenty.

We'll see he's the first click and they're going to be four guys over 8500 in that lineup.

We're going to see he's the third click with Tommy and Zander as well.

So we're going to see a wide range of types of lineups that that Fitzpatrick is in.

So Fitzpatrick number one, who do you think else is going to be from anywhere on the

list is going to be more popular than their peers?

I would say we can put, we can put Zander in for now and say that that spot is for Zander

or Tommy because I think a lot of lineups are going to have at least one of those two

guys.

Okay, so we have those two $10,098 dollars at the top of our lineups.

Now we're going down.

Is there anyone chock wise that you can, like, is Nikolai Hoigard going to be super owned

at $7200?

I say yes.

I say yes.

And I think he deserves to be that's a really low price tag for someone who's playing

this well and is a great score and fits the golf course that he's just underpriced.

I have that him to win this week.

So that would, that would make sense.

I bet I'm to win like every week and part of the discussion with him versus, so other

guys around him.

I mean, Straca, I think is wildly underpriced again, even though we had two really bad rounds

at Genesis, but $7400 is a good price for him.

But even though I bet Noren as well, Noren's not in the same bucket as these guys with

Noren, Taylor, Gerard, Spawn, yeah, he won the US Open.

He hasn't done anything since Harry Hall, Nico, Sam Stevens, Corey Connors, I'm sure you

love Corey Connors this week, especially based on what he's done here in the past, but

he's been terrible.

I'm sorry.

I don't, I don't love him this week.

There are definitely guys in that range.

I like more like Keith Mitchell.

But I don't know if anyone in this range is going to be super popular.

I think this is kind of the range where there are going to be plenty of guys that people

like, and my guess is we're going to have, you know, a handful that are 10 to 15 percent

and clearly more popular than some of their really contrarian peers.

But I have, I have a harder time seeing someone other than Nikolai being, you know, 25 percent.

Maybe Gerard, even though he was a bit of a let down last week, like he's still playing

decently well.

Yeah.

He struck the ball really well.

I struck Burns really well too, off the tee.

He just can't chip or putt, which is a problem, but that can flip.

Who knows?

One lucky, we've seen Victor Chipwell with this course over the years that when you get

such long rough sometimes that it benefits the bad around the green players.

You know, we're like, next week at the players, if you're bad around the greens, you're going

to get exposed because everything around the greens is a tight lie.

You need to be Justin Thomas, Cam Smith, Scotty Sheffler.

The guys with the ultimate touch, you can put whatever spin they want on the ball to

get it to stop.

It's more of like chunk it out of the rough and hope your rollout is good.

100 percent.

And we actually see that in the course fit model this week that we have over at FtN Fantasy,

where around the green play is one of the least predictive of the entire season here

at Bay Hill.

It's just, it's a ballstriker's course.

You've got to be long.

You've got to be straight off the tee.

Iron play is going to matter a lot.

To your point, I think a big reason why this is the case is because you just don't have

a ton of control on your short game shots.

It's very lie-dependent.

A lot of the time you're going to be shortsighted.

So it puts a little bit more randomness and is a little bit less where your short game

performance in the week is dependent on how good you are with your short game.

And it's more just kind of the luck of the draw.

Did you miss in the right spots, things of that nature?

I think that helps explain why Victor has actually been decent with his short game at times

because his ballstriking is so good that a lot of the time when he misses, his misses

are smaller.

And they're easier to handle than someone who missed big and now has to face a demanding

short game shot.

It's such a tough golf course.

I would guess not having seen your course fit model that the U.S. open probably plays

exactly the same way.

It's similar.

It's not quite the same.

We actually get more around the green signal at the U.S. open than we do here.

And I think that that is because the greens are so difficult to hit and you have so many

shots where you're coming into the green knowing I'm not going to be able to hit this close.

I'm probably not even going to be able to hit this green.

Where can I miss such that I have the best chance of getting up and down?

And that then translates into people like you're actually getting signal of course

management and missing in the right spots where here at Bay Hill, let's use 16 to par 5 as

an example.

When guys are hitting into that green, they don't need to play defensive.

They can say I'm going for this pin or I'm trying to hit this to 20 feet and if they accidentally

miss club and they're long, now they're dead.

And to that point also, the number one mistake they can't make is being short in the water.

So long is actually the better miss, but long is also then sometimes a really, really difficult

to get up and down.

And so they don't get the opportunity to optimize misses based on what is the easiest up and

down and the one where they have the most control over the same way they do it at US Open

most of the time.

If you want all of the bets, all of the ownership and more of a breakdown especially with

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Back to Nikolai Hoigar just for a minute only because my point on him was versus the other

names that are around him.

Now we have not seen this in the United States as of yet a big breakthrough type win.

However, I have seen it in Europe against the very top guys that are in this field, which

is not really what I can say about any of these other guys in this range.

Yes, Nick Taylor is one like five times, but one of them I would classify even the one

that even waste management that he wasn't against all of the best guys.

That was the year before when he came in third and lost a ramen Sheffler that I can see

Nikolai going toe to toe with these guys versus listen, Sam Stevens is great and I'll

say I'm Steven's beat Nikolai, maybe which one will win probably Nikolai between the two.

Yeah, and if Nikolai is in contention against one of the best players in the world, it's

not going to feel like he has an inferior game to them.

Like he's driving it as far or further than most guys.

He's driving it as straight or straighter than most guys.

His iron play is really good.

He makes putts really his only weakness compared to most of the elite players is short game

and that's the least predictive part of golf this week.

So I love Nikolai as well.

I'm with you.

I already have the outright on him.

So hopefully Nikolai is this week's Nico.

That would be great.

And I will talk Jeff off of Nikolai Hoigard as is one and I want to just take the other

Nick.

Nico is a very sure.

Let's do that.

Now he's beating me in the one and done.

So we're looking at this line up.

We have the two high and we got fits Nikolai from down low and then Zander in at that one spot.

Where do we go from here?

Because you can fill it out because you have $7,600 left.

You can do like what I would do and go struck a Noren and eighty three hundred almost get

you to Ludwig who I would try to actually prioritize Ludwig here because I bet on Ludwig.

I like him this week.

But if we don't do that, is there someone else that we can go down to low?

You said you like Keith Mitchell, he's $6,900 below him is like Orion Fox for you in this

field.

I mean, there's your boy Sungjae $6,500 if anything at WD written all over it.

That's right there.

I'm not sure I'd call him my boy.

I think if you're going to call someone else my boy down here, it's going to be Saif the

Gala for sure.

But why the Gala?

Like why the Gala over someone like Akshay who's accurate and has great irons?

Well, when I say that he's one of my guys, I don't necessarily mean that I like him this

week specifically.

I'm also just mean that like he was he was one of my favorite draft picks for Bestball

this year.

A by-low candidate on someone who I thought was going to have a much better season than

what he showed us last year.

So far, so good on that call.

Hopefully he continues to play well.

But to answer your question directly, I don't actually have a good answer for why he's

a better play this week specifically than some of the other guys down here.

I think the next place that I would go is actually kind of along your thought about Oberg

is find the guy that you like the most in the 8k range knowing we only can fit one more

guy.

And I don't think there's anyone else outside of Nikolai who really, really separates

is like a great play in the sevens.

So let's find our 8k guy that we love.

And then whatever we need to do in the last two spots to fit that, we're going to be

okay with.

So for me, it's Ludwig.

I would be napp, but I'm good with Ludwig as well.

And napp rates out great for me, Ludwig is cheaper and I just I think about it and

this is actually a really foolish way to do it, but it's just how my mind works.

When I'm sitting there on Sunday and I'm seeing someone being presented, the winner being

interviewed on the green walking off, in my mind, that's Ludwig, it's not Jake napp.

That's fair.

I think this is a draft Kings lineup, not an outright.

So we should also be thinking about who's going to finish fifth with a lot of birdies

and who's going to consistently give us a good performance and not make us wonder what

happened to his golf game over the last years, like we often have with, with Oberg

over the last, let's say you're in a half now, really, with his, with his worst play,

but everything that you could say positively about Oberg right now, you can say about napp

as well.

And there are things you can say about napp that are good that you can't say about Oberg

right now.

I would tend to agree.

I would look at long term pedigree.

I think that sometimes we do live in the moment.

And you've been the king of this Ludwig bet his over finishing position 20 and a half.

That was like an underdog like free square for a while because he just wasn't putting

in these high end performances.

But I do like him at longer tracks, I like him at harder tracks, and it's hard to overlook

way.

Did the final three days of it, Riviera, he played well.

And sometimes that's what you need to see from him, then boom, that again, yes, we're

playing draft Kings.

We're looking for scoring.

It's crazy to think that the more volatile player is Ludwig versus napp, but he's also

cheaper.

And I do think that he has a better chance to win this tournament that sometimes when

you're dealing with a signature event like this, getting as much win equity into your

lineup as possible to mitigate, especially in this lineup, not having Scotty or Rory

is very helpful.

I think the maybe a good way to make the case for Oberg is to say, both of these guys had

their A-game.

Oberg's probably the guy that we want, and there's a decent argument to be made that what

we've seen from napp is close to his A-game, and it's resulted in a fifth, eighth, eighth,

sixth, not a second place, not a win in a field like this.

So do I think that what we've seen from napp actually is the A-game?

No, I think he does have room to be a little bit better.

He wasn't even great off the tee at Pebble or the Genesis, so we know that there's improvement

to be made there.

But he's made a lot of puts.

The irons have been really, really good, and he's still super long off the tee.

So I think we're getting really quality golf a lot more often from napp than we would

from Oberg.

But if you told me we get the A-game for both, I'd be with you on Oberg's side.

It is strange that the names that we gravitated towards in this 8K range probably aren't what

people would instantly come to mind with some, like there's not a lot of name-brand power

here that you consider elite players, but you do have Cantlay in English and Ben Griffin

who, if you asked people two months ago, I think I said third best player in the world.

Victors there, Kitty Yama, who's won here, Lowry.

Lowry I think is super interesting coming off that devastating loss this week, because

he has played this tournament really well in the past.

Ricky rates out really well for me, and I'm terrified of that.

I told you, he was projecting really well for us early in the season.

He's kind of backed it up.

Ironically, he's not projecting as well as some of the guys around him, but I think the

field's also catching up a little bit.

Like one of the things that I really loved at the beginning of the year was I saw Ricky

projecting pretty well and nobody wanted to play him.

So I liked that aspect of it where I think he's going to get at least some ownership

this week.

So for me, it's Ludwig, then it's probably Gotterup, then NAP as my three favorite 8K players.

Mine would be NAP first.

I think I'm with you on Gotterup.

I'd also throw Kitty Yama into the mix.

I've seen him do this before that he hits this peak, and then he goes away for four

months.

Yeah, it has definitely happened prior.

I will say this Pat, we haven't really talked a ton about Havland.

It wouldn't surprise me if he's the field's preferred option in this range.

I was going to say Havland or Kitty Yama, we're going to be the two favorites here.

And by the way, if Kitty Yama is one of the field's favorites, and he's not going to

be my favorite in this range because of what you said, it's like there's a little bit

of uncertainty around him that I'm not interested in when he is super popular, but yeah, so if

you want to throw over again to this lineup right now, I'm 100% comfortable with it.

So I threw in Ludwig here after putting in Keith Mitchell at 69.

That left us with 7700.

When I dropped down, you have Rose, Minwu, McNeely, Adam Scott are all at 79 and 78.

So I was left with the choice between Jason Day, Jacob Bridgman, both at 77, Cody and

Justin Thomas at 76, or that Okshay Keegan range of 7500 bucks.

I opted for Cody because everything that you said about Jake Napp, I feel about Pearson

Cody.

Now, I want to get your take on this because I threw this out to Jeff that when assessing

Jake Napp, and I think you're going to be the opposite here of what we came to the conclusion

of.

I think he's closer to Pearson Cody than he is to Chris Gauderup in terms of where he's

actually at in his overall upside, but that's also me potentially overriding Cody that

I think he's really good, but I think that Gauderup is a cut above those guys.

From a projection standpoint, I can tell you that I think that Napp is closer to Gauderup,

but I think there's an argument to be made here that it's actually more of a compliment

to Cody than it is an insult to Napp that you're saying, because I think Cody is also

very good.

I mean, we actually don't have much separation at all between the three in our projection.

So I think Cody works quite well in this lineup, and like Napp, one of the really nice things

about him is we know that the primary driver of his success upon a little bit intended

here is the driver.

And so that's likely not going anywhere.

And so, you know, the small, the marginal gains that he's made throughout the rest of

his game are going to continue going a long way because this primary reason why he's

good and why he's competing is going to be there.

He's going to continue to hit the ball long, and he's probably going to continue to hit

the ball straight off the tee as well, and that just makes life so much easier on a golf

course.

And one in driving in this field, Stroke's gained off the tee, obviously he's doing that.

He and Scotty are number one and two, and they do it with Cody has more distance than

Scotty.

Scotty's slightly more accurate, but of all of the bombers in this field, Cody is easily

the most accurate.

Yeah, he's he's very, very impressive.

Now, our Stroke's came driving accuracy measures accuracy a little bit differently.

So we haven't very accurate, but we don't have them like amongst the most accurate in the

field.

That's Scotty.

That's Colin.

I see you.

I'm going to get a longer, guys.

Kitty Yama got her up, Adam Scott.

We should talk about Adam Scott too, by the way, but Cody's up there among the bombers as

well in accuracy.

So this is what I have right now in terms of Stroke's game ball straight because we mentioned

that around the green, there's not a lot of signal there for this tournament.

Bad guys can be good.

Good guys can be bad.

Very light dependent.

Pudding is really weird at Bay Hill.

Another reason to night like Nikolai because you see a lot of longpots go in at Bay Hill

and a lot of shorties miss.

That is the Nikolai Hoi Guard game plan.

You give him 40 feet in, give him two feet miss.

That's what he was doing on Sunday of a PGA national.

Yeah, he just needed one or two more of those and one or two fewer short ones and he might

have really made some noise.

But yeah, there's a ton to like about Cody and Nikolai and just this entire almost prototype

of golf or where.

With the ball long and straight at Bay Hill, you turn a lot of these holes into completely

different holes where the guys who are not long off the tee and a little bit inaccurate,

they're playing some of the hardest golf holes that they will play all season.

But if you drive it long and straight on those holes, it's a very manageable approach

shot to a very manageable green complex.

It's just that everything becomes infinitely harder on this course if you're not in position

off the tee.

It's the one thing I worry about with Nikolai this week that I've seen him get squirrely

off the tee with his accuracy that he can just even in Phoenix when we end up making

that triple bogey that it's almost like the first time every time that Minwoo has played

here, he just hits it in the water eight times.

Yeah, I think it was an app actually two years ago, who had to go back in the water on six

like three times that one round and it was like, oh, I guess he's a he's not that accurate

anymore off the tee.

But I'll tell you this, I mean, Nikolai has been driving the ball extremely accurately

now since the latter half of last season.

So I think it's a skill set that we can pretty confidently believe in at this point, especially

at the odds in the price, like you're giving up something the farther you go down the

board in terms of skills.

So you're trying to find the guy with the best complement of skills down there that can

elevate.

And I think it's very clearly Nikolai at this point based on his profile, his age, the

way that he's ascending right now, the way that we've seen him ascending before over in

Europe, making it right or cup team three years ago at age like 20 that it would make

a lot of sense.

And it's almost the same case for Ludwig as well, it's just he got there a lot faster than

Nikolai did.

But the top 10 ball strikers in this field over the past six months.

So basically this season, see who Scotty, Cody, it's Patrick Gerard, Nikolai, Rory, Colin,

Goddorup, Scott, Kidiama's at number 11.

You can consider if you take Scotty out of that or how it take even Rory out of that, you

can just construct lineup with those guys.

Yeah, those are all really solid plays.

I don't have an issue with any of them at all.

And that also kind of gives you the similar skills set across the board, where if that's

what really matters this week, then they're all going to benefit.

And it doesn't seem like there's a ton of wind in the forecast this week either.

There is wind, but not that wind that you see at Bay Hill sometimes, it makes the course

impossible.

That's not cropping up yet.

Yeah.

I'm very curious to see the firmness of the greens.

I think they should be really firm.

And that's definitely what we want to see.

And that's when Bay Hill has its full teeth.

Who else do you like here?

Because even going down like that, then you get into Mitchell Lowry's and or Thorgjornson's

interesting.

I can't recall a single time Thorgjornson's played well at a waterlog course.

Yeah, is he the new EVR?

Could be could be he's he's definitely, I think, like a tear behind

let's say like the the Nikolai's and got her up and Kooti just in terms of

like the being being in control of the ball striking where I think he just has more bad misses where

he doesn't know why he missed in that spot.

He was bad at the 3M last year like horribly bad at the 3M a year ago in this spot as well.

So just I mean the PJ National 3M I do believe have the most water and then it's Bay Hill that

something to look at just also some guys who can freak out when there's a bunch of water around.

It's part of the part of the swing thought right is if you're presented with kind of an equal

miss right and left and it's not that penal.

All you're thinking about is the possibility of hitting a good shot and hitting it close and then

you throw water tight to the right and now it's like oh god I can't miss right I can't miss

right I can't miss right and that makes you do some some strange things in your swing.

So do you want to build out a Rory lineup here because this lineup ended up being

Zander Fitzpatrick, Ludwig, Cudi Hoigard and then Keith Mitchell at $6,900 and that's we can't

really upgrade it anywhere at the top. You could go down from Zander to Mora Kawa if you really

wanted to and leave some money on the table probably not necessary but just to speak once again

on the 6K range where Mitchell seems that that was the guy that I had identified right away as well

as the one that I liked. Is there anyone else down here that you really want to make a case for

this week? No it's Mitchell and Hoigard for me. I think the the Rory question is who's the guy

in this lineup that we think is the weak spot and then what does a 2v2 look like if you go from

let's say Zander to Rory or maybe you want to get a little bit more contrarian and go Fitz to Rory.

Yeah that's the move. Fitz to Rory and then that either drops Ludwig into the high sixes or

sorry Rory and then or we just drop Zander to Gotter up. There's your 2v2. Gotter up Rory versus

Zander and Fitz is exactly 2v2. Yeah that to me is a really really interesting 2v2 and I don't even

know what my my preference is. I think it's probably Rory Gotter up just expecting less ownership

to be on this pairing. I think I'm with you as a draft Kings lineup obviously I bet Fitz to win

this week I really like Fitz. Now if you got there you're like oh yeah Fitz can Fitz hasn't

lost strokes putting at this event in 10 years ever he's played it 10 times never lost strokes

putting. There was every year for him to do it it would be this year and he's just out of the

tournament or he or he's just not the most elite ball striker in the world like he has been for

six weeks now he reverts back to what he usually is and then all of a sudden he has to make these

pots to contend. And also bring up that bring up that lineup again if you can. Notice we have

Oberk Kuti Hoigart Mitchell those are four bombers which pair fits that lineup more. Gotter up

and Rory two bombers or Fitz and Zander so I think the Gotter up Rory pairing even if you like

Fitz and Zander more than Gotter up and Rory in this lineup the Gotter up and Rory pairing might

be better. So looking at strokes gained off the tee versus driving distance I mean chef was actually

up there in driving distance so far this season we got like Kuti Mitchell gotter up are there

Adam Scott would be a plug-and-play on here is his driving distance has gone way up and he's been

very good off the tee is 14th in the field like Seawoo is an outlier here more you could build the

Seawoo more a cow lineup which mean Seawoo didn't do anything in this tournament last year

but with Henley Morekawa I think Straco was up there there is a different version of guys who

gain a bunch off the tee but don't do it through distance that plays at this tournament as well if

it's one of those years. Yeah and so just to be clear like I'm not at all saying that when we're

building lineups for Bay Hill we need to make sure that everyone's a bomber. I understand that

but to link people up like you can make a different iteration of that lineup that we just built.

So it'd be like Tommy Morekawa Seawoo and then when we go down Straco is most definitely one

of those guys. Conors would probably be one of those guys and then who would it be from down

here I mean it would be Sungjae but I have no idea. Yeah if he was healthy it would definitely be

Sungjae. Who is the best of these like bum guys off the tee. Damon is Damon in the field he's

not in the field right. He got bumped last second. I think so but regardless I think that

this is definitely a week where you almost want to pretend that 6600 and down doesn't even exist

from a drafting's perspective because that's that to me is where the largest tear break of talent is.

From so at 66 you have JT Poston, Matt McCarty and Danny McCarthy and then you get into

Sungjae, Chris Kirk, Pat Geater, Taylor Moore, Austin Smotherman like all those guys just you wouldn't

even put in everyone's main man Patrick Rodgers. I don't think so. In fact I think you could even make

an argument that the tear breaks actually at 68 that you know burger and pendreth are significantly

better than and and the dollar are significantly better than Graserman Fox. Fox is good though. I

worry that at a course where Fox can't spray it around that that's an issue but I don't hate his

skill set for here. I don't disagree. Maybe he's also a much better like mid and long iron

player than wedge player which I think plays well here. Yeah you don't see a whole lot of

a wedge shots here like really in close wedge shots. Yeah in fact if you're if you're hitting a

lot of wedge shots it means you're laying up from the rough and that wasn't very good. No so

Stevens, Nikolai, I guess Gerard would be someone who would fit into this sort of build.

Very much so. So yeah you could you could take a Morakawa or Seawoo down to

down to somebody and then and then do what you have to do to fit Gerard because I think you're

right. Gerard is is a much better fit for this lineup than than anyone below that. Yeah you just

take Fleetwood down to Henley basically. Yeah 300 bucks on the table there you go. Henley Morakawa

Seawoo struck a Conner's Gerard short hitting but guys who gain a bunch off the tee by keeping

themselves out of the rough out of the water and are all very good iron players. Yes.

Yeah. Havelin's driver hasn't been very good this year but it was better last event and obviously

his iron play is spectacular so like he also fits this type of lineup well. Oh yeah absolutely.

I mean the guy who would fit this lineup perfectly is Scotty. Yes but if you go with Scotty now you've

got to find five other guys in the seven and six K range not Colin and Seawoo so that's a little

bit harder to do. Well let's try that out. Let's build a Scotty lineup because I'm kind of with

you that this is the first week that I could see myself being like hey I'm making 50 line-ups

25 of them are Scotty. If what I think plays out that people just they're not actively avoiding him

but they are going to avoid him. I think they will yeah to a large point and again like I don't

think it's going to be that people are actively trying not to use Scotty it's more that they just

they can't justify paying that much more for somebody when he's not winning right now and he's not

even playing that well so I think there there's there's definitely a chance that we get a lower-own

Scotty this week and it makes a lot more sense to play him than what we've seen in the past few

weeks and part of that is because now we can also click some guys alongside Scotty that we feel

really really good about which we haven't really been able to do so far this season at least

you know maybe we've been able to find one or two that we really liked but at some point in the

lineup we're clicking guys that we don't feel good about and this week like two immediate clicks

Nikolai and Keith Mitchell I love and I think that the the third fourth and fifth guys that I click

beyond that with Scotty I'm still going to like them so I'm going to feel like they're good plays

and not just the the best of bad options. So who else do we throw in here I think Gerard

fits this lineup pretty well. Yep. Now we have 7300 per player. If we go to Coody what do we

get left with? Seven Grand? I mean is this week to put just Punt on Connors believing that there's

something about Florida there's something about this course in particular that he just plays well

because since the Sony and as you mentioned it's a very small sample size based on what his

baseline has been over the course of his career but it's just there's something wrong here.

Yeah I think I'd prefer to chase him upside with Thor Bjornson or even Pendrith you know

scores a ton but I think Thor Bjornson's probably our best option or what about Grazerman?

Like when he because he's you mentioned Ludwig in a weird way that like you get the the A game

and he's awesome or if he's off he's just really bad kind of feel like Grazerman's the minor league

version of that when he's on he's awesome. Yeah that's a good point I think Grazerman would have to

be meaningfully lower owned than Thor Bjornson for me to go to Grazerman instead but that's

probably a likely outcome like I certainly expect Thor Bjornson to be higher on than Grazerman so

Grazerman definitely has the upside and is also a very good score just like Thor Bjornson.

You wouldn't just based on we've seen a lot of guys do well at Tori here over the years just

the classically long thicker rough type driver heavy courses all of that would actually lead me

to Sam Stevens here. That's an interesting thought because he's very I mean there's one thing

Sam Stevens does it's being great off the tee. Yeah and I did mention the fact that like you can't

it's not that you can't just be long here but you're you're going to really be rewarded for long

and straight and Stevens has been that quite a bit so I think Stevens is a very interesting

call and I do expect him to be overlooked. Well there's no reason to play him here like when you're

when you're taking a gander at some of these all the names are so much sexier like I mentioned

this about Austin smotherman last week is that people like Austin smotherman mainly because

you know his last name is smotherman that it was Smith people wouldn't play him Sam Stevens has

about as generic of a name as possible. It's far more fun to play Niko Echeveria or JJ spawn or

Michael Thor Bjornson than Sam Stevens. They also have flashier golf games so yeah I think that

that applies all around. So this is an example of a Sheffler lineup. I guess the issue becomes

if we play Nikolai with Sheffler I would guess that Nikolai is the most paired person with Scotty.

I'd be shocked if he wasn't. Now the the only I think like if we're wrong about that he's you know

he's still the the second most or the third most so yeah the the the question is going to be

how do we how do we make somewhat of a different lineup with Scotty and I think the answer might be

actually trying to kind of avoid the the low sevens and maybe maybe live in the 6k range and then

go up once to the upper sevens or the low eights and so maybe like taking kudian Stevens out and

then seeing let's see if we so kudian Stevens out and then let's see if we turn Stevens into

Grazerman. Now we're left with 79. Yeah so here but here it becomes a lot of the issue and this is

what we found on the betting board as well. This like Lowry Burns Fowler Rose Minwu McNeely maybe

Adam Scott is actually the play day Bridgman JT like until you get back down to kudian again all

these guys feel really overvalued. I like Rosen Scott here. Okay I don't think that they

necessarily project better than kudi but especially with Rose like we still have we still have

the volatility argument with him when when he is on he is so good he can he can lap this field as

we as we've already seen this year so I think I think he's he's a really good play again because

I don't expect him to be super popular so anytime anytime someone this volatile is not chalk that's

an opportunity and Adam Scott it's hard to ignore what he has done with the speed it's it's

incredible at 45 years old or whatever he is to now be one of the fastest players on tour and

he's driving the ball more accurately like if you looked at you know what was holding him back let's

say two years ago it was that he couldn't drive the ball straight he has simultaneously gotten

significantly faster and significantly straighter off the tee and that allows the rest of his game to

to really take advantage so I'm definitely high on Adam Scott this weekend and I obviously like Rose

as well just kind of an eternal interest in Rose because of how volatile he is. Adam Scott

ranks sixth in this field in ball speed so far this season would you like to try to guess the

five players above him. Rory. Rory is number three. It's Minwoo in this field. Yes he is. Minwoo.

He's number four. Nikolai is number two. Man I don't think Zander got her up.

God are up is seventh just behind Adam Scott and Zander is eighth just behind God are up.

Okay oh Keith. No it's not Keith shockingly enough Keith's actually kind of way down in ball

speed I mean he's not way down he's 178 but he's in that Scotty Mav Sam Stevens fits Patrick range.

You know I should have been able to I should have been able to guess that because I was watching

a ton of him this week and I was I was surprised given how far he was hitting that his ball speed

was around like 180 so he must just have to launch absolutely optimized pot Geater pot Geater number one

and you're boy. So I'm missing one guy. You're missing one guy you love him.

Nap. Nap is number five. Nice. And then Adam Scott. It's incredible. So what right like 21

22 26 28 then Rory because it's Rory and then old man Adam Scott.

If we were if we were predicting the top or if we were trying to rank ball speed as of March 2nd

at the beginning of this season how far down the line will we have Adam Scott like 30th.

Yeah even someone like Cameron Young I would be like of course Cameron Young kills Adam Scott

and Cameron Young is very he and Ryan Fox are like right around the same just behind Pearson Cudi

he was inside the top 10 right by Zander but yeah thought maybe I think I should give some more

look to Ryan Fox Ryan Fox is excellent out of the rough he just has so much power that he can

get the ball out of there. Yeah very strong very violent swing I that's a very interesting call

let me let me check something real quick I want to see if if the data that I have on approach play

backs that up that Fox is great oh yeah he's he's outstanding from the rough so that might be a

really good call. So maybe that's the pivot instead of using Grazerman down there you end up using

Fox because I doubt I mean not that I think a Grazerman is going to be super popular but I just

have a soft spot for Ryan Fox get me some Kiwis get me some New Zealanders in the life there's

like one of them that comes around every 30 years you got Michael Campbell then he got Ryan Fox maybe

he can do something on a big stage. I love it yeah I think it's a it's a good pivot and honestly

like you can you can pivot to a lot of the guys down here you know you're especially because it's

a no-cut event it's hard to get really penalized by one of those decisions and so whatever conviction

you have down here I think you can pretty safely just follow it. So it seems to me like we both like

Nikolai Gerard and Mitchell maybe now Fox enters that phrase lower end guys I really like Cudi

obviously no word in Straca I bet I just like them in general but objectively looking at this

field I probably like Cudi better and those lower guys a little bit better and then at the top

I think a lot of this week comes down to it's usually like two Scotty or not two Scotty type

week I really do feel like the decision is going to be like how much fits Patrick do you want to play

how much you want to ride with that because he's going to be 25% owned I'd guess for me I think the

decision is going to be more about how owned are the guys that I like in the six and seven K range

because if if they're kind of low owned and and that that to me it seems like one of the bigger

ownership inefficiencies on the slate then I'm just going to load up on those guys and that

takes me very comfortably to Scotty whereas if they're all owned and I got to find some other way

to separate from the field then I might just kind of naturally be taken off of Scotty from that.

Well what would be too much ownership for Nikolai Gerard would you say do you think he'll crack 20

percent is he going to crack 10% because sometimes I do feel like we overestimate and give too much

credit to what the field is going to do with some of these lower end names.

This is I think maybe a more complicated answer than you're looking for but it's not so much

it's not so much whether or not I'm going to play Nikolai I think I'm probably playing him

regardless of his ownership but it's what what role is Nikolai playing in my lineup is he

just a high probability play that's there because I really like the rest of my lineup and I think

the rest of my lineup can give me the separation that I need and now Nikolai is just trying to preserve

that advantage that I have or is Nikolai one of those reasons why my lineup can very quickly get

to the top of the leaderboard and now I can just surround him with high probability plays that are

just designed to you know preserve the advantage that I've already created for myself and so

if Nikolai is one of those separators low on I don't it's a little bit hard to like just give

a specific number but I certainly under 10% he's a separator under 15% he might still be a

separator under if he's you know 15 to 20 now he's probably he probably can't be a true

separator for you anymore so now he converts to a high probability play and basically like if

if you just assign separator high probability play to everyone in your lineup and you have let's

say three of each or two of one and four of the other you're going to build a pretty good lineup

if you have too many separators and enough high probability plays it's probably two conchering if

you have too many high probability guys and not enough guys you can actually help you separate

now you're too chalky and you're going to cash a lot at a good rate but you're not going to

get those actual takedowns that you know really create the year for you so like I said much more

complicated answer than you were looking for for for Nikolai's ownership but that's sort of the

way that I think about DFS and so it's hard for me to answer in a in a more straightforward way

for for him specifically I think that's very helpful though of trying to break everyone into tears

and what do you need in your lineup rather than being hey this guy is 15 percent I can't play

him anymore because there's other guys five percent I think that makes a lot of logical sense

I'm glad great to hear so I'm going to start doing that maybe maybe I won't come in third

in these big tournaments all coming first yeah or maybe we'll come in 18th they'll be like

damn it Alex yeah serve me for got me again you make any bets so far this week

yes I think I've made three now nap Nikolai and who was the third one I mean I should remember

this I did it like an hour ago two hours ago but let's see it was Justin Rose shocker

you love Justin Rose I love how volatile he is I love how good his a game is it is interesting

that every time that Justin Rose has entered my life personally he's won a tournament so he

stayed in the room next to me when I was at Southwind last year talked to him in the elevator for a bit

didn't even think about betting him I had money on JJ spawn who he beaten a playoff so that was fun

but you know could host him very nice guy and this morning my because I'm going to Florida for TGL

and then I'm playing around with Jeff and my golf coach sent me a like 40 second video he's like this

is what you need to keep as your swing thought this is what we've been working on and if you ever

have any issues just consult this 40 second video and I'll get it back in your head as a video

of Justin Rose walking through his swing that's great I love that can you send me that clip I want to

I'm curious just to know what you're working on and what Justin had to say well I can tell you

right now I'm working I don't really utilize the ground at all and I think that's a problem that

like a lot of like especially either high handicap mid handicap or just am's have that they don't

know how to use the ground like for years I you hear about it you're like okay yeah I'm pressing

down with my foot or trying to figure out what's going on but you're not actually doing it but what

I've been working out with my coach over the past three months is he's like a lot of golf coaches

will tell you not to do like chefler's slide he's like look at every single player right now they're

all sliding before dropping their hands they're getting their momentum forward they're chest

staying down getting down in the ball and creating so much lag behind them it's giving them all

this power he's like how do you think Justin Thomas hits it 320 years how does Rory do it it's

like they're using the ground by getting the momentum going first and then firing through the ball

at the very last second so it's a lot it's a video essentially breaking that down and I mean I

I've been adding distance the problem is my contact now just I feel like I'm getting thrown off

by trying to think it too many things but if I can just simplify it down to these two things get

your momentum forward and like kind of like bring your your lead arm kind of like down instead of

like really trying to get away from over the top to create a bunch of lag and then explode at the ball

like when it works for me I probably added like 30 yards of distance love that a good drill to try

and to make it even more like a natural movement for you is when your when your club gets parallel

behind you and your takeaway lift your front foot off the ground almost like a batter and baseball

and then as soon as the club gets back to the same spot on the downswing it should come back to

the ground and now you're using that to really push off and almost jump off the ground through

impact it'll if you if you start to do it right the sequencing will become a lot more natural

and intuitive and then from there you can just go and fire and it takes less thought to do that

I like it when when I have been able to time it up I basically creating the lag and then

exploding at the ball and really getting my wrists into it like with my body in the right way

it just flies I it's not like any other shot that I've ever hit before regardless of club

I'm not doing it with an eight iron I can hit an eight iron pretty well but I hit my five iron

very poorly when I put this into the mix and hit a five iron it feels like when I hit a nine iron

I'm actually hitting it off the face it's getting the right trajectory when I hit a three hybrid it

does the same thing and when you hit with the driver it doesn't even feel like the ball hits the

club when you do it yeah one of those per round and you're back you're back the next day because

it's just it's such a good feeling the world was chasing it yeah well I want to talk to you about

Nico shot on 17 that was a pure miss it right yeah and even more than a miss hit it was just

well right of his target like he was he was aimed so much further left than where that ball ended

and you could tell immediately like he felt the fact that he made a mistake and I guarantee you

the thought through his mind after he made contact while he's still staring at the round was

oh my god I just hit it in the water so pretty awesome result from that I bet so many people

this week across three tournaments you want to hear the round of losers I have for Puerto Rico

yes so I did bet Michael Brennan and I got him boosted to 42 to one anyone who is in

Canada outside of Ontario can go get that at cool bet right now so he can hit the description

and go do that get your bonus and then it's under the PME exclusives tab I have him and fits

boosted up so 30 to one for fits and 42 to one for Brennan and to cycle back to this

I think Brennan is just a great bet I know that you've talked about this e-pad has talked about it

and I've tried to break it down when I go through the rabbit hole on the research shows

he has a skill that essentially no one else has he's first or second in the field every weekend

driving now it's it's incredible I don't think that his putting in short game is quite like

PGA tour ready but but I mean that he's not going to have weeks where it's good enough

that's the thing could can he luck into that knowing he has the most important skill and he's the

best at that yes and I also think as we talked a little bit last week with with he go like it's

more likely that he's going to have it spike week when he's in a field where he knows

okay I'm one of the best players this week and not I've got to I've got to be really really good

this week with my putter and around the green or I'm not going to have a chance so I like I like

the Brennan bet this week for sure so he's at 42 the only other guy under 100 I have I have David

Ford at 75 to one because why would I give up on David Ford now can't stop now that's for sure

so I have him I have my main man Shooter Sean Yellow Maraju he is at 110 to one Zach Boushue 110 to one

these are all with three places by the way Chandler Blanchett 140 to one Davis Riley 141 and Jimmy

Stanger 275 to one I like it I've got I've got one final question for you Pat hit me

I know you said that you already recorded with Jeff at any point did he go on a rant about

if Shane Lowry was able to answer questions after that meltdown then surely calling

where a cowboy could have last year I preemptively masked my question of that question to him

nice I love that but in fairness Shane didn't write so people don't hate him

yeah I thought he I thought he did it right and he answered it honestly and and actually I think

it is probably the right move not because it's the quote unquote right thing to do for the media

and it's going to make people like him a little bit more I think it's the right thing for him to do

because it's going to be easier for him to process this meltdown and now perform well the next time

he's actually in that type of scenario because he was able to talk about it right away and kind of

exercise the demons that way we didn't even talk about him did you see him coming rebounding and

winning here yeah I mean I could but like so let me let me answer it this way I don't think his

chance of winning this week is any worse based on the fact that he melted down last week but

I still think it's a really low chance that he wins just because I think it's a really low

probability that he beats this field at a tough course he's he's a very solid player but we're

just not seeing the spikes uh to to be the field like this we haven't seen them in in years from him

but that lineup that we built with the more Akawa Henley Lowry would be a fixture in that lineup

yes it would yeah he'd be he'd be awesome in that lineup yeah all right Alex Blickel join his

discord you can get the link down in the description fdn fantasy dot com hey I think you're due

for a big one this week I hope so I very much hope so and it already this season it seems like I'm

gonna have the same DFS PGA years I did in NFL where showdowns are awesome and mainslates are

just like come on man give me something that I've gotten in in the showdown so hopefully I break

that trend as well but I'd like to break it by having a great main slate and not by not winning

on on round four showdown because round four showdown has been awesome I think I've I think I've

like five x almost every single one of them so that's been great and and like I said hopefully we

can show that into some some outright winners again although I already have the rows win so

I'm not totally empty handed in that regard but some some main slate takedowns would be great

maybe we can discuss that next week on the players championship draft king show because there's

going to be a million dollar top prize around there might even be a million dollar or at least a

500k round four showdown prize maybe a bit more in depth on that would be very helpful for people

it sounds great that's a that's a plan and maybe tambo will join us next week too who knows

that be also very cool it would be you can check out tambo over chip in nation doing shows

with Alex as well and ftn fantasy dot com but betsperts golf dot com slash mayo is where you

need to go to get all the stats all the tools the optimizer the tournament simulations head-to-head

matchups it's all in there highly recommend that you go check it out all right i'm pat mayo thanks

for watching see you next time