Matty Ice handed his little brother Alex the ultimate golf gift card; a two-year Tour exemption. Get the full Zurich recap, including a bunker shot so good you could hear it from the sofa. Then it's on to the Cadillac Championship at Doral, first time the Tour has been at the Blue Monster in 10 years. Picks, fades, and a live tutorial on shorting Scheffler with prediction markets. Plus: the Justin Rose McLaren equipment fade nobody else is talking about, and a new Kitun Newsletter dropping this week. Follow the show on YouTube @nostrokes Follow Scott on X @kitun Follow Joe on Instagram @venmojoe
Scott Kitun (00:06.25)
All right, Joe, here we go. Episode five, we're still on the air, believe it or not. No Strokes podcast. I tell you what, we're not going anywhere as long as we keep picking them. And we're on, you know, we're not a hundred percent, but we're damn close. And I cashed in a ticket on Robin Hood last week on my guy, Fitzy, giving his brother, Alex Fitzy, Fitzpatrick, the ultimate golf gift card of a two year tour exemption.
Venmo Joe (00:11.477)
You
Scott Kitun (00:36.886)
I mean, that sand shot on 18 to beat the Norwegians was like, holy shit. rarely do you a shot, can hear it. You heard it.
Venmo Joe (00:43.999)
So nasty, so nasty. you know, yeah, you heard it. You heard it perfectly. It was like he hit all ball. It was unbelievable. The action that he had on that was absolutely crazy. And I bet if you put some truth serum into Alex, it's Patrick. I'm not sure he could have made a putt longer than that. Like, I think the nerves would have really gotten him. to have...
14 inches to tap in to secure your PGA Tour card for the next two years and all the other great stuff that came with that. you know, Matty Fitz, Matty Ice as we've dubbed him, I don't know, best brother in the world.
Scott Kitun (01:26.484)
He's the new Matt Eise in my mind. I I think he knew that too. I think he saw his brother. I you look at how they were alternate shotting from like basically the back nine on. Matt, by the way, Alex carried Matt on the front. Like he couldn't drive the ball for shit.
Venmo Joe (01:40.341)
Well, thousand percent. dude, let's not shortchange Alex on that par 3 17th, which was, that was a terrifying tee shot. I think he got closer than anyone else did on Sunday. He put it to 14 feet. Maddie Ice didn't catch the putt, but that shot was like, when I was watching that, I'm like, this is where it could go a little bit like haywire. Cause you know, they had that big lead, two teams caught him.
Scott Kitun (01:49.29)
yeah.
Venmo Joe (02:08.628)
And then it's on Alex on 17 and he just, that was a striped show. That was an absolute flush shot. So he earned it. Like anyone that's saying he didn't earn that, he earned that.
Scott Kitun (02:16.108)
No, he's a tour player. He plays on DP. He's not a nobody. He's a real player. You could tell he made golf shots, but he's not his brother, I don't think. Maybe he will be, I don't know, but he doesn't look like that.
Venmo Joe (02:27.55)
Dude, mean, Matt, dude, Matt, Mattie Ice is the number three player in the world right now. Like, no one's touching Mattie Ice unless your name is Scotty or Rory.
Scott Kitun (02:33.186)
Right.
Back to back wins, back to back to back place. Game looks phenomenal. I got the opportunity, I think right after we recorded on Tuesday last week after Heritage recap, I put down on Robinhood prediction market, Fitzpatrick Brothers at 8.2 cents, took home 500 bucks on that, never looked back, did not make one single other bet.
That was the only bet I made and it was like, nope, we're doing it. And to be honest with you, it pretty much looked like it was a lock the whole time. It was only in the last, you know, the last four or five holes where it was like, shit, are these guys gonna give it back? And then the eagle hole out for the Norwegian guys. think it was Ventura. Ventura. Ventura put it in there and it was like, holy cow, there's a match here. But you know what?
Venmo Joe (03:23.56)
Yeah. That was sick. That was sick. Dude, they had three Eagles on Ult Shot. That's like otherworldly. Yeah. That's the beauty of Ult Shot. Like we talked about that format being less than desirable. The Ult Shot is so fun. Like that is true, like fun golf to watch.
Scott Kitun (03:34.412)
And they still had a couple of bogeys.
Venmo Joe (03:52.892)
I almost wish they just did the whole tournament as all chat. Like that, that was a lot of fun.
Scott Kitun (03:58.094)
So let's get into that because that's another thing. We got two things right, I think. One was the Fitzpatrick brothers winning. The second one, I used this term last time. I'm gonna use it again. The bygone era feeling of the tournament. I agree with you 1000 % that if you sat down and you watched this tournament, particularly watch Sunday, there's no way that you were not entertained and it was not fun and different and exciting and different kind of excitement.
Then Ryder Cup, although I would say the PGA did a great job of where they did the pairings, because it literally was like Ireland versus the Norwegians versus the American. It felt knockoff, Timo version of Ryder Cup. But the tournament for the outsider who's not a golf sickle like you and I or gambling degenerate who's going to watch regardless is not going to tune into something that's like negative 54 after three rounds. They shot a 57 on Saturday and it was like, holy cow.
also kind of don't give a shit. It just from an onlooker who's like, it doesn't have all the main names. It's sandwiched between a bunch of tournaments. There's other conversations going on. NBA playoffs are in the thick of it. You got a weird score that doesn't make any freaking sense to me. It has a pro-am feel to it. And you're playing different games and I don't know what games on Thursday versus Friday. I think as a golf product, PGA Tour product for the mainstream viewer, it's a whiff. And I would argue,
Venmo Joe (05:14.474)
Yep.
Scott Kitun (05:26.636)
that you could put, like, you remember the old days, they do the Tom Brady match, they do stuff, know, Tiger versus Phil, they would do the match. I think you could get the same cumulative number of eyeballs for a one afternoon evening match or a two hour TGL type event. You'd get the same total viewership as you got for this whole week long of shit for that and probably had a better product. And I think the PGA really needs to start thinking about this less or more concept because
We're about to talk about next week, or this week, Cadillac Open, Missing Rory, signature event. You said this last week, it's a signature event in front of a signature event in front of a major. There's a lot going on and it just sort of feels like if we're talking about money, which is ultimately what this comes down to, there are better ways to do this. It certainly wasn't people buying tickets to show up because Louisiana does well for the most part.
but you could see the fee. mean, they would go one hole behind the leader and there's not a soul on the hole. So it's not ticket revenue. This is TV contract media revenue. And I think you could do a lot more with the cool names that we have in the game right now than you are with some random ass Norwegian group who's chasing up the rear end of the Fitzy guys. And you said at the top of the show, there is no conversation here if it weren't for the fact that you have a Fitzy brother.
who's on a heater getting his own brother on tour for two years. Like that's the story. You don't talk about shit about this tournament if that's not what happened at the end of this. Or that if he blew it, that'd be the other, maybe a bigger story.
Venmo Joe (06:57.237)
Yeah.
Venmo Joe (07:04.251)
And what else? were also hurt by the fact that their headlining group outside of the the Fitts brothers, Lowry and Koepka missed the cut, right? Like so the, you know, the tour and the TV executives could not have been happy about that. Yeah, they'd have no vibes, no vibes, no vibes.
Scott Kitun (07:17.112)
Which we also predicted. said, I don't think, you said this. You said, I don't see how loud, you had no confidence that those two guys could play together.
Venmo Joe (07:27.829)
Yeah, and they didn't. They missed the, they probably missed the cut, right? If Shane doesn't have Rory dragging his carcass around the course in Louisiana, well, turns out he's not very good in that team amount.
Scott Kitun (07:40.77)
Right. Well, here's the thing. We're going to let's talk about the this week's tournament, Cadillac, but carrying forward, Vidpatrick is now the FedEx Cup leader. He's what? World number three. He's three wins in last four starts. By the way, that's more than or matched or more than all of Tommy Fleetwood's career. He did that in about three weeks. That didn't take much. And he's not at Thorall this week, which does take a little bit away. But I don't think you can blame the guy after, you know, what he's gone through when he got major coming up.
Venmo Joe (08:06.175)
Well, played last, yeah, he played last week when everyone else took a breather, so I get it. I completely get it. And, you know, we get one Fitzpatrick in it, because Alex is like, shit, I'm on the tour now. I'm going to the signature event. No cut. Guaranteed money. Count me in. Yeah. Not bad work if you can get it.
Scott Kitun (08:22.99)
$20 million signature event for a guy who was just on DP tour a minute ago?
my God. Holy shit, amazing work. What are we doing? What are you doing this week? And I'd love to go play in this event. Why can't I have a brother who's good at golf? So look, we got this tournament. I actually am excited about it because I am a huge fan of Doral. I think that the Blue Monster is one of the coolest golf sort of, as a course is a story. Again, we like to talk about our friends at Frydeg a lot. You should go check out if you haven't. Frydeg had an incredible story on
Venmo Joe (08:40.021)
You
Scott Kitun (08:58.85)
sort of the re-imagination of the Blue Monster, Gilhans renovation, the origin of this course that is basically water. mean, it's like 13 out of six, whatever, 16 out of 18 holes. The entire tournament comes down to the 18th hole. The course is in general, a course where iron play matters. The balls don't roll out. If you hit bad drivers, you're pretty much screwed. This is...
Venmo Joe (09:11.38)
That's crazy.
Scott Kitun (09:27.17)
You know, I guess we're kind of coming on what four or five weeks in a row for you and I where that second shot, I guess the first shot matters maybe more than ever compared to the other tournaments we've handicapped so far. Like if you have a bad drive, you really are in deep shit, but the scoring here is an iron play, strategic, don't hit balls that are gonna be, you know, any chance of water. If you were playing aggressively, or Thursday, Friday, probably Saturday,
Venmo Joe (09:48.978)
you know, any chance of water. If you're playing aggressively...
Scott Kitun (09:54.368)
you more than likely will not find your way at the top of the leaderboard is what it sounds like.
Venmo Joe (09:59.542)
Yeah, and I echo what you said. Great course. I'm glad that the PGA Tour is back. I don't think they've been back since 2016. It's such a different course than RBC from two weeks ago, right? Where that was, you know, kind of plot your way around the course. This is the longest course that the PGA players are gonna have this year. So you're gonna look at, yes.
shots gained approach but I'm looking at the stat that I'm honed in on is total driving right which is length but also accuracy because to your point there is water everywhere so don't just look at the bombers you've got to you've got to compare that with you know distance but you want accuracy so look at you know who's in that top twenty for for total driving and there's some guys that that we highlighted on our card that are that are certainly there but
You're going to want someone that can keep it on the map because if not, you're going to find the water. And it's just a great course because I don't think any lead is safe here either when you've got so much trouble with the water, with the bunker, like the deep bunkers. Like it's one of those things where even if a guy is up three or four strokes going into Sunday, I think it's going to be must watch.
Scott Kitun (11:02.936)
No. No.
Scott Kitun (11:16.214)
I agree with you. think 16, 17, 18 at Doral are among my favorite memories. There's obviously several Tiger Woods clips that you've seen the last week or two at Doral. His shot out of the trap that landed about one inch from the cup. You're gonna see, I don't know, probably 20 Tiger clips all week long. know, shout out to Tiger wherever he's resting and relocating at this current time. We miss you buddy, come back. But it's gonna be fun to just see some of these incredible shots go on. You started by talking about.
this overall T-strokes gained. We're building our model. People can go to nostrokespod.com and you'll find our model. If it's not up right when you see the pod, it'll be up before kickoff time. The main piece is this, and this is what I looked at as I started modeling out T to green ball striking, similar to the last few rounds. You're gonna see more Okawa on that list again, as always. His back is healed. He played well two weeks ago. I feel like he's back.
Pun intended, I definitely like him. Wind play plays a huge factor. Two, three miles an hour on the past three courses, five miles an hour wind doesn't mean anything. Five miles an hour here is a drift into the water on a tee shot. It's the end of a hole. It's a double bogey and it's nothing. So the ability to just hit shots and be like, hey, you'll power through it. The risk lever goes up significantly. So we're gonna have wind in our model, weather connected in our model, ability to hit the tee both ways.
Venmo Joe (12:27.018)
Bingo.
Scott Kitun (12:41.944)
This is a key one. You'd think professional golfers could do this nonstop. They all can probably pull off the shot. It's a matter of difference whether they can do it with confidence and do it in play. So being able to sort of be a switch hitter off the tee is important. So guys who, to your point, have a great tee game, not distance, accuracy, play. Everything I just said here, I don't even have to look at the model, Schaeffler's entire game is what we just named. I mean, I don't want to like jump like-
Venmo Joe (13:07.733)
As it always is.
Scott Kitun (13:12.366)
Yeah, well, right, that's very true. But this is like specifically, this is when he's gonna lose, right? I don't wanna, I'm gonna steal the lead here. Scheffler is, I go by Robin Hood, cause I'm one of those junkies. He's got a 23 % chance to win this tournament. It's a tournament where the course plays to his strengths. It plays against the strengths of the other two guys who are the next best in golf behind him. It is one of the weakest fields he's gonna be in, except for the one that he won at the beginning of the season.
And in general, he's got two weeks basically that he had to work on his own game. I mean, he's been playing really well. It looks like he's got past his Thursday shit. I don't know. Who else do you pick? Like, is there even a point? Who else do you pick in that?
Venmo Joe (13:59.862)
mean, there's always a point because you're getting more value on Robin Hood. Like if you're looking at just the typical sports books, he's three to one and three, three. Yes, it's a limited field. Yes, you're missing five of the top 15 players in the world, but like, I don't know, three to one on a 75 person field. Just those odds suck. Now if he's, if he's cashing your ticket for you on Sunday, you're, you're happy you took it, but
Yeah, I'm always going to sprinkle a little bit further down the board. And the only call out with Scotty, which we've the only call out with Scotty, which we've talked about before is he's really good at courses that he's seen before and won at, but and then like subsequently won at, you know, Doral has not had a PGA Tour event in 10 years. So he's not played a competitive tournament here. That's the only.
Scott Kitun (14:31.278)
Well yeah, you gotta pat. You gotta make some pat.
Venmo Joe (14:52.659)
Caveat that I could say with Scotty is does he potentially need a year to master Dural before he slays the blue monster?
Scott Kitun (15:00.846)
Well, you did bring it up. So I'm just gonna provide you with alternatives because I'm a good friend. Saying he has a 23 % chance, actually since we started talking, it's now 24%. Saying he has a 24%, oh yeah, saying he has a 24 % chance of winning, 23 % chance of winning, also means he has a 77 % chance of losing. So one could say, if you feel like he's got the game to have this high markup,
Venmo Joe (15:11.504)
It keeps going up.
Scott Kitun (15:27.692)
but hasn't won necessarily historically on courses he hasn't played before and won on, that maybe you put 100 or 200 contracts on the 77 % chance of losing. And yeah, I don't make as much money. I get crushed, I pay 24 cents if he loses, if he wins, but if he loses, I do pretty darn well. So like, are we shorting him? Like I'm not gonna make him my fate, but that would be.
Venmo Joe (15:49.879)
For sure. That could be a good field bet, no doubt. And that's the nice thing about Robinhood, right, in these prediction markets, is that you don't need to pick another guy, right? You're just shorting a specific guy that's the heavy favorite to win. You're not able to do that on DraftKings. On DraftKings, it's like, all right, Scottie's not gonna win. Good luck picking one of the other 74 guys.
Scott Kitun (16:18.318)
Right. And by the way, I can sell, can close out in small dosages the entire way. like, as he looks like he's gonna win, I buy more. And then as it looks like he's gonna actually lose, then you just start dumping. I should have been a fucking stock trader, except this is finally, there's an asset that's, you know, I'm smart enough to understand, which is degenerate gambling.
Venmo Joe (16:25.684)
You can hedge out.
Venmo Joe (16:41.046)
So yeah, are trading equities. You're just trading it on golfers instead of companies. That's all.
Scott Kitun (16:48.098)
I mean, the existence of this stuff legitimately draws into question my entire career. Why would anyone invest in almost anything other than like ETFs when they have the ability to have this kind of volatility and have assets that they can get in and out of in a four day golf tournament. You can literally bet on LeBron James. It's incredible. And not bet, because betting is like kind of binary. You're up to the machine tells you cash out or win or lose. Here I can play it. I literally can trade.
LeBron James is game five. I could trade it. Crazy.
Venmo Joe (17:22.346)
unbelievable.
Scott Kitun (17:24.48)
All right, well, we gotta give guys more than.
Venmo Joe (17:25.046)
I still need a tutorial on all of this stuff, so maybe we do an episode on... No. You've been living in it, man. I'm a simple DraftKings, man.
Scott Kitun (17:29.966)
I just gave it to you.
Scott Kitun (17:33.794)
We will, you know what, we'll get, we will get.
I'm learning from you. We'll get somebody out here who's an expert and they'll talk us through the whole thing. think, you know, since we are talking about it people are listening to this, if you're not familiar with prediction markets, I think the best way to really make this understandable and use it is you stop thinking in terms of lines. It's not odds. You're thinking in terms of, which is the same thing, but it's said differently, it's a percentage. It's just a percentage of wins. So like, I wouldn't talk about being negative 450 or negative 300.
I would say he's got 25 % chance of winning. Oh, one in four, got it. And like, that's the, I think the common person looks at different.
Venmo Joe (18:13.846)
So how does it, so if you short Scotty, right? And in this situation, like I get the winning thing, right? So if you're.
Scott Kitun (18:20.652)
He has a three and four chance of losing. So I'm not gonna get paid as much money if he loses, but it's a much safer bet.
Venmo Joe (18:28.866)
I got you. I got you, but like...
Scott Kitun (18:29.998)
Right, so one contract is $1 and it's 77 cents per contract. So for everyone I bet on that he loses, I owe. But if I win, you know, get the full dollar. But like you have a 77 % chance of not losing. So that's pretty good.
Venmo Joe (18:48.662)
But in that scenario, if he wins, are you then, if you laid out 500 contracts, you're 77 cents times however many contracts that you, okay, I got it, okay.
Scott Kitun (18:51.31)
Yeah, yeah, I'm far. 77 bucks. Oh yeah, more, Yep. Yep. Yep. But again, the difference is unlike, you know, doing this on FanDuel, it's gonna move during the four days. There's gonna be opportunities to hedge my own bet, opportunities to get out from when it looks like he's, you know, he might be climbing, but you look at him as a guy who knows the game, you're like, looks good, kind of fool's gold. Don't know if he's actually gonna finish this.
this is where the skill part comes in. This is why it's not a security and this is not investment and or gambling advice. But it works in a way where I have a little more control of it. And I think, I for me it's more enjoyable. And for my moron monkey brain, when you tell me things in terms of percentages of outcome, it's easier for me to track them ahead than guys like you running around going, we got negative, negative 100, 200, three, six to eight odds. Like I can't fucking follow that stuff. I don't, I try.
I can't, tell me 50-50. Like that's where I'm at.
Venmo Joe (19:56.203)
So basically you would be looking at it, if you're shorting him, you've got 77 cents on a, if he loses, right? So then you're getting paid that Delta difference. So you're getting paid 23 cents if he does in fact lose. And then if you're tracking him and like his contract value is going down for you, right? Like say it becomes 50 50, you can actually buy in at that 50 cents, right? And lower your
Scott Kitun (20:07.864)
Yeah, that's right.
Venmo Joe (20:25.674)
your cost basis, basically.
Scott Kitun (20:27.374)
Correct, that's correct. like, literally, I'll give you a Scott bet right here. So I actually do think that Sheffield, like I actually probably will put money into say he's gonna win because it's not, I know the door all part, but I'm not really concerned. It's not often that you get a course that does fit his strengths, that doesn't fit other people and you got a weak field and a guy who's kind of like, I'm sorry, it's Patrick's the best player in the world, fuck you very much. Like I don't, I don't like, I feel good.
Venmo Joe (20:50.774)
Yeah, you got maybe a potentially chip on his shoulder and you're already getting the value because the sportsbooks are putting him at like 33 % chance to win, right? Like he's three to one. So you've already got the built in value there.
Scott Kitun (20:59.918)
Right. So let's.
Let's set aside that that's my bet, okay? Let's pretend that Fitzpatrick is in this tournament. He's not, just to be clear. Most people would probably say, you know, he's won, he's two out of three, he's three out of four, he's hot, he's feeling good. This is, of course, he very similar to Scottie, his game can fit into. He's probably gonna get, I don't know, 18 cents, something like that, 18 % chance to win. Maybe it's 12 % chance to win. Would be my guess, coming off of the heater he's
So in my head, that's an 80%, 85 % chance that he's gonna lose. So here's the Scott bet. This is what I would be doing. I would probably put 500 contracts. For simple math, I'll just say 100. 100 contracts I would put on him to lose, right? So Fitzie's gonna lose 85%. I'm positive he's not gonna run this back to back to back. Could be wrong. But if I'm wrong, it's not like, you know, it's not the end of the world. Then I would look down the list and I see Cam Young.
at 6.9 cents, a little high for me. I'm not totally high on him. Morikawa, I think his back is healed. I his course works well. He's played here before, at least as an amateur. I think he's in great form and at a 4.2 % chance to win. That's a lot of upside. So I've got 100 contracts on Fitzpatrick losing at 85 % chance of losing, right? I put another 100 on Morikawa with a 4 % chance to win.
I maybe throw a little bit on Min Woo Lee, although that's not historically been great, but he's only a 2.7 % chance. Then I probably sprinkle 25, 25 and 50 on like a Cam Young, a Goddard up, Fleetwood, somebody who's in the, oh, Russell Henry. Russell Henry right now is 2.5%. He's not, well, we're gonna get, we're gonna get, hold on, we're gonna get to that. So we're gonna get to that.
Venmo Joe (22:45.75)
Yeah, so basically you're trying to win on both sides. No, we've already covered him. He doesn't win. So you can skip over him. You can skip over him.
Scott Kitun (23:00.494)
Adam Scott, historically, I think he's won here. Actually, he definitely has won here. Maybe he won 2016, he won. So you've got Hovland, Scott, two and 2.2 % chance. Knapp, no thank you. Matsuyama, 2.3, Henley, 2.5. Sam Burns, this is a good course for, hasn't won so much, but you know, another 2.7. So my point is, I'm putting a hundred contracts, wink, wink, more than that, on a fictitious Fitzpatrick losing. I'm gonna take the next five to six guys,
Venmo Joe (23:04.714)
He has. He has one. Yep.
Scott Kitun (23:30.328)
who are between two and 7 % chance of winning. I'm then gonna go day by day, watch them play and either get more weight on one and dump the other and use that closeout to restock the other or I'm gonna sell some of my lose bets on the fictitious Fitzpatrick and roll them to the lose side of the guys who have moved up the chart. So on the Sunday, my usual ticket will look like my main bet.
plus or minus some weight on however they've played where the value got better. And my three or four guys, hopefully one or two of them are in the top 10 and in contention. I will watch those guys either ride or fade and I'll play their fade. My objective at the end of the round, worst case is to lose no money. I win some bullshit bet that covers my risk on the other side. But if all things go right, which they did last week and they did when we talked about the players turn, player's championship.
When it works out for me, it's like a $1,600, $2,000 plus dollar takeaway. When it doesn't work out for me, I very rarely lose more than the initial $100.
Venmo Joe (24:36.918)
Our audience just got a really nice view under the hood of the Scott Catoone degenerate brain and I loved it. I loved every bit of it.
Scott Kitun (24:47.465)
This is by the way, there's a new newsletter that's going to be coming out towards the end of this week where we're going to feature this podcast as yeah, as well as as well as some of my crazy skakatoon brain on on how I invest in some of the deals that we get. Since I since I brought it up prematurely, I might as well finish the thought. There's a little segment at the end of it that I think will be fun for people.
Venmo Joe (24:53.334)
What a segue, what a segue. It's almost like we're getting...
Scott Kitun (25:11.98)
I've gotten together over the last decade and had the opportunity fortunately to invest in a lot of companies, 20 plus companies. was a Valor equity scout for a little while. And a couple of these companies are pretty well known, Unicorns, companies that we've had the opportunity to invest in, SpaceX, X-Data, AI, Anthropic, all the big ones. AirBor, which is the deal with Palmer Lucky and Lonsdale's group, the Founders Fund.
We get a lot of cool deals and I used to joke when we would get it on the golf course, it would be my wedge fund. Some rich guys have a hedge fund. I'm a poor guy. I got a wedge fund. We're going to give that to you. There's not going to be cost to it. I'm not going to charge anything. My friends at the funds that offer these deals will give me a little float on the carry that you invest in, no cost to you. And most importantly, you get an idea from me kind of what's going on in the markets that I like, what deals are coming through. But most importantly,
Almost everyone I talked about this stuff plays golf. So I figured, what the fuck? Why not just make it a golf focused podcast newsletter and you guys can listen to the picks.
Venmo Joe (26:15.766)
And I would say the only charge is you gotta subscribe to No Strokes. That's the charge.
Scott Kitun (26:21.878)
Yeah, I mean, so if you don't like golf, then there's still the wedge fund at the bottom. And that's cool. Please, I mean, it is cool. should, it's whatever. I hope you subscribe and read it. But for the most part, a lot of things are definitely written in like golf slang term. Take a swing at it, huh? Like a lot of dumb shit I'm gonna say undoubtedly. So ideally, you're a fan of this podcast. But just to be clear, these two things are not linked together. It's just a really fun way for me to stay connected with everyone and...
and share deal flow, happens for me and Joe, I'm sure it's like you on the golf course. So why not make it part of the show? So this is my shameless plug for the middle of this show. And now let's go back to the normal scheduled program, which is Joe making some picks on the winner, top five, top 10, your best pick for 20, and you and I can come together on our fade. And I think we're gonna agree on it and have a little fun with it. So leave it to you.
Venmo Joe (27:18.388)
Yeah, we got the fade. When I'm going down the board here, you mentioned his name. This guy just shows up in big tournaments. Sam Burns, He seems like he's on the precipice of something big. You saw it at the US Open last year. He actually got completely screwed at the US Open last year with that rain delay and some of the shots he had hit on.
He's just a big time player. Rolls the rock, which you always want with a winning ticket. I just got a feeling about him. So I'm going to do him to win. Top five, this is a guy that I'm replacing Fitzpatrick with this guy on a guy I'm just going to ride until he wins a tournament because it's coming. It's Victor Hovland. That guy, I...
I'm a sucker for him. I've won some long tickets on him in the past. He is showing flashes. We talked about it last week with what he did at RBC. His weekend sucked at RBC, but he was on fire on Thursday and Friday. I'm going to do top five for him. I'm also going to play him first round leader just because he's a guy that, you know, yes, he can give you a 75 or a 76, but he can also give you a 65 or a 66.
I'm going to circle him for first round leader. I've already got him at the PGA championship. Like he's just a guy he's coming and he's going to win one of these weeks. And you know, we don't know which week. So you just start betting him right now. I am not going to get off him like I got off of Fitzpatrick. I'm going to just keep riding Victor until he gets us a win. Top 10. I like I like Min Woo Lee. We talked about total driving being a really key statistic this year.
or for this tournament. He's top five in total driving, 12th in distance rank, 51st in accuracy rank. He's someone that, off the tee, I think I'm gonna feel really good about, and on this course, that's a guy you wanna circle. So that's someone that I've got for top 10. Top 20, let's see here. What do we got on our bucket three here? You know what, I'm gonna go back to our boy Oshke.
Venmo Joe (29:41.451)
He disappointed for us at the Masters, absolute blowout, blow up on that back nine. I think he comes back here and gives us a top 20.
Scott Kitun (29:57.464)
That's your picks. You're all in on that. Akshay, so like, the only one I want to push back, I don't love Akshay. I mean, we're taking it. I don't love Akshay on this one. I think his ball striking has been fairly inconsistent. Dorrell is the worst possible place for him to have an iron game issue. And he's been shown to have, when confidence is wavering, he kind of looks lost out there. If I had to push back on any of your picks, that'd be the one. I love Sam Bird's at Hovland.
Venmo Joe (29:59.21)
My picks, man, that's my picks.
Venmo Joe (30:22.645)
Yeah, that's why. Yeah, well, you know, you and I are always going to agree on Hovland, and I think this is just batting on what we've seen from Burns. I get it with with Akshay. It's just you never know. He's boomer bust, right? So that's why I think I wouldn't put him anywhere beyond top 20. He's a guy that can win big tournaments. He won Bay Hill six weeks ago, or he's a guy that can miss the cut at the Masters, right? So it's it's a boomer bust play.
Who do you like to win?
Scott Kitun (30:53.214)
If I could veto Akshay, I would replace him with the slowest golfer in mankind history, Patrick Cantlay. I hate betting on him and I won't watch him. I know, we agree. We don't bet on him because we can't watch him. But that would be my alt on that one. As far as the pick, I feel like this is a tournament you have to just say like, here's my non-Scottie Scheffler pick, because I really do think that everything looks lined up for him to win if he wants to win it. It's kind of like not worth talking about.
Venmo Joe (31:01.057)
Dude, I... I can't bet I'm...
Scott Kitun (31:21.454)
I would be picking and this would be my one and done. I was actually gonna ask you, help me make the case here between Sam Burns and Victor Hovland. My one and done pick prior to this pod was Victor Hovland to win this tournament. I feel like he's played really well. The days that he hasn't showed up, it's sort of like, I don't know, he gets to the third hole, he looks at the leaderboard like, eh, fuck it. And then just comes on done. But he's a proven, he's won before, he's a head case, but he's got game for days. He's a...
Venmo Joe (31:43.489)
You
Scott Kitun (31:50.442)
He's auberg with personality. That's like he's got game for taste.
Venmo Joe (31:53.25)
The only thing with Victor that I do love him and I'm gonna sprinkle first round, I'm gonna sprinkle top five and a win. One and done is gonna be burns, but I'm not gonna talk you against Hovland. If he can stay safe off the tee, like him and Warakawa are the best two players in the world with an iron in their hands when they've got it going. So if you wanna gamble that he gets the big stick going this week.
He could absolutely win the tournament. And we're going to keep batting him until he does.
Scott Kitun (32:27.758)
Yeah, so my picks would have been, have been, pick to win would have been, again, we're gonna, this is cumulative, so I'm gonna go with your Sam Burns. I'm gonna stick with the five on Hovland. I like more a cow and 10, and I like the slowest golfer in history, Cantlay, in top 20 lock. Let's move on to the fade, because I think we both have thoughts on this. It's really sad, because I don't wanna shit on this guy. I'm just gonna say Justin Rose.
Venmo Joe (32:52.499)
It is.
Scott Kitun (32:57.646)
I don't love, a guy who, put it this way, as a guy who's played mirror wedges for the last 13 plus years and understands that they are built from the hands of God and a guy who has been playing mirrors and playing his ass off since, I'm not saying it's cause of mirrors obviously, but it doesn't hurt when you've got phenomenal irons that you feel like, know, akin with. He did this before.
Venmo Joe (33:10.901)
I'm to
Scott Kitun (33:24.918)
with the home irons and left them shits high and dry and just stopped playing. Basically mid tournament, he just stopped playing up and never explained it. This is, you can have any opinion you want here and you can talk about, you know, comfort with the golf club and whatever. This is why I'm fading him. The number of from foreplay to wonder what's his name? Johnny Wonderful, whatever the guy does the golf stuff on Instagram.
The number of creators who have come out with this backstory of like, know the inner story, but I can't tell you yet because whatever. He didn't just get endorsed by McLaren. He's been working with them over a year to develop these clubs. Okay, then why are they so fucking ugly? Okay, like that's my first thing. Like if we're gonna be honest here, they look like betty-narty irons that got like shoved up an elephant's ass. I don't know what's going on. They're ugly. This.
Venmo Joe (34:08.001)
Yeah, two years,
Venmo Joe (34:20.306)
Hahaha!
Scott Kitun (34:23.082)
The fact that there's all this already like PR about how long he's been involved to make sure that we know that he's like comfortable with the irons and before the tournament. If that's the case, then why were you playing all the other fucking clubs and playing so well? So it's already in his head is what I'm saying. It's already in his head.
Venmo Joe (34:37.559)
Well, I don't know how you do what he did at Augusta, which is almost win the tournament yet again and then make this switch two weeks later. It's crazy to me. Very happy to be wrong here because I am Team Rose through and through, even though he didn't cash my biggest ticket ever, which looked like it was going to happen.
Scott Kitun (34:57.061)
yeah!
Venmo Joe (35:05.495)
You got to see how he plays with these before you put any sort of money on him. So a hundred percent endorse the fade. It's a weird move for a guy that only has a call. I mean, he's 45 years old, right? He's got two or three more years where I think he can legitimately contend. Like why? I don't know why you take the risk of, of this move. Um, you know, he's been playing professional golf for 25 plus years, so he's smarter than us. I hope he knows what he's doing.
Scott Kitun (35:05.87)
It looked good.
Scott Kitun (35:33.932)
Yeah, he knows a lot more than we do.
Venmo Joe (35:35.095)
I'm not gonna pay to find out this week. So he's a sideline bet for me, no doubt.
Scott Kitun (35:42.732)
Yeah, he's out. So what I will say to kind of wrap things up on it, I mean, as a content producer, I love this story regardless, right? Because if he loses and we faded him, you know, that's the start of next week's show. If he plays incredibly well with brand new irons, the start of next week's show is that everything in golf is marketing and all clubs are basically the fucking same. Which is like, if you can show up, I honestly, Joe, don't like that, that club looked like it was the Ford Taurus.
of irons. I don't know. I don't remember seeing shit that ugly in a long time. Like early Cobra days. Maybe the last time I saw irons it looked that stupid. So if he comes out and he plays well with them, I'm going to be excited to tell everyone that anything in your bag is as good as your swing and that's just the end of it. And if he loses or doesn't play well, which I don't actually wish upon him because I do like Justin Rose in the story, I will tell you we faded him and we were right. And I hope that we are right that it's like a one, two punch Scotty.
Venmo Joe (36:13.782)
You
Venmo Joe (36:21.431)
You
Scott Kitun (36:41.482)
Sam Burns, Victor Hovland, top five. And then we will be on, I would say the heater of all golf heaters. We'd be five weeks in a row with at least one of our picks in the top five or top two. So good start.
Venmo Joe (36:54.167)
thousand percent. I think we're going to get it this week. really do. mean, we're going to keep the momentum. Well, you did share some of that wealth, I need to get, like I said, yeah, you did. You You want to talk, sure, real quick before we adjourn?
Scott Kitun (36:58.942)
We got it last week, so keep it going. No, it's we, man. I told you.
Scott Kitun (37:12.462)
Yes, yes, yeah. So Jim Feerick is gonna lead the Ryder Cup. Yeah, it's funny. I don't know. Like Jim Feerick's leading Ryder Cup 2027. I'm really excited about that. I love Jim Feerick. I've loved his crazy ass swing for a long time. He's a really funny guy and like loved among his peers. So I think it really is like a great pick aside from how he got here or whatever is almost irrelevant. Some years ago, we were at the BMW, was at Coghill. One of my foursome pals.
Venmo Joe (37:15.383)
Give our listeners the Furex story.
Scott Kitun (37:42.222)
Doug, he's like my on course bestie. We were, you know, very clearly worn, no phones on the T-box, no pictures, no this, no that. And this idiot's standing there and I'm like looking at him as he just like pulls the phone out of his pocket, first in the line, takes a snapshot, right as Fierik's walking up. And the security guy walks in, like it's so, this is so strange because, you know, usually you're penalized for doing something stupid like this. In this case, he was penalized. They took his phone, but they brought him on the T-box.
And literally where they took the phone and put it a bag he's standing over top of Fierik's bag and there's like all these the three guys who are just like getting ready to tee off and he's on the tee box with them and he's got and they're like thumbing through his shit and taking his number down and he's standing there and Fierik's like this close away and we're all like shit I'll take my phone like I want to get up there. So anyway, they take his phone like we start walking around we're having a bunch of cocktails and like, you know how you go to a golf tournament you're kind of zigzagging
Venmo Joe (38:32.023)
Yeah.
Scott Kitun (38:40.014)
So we would zigzag like every three holes, there'd be, know, Cog Hill is like drawn out, you gotta cross the street and stuff if you haven't been there. And so we're crossing and about every three or four holes, it's intersecting right as Fearix group is coming through. And the first time I walked through, he's like, hey, that's that fucking idiot whose phone got taken on three. And then like we laugh, we're like, ha ha ha, whatever, cheers. And then it just became a thing all the way down to the 18th hole.
We're watching him come in. I think he finished like the top 12 or what? had like a good round, but it wasn't, you know, it wasn't to win. He was walking down. We knew one of the guys who was the four caddy. So we're just kind of walking along and the entire time he's just like first, first timer, first time at a golf tournament friend. Like what's your name? Doug? Doug? Oh, great. First time in his first time. Like it was just like giving a shit the entire time was incredible. It just made the entire event more enjoyable. It was probably funnier because we were drunk in our heads, but I'll never forget it.
Venmo Joe (39:07.35)
Hahaha
Venmo Joe (39:29.975)
That's awesome.
Scott Kitun (39:36.812)
And it just like how nice he was. And just like to remember a couple idiots to me when you get to meet people and idiots every week stands out. And then I just will never forget like at the end of the round and you've seen this with tournaments he's won before at the end of the round, a lot of his peers stuck around and they were like, Hey Jim, know, great. Like there was guys who like had Jason Day stuck around. He did the same thing with Fierik at the BMW at Conway Farms years before that. Like these guys really respect him.
Obviously Jason Day will be on the other team, but these guys really respect him and I feel like it sets up really well for Ryder Cup. We've got a guy who I think is quietly kind of a badass and he's funny and he knows my guy's friend's name.
Venmo Joe (40:22.539)
No, that's awesome. No, I like the pick. I don't really know where else they were. They were going to go with it. I, I don't think it's really about the captain and we can get way more into the Ryder Cup is the year goes on. It's just, I think it's, it's, it's changing out some parts that have been on the team. you know, the Europe's advantage is that they've just got this nucleus that has been there for, you know, multiple Ryder Cups. we just, every two years we're putting in six rookies and it just,
Scott Kitun (40:32.546)
Yeah, we have time. We have some time.
Venmo Joe (40:51.499)
that recipe is not working. So, Furex is going to have his hands full with who the captain's picks are, that's for sure.
Scott Kitun (40:58.862)
I don't dislike the man for any reason, but I'm not a big Phil Mickelsonist captain guy, just, I don't think that's happening, especially after the Liv stuff, but I lives about that anyway.
Venmo Joe (41:05.473)
Well, that's all gone. That's all gone for him. I mean, he would have been the... His captaincy was going to be Beth... Well, no, was going to be Bethpage. That was circled for Phil Mickelson. He was going And that's how you ended up in the mess of Keegan, which I love Keegan, but if you watched Full Swing, which I think we talked about it last week, four episodes, I was disappointed in that, and a majority of it was Ryder Cup, but like...
Scott Kitun (41:13.996)
when you want a PGA.
Scott Kitun (41:18.16)
yeah, yeah.
Venmo Joe (41:34.508)
Dude, guy had Keegan had an impossible job. He was a top 15 player in the world and he was having to figure out the Ryder Cup and whether or not he put himself on the Ryder Cup. just, he was gonna be a great captain of the Ryder Cup. It just shouldn't have been when he was in the prime of his playing career. So I think, you know, a little bit of a disservice to him and, you know, if Phil would have not gone scorched earth on the PGA Tour, I think that would have looked a little bit different.
Scott Kitun (42:05.102)
If you want to have a bunch of guys stay on the course as long as humanly possible, you make Zach Johnson the coach and no one of those guys will come back in ever. I fucking hate Zach Johnson more than I hate almost anything in life. But that's a story for another day.
Venmo Joe (42:12.245)
I fucking hate that job.
Well, and he had one of the worst Ryder Cup captaincy performances of all time.
Scott Kitun (42:24.974)
Couldn't have happened to a better guy. Joe, this has been fun. This has been fun. Look forward to recap and Cadillac next week with you.
Venmo Joe (42:26.871)
Always Scotty.
Venmo Joe (42:33.526)
yep let's get let's get another winner
Scott Kitun (42:36.408)
Take care. See ya.