Who’s winning the Masters?

I just talked about, I don't know if you saw the article in the Washington Post today, Kent Babb wrote it, really it's about Harold Varner and his decision to go to live.

I just appreciate the honesty. And if all of those players had simply said, do you know how much they're paying me to come play golf here? I think we'd have a lot more respect for all of them, but they tried to couch it in other reasons. Varner just straight up said, no man, it's about money. It's not about growing the game because it doesn't. It's not about playing less because, well, I guess they are playing less, but they want to play everywhere else. Patrick Reed plays Asian tour events.

It's just about money and it's okay. I do think DJ likes playing less. Oh, he definitely does.

And this is one that I was talking with my friend Robbie Callan about it. Do you think that Dustin Johnson by playing less and still making boatloads of money is actually more of a threat at major championships? Because I don't think Dustin Johnson needs to be playing a lot. Like there's a, you made a point about cam Smith.

Like the thing about cam Smith is that cam Smith, even at his own press conference this week, admitted he's not been working on his game as much as it was during the last off season. Now there is something to be said for a place like Augusta, uh, being able to tap into the competitive nature of this major championship that you can find something, grab hold of it. And that leads to a really good major championship season. But I mean, Dustin Johnson is, I still believe, even though it was not a, a move with competitiveness in mind going from PGA tour, it's a major drop down. I still think Dustin Johnson is a competitor. And as we look at that storyline of the many storylines that we've got into the masters this year, not all of the live guys, certainly not all of them, but there are a few and Dustin Johnson's the one that leads that list where I am not going to downgrade him.

You look at any sort of like fantasy draft or daily fantasy or, you know, the odds board. I think the Dustin Johnson is mispriced based on what he has done at Augusta national and this perception that being on live is going to make him less of a threat to win. I don't think, I don't think there's a live factor for Dustin Johnson. Um, I don't believe his record though, at Augusta, other than the fact that he won in November, right? Cause he won the November masters by a billion. If he could putt at all last year, right? He would, he would not have won because, you know, Scotty was just blazing through everyone, but heading into Sunday, his game until he got to the greens was good enough to win.

It just, you know, he, he didn't have every, he did not have, as they say, all of the clubs. He doesn't, he doesn't have the same re track record recently that cam Smith does cam Smith's he's made for this golf course. Absolutely made for, but I just back to your, your initial point about, uh, you don't, DJ is not, he could win regardless. He could just walk, you know, step out of, you know, step out of his front door, walk to the first tee. And his game is so big. It is so good that he could win.

Um, I don't know if cam Smith can right, but he's got a good enough history here. And I think this is a place that, uh, you don't have to be as precise off the tee. Cause the fairways are wide. There is a preferred side of fairways that you want to be.

You don't have to be as precise. They don't squeeze you too much at the masters, but he's got all the other shots and I think he has a lot of confidence there, but, uh, I would say that 95% of the players on that tour are hurt by playing less, just not DJ, right? Yeah. I mean, DJ, uh, since 2015, uh, tied for six tied for fourth, the stairs, tied for second. Oh, look at that. So it's a lot of top tens, one wind cut and one stairs gets the, uh, better than I thought. Yeah. Better than I thought. Who do you like this week? And what is that? And what is the best storyline?

Okay. I think Scotty's going to do it. And that sort of pairs well into something. And like, I'll talk about the storyline part first because there's so much Rory's playing so well right now.

And there's so much packed into, um, the idea that he's going to be able to finish the slam. You've got all of the live and PGA tour. Like there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of like drama between the players as they are on the property and going through the routines of the week. So it's not as much of a blood feud as it is just interesting for golf fans who aren't watching the CW to be able to see some of these major championship winners and familiar names out there in the same spots as, uh, the other PGA tour stars. Oh yeah.

There's a man named Eldrick who tends to gather a quite a bit amount of atmosphere, you know, just sort of sucking everything into his magnetic force. Right. And through all of this, Scotty has a really, really good chance. And as the odds on favorite to win this thing and join that short list of back to back masters champions, you run all this, like the statistical analysis of, you know, whether you like stroke screened over the last 24 rounds, you know, whatever model you want to run, it keeps spitting out two names. It keeps spitting out Rory McRoy and Scotty Scheffler in terms of recent form and in terms of what you need to win at Augusta national. These are the two that continue to stand out among everybody else. So who am I going to trust the guy who can't win it or the guy who just won it?

And so I, I think that Scotty Scheffler is a overlooked storyline now, but let him hold that 36 hole lead and it will become the story of the weekend. The last tournament favorite to win was, do you remember? Yeah.

Two thousand with 2005, I believe. Right. Yeah. 2000 is also the last to win the masters back to back.

Right. Um, and in 2005, uh, he needed extra holes to beat Chris DeMarco. That was the, I have a great personal story with that. Uh, my wife and I got engaged that Sunday morning and she's a tiger fan too. So we went to a bar to rooftop bar in, um, Charleston, South Carolina might've been, uh, the venue in, I don't know.

Uh, and we were watching and having a good time and then we had to go back and get showered and changed to go to dinner. And in the 12 minute walk back from the venue into our hotel, tiger had bogeyed 17 and 18. Uh, it was right after the chip in at 16.

Right. He chipped in at 16. We went, we celebrated, we walked back to the hotel. We got back to the, wait to say, why are we in a playoff? What just happened? We watched the playoff and then we went to dinner.

That was my story. The final two holes of regulation, as they say in the 71st and the 72nd hole of the 2005 masters has almost been Streisand affected out of history because of how good that 16 chip in. It's the only thing we remember.

It's the Jason, it's the Jeff Capel half court shot that just got duked into a overtime, right? It's that it's, it did not win anything. This, the chip in on 16, maybe one of the five most famous shots in all of golf.

Uh, and I probably might be selling it short there. Didn't win tiger anything. He needed extra holes to beat Chris DeMarco. Uh, what's it, what's a successful masters for tiger. Then I want to ask you about Rory a weekend for sure. Just because the weekend is honestly going to be the full test.

Um, what did, uh, what did Jill Acaba say to the New York post? It was if they would let him drive a cart, he could win this thing. It has nothing to do with him getting out there, standing over the ball and delivering a world-class shot or him being around the greens and being able to use all that institutional knowledge to know exactly how to hit it, to get creative.

All of those things are there. It is just the physical toll of, and like your audience has heard a million times that you cannot, um, explain until you get on the property, those Hills and the elevation changes around that golf course and the physical toll that walking that golf course takes on tiger Woods body is the greatest threat to him being competitive. So I say that him making the weekend, if for nothing else, then at least gets him more in the routine and flow of getting out there and walking 72 holes. Yeah. And it's not, the walking is obviously arduous, but also some of the stances, uh, that put extra pressure on your even lies.

I'm trying to figure out like, your mind is telling you what you want to do. And then your aging body is probably saying like, no, we don't do that angle tiger. I'm sorry, boss.

We're not doing that anymore. Yeah, I agree. I think just making the weekend would be a, uh, would be a huge win. I thought, and maybe this was just the, not the euphoria, but the feeling I had about Rory's game after not winning the open championship, we have four shot lead on the back nine, uh, not on the back nine, started the day, uh, at the old course. I thought that would have been just a great way for Rory. And I think he wanted it too much. So he was just a fraction off.

So a shot, just a little bit offline made what otherwise would have been a 10 foot putt, a 40 foot putt at the old course. I don't know what his mindset is at Augusta, but it's easy to think that we're dealing with, we would be dealing with the same thing that I think he might want this too much, and I do believe if he wins this, he might win them all. That's a stupid thing to say, but I believe that his get, Oh, they asked John Rom this earlier this year, uh, you're playing your best as anybody is it? Can anybody beat you? And he said, no. Um, if everybody is playing their best McElroy is the best.

And I think if he gets another one, whether it's this week or whatever, he could run off another four or five, I think. Because it's mental is basically, I think it is. Yeah. I think it is for him. It's a, it is the old timey. Um, like it is a Rubik's cube.

It is one of those old timey, like you need a lock key and then to twist it this way and then everything opens up. Like it is a true puzzle and it feels like Rory McElroy, all the good finishes, I would say a lot of them have come not with the stakes and the pressure last year. And I just, I'm, I think that it would be an amazing story for Rory because like you said, he is like I just mentioned, if you look at everything that you want from T to green over the last 24 measured rounds and account for all the variables, the two that are far and away ahead of everybody else in this pack. Cause Jon Rahm has not been good recently. Jon Rahm, January and February was like, Oh no, this guy.

And that was going to be the story. And maybe Jon Rahm, you know, like a Cam Smith or some of the other names we've mentioned here, maybe getting here, he's able to latch onto something and be able to ride it. But if we are to take recent form into consideration, Rory McElroy is right there. And for him to be able to win at Augusta, I would not be surprised if it did unlock a lot more success, though I would argue that even if he doesn't win, even if he finishes fifth, it does not change my opinion that he could also win the next three majors as well.

No, he could. At some point, and I think Rory's feeling this all as well. At some point, he's got to break through.

He just, I mean, he has to get another one. The fact that he hasn't won a major since 2014 is just mind blowing to me because he, this, we've, we've experienced his prime. I mean, his prime in golf, he's, Tiger Woods until 2019 didn't win a major after age 33. Tom Watson won his last major at age 33. Just stopped. He got to eight and done. I mean, should have won the Open Championship at Turnberry.

I'm still mad at Stewart's thing for that. Let me ask you one thing about college sports. And I don't know if we talked, we didn't talk specifically about Charlie Baker, the new president of the NCAA. Does he inspire confidence in you, Chip Patterson, that he truly understands the issues?

Or does he just demonstrate to you that he is going to just carry the water for the membership? Well, I don't think it is his job to have the deepest understanding of the issues as much as it is to communicate an opinion and a point of view to other people and get them to believe it. Like he, the job of being the president of the NCAA is a lobbyist. Stop paying lobbyists because the president of the NCAA is being paid to go around. And whether it is like, you know, legislators like we saw with the hearing on Capitol Hill, you know, whether this is other influential people within the private sector, your job is to change the way that people think. And the reason that you have to change the way that people think is that there is an overwhelming tide that is cresting that represents the end of the college model as it previously has existed for decades. And there are a lot of people within that that have, yes, benefited financially, but also truly believe, as they are benefiting financially, that their system is worth saving and is worth preserving.

I'm not cynical enough to think that it is only the selfish motivations of the paychecks of people who will get paid less if the model changes. But they, you talk to them and they really believe in it. They they they hold up their long list of examples of reasons why it's fantastic. But and it does work. It does work for the non revenue sports. There are success stories across all sports.

You know, like you can cherry pick and you can put together a decent argument. And so I thought that the thing that was disappointing out of the congressional hearings was that from the side of the actual legislators, it seemed like a chance for them to look cool in front of their bases and talk about their the local teams and, you know, basically wave pom poms. They were interested in the issues at hand. They were.

They have no idea. They they they were, first of all, the title of the hearing, Protecting College Athletes NIL Deal Making Rights. That was not about protecting their deal making rights. It was about restricting their deal making rights. That's what and that's what the NCAA wants, which is unfortunate.

Look, Charlie Baker is going to do what Charlie Baker is told to do. But. Jay Lucas, Duke's assistant basketball coach, had something to say the other day about how the unintended consequence of NIL, this is a good one, is that players will probably stay longer in college because they have recognizable value. So how many players declare we just use basketball?

How many players declare for the NBA draft each year after one year or after two years or whatever, and either don't get drafted or get drafted late in the second round and have no place to play but in anonymity in the G League or overseas, those players all would have value on a college campus. So it's it would be better for all parties if people embraced, because I think it will it would benefit I think it will benefit college sports in the long run to embrace this rather than try to beat it down. Do you think that they're really trying to eliminate it? No, I don't think they're trying to eliminate it. I think they're trying to restrict it. I think they're trying to put as many guardrails, meaning obstacles, in the way of the athletes, because they're afraid that the athletes are going to get the money that they deserve, that they that the schools deserve.

I believe this for more than a decade. Well, so there are a couple of things that they want. They want to have a database where you can see every single deal that every single athlete makes and it's all going to be registered. That is ridiculous.

Let us see what a head coach gets paid at a private university. You can't all of a sudden have, you know, rules for thee but not for me. Whatever how the saying goes like this.

Some of these guardrails that they're putting in until you also open it up for the entire college sports ecosystem. No, absolutely not. So I keep saying this and I know people think I'm nuts. But well, we need one set of uniform rules. No, you don't.

You don't. You need the same rules you have for coaches. Use the exact same rules that we have for coaches.

How about that? Well, that's which which which are how many words? What are the rules there?

It's terms of employment. That's what happens is like we say, which is like, then, hey, look, here we go. Like, let's let's open this up and let's take this to the next level, which is complicated.

And it is messy. And I don't have all the answers. But the the modern athlete in revenue sports and probably in non-revenue sports, too. I just can't speak to it with as much expertise because it's not what I cover professionally. Right. But the you your life as an athlete in revenue sports in twenty twenty three might as well be the terms of employment. There are things that you can do. There are things that you can't do.

Your scholarship can be taken away if you do the things that you can't do. And you have to do the things that you can do in order to guarantee that you're going to be able to continue being a part of this program, a.k.a. continue to be an employee of this company.

It is the experience is that of an employee. And we just haven't seen any negative NIL stories. I just keep reading about positive stories about kids doing great things with the money that they have received, whether it's sharing it with teammates or what Caitlin Clark is doing by refusing to take money from a food bank that wanted to pay her. And she said no. And she's still doing she's still working for them.

And she's she's got like an affordable skills camp for kids. And there's so many more stories about that. I haven't read any negative NIL stories.

All the ones are the people are the ones that people dream up. Well, they're they're having problems because of NIL, like we didn't have problems before. Chip Patterson, Scotty Sheffley, you have a dark horse.

Oh, I just know I had a dark. So here's here's what's really funny. So Minwoo Lee, who I'm not alone as being someone who's excited about what he could do, but he is playing in a early Thursday tee time with Larry Mize and another Australian amateur. And I just can't imagine Larry Mize playing chaperone to these two young Aussies around the National for thirty six holes. And then like, is that going to mess up Minwoo as you're having to wait at a wet Augusta? Larry Mize is going to hit an old man worm burner up five and it's going to get stuck in the hill. And we're going to have to wait for this embedded ball to get ruled upon. I think there's some incredible stuff going on out there.

I think Mize should miss the green at eleven right on purpose and chip in on Minwoo Lee and the the other kid. He's a good pick. Shane Lowry is my dark horse. I've I've been I've been sniffing around Shane Lowry to it's like it.

It is so basic and so stereotypical to like, oh, bad weather. Give me the euros. Absolutely. All right, Chip. We'll talk to you next week, man. Sounds good. You'll be well based. Chip Patterson.