Crossing State Lines (8-7-24)

This is The Drive with Josh Graham Podcast. We are killing it online. Tune into The Drive weekday afternoons 3 to 7 on WSJS. So glad to have you on this Wednesday Drive. It's WSJS News Talk Sports for the Triad where we are live at Bedfield inside Margaritaville where it is festive and there's been some rain on and off throughout the day.

Good to be here. The Wyndham Championship, the 85th Wyndham Championship, starts tomorrow. It starts as Hurricane Debbie makes her way up the East Coast. There's some question how much golf is going to be played tomorrow and on Friday, but enough about the weather. Let's talk winners. Billy Horschel. To me, the obvious choice to win the Wyndham Championship this week. Usually in golf when something seems obvious, you should probably steer away from that.

However, the value from a betting standpoint doesn't seem to be right. Sungjae M is a heavy favorite in front of everybody else and Billy Horschel is kind of in that next group when really he should be closer to Sungjae. The table is set for Billy Ho to hold up the Sam Snead Cup on Sunday. The rain, it's not a concern with Horschel. We just saw him brave the conditions at the Open Championship.

How'd he do on moving day when it was really coming down? He shot 68, shot three under par, and it was compelling TV to see him the practicality to his game during that round. When you're putting, you don't want the bill of your cap to have rain falling in your line of sight when you're trying to putt a golf ball. So what did he do? He turned his hat backwards and you don't want a raincoat to potentially affect the way you're able to drive the ball both off the tee but also towards the green on approach shot. So what did he do?

He took his rain jacket off until he got to the greens. Practicality and we saw how he performed. He performed really well. A runner-up finish at the Open Championship a few weeks back and what makes him an even stronger fit to win this week. He loves Sedgefield.

He loves playing Sedgefield. Here are the results Billy Horschel's had over the last decade. Just limiting the scope to the last 10 years in this tournament. Fourth place finish last year. Second place finish in 2020. Tied for sixth in 2019. Eleventh in 2018. Fifth in 2016. He plays this tournament almost every year. He's played in all but two Wyndham Championships since 2011.

How many guys can say that? There must be something about the Bermuda Grass. There must be something about the Don Ross design. He is due to win this week. The two guys that are due who love this course and have played this course so well without having won it before Sungjae M and Billy Horschel and Billy Ho is my guy. He's having a career year this year. 18 starts. Half of them top 25 finishes.

Five of those nine top 10s. One win outright this year. Billy Horschel have yourself a year.

Have yourself a week and get the much-deserved, much-waited for Sam Snead Cup that you've yet to add to your resume. Now watch this drive. To win this week at Satchfield. On X! That's where we're streaming video.

In addition to YouTube and Twitch, however and wherever you are watching or listening, we appreciate that. W.D., you're a big tennis guy, right? Very big tennis guy. Does that mean you play pickleball too?

You know, I have yet to play pickleball. My man, I've got the rackets. I know some of the courts.

Yeah. Near the house that Sarah Bradford and I are closing on is Shafner Park right there in Winston-Salem. They've got like six courts there. There's also some tennis courts as well. You're the guy I lean on for tennis. You love tennis, which means you love, I bet, the Winston-Salem Open.

It's pretty much here. This is what's great about this time of year on the sports calendar in the Triad. The ramp up till football beginning. You have the Wyndham Championship this weekend, and then next weekend you got the Winston-Salem Open starting up shot next week. And then the following week, high school football is beginning. And the week after that, college football. What a ramp up. People say August is a slow sports month.

Not in these parts. Thanks to the Winston-Salem Open as our sponsor doing the show here at Margaritaville and Sedgefield. We really appreciate them. You might know about the tournament. You might have been to the tournament.

If you haven't, you need to check it out. WinstonSalemOpen.com. And even if you have been there, do you know about the kids camps?

Early on in the tournament, August 17th and 18th. Pay them a visit. WinstonSalemOpen.com.

Let's shift things to the Carolina Panthers. Here's a rule of thumb. When real insiders speak, you get real insight behind the scenes. Emphasis on real insiders. Odds are, if somebody calls themselves an insider on their social media, they're probably not an insider. You know who I'm talking about.

When they speak, you get real insight. They're often mouthpieces for coaches, for players, for GMs, for ownership even. Or at least that's what's become the case in the NFL and with the Carolina Panthers. Seldom do they go through local media anymore.

That used to be the case. Let's go through the newspaper writer or even the sports tacos like Josh Graham. Nowadays, it's Adam Schefter with a national sport. It's Ian Rappaport that you go through if you want information to be conveyed to the widest audience possible. That's where the best information goes. And usually when you hear them speak, you can read between the lines and probably know where some of the information is coming from.

It's likely coming from direct sources. With that in mind, Ian Rappaport was at Panthers camp yesterday and Rappaport spelled out the full defense for Bryce Young. Everyone sort of forgets.

It was essentially unanimous around the league that Bryce Young was going to be the number one quarterback. This year, when he gets up to the line in training camp, he knows what he's doing. And the rest of the offense does too. It's not like last year when they go to the line, they'd kind of set up and be like, all right, hold on, get back in the huddle, fix this.

There's not as much of that. He's going to get the ball out of his hands quick. He's going to make smart reads.

All the things we know. He's going to be under center probably a little more. You are going to see a new and improved Bryce Young to kind of show people what he really should have been last year and what they think he'll be going forward. Being under center more is an interesting piece of information there, but just listen to all the box he checked. That was from Good Morning Football. Everybody would have taken him number one. He was consensus the number one pick.

I can hear that coming out of Dan Morgan's mouth straight to you in Rappaport. People forget that, oh, everybody would have taken Bryce in that spot. It wasn't just us who thought Bryce was better than CJ Stroud. Bryce, oh, he's so far along. Oh man, he's going to have this huge jump from year one to year two.

Rappaport, he joined the chorus of critics. In some cases, not so subtly dumping on last year's staff, but this is pretty subtle here. This is Rappaport with the Panthers reporter, Krista Balboni.

I'll talk to coaches, talk to GM, talk to assistants, just really understand what a place is about. I would say this is certainly much more promising and optimistic than it was at this time last year. I think for the coaches, for Bryce, for the rest of the players, roster's in better shape. I mean, it's surely seems like it's looking up. Yeah, thanks. Just so much better.

Just a different vibe. It's so much better than it was last year. There usually is a code of conduct in the NFL specifically among football coaches that you usually don't go strongly at somebody because it's such a tight knit fraternity. You don't go hard at a coach or a particular administration or potential general manager because that guy you might be leaning on to get information from when he works for another team and he bounces back and that applies for coaches too.

Oh man, you're going to dump on this guy. That guy's not going to forget when he works his way back up as a top coordinator and then becomes a head coach another time. But it doesn't seem that that seems to bother anybody when it comes to criticizing last year's team. That might not sound like a big deal to you, but consider how much change the Panthers have had. Matt Ruhl, that didn't go great. Frank Reich, we've seen a lot of bad around here, but do you know what the Panthers weren't doing a lot of last season after Frank Reich took over and Matt Ruhl's tenure was done? There wasn't a lot of dumping on the Matt Ruhl era.

People were just kind of moved on. The way that some are looking back on last year, many are looking back including current players and saying that was abnormal, that was bad, it's going to be a lot better than that. It validates even more those concerns because for people to go as far as they have and to speak about that as commonly as they are speaking about it, it must have been super unusually bad and that should make you optimistic and saying it can't get much worse than what we saw a year ago with Dave Canales and company this year. So in that sense, Ian Rappaport, it's not hard to be as positive as he was when he visited Panthers camp. Our first guest at the Wyndham Championship is John Dell, Winston-Tale and Journal-Greensboro News and Record. In the background of our shot on YouTube, Twitch and X, there's a Wake Forest golf hat that John Dell wanted to shout out and he wanted to congratulate the Wake golfers this week. Webb Simpson, Cam Young, Will Zalatoris. They have a shot to win this week. Why? Oh and Bill Haas.

Oh and Bill Haas. They have a chance to win because I didn't pick any of them to win. So when I don't pick them, they do well. When I pick them, they don't make the cut.

That usually happens with me too. So apologies to Billy Horschel that I just picked. Right, I like him too, yeah. Who did you like?

Did you take Sungjae? No, but I like Brian Harman. You know why? Brian Harman hits it straight, never misses a fairway and if it turns into castaway with the water that's coming or Water World 2, Brian Harman is going to be a guy that can hit it off the tee, make it put in a fairway and make some birdies. So I like Brian Harman if it's soggy. Go ahead and ask the question you want to ask Will Dalton. Have you seen Water World? I can safely say I have not. You got to. Do you know what Water World is?

I sure don't. Kevin Costner. 86?

87? When did this come out? He has gills in the movie.

I don't want to give it away. I watched Devil's Advocate the other night. He watched Devil's Advocate a couple days ago. We're getting on it.

He's watching next week Reservoir Dogs for the first time. So another thing, this week might be a good week to just look at who's done well in Open Championships and those players are probably going to play well considering the conditions and Brian Harman was last year's Open Champion. Of course, how do you, what are you hearing from a weather front? Put your, we see your Wake Forest golf cap. Where's your meteorology hat?

Well I'm a Laney Pope fan. I'm going to call her and ask her, but I think it seems to be breaking up. So maybe it won't be as bad. I hope it's like one of those things where they predict all this snow and then it doesn't come. So I see some of the clouds breaking up on radar so maybe it won't be as bad, but if once it starts it might not stop. That's what I'm hearing. So hopefully they'll get some golf in tomorrow and then Friday may be the day that's washed out and then they try to make it up on the weekend. Do you know, I do not envy a meteorologist's social media page.

I got to imagine like 95 of the percent of the mentions they get. Yeah. You said it was going to rain.

Right. You said it wasn't going to rain. So do not envy that of Tim Buckley or Laney Pope or any of the meteorologists. I know you talked to Stuart yesterday, right? Stuart Williams. He's a good dude.

I'm trying not to talk to him because I don't want to jinx it because if I don't talk to him, maybe it won't rain as much. John Dell is with us here. We'll talk with Mark Brazel about this a little bit later on, but I thought this was a really nice touch that the media center is named after Erwin Smallwood, who is an absolute legend who passed away in the last year.

Last year, he was even answering questions as sharp as a tack. For those who do not know who Erwin Smallwood is, tell the audience why he's such a big deal that the building's named after him that we write in and we have these pins that we're wearing. Well, he was 98 years old and he was a walking historian in sports in the triad. He was a long time golf writer, sports writer, and then an editor and even a news editor at the Greensboro News and Record for 60-something years.

He was just a legend. He was there when the ACC was formed right in that building over there, what was called the Sedgefield Inn in 1953. He was there, missed deadline. He liked to always tell me that story that they came out after midnight with the new ACC and he couldn't get it in the paper. What was the deadline? His deadline was midnight and he couldn't get it in because they came after midnight. He's convinced.

He was convinced that they did that on purpose knowing when his deadline was. Just a great guy. I miss him.

Helen Ross and I were talking about that earlier today. 98 years old and he was just a legend around here. He covered about 70 of these things.

There's been 84 of them. What did he love so much about this tournament? That it was local. That it was part of Greensboro's fabric. It was part of the identity of this city and now they've made it more of a triad thing with the cities around here. But it was just a Greensboro thing and it was the place to go.

It used to be in April and they're talking about all this rain that's coming but I remember covering this thing when it was snowing and stuff so rain's not going to bother me. What's your favorite part of this week as somebody who's covered so many of these? I think it's one of the rare things where Winston and High Point and Greensboro come together for something because everybody comes over from Winston and stuff. It's one of the rare things where it used to be identified by just Greensboro but Mark Brazel and Bobby Powell and Bobby Long, they've expanded it and I think it's really cool that you see everybody from High Point, Ashboro, Winston, Eden. I mean they're all here and I think that's the coolest thing.

I'm excited. What's thought real quickly before we transition away from golf to back to football? Broadly in golf, Scottie Sheffler, Xander Shoffley. Those two are the most consistent best players in golf right now.

Having fabulous years where you have Scottie follow up, Xander winning the Open Championship by winning the gold medal in Paris. Do you remember a time where there was a one-two punch like we seem to have in golf right now on the American side? Well you know, Tiger and Phil for a short time.

That's the last time I go back to it. Yeah for a short time it was like that. I mean as far as Americans go, I mean Tiger and Duvall for a little while. You know David Duvall was right there. He was number one for a while in front of Tiger for a stretch. So it really, these two guys are the dominant American players and I think that's going to boost the other Americans to kind of catch those two. Do you think, who else would you put in that group if anybody or are they separated so much that you would say they're in a tier by themselves? Well I think right now they're in a tier by themselves but there are other guys that can you know move the needle.

Who are those guys? Well I mean I like you know Brian Harmon we just talked about. I think he's ranked as high as he's ever been. You know and there's some other guys that seem to be just improving. Will Zalatoris if he can get healthy, he can be up there. He was ranked 10th in the world at one point before his back. Now he's outside the top 50.

Yeah it's so he could get it back. He's only 27. There's the Wake Forest hat there. I gotta mention Will but no. You know Cameron Young, another Wake guy. Crazy that he's never played this tournament. No he's played this tournament before. Has he? This is his I think second or third.

I know that. I know he's played this course as like an amateur. I don't know if he's played the Wyndham champion. Well that he's never won on tour.

That's nuts too. He's got he's got so many runner-ups. Maybe this is his week. If he can get his putter going and figure out these greens you know he's got a shot but you know I just think that getting back to your thing about you mentioned the Olympics. Was that the best leaderboard of the year? If both the if the leagues would ever come together the two the PGA Tour and Live Golf that's what a leaderboard would look like is what they had at the Olympics. But will that ever happen?

I don't know. I'll be you know gone by the time that happens. Scotty right at the top. Fleetwood there. All of a sudden I cared about the Olympics.

Before I was like watching the yeah yeah whatever but for some reason that that did it and I think that's going to elevate everything around golf with these Olympics. Matsuyama, Rory tied in the top five which was just fascinating. Xander in the top 10 who had a rough Sunday there but it is Wyndham week. We're here at Margaritaville and we'll see what this week looks like. I'll tell you we'll give out more of our picks later like other guys that we like.

I picked Billy Horschel but Alex Molly. Okay. Watch out for him.

He's a member here. That's it and I really like Adam Svensson. Okay.

Adam Svensson and Lucas Glover top 20. Okay. That's what we're looking at. We'll get I got my five. I got my five.

All right well fire them off. We could see him at the Winston-Taylum Journal and Greensboro News and Record but it's online. What do we have? What do we have? I've got Billy Hosherl. Billy Ho. He's due. He's due around here. I got Justin Rose.

I also have who else? Shane Lowry. I like him.

Love it. I also like Shane Lowry. Lowry. My other two. Now you're freaking me out.

None of the way guys. Nope because I wrote about it. Sung-Jae?

Nope not Sung-Jae. Good for you. Resisting a favorite.

Yeah I resisted that. Brian Harmon. There you go. There was my other one and there was one other one that I can't remember who probably won't make the cut.

You watch. It's going to be the winner. The guy that he's forgetting and he's going to come on Monday's show. Oh yeah it was that guy.

Oh gosh. I'm trying to think who it was. Oh it was Hoygard.

That's who I had. I wrote it like two days ago so that's a long time ago. But I'll remember it.

He's going to remember it and then he's going to tell us who it is on Monday after that guy wins the Sam Steed Cup. That's how it works. All right John Dell. It's good to see you. I'm glad I'm batting lead off today.

It's good. We try to put the big gun up front. That's the plan. Mark Brazel going to join us. We got Joe Giglio coming on the show today. A big lineup of guests today and you're batting lead off and I think this is a slap hit double to left.

Well I'm getting ready to steal third then. The CEO of the Wyndham Championship is our buddy Mark Brazel who after we got off air at the NSMA I ran into the Wyndham Championship was a partner of the National Sports Media Association this year. That was pretty cool over at the Grand Over.

Perhaps we could talk about that in a bit. Saw you at the U.S. Open of course in Pinehurst. You were telling us about some of the recruiting that you wanted to do at Royal Troon. In fact let's start there before we get into the tournament this week and all the storylines going in. What does recruiting look like when you're at the Open Championship with a player like I don't know Jordan Spieth who hasn't played here in four years but will be starting tomorrow?

Yeah I think you know what we're looking at there is just just kind of getting in front of them and when they see me they go okay I know that's the Wyndham Championship week guy there you know so they're thinking about the Wyndham Championship for a second you know whether they're whether they already know they're not going to play or they're actually they haven't figured out if they will or not which is actually a pretty good sign to me and then and then some of the guys just kind of surprisingly told me yeah they're leaning to come you know so um you know that's just kind of where we are with that and it's it's recruiting is more about just kind of getting in front of the guys and being friends with them and their agents and just seeing if seeing who we can get. You played in the Pro-Am today. Yeah. When you're out on the golf course how accessible are you? How many phone calls did you feel during your four or five hours on the golf course? Honestly? Yeah.

60? Hold on a second let me let me hit this putt real quick. Yeah there was one hole that I got like 10 phone calls you know about weather and stuff and then there's like another hole that I got so there was a there were some holes I didn't get any but it usually gives three or four holes but then I got waylaid about twice. How many contingency plans can you come up with on a week like this when you have Hurricane Debbie coming down? Well you just kind of take it one day at a time. Tomorrow looks like it could be pretty rough and I would imagine that there might be some limited play but from what I'm seeing it's supposed to hit pretty hard around mid-morning.

Yeah. So but the possibility of getting a little bit of play in tomorrow morning could be the difference between us finishing on Sunday and or Monday so we'd much rather finish on Sunday. Well I was gonna ask like you let me know if this is a misconception or not better to have weather hit on the front end of a tournament than towards the end of a tournament? You know I've never really had much of it on the front end like you know a potential kind of a whitewash day if you will or just a you know a day that's kind of gone. We've had a couple days a couple Fridays that might have gotten my we might have had them short but you know I kind of have a feeling that this one's going to be pretty much not a lot going on out here tomorrow. I was about to ask like what is the scenario that sticks out in your head when you think about weather episodes that you've had to for lack of a better phrase weather in your time as the tournament director?

You know we've really just seen some kind of deluge as you know in afternoon sometimes early in the morning but they just kind of stopped playing it might be a little electricity but it's mainly just a ton of water that you that you can't play so you just have to wait that out and then let things let the golf course drain and then you can get back out there but tomorrow just doesn't I don't feel like that is the way tomorrow looks. Let's talk golf for a minute. I've been blown away this year I think because it's not Tiger it's maybe viewed a little bit differently but this seems to be a golden age we're seeing in American golf right before us when for the first time since 82 you have all four majors won by Americans and then you win the gold medal as well particularly with the two at the top Scotty Schaeffler and Xander Schauffele just how special is it what we're seeing right now the consistency from those two. Yeah this is I mean you know Schaeffler I think he's only won twice this year but when you say both majors so that's an absolutely huge deal. Seven other top 10 finishes I believe. Yeah and we've always you know Schauffele was always that guy that we kind of talked about like can he finish does he he doesn't finish very well well now I've kind of it kind of feels to me like he knows how to finish right and we've always also said that as soon as he starts learning how to consistently finish he's going to be winning a lot of tournaments and and we all knew he's going to win majors and I just didn't I don't think anybody knew he's going to win two in a row but you know or two in one year you know he's such a great player good guy and comes from a really cool background and you know happy for him but I still think Schaeffler's had the better year obviously sure and now that I mean that 62 at the Olympics was absolutely out of nowhere really you know he kind of wasn't even in the mix four back nobody really talking about him. Around I think that's the same score Xander shot on Sunday at Royal Truman nine under. He did shoot something stupid low but but I mean like with Schaeffler you can't count Schaeffler out he'd have to be 10 out before you you counted him out. It's such an outlier what happened at Pinehurst I was same thing with Rory McIlroy to a degree with how that ended next year we'll see what happens with the PGA Championship being a place that he knows very well but just think about the year that Scottie's had in the sense of it's the players it's the masters it's a gold medal his first child the whatever happened at Louisville.

Five other wins. Five other wins I mean but shooting I mean the thing that still stands out to be the most is shooting four under after what happened at Louisville I mean that's I can't imagine that but that's the same dude who sees protesters run on the 18th green and then figures out a way to win a playoff that guy's just but the way players talk about him is probably the most impressive thing where the thing people go back to is how he carries himself yeah and it doesn't seem like he carries himself like the number one player in the world ought to you think no he's just very humble guy family guy with his parents but also with his wife and kid um real down to earth you know sweetheart of a guy I've just I've kind of blown away by him because it's almost like okay so the number one player in the world is a real role model. That's cool Mark Brazel's with us here CEO of the Windham championship a couple of things I thought it was a very nice touch that in the media center that bears his name everybody is wearing Erwin Smallwood pins who was 98 years old passed away earlier this year first Windham that we have had in 75 or so years that fans are allowed at and that he could attend he's been at over 70 of these tournaments do you have uh what does Erwin Smallwood mean to Mark Brazel um just a a great supporter of mine and um a guy that I truly looked forward to seeing and being with and and um spending time spending time I just loved Erwin and you know I thought it was a home run that we decided to call it the media center naming after him and then you know we would miss him um we all do and and uh you know the when I go and see the Gary players of the world leave Trevino's when I run into those guys and I do pretty regularly it's funny um but they all that's the first guy they ask about really oh even Nicholas when I when I talked to him three years ago not that recently but he asked about you know who was the great sports writer in Greensboro and I go and I said Erwin and he goes Smallwood that's it yeah we we get it you know I get it all the time from the older guys they loved him and thought he was really fair and a really good reporter and we all know that and he's missed he was our guy let's close with this speaking of the media you're at the NSMANG what was the highlight we've been telling people that was your first one right second one okay the Jim Nantz one ah well for people who don't know I have to like tell people what we have in our backyard so people know that it's their top-notch job that the grand over did that Dave Gorin does and now you guys partnering with it this past year very really cool what was the highlight for the event for you for people who might not know much about it well um I got to sit next to Buck you were next to Joe Buck yeah and oh boy you talk about a funny night I had probably as good a night as I've ever had as far as being in a sports event listening to him he's a scream um well I will say this though we we were approached by Rob Goodman who's on that board and several others um just to see if we wanted to be a part of it and so we made a commitment I went out and got two or three other sponsors and we we were the biggest sponsor and we've got some other you know five ten thousand dollar sponsors we just wanted to make sure that it was financially successful and and um that they didn't really have to worry about that and so so we were we were successful and we made some changes and and grand over is a is a great spot um to host an event like this and and it was it was really well received and I just love seeing you know 400 people there and it was great we had a great time and it was really neat to see you know the Bob Ryans and yeah so many great legends I mean just legends just kind of ho-humming it walking around you know like no big deal here we're just all together it was great no doubt. Back at Tetchfield more specifically Margaritaville even more specifically for the Wyndham Championship where as I just mentioned a short while ago I like Philly Horschel this week whenever they start playing depending on Hurricane Debbie's allowances. Joe Giglio is with us this week Ovious and Giglio you should know the pod by now huge golf fan borderline degenerate gambler who are you in on this week and why? Well Josh thank you for having me on first of all I appreciate you of course uh I like Nikolai Hoigard this week I don't know why other than other than he has been playing well I thought he I he finished well at the Olympics as well did not medal but he played his last round well I was in a groove with Kentucky and John Deere and um Connecticut and Detroit and then all of a sudden the open happened and it's kind of thrown me off a little bit so who's gonna play well who's not uh this is obviously a Ross course but I think you'd be I think you'd be silly to try to compare this to the U.S. Open uh but Detroit feels about right in terms of Ross courses I harbor town was so long ago but again ball strikers your guy Billy Ho uh I like the idea I like the premise of course no one sat here last year and said Lucas Glover because who knew yeah you know you can't these are things you can't always predict so I do have Lucas Glover no finished top 20 this week like the Clemson Tigers yeah he said Davo has been in touch with him so there you go do you have any other bets anything that you've placed for the Wyndham champion yeah I have a new thing that I've started doing recently which is parlaying top 20 including ties finished a top 20 including ties finished so I have uh Wake Forest rallies Akshay Bhatia with or as you call them Shay Shay uh who else has been playing you said I was a degenerate gambler Will Zalatoris Cam Young is in that mix with that there's three of them on the card so it's like a pretty good payout who can claim Webb Simpson most Webb Simpson is the unicorn that everyone in the state of North Carolina likes Broughton to Wake Forest Broughton Raleigh like state state fans don't hate him Carolina fans don't hate him even Charlotte claims him yeah he went to Wake he's got Charlotte I mean maybe Duke might have a beef with him but other than that and he's just always he's very likable like how he's very agreeable how could you not like Webb Simpson I wrote a story about Webb Simpson my former uh my mentor Colton Tudor was a member at Carolina Country Club which is where Webb had grown up and Webb was a freshman at Broughton and Tudor said this kid everybody knows this kid's gonna be the real deal and I wrote a story about him when he was he was 15 my son Jackson's age he was 16 years old and of course he won the state championship did all these other things at Broughton and then was the Arnold Palmer uh scholarship at uh Wake Forest so Toot knew what he was doing and obviously Webb knows what he's doing I would love to see him play well this week you know there's Brendan Todd's another local this week that typically has played well here right on the cut line too yeah yeah yeah so I think there's a lot of there's a lot of choices there between locals Sally I think another one you like is Alex Smalley uh Duke Kidd who I I do believe is a member out here so uh these are things that'll that'll that'll help you out yeah I think you're the right person to have this conversation with because I was just thinking about how Sedgefield Country Club is one of the few locations that have been granted sportsbook allowances too and yeah what the future of that kind of looks like through five months how do you think legal sports betting has gone in North Carolina uh by all accounts it's been off the charts on an unbelievable success and the fear I have is we're going to be taxed on our losses this year in the state of North Carolina uh hopefully the legislation and Governor Cooper will change that before he is he exits the building but um I think some people are not going to like that including myself I don't I don't have any problem paying taxes on my wins I do not want to pay taxes on my losses though but unfortunately uh it looks like that's going to be the case for this year but it's been incredibly successful for the state my my concern now is uh I just saw the SEC and Big Ten are adopting injury reports which I think are important to the integrity and I think when we we saw these concerns during when the state legislation was arguing against having legalized gambling and they were worried about gain fixing and some other issues and the biggest deterrent to that is the sportsbooks themselves because they they can police this information and we've seen it with Alabama baseball we've seen it with Iowa football we've seen it all different ways but it really only works if you can share it the more public information is the better it is so I think the ACC really should try to do a 180 year and get this thing in before the football season although obviously I know that's not going to happen you had a chance that's a good segue to an interview you had with Jim Phillips recently where you brought up a myriad of different subjects with him encourage people to find that Ovius and Jillio Jim Phillips is uh or uh Joe Jillio is here let's talk let's talk about some of the interviews you've done of late because we played some of the sound on the show okay have you noticed a less diplomatic public face from him in the face of everything that's happened over the last eight months yeah and I think part of that is when people are critical of you you have to take a step back and realize okay like what what part of this is noise and what part of this is real and I do think Jim needed to be a more public advocate going back to Florida State obviously in the football situation last year but also in basketball like I just feel like they've been a little bit too passive and yeah I mean you're talking about fights that really you can't quantify you can't really win you know if you're talking about Joe Leonardi or public opinion of what your league is in basketball despite it did bring Joe Leonardi into spring meetings yes they yes they did that's what we plan to talk with Jim Phillips about next week okay good good um so I think he needs to be a more vocal advocate for what they're doing I also thought using those numbers in that press conference josh you are catching up to me in my years you've been to a lot of these events that's the first time anyone from the ACC has openly trotted out their tax numbers the way that Jim Phillips did indirect response to a man with a marketing background yeah who is the commissioner of the big 12 sure and that's what I'm saying like I'm a guy who loves to argue with numbers so give us the numbers and I think that's what he was trying to do and I applaud that you don't try to hide from what your strengths are you you should try to accentuate them I mean they're finally trying to do that again I don't agree with the teams that they added I understand why and again when you give that numerical value to what the expansion meant well then now you're you can change a little bit more arguments um I would still say there were probably better ways to go about adding three teams but you know what they thought what they did was best for the league in the situation that they were in so I will give them credit for that and we'll see what it looks like in this new 17 and 5 8 world um but you know I thought it was good for Jim and and for him not to acknowledge you know hey here's what we're doing but like acknowledge like when people me you or anyone else are critical of them there's probably a reason and you have to take you know you have to take some of that in stride and realize how you can adjust to it I'll give a behind the scenes story that I haven't told on air that I think tells that story well we were pretty critical of Jim Phillips with the ACC headquarters deals with Greensboro and he could have had the tact of screw these guys we're going in charlotte probably not gonna have to deal with them again instead I see him at a wake basketball game last year and he says josh you need to check out the new offices how about when you come here for the NCAA tournament you come do your show and do it and that's how that came to be Jim Phillips a direct reminder so I have no doubt that he's a guy that's wants to mend fences and wants to help in certain areas but I do find it interesting in the midst of Florida State Clemson and what's happening that he does seem to have less patience with the pleasantries if our state will do that to you we were here last year we saw I saw John Swafford out on Saturday I think it was we were in the in the crowd kind of following Justin Thomas and I said oh man Florida State people are mad at me he's like oh they're always mad don't worry about we were pouring one out for the ACC here in Oradaville last year because it was the day that Washington and Oregon yeah was leaving it was not great and the moving trucks were literally next door moving stuff parking yeah all right another conversation you guys had on your podcast you had the canes new brass on and they're still on this major league baseball pipe dream you don't possibly buy baseball to Raleigh do you you don't buy that I I don't know if I don't I would not bet on them getting an expansion team but I do think kind of like the canes ended up in Raleigh I could see another team being like all right fine we're done wrestling with St. Pete or we're done wrestling with you know even an established place like Kansas City has had some stadium lease issues of late here so is Tom Dundon I get he has NHL money he has like upstart you know professional football league money does he have NBA major league baseball NFL owner money like if this is David Tepper my view on this is completely different but he chose soccer I don't know if Tom Dundon has that type of pool first and foremost before you even get to corporate sponsorship support yeah I think Tom has has the money you know the big question for me with Raleigh will always be the corporate support you know and that's one of the things I think when he got to Raleigh he looked at the hurricanes ago well why don't we have a deal with AT&T for example like why don't because they're a national brand and he's from Dallas and he's looking at his friend Mark Cuban go well Mark has this this and this well you don't have a telecommunications center here you don't have an airport airline airline centered here you know those are the kind of things that Dallas is kind of cashing in on and that was the kind of thing that he was looking at like well what do we have how can I help us and I think he has I think he's made a lot of strides with the canes now it helps that the canes are running hot right baseball to me you're a big Orioles fan you know I grew up a Yankees fan I follow all these things baseball has changed a lot in the last 30 years it just has WD just lit up he's a base he's an easy man too he didn't realize getting that one that's right it's my guy sorry to interrupt so yeah I mean like it's it's changed so much and I think it could work in Raleigh but I also know that to your point about the done in part of the equation I think is good I think the other part is really to support them and it's a lot of games too by the way 81 91 dates is a lot that's the importance of corporate sponsorship because of those seats being filled and paid for you need to have those big sponsorships with those big firms or whatever yeah to fill those seats 81 games and I think the hurricanes are figuring it out they have a lot of success because it's 41 but I also think the mistake that most people make look at a market and go well they only have one professional team North Carolina University of North Carolina's professional team Duke is a professional team NC State's a professional team and there's money that goes to them you know how there's that meme out there where people say tell me you're 18 years old without telling me you're right here tell me you're not from the state of North Carolina without telling me oh Raleigh just has one professional team right that's how you're telling yourself in a heartbeat exactly so there will be challenges there of course I think it's super infant stages I do think Tom is a is a big mover though I don't Tom's not a not a half measure kind of guy Joe Giglio is with us here he's not a half measured guy either let's talk about one of those professional teams now I guess it's they get paid you could kind of say they are NC State football fill in the blank this is the most talented wolf pack team since well 2017 is Dave's Chubb's last year best team yeah Nahim, J Sam, Kelvin Harmon, Finley, Emeka Emezi, Garrett Bradbury, Jermane Bratt hunting out the ball at the goal line yeah so definitely the most you know what I know the receiving core is considered to be better than anything that they've got Dave's had for sure the running backs has been a problem so we'll see what they can do there is nine wins worth is nine wins still worth celebrating at this point or does it have to be the elusive ten win number to look at this season and say yep that's great yeah I mean I think Dave is what Dave is at this point and until he proves otherwise then you should be happy that a team a school that is traditionally a 500 program can find a way to win eight or nine games otherwise you know I think you're kind of setting yourself up with it my big question for state this year is in basketball we've seen a just sprinkle add water add guys from the portal and it all comes together and you're fine we haven't seen that in football you could argue USC but even USC fell apart look at Colorado they have skill players but when you're missing the defensive front and the defense itself that's where I look at state and I go Peyton Wilson was an eraser he made so many plays for that team I just that's my biggest question mark for them and you have two games obviously right out of the gate in Tennessee and Clemson that are going to define your season and if you lose both of them there's a real chance there that you could lose the team as well let's close with story time let's close where we began WD did I ever tell you I'll never forget the first week sports betting became live in North Carolina did I tell you what happened that way yeah like no NC State wins the ACC championship but I was able to bet on it in the state of Maryland you went across yeah yeah so we had all these free bets that expired in a week we were scrambling so we had to Joe Gillio and I rode to McDonald's across state lines 15 20 minutes because you can't mobile sports bet in DC but you can in Maryland and I'll never forget the morning of the ACC championship game me and Gillio are at McDonald's firing off bets do we think Armando's gonna go for a double double tonight I don't know and Joe's like I've seen this movie a million times it's never gonna happen states way I'll never forget that I think it would I'm still kind of sort of surprised that way but that's it here we are though it's the year of the wolf man right 24 driving across state lines I'll do it again for Joe Gillio let's do it all right we'll be in Charlotte for the next 100 years right Greensboro every now and then all right let's do that they have special things planned for number 75 in Charlotte won't tell us what those things are yet okay all right thanks for being here Julia anytime you