Speaker 1: Welcome to the cut Line twenty twenty six, breaking down
at the Sony Open. I'm your host, Andy, and we
are joined by my new co host who will be
with me every week. You know him as the Cricket Department.
Welcoming Jan who is my new cohort Yan, Welcome. Excited
to have you here. How are you, my friend?
Speaker 2: I'm all good. It's not just it's not just cricket.
We do around here, the boxing apartment, the boxing, the
rugby and now golf. Let's go. Obviously super excited to
make my Wager Talk debut. That's it's been a long
time coming.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, How can you not.
Speaker 2: Be excited about this year in golf with everything that
happened last year, so looking forward to this is going
to be a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Yep, we got live drama, We've got TGL Tonight we
get to bet against Kevin Kissner. But first we go
to the one and Done. We have a fantasy golf league.
By the way, if you guys want to join, leave
a comment below, I'll send you an email. It's very simple.
One and Done's one hundred dollars to enter. You just
pick one guy each week. You can use them once
throughout the year and you get their prize money. So
Yan and I are gonna start of the show by
sharing with what with what our one and dons are.
Then we'll go over course previews, total strokes gained, players
that can trip you up, DraftKings, darlings. We're gonna add
a lot more bets this year. We're each gonna pick
ahead to head, We're each gonna pick our favorite top finishes,
and we're each gonna try and do some outright. So Yan,
get us started before we recorded. You're like, it's week
one and I already hate my one and done. Who
are you going with?
Speaker 2: It's an insane thing to be emotionally hedging in week one.
But Corey Connors is a guy that in six months
time I'm gonna be so bullish about and then he's
gonna go and shoot a seven on a par three
and miss the cut. I'm avoiding that early. This is
a guy who's had four top twelves here in his
last seven visits. Putting isn't ideal, but good enough. I
am player to I'm just hoping and praying the guy
top thirty finish will do me this week onto the
next week. Already.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the thing we have to We're
gonna have to use him, yeah, yeah, because we run.
Speaker 2: Out of I wanted to break my heart early. I
can't be doing this in six months time when I'm
sort of in contention.
Speaker 1: Maybe, so it's a really smart way to attack it.
I'm going with, Oh, captain, my captain, Keegan Bradley. Let's
hope that he plays better than he captained. I can't
ignore sixth place in second place the last two years here.
So his game, for whatever reason, is really good. And
don't forget this guy was almost in the running to
pick himself as a member of the Ryder Cup team.
He played really, really good last year. So I'll use
my Keegan Bradley this week. So coming out of the
gates hop with Keegan Bradley and Corey Connors for one
and dones, let's move to the course preview Wilei Country Club.
It's a pretty basic course, par seventy seven thousand yards.
It's it really comes down to the conditions here, is
really all I can say. The fairways do have some
runoff like this. As easy as this course is, there
are going to be times when the course is super dry,
and when it's windy, where the ball just rolls right
through the fairway into the rough. So you see a
lot of driving accuracy issues with this course. But the
rough is not that hard. It's shorter and length, it's
pretty flat. There are some kind of you got to
move the ball to the left and right. But the
thing here is rain is expected this week and it's
gonna make the fairways and the greens really soft, and
this is going to reduce the rolloff and Yan what
did Justin Thomas tell us a while back. If the
greens are receptive, we are going to tear the course up.
I expect this to be really really low scoring with
the with the fairways being wet because they're the driver's
just gonna land and it's probably not going to have
that much roll off. So I don't have a whole
lot on this course. It's fairly basic. It's a pretty
good kind of ease into the season. What's your take
on why they got a country club?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, sort of similar, Like there's just no real consequences.
I mean, it's pretty easy fairway bunkers and there's no
penalty areas. Like you say, I think it's it's a
wind and rain thing. If that's that's where the trouble
is going to be. And I don't see much of that.
And you know, putting it it's not necessarily a glorified
putting contest. I mean, approach play does matter. But easy
ish off the tee, easy ish around the greens. I
don't see any problems for these guys either. I'm expecting
low scores.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and when the ball rolls off into the fairway,
a lot of times you're behind a tree. But again
you're gonna have to spray the ball to get behind
those trees. Like, it's not gonna be where you hit
the fairway and run off. So we expect it to
be really, really low scoring. So should be should be
fun week if you like a lot of birdies. We
move on to total strokes gained and uh we say
hi to our good friends at Dada Golf. You guys
probably know Dada Golf if you if you UH follow
like us. So we're looking at the stats from the
last we'll take the last six months. We've got Ben Griffin,
Russell Henley, JJ Spahn, Robert McIntyre, Kirk Kitty Yama. This
guy shows up every once in a while Yon, I
would not be surprised for Kirk Kittyama on the leader
board on Saturday or Sunday. Chris Kirk, my guy, Harry Hall,
who was a cash cow for me last year, and
we are going to get into him because I think
there's a betable number there. Maverick McNeely, Hedeki Matsuyama, Seawu Kim,
Chris got her up. I've watched Chris got her up
on TGL, and I got high hopes for Chris go
okay good, Yeah, I mean just the energy he's been
play well on on TGL and I know, I know
it's different, but you like to have a good attitude
coming into the season. So he's gonna be one that
we're looking at. Matt McCarty. You see Keegan Bradley there,
so Mac Meisner, that's an interesting one. Brian Harmon is
this course may set up really well for Brian Harmon.
Speaker 2: Brian like, he's just got that iron play and it's
so appealing.
Speaker 1: It's just so short off the tee, but on this course,
not gonna matter at all. If he gets the potter going,
you know, he's gonna be good. Aaron Raye, I'd like
to see him be good. And there's your boy, Corey
Connors and uh so we'll get to uh, we'll get
to some of these other names as the show moves on. Here.
All right, let's go to players that can trip you up?
Yeah on, this is my segment where we always talk
about guys you can bet on. I think it's good
to identify players that I think can trip you up.
And these are players that I just think are big names.
These are players that I think people might be using.
And I'll start with he's basically lived on this one
for the last season. It's Colin Morikawa. He's just getting
too much respect in the market. Like he's I know,
he's a big name and that's why he's priced near
the top to win. But he's losing zero it might
have zero point sixty strokes putting over the last six months.
Like it's it's putrid. It's really really bad. It's one
of the worst marks in this entire field. That's a
non starter on a course where everyone should hit the fairways,
everyone should hit the greens. Since March, he has one
top ten finish one and his priced is the fifth
highest favorite ball striking name value is there, But the
results putter no way, not at this number. I don't
trust Robert McIntyre. I know he looked at him in
total strokes gained sitting top twenty there. He's just not
been good here fifty second and fifty third the last
two years. At a guy price that high, I just
can't pull the trigger on him. The biggest concern is
the approach play hasn't been that strong over the last
twelve months, and that's going to be an issue where
iron play is really key. So Bobby Mack, love you,
but you're not going to be in any of my lineups.
And then Hideki Matsuyama being priced as a top three
favorite is insane. I know he won here before those
twenty twenty two feels like one hundred years ago, one
top ten finish at this event in his entire career
and it happened to be a win. That's crazy. So
he won the hero World Challenge in December, but his
only other top ten came at the Century on January fifth.
And this is a guy who's talked about he's got
neck and back issues. You're going to see a lot
of inconsistency. You're going to see like a third place
finish and then a couple of miss cuts. So not
Nothdeki Matsuyama is just not going to be in any
of my lineups or any of my bets of anything.
He's a fade. Any comments on either either of those guys.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, Hadeki, I'm totally with you. And obviously Collins
Potter is sort of fabous and winning in the shots folklore,
isn't it.
Speaker 1: So yes, we love betting against him. So all right,
let's move on to head to heads. This is where
Jan and I pick a head to head. At the
time of recording this, they don't see the head to
heads on DraftKings, but the global markets have something young
coming to you. First, what's a head to head that
you like.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you mentioned Harry Hall because I've got Harry
Hall over Jordan's spief. Now all I want is we
like fading Jordan. I just need a continuation of those
injuries and recovering from surgery. And you've got the safest
pair of hands in Harry Hall. Like that. That is
a guy who's an iron play god. Really, he was
super consistent last year and he can part. I love
this matchup. I actually think it's probably my best bet
on the board.
Speaker 1: To be honest, I love Harry Hall. I'm going to
betting on him, and I'll tell you why in just
a bit. I'm going to go with JJ Spahn over
Colin mari Kawa pretty much any of these bigger name guys.
I'm going against Colin Morikawa. So JJ spawn, you know,
plus one point ninety three total strokes gained. His putting
isn't isn't great, but it's light years ahead of where
Colin Morrikawa is. So JJ Spawn over Klin Morrikawa is
going to be my head head this week. Now we
moved to top finishers. I picked two and Yon picks two.
This is just any top ten, top five, top twenty,
top forty, wherever you want to go. Yeah, give me
your first one. What's your top finish top twenty.
Speaker 2: I've got JJ spawn, which is really good timing. As
far as I'm concerned, JJ spawn is the best ball
striker in this field. He's got major contender pedigree. And
when I look at a field like this, how does
he not finish top twenty? The price doesn't make sense
around even money. He was third in this last year.
JJ sponll top twenty just makes so much sense to me.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, that's a pretty good pick. I'm
gonna throw Russell Henley into the top twenty. I know
he's the betting favorite, and I know you don't need
me to tell you that the betting favorite should finish
in the top twenty, but he should. He's gonna hit
his fairways, he's gonna hit his greens, he's gonna have
a ton of pars, and then he's gonna somehow have
like three or four birdies and then all of a
sudden he's gonna be eighth. This guy's finished tenth, four
to thirty, second, second, eleventh the last four years. Here,
he's going to be a round score player. I'll play
his over pars. That's what Russell Henley did. He just
hits fairways, hit greens, and he'll take advantage every once
in a while and grab a birdie. He's just steady, Eddie.
He's a really good He's a really really good player
to bet on consistency. So what's your next one that
you got.
Speaker 2: Going a bit left field here, I've got how tong
Lee top forty, So any opportunity I get to talk
about the d well tour. I'm gonna be taking it.
This guy had nine top twenties in the DP World
Tour last year. He is ultra consistent with his ions.
He's probably the most consistent player I've seen on the
DP World Tour. Also has a bit of class about him.
He was fourth in the open like, he has a
bit about him, and I think top forty's actually quite
a safe safety net. Also plus money around plus one
ten ions putting health.
Speaker 1: Only, I'm gonna go with my guy, Harry Hall. It's
minus one eighty five and I don't care. This was
one of the bets of the year, was just taking
Harry Hall to finish in the top forty. He finished
tenth here last year. And he's very Russell Henley esque
as well. Just off the t he's going in his
fair way. He's good scrambling, but I don't think you're
gonna need to be a good scrambler here. And when
I look at him, I believe he's eight in the
field in total strokes game lights out with the putter
plus one point eight strokes gained last six months. That's
a that's a recipe for a top forty. I would
even look maybe look at him for Top twenty. There's
no reason why he shouldn't be cashing a pretty good
ticket here. So yeah, we're all over Harry Hall. It's
definitely on lockstep. So let's go to outright winners. I
am We'll just say, this is not my specialty. I
am horrible at picking outright winners. But people ask, hey,
can you pick who wins? When we bet on things
and we have official client plays at wager Talk, We're
just not gonna do outrights. I'm of the opinion on
that outright winners for the most part have lost all
value in the number like these guys. These guys should
be forty and fifty to one, not ten to one.
The books are not giving you any discounts on them.
But people want to know who's gonna win, So I'll
let you go first. Do you want to pick a winner?
I'm sorry? Do you want to pick a favorite? Do
you want to pick an underdog who you like?
Speaker 2: Well? Talking about prices, I am actually going a bit
further down the board with you know, first first week variants.
I'm taking Nico ecche area as my outright winner. I
saw thirty three to one. I think it was he
had such a good year last year and he improved
in every aspect of his game. Once again, it's a
guy who can hit irons and compart he was he
lost last year in a playoff in this tournament. I
don't see why he isn't there or thereabouts again being
a better player twelve months on. So it's Nico Eccha
area for me.
Speaker 1: I mentioned him earlier in I think I think my
pick is going to be Kirk Kiddyama. He doesn't have
great history here, but at nine to one, this just
feels like, randomly the kind of tournament that this guy
shows up with. You look his stats, putting's not great,
but Tita greens really really good off the tea's great
approach is great. It's really his putting that's kind of
the weak spot. But just there's nothing. There's nothing to
these greens. This is not a difficult, you know, green
setup to read. So someone that is going to be
hitting a lot of fairways and a lot of greens
is going to be in contention. I think we have
a pretty I think we have a pretty cluttered leader
board this week. I just think there's gonna be a
lot of Berdieze in this one. So kirk kittyam at nine.
He should be twenty to one, though, Kirk Kitty, he
should be nine to one. So let's go to We'll
do Draft Kings Darlings and I'll get Young's thoughts on this,
and then we got to talk a little bit about live.
So DraftKings Darlings. These are guys that you can use
in your DraftKings itis, but also kind of underdog picks,
kind of long shots. So I'll start here with John
Perry at seventy two hundred and uh yeah, And I
had my best year in DraftKings by far last year.
I think I cashed in over sixty five percent of tournaments,
so it was a really really good year of that.
So I'm really looking forward to momentum this year. So
John Perry really good value play at seventy two hundred.
He's been competitive in December, which I like. He's got
some reps on the World Tour or DP World Tour,
finishes a fifth, seventh, and eighteenth. That's kind of the
sharpness that I like. He's played three big PGA Tour
events and he got better in each start, putting clear
week spot but very accurate off the tee. Just hit greens,
get through the weekend and give me some weekend points.
John Perry. I'll go to Adam spenceon ugly putting numbers
over the last twelve months, but it really hasn't mattered
at this event. He's made the cut in all five
times and he's only sixty seven hundred, So back to
back thirtieth place finishes. If I can get a thirtieth
place finish out of Adam Spenson, I'm ahead of the
field in this category. And then Zach Blair sixty eight hundred.
This guy's really motivated. He is teetering on not being
losing his full time status, so he's really really motivated.
Good ball striking coming into this week. He's made to
cut the last two times he's played here. Tea green
approach numbers have been really strong. Around the green is
his weak spot. But again, I just don't think he's
gonna need to do that. If you're hitting your fairways
in your greens, grinded out in a lower tier PGA event,
PGA Tour, Q School, this guy needs strong finishes. So
he's weirdly one of the more motivated guys in this
field to keep his full time status. So I start
off my lineup with John Perry, Adam Spenceon and Zach Blair,
and my article is up on my page w t
up buzz slash al All of Yan and I's golf
picks are going to be up on that page. But
the free article with the course preview, total strokes, game
players that can trip you up, DraftKings, darlings, all of
that is going to be available for free. It's a
free digital download w t UP buzzl real quick. We're
recording this on Tuesday TGL. If you watch TGL, it's
pretty hard to bet. It's more of a novelty than anything.
But anytime we get a chance to bet against Kevin
Kisner and TGL, it kind of has to be done.
Cameron Young is minus two ten head to head against
Kevin Kissner and it's just a play. Kevin Kisner, he
didn't he didn't take it serious. I don't think he would.
He's gonna take it serious this year. He didn't quite
get it. He was so uncomfortable. This is a guy
that sculled one out of the bunker about about nuke
to the audience and his fellow players, and Cam Young,
he's got experience on TGL. So that'll be my only
recommendation for for TGL. Do you watch TGL Young.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've watched it every week so far. I really
enjoy it as a product. I enjoy it a lot
more than I thought I ever would. But like you say,
it's not really a betting thing, but as just a
general punter, it's it's a great waltz.
Speaker 1: It's a it's an unbelievable product. They have one gigantic
weak spot and that's that fricking hammer. They can't get
the rules of the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right, you are right.
Speaker 1: When they throw the hammer down, the other team shouldn't
get a chance to accept it. It should just throw
the hammer down. That holds worth two points. I never
heard of this where you can accept it or not
accept it. It's the one thing they're missing on that
on that show. And then I got to get your thoughts.
So Brooks Koepka is back in our PGA Tour Lives.
PGA comes out with this reinstatement program, and what they
did to Phil Mickelson is truly hilarious. They basically made
these parameters that are aimed at Bryson, John Ram and
Cam Smith coming back the best was they said, you
have to win. You had to win this, you had
to win this. You could win the players in twenty
twenty two, twenty three, twenty f or we'll fill one
in twenty twenty one. So just absolutely hilarious. So Ay,
what are your thoughts on Brooks coming back? And B
do you think rom Brayson and Cam Smith follow, because
I gotta believe they all follow or none of them follow.
Speaker 2: Uh So on the Brooks thing, I think he was
always gonna be. They were always gonna move the goalpost
to get him back, just because he's Rory's boy, he's
friends with Rory. I think that was that's more than enough,
just to be like, oh, just for Rory's sake, we'll
bring your best friend back. That's fine. In terms of
the other guys, I don't see how they don't bring
those guys back. I mean, Ram has to.
Speaker 1: I think of all the guys that left, Ram was
the one that I was most stunned by. And you
just when he laughs like there's no way he's gonna
like it over there, and he just looks miserable over there,
like I.
Speaker 2: Mean, playing golf with Taral Hotton will do that to you.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget Terrel Hatton's first time over it lived
and he was caught on Mike saying where are all
the fans? And it was in that moment that you
knew that they had regretted this. I still don't know
what Rom's plan was. I don't know if it was
really just a money grab or if he really thought
he could unite golf or something. But I think he's
looking for any reason to get back. Listen. Rom definitely,
you know, moves the needle a little bit. It just
be nice. I said it last year. Why like, it's
such a bummer. We can't have Scotti s Sheffler versus
John Rahm. I would love to get that back. Talk
about a guy that doesn't move the needle at all.
Cam Smith has completely fallen apart.
Speaker 2: He's not the same player he was at all.
Speaker 1: So I don't really I don't really need Cam Smith
in my life. I would love to have John Rahm
in my life. But big Fish is clearly Bryson. Bryson
holds so many cards right now, So what's your play
if you're Bryson right now?
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I mean that's the thing. It's it's
It's just not about the money for these guys, now,
is it. It's it's just a case of legacy, I guess.
I mean, Bryson still could still compete at every single
major if playing on the PGA tool. I think that's
that would be his motivation.
Speaker 1: He could also come over to the PGA and well,
first off, he can go to live and name his number.
Because when I went to a live event, I'm telling
every single person was there following Bryson. Nobody's following anybody else.
They were at the party hall and they were following
Bryson and they lose Bryson. That's that. That spells doom man,
That that spells the end. I don't know who would
pay attention to that one. But Bryson also could come
to the PGA and say, hey, lift these financial sanctions
off of me, or name a schedule like no, I'm
not playing, I'm not not playing in to some of
these I bring so many you know, I have how
many millions of YouTube followers that I bring in, So
it'll be interesting, and they got to make this decision
by February. Second, like, I like this version of the PGA.
They get some leadership in there. And all of a
sudden they're reship. Yeah. Yeah, it would have been nice
to have this a while ago, so uh, stay tuned.
It'll be interesting. But I have to say, after marinating
on it, it's nice to have Brooks back in our lives.
I will be fascinated to see what head to head
matchups are and what his prices are on some of
these events, so it should be really interesting. So all right,
this is our first episode of the Cut Line. Any
plays that we have up will be over at WT
dot buzz slash al and we are going to be
here for every single tournament this year. So John, thank
you very much for joining us, and please guys help
us out and hit the like button, leave us comment,
tell us who you like. Tell us who you like
in one and done. Let's see let's tell us who
you like in one and done.
Speaker 2: See if you can have a worst pick than Corey Connors.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad pick, but you just know that
whenever you pick him, you're just terrified that this is
the week he misses the cut. Like there's some guys
who are like, I'm not worried about Tommy Fleetwood missing
the cut, but then Corey Connors you're just always terrified
about it. So thank you very much. Guys. It's going
to be a huge twenty twenty six and we're going
to be here every week. Thank you very much for
joining us, and don't forget to check in it next
week when we break down. Was it the American Express? Yeah,
American Express would be next week, so we'll see you
next week. Guys, good luck and all your bets. Take care,