PGATOUR.COM's Sean Martin welcomes Golf Course Architect Andrew Green to discuss the one-year restoration project at East Lake Golf Club to bring back the original design elements of Donald Ross and set up for a more dynamic and volatile TOUR Championship. Plus, Golfbet Insider Rob Bolton gives his picks for the season-ending event in Atlanta.
Talk of the TOUR Golf Podcast
Golf Course Architect Andrew Green on the Restoration of East Lake Golf Club & Golfbet Insider Rob Bolton on his picks for the TOUR Championship
[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome in to the Talk of the Tour podcast. It's the Wednesday, August 28 installment of the pod. I'm John Swanson. It is great to have your company. It is Tour Championship Week. And we've got 30 players at Eastlake in Atlanta vying for the FedEx Cup. And they will be challenged by a new look Eastlake. It is a restoration that has been headed up by Andrew Green and his team. And we're going to hear from Mr. Green this week. Sean Martin from PJ2R.com recently sat down did an extensive interview with Andrew Green. And we're going to share it with you on the podcast. Today, it's part of a broader content production that we've got going that will also be part of the PJ2R's YouTube channel presentation called Eastlake Golf Club, The Restoration. So looking forward to hearing that chat with Andrew Green and Sean Martin on the podcast. And my chat with Rob Bolton as well. Final golf bet insider podcast appearance of the season for Rob Bolton and I. And full power rankings at PJ2R.com. All 30 players with the capsules to help you gamers and bettors get aligned for the final event of the season. Podcast is up for grabs every week. You can listen or download. You can become a subscriber. Wherever you happen to get your podcasts, you can always find me. Follow me, hit me on exit, J. Swan, PJ2R. [MUSIC PLAYING] So can you describe for us where we are and what's going on today? Yeah, so we're here on the grounds of Eastlake Golf Club, an amazing oasis of history and golf in the city of Atlanta. And we're releasing the restoration for the world to see. Tell us about this opportunity. And when you first heard about it and what they wanted to do here at Eastlake. The club reached out with the potential opportunity to come interview and talk to them about what I saw as the future of Eastlake. And a lot of that really revolved around the past of all things. Being here for any period of time, you get that sense of history. And everything that came from the idea that Bobby Jones first swung a golf club on this piece of ground. And amazing golfers like Alexis Sterling were developing their game here is just incredible. And then you look at the legacy of Eastlake and the Tour Championship and the way they worked together to lift up this community and the Cousins family. There's just such a breadth of importance to kind of protect and allow it to expand for the future. And when that opportunity arose, obviously, jumped at the chance to come see it and to talk about what I saw as some opportunities. And in my journey around the golf course, I was very impressed with the overall layout, the way it fit on the ground. But I saw a number of places where we could modify things here or there to enhance the interest of playing the golf course, potentially enhance some of the challenging aspects, to make the golf course more thoughtful, and to allow for a greater variety of play to be successful. We put all that together. That's really how the vision came to be. - What did you already know about Eastlake before you started? - Obviously, watching the Tour Championship and the dynamics of that professional game here knew and understood the dynamics of Bobby Jones and what this place meant. I probably had not dug in as deep as I would have liked into the detailed history. But just knowing that Donner Ross was a founding part of the vision here, and that the golf course had been an important part of the game of golf, and that even in its current format, it was painting this legacy of not only major championship golf, but great golf in the state of Georgia. - Can you describe the different iterations of Eastlake over the years? - Yeah, so it's had quite a journey. I think even within the framework of Ross's time, we see people like Georgia Dare, who was a local golfing legend. It seems he had something to do with some of the founding vision and the way the course evolved. And then we see multiple things that were done from, let's say, the 1920-ish up until the time where I found a photo from the late '40s, 1949. And part of it is the realization that the golf course had lived through the depression on World War II a lot of tough times. Part of it is to understand that golf in Atlanta, the growing season puts a lot of pressure on the golf course. It allows it to kind of evolve just naturally. So all that led up to that time. And then there were some really nice documentation from the moment in time that we had from 1949 up until right about the Ryder Cup. And George Cobb came in and totally redid the golf course in preparation for that. The coolest part of that experience was that we found the original Cobb plans, especially for the front nine, showed the golf course as it was underneath the existing conditions in which he manipulated. And then after that, Reese Jones obviously resurrected a place in the '90s with Mr. Cousins. And that's really everything that had led up to last year's tour championship in our project. - How did the course that was here last year compared to the 1949 version? - Yeah, I think there was some inherent qualities of the previous version that were aimed at the original. A number of the green locations, obviously the routing, a lot of that stayed intact. But I think the bunkers were more to the edge of play, especially fairway bunkers. The greens were all very, an original thought to the previous version, not necessarily respect of the history that was here. What you're gonna see this year from our changes were that we really manipulated some green locations to try to get it closer to the history. We then pulled really interesting dynamics from the two sets of greens that were once here in Bobby Jones' time at a winter green and a summer green. We used that combination to create some greens that have kind of spines running down the middle and there's a right half and a left half. Number two green, there's a front and a back half. And then there's places where we've made an intentional decision like on four to build the right green versus the left green. And what that allowed us to do is get the golf holes to move and twist and turn. Especially on the front nine, the golf holes went back and forth up and down the hill. So we got a bit of a bend left or right that just makes the golf course a little more interesting, a little more unique. And then we tried to enhance some of the memorable nature of the facility by picking up some really interesting historic aspects. There's a trench bunker on 17. It's a supremely unique part of the lore of the club. The back of 15 and the shape of 15 green is very reminiscent of its history. - What would you describe as the Donald Ross characteristics that you were restoring to the course? - Yeah, so I think as much as anything people can talk about, you know, doing Donald Ross' work for the sake of Ross' work. In this instance, and I try to project the idea that we're trying to do what's best for the club itself, not play the greatest hits of a certain architect. So we pulled a lot of the shaping the features from some of the historical documentation, but then also kind of had to present what we felt like those look like on the ground in Ross' time. Some of Ross' work like Pinehurst recently with the US Open, you know, this idea of the greens being domed and so forth. Some of that's from the evolution of the course. That's not really what we were in pursuit of, but the bunkers are very uniquely shaped, but they're not crazy. There's not a lot of wiggles and movements to them. They're very simple. Part of that is the time in which East Lake was founded and historical data. The greens have an incredibly unique shape, very interesting, some places where there's squared off corners, some places where there's appendages that flow left or right, and that allows us to really provide a variety of locations. That aspect, at its heart, the greens are really the biggest thing from a Donald Ross perspective that we tried to pursue. So how does this course today now compared to 1949? Yeah, so I think if you look at that 49 picture, there's a left and right green on number one and it's against the road. That wouldn't be a very smart thing for me to do on a modern set of circumstances. So that shifted to the right, but we still created kind of a two level green, right and left. Number eight green in the old picture was up close to three. It was away from the water. We left it down on the water and made a drivable part four out of it so that for the modern game we had both that engagement and the excitement of that dynamic. And then I think green complexes and bunker schemes you could really find where I drew inspiration. Fairway bunkers, obviously the game's changed in 100 years. We put those at a 300, 325 yard landing zone for the best players in the world and then we positioned teas for other players so that they were still thoughtful, but there's plenty of room to negotiate around them. - You discussed the 49 aerial, describe how important the photo itself was and then also the level of detail that was in the photo. - Yeah, so the stunning thing about this picture from 49 is that typically when we get past World War II, that imagery can really show a golf course that's aged out and it's very hard to find anything that's representative of like something from the 20s, let's say. In this particular instance, the photo was almost high definition quality, incredibly sharp and you could blow it up and really see a lot of detail. And so not only did it show us how the golf course was playing in the 40s, it also showed skeletons and remnants from a bygone era. That also played into this ability to draw from this history. And then we had a collection of photos from the ground before George Cobb's work leading into the Ryder Cup. We were able to pair those photos from the ground with the aerial and stitch together how the golf course presented itself prior. So it really just became this great kind of index card of information and something we could point to, but it also started to validate how the golf course had originally been. - Tell us how you found the photo? - Yeah, so the photo was, it's in a government database, there's a number of different government agencies, the USDA, USGS, a number of different places that aerial photography is available. This happened to be in one of those catalogs and it was just doing a deep dive, trying to draw every picture I could, where that one came out. Being able again to find such a high resolution was really special and kind of makes you think it was meant to be to have that kind of resource. - And what other sources have you used in this work and how have you found them? - Yeah, so I talk about often that typically there's an inspirational piece that is a connection for a membership or a club or a client to understand the journey that we're about to take on. At Oak Hill, there was a series of photos from their early 40s from the ground that started to tell how the golf course had presented itself then. At Siodo, there was a cartoon that had been in newspapers all over the country and I was able to take a Google Earth image and tilt Google Earth in three dimensions until I could align the cartoon perfectly so that I knew it wasn't just somebody's thoughts of how the golf course was, but somehow they had created it from an airplane or whatever, an image. And then like Inverness Club had a really cool as-built drawing, wasn't in Donna Ross's hand, but it showed how the course was. So often we have something like that. Here at Eastlake, we have no drawings from the original design. We just have these bits and pieces to try to pull from. - And how did that influence the process putting together this puzzle then? - Well, it helps tell the story for sure. It allows us to point towards the legacy of the club, but it also gives me some freedom to kind of choose bits and pieces that I feel fit together the best from a modern perspective. So it's great as a knowledge base and a rallying call, but then it also leaves enough flexibility that we can do some creative things in our process to make sure it works today. - So you devise a plan, you have a year to enact it. Take us through the timeline and what that looks like doing this work between tour championships and what sort of timeline you had. - Yeah, so it took us about a two year process to go from concept to get ready for construction. So ahead of the construction, there was a lot of work that was done leading up to the tour championship last year. I don't know if you recall, but there was ribbons on trees and things like the Tuesday of the tour championship. We had things flagged out in anticipation of pre-construction meetings that then we could start the Tuesday after the event. So that was really hectic. And then making sure that all of the team members understood that the build out had to go away so that we could construct. And then to get our materials and resources here, while the tour was pulling their resources out, became this huge jigsaw puzzle. What we ended up finding out was the ability to work on the front nine first because there was less build out. So we could immediately go to work there. And we had a lot of that work done prior to the holidays, that was our goal. And then kind of went to the back nine after the first of the year and completed that as the second half. Were there any challenges or speed bumps to overcome along the way? - There were tons, tons of challenges to make this thing happen. Everything from obviously Mother Nature, you never know what you're gonna be dealt. The permitting process, making sure that we were doing everything that we possibly could to protect the environment and the watershed, as it were. And then the logistics of having the materials delivered to the site that were tested and approved and ready to go. And we were moving at some point so quickly that as soon as material came, it was put into a bunker or a green or what have you. So that was certainly a logistical piece. Massive drainage work that was undertaken. Some that we didn't even know was here and we had to kind of find our way through it as an old site. And then things like the sewer system runs right through here. East Lake is in a natural low. So typically sewer systems fall with that. So then we had to work around things that we didn't even know existed. And ultimately, developing the practice facility and making an adjustment to the lake was a lot of work. It took a lot of diligence and hard work to make that happen. - And you were very hands on. How many times did you visit the property? - I'm not sure how many times I was here overall, but I wanted to be here at least one day a week. And my site visit would typically involve the idea of getting here, spending a little bit of time wrapping my head around the work that had been accomplished and where we needed to go. And then I would try to spend at least a couple hours on a piece of equipment, whether it be a bulldozer or skid steer, trying to help direct the creative process. And then the last part would be kind of a wrap up of where we're going, taking pictures and then doing sketches to be able to provide additional guidance to the guys doing the work, painting bunker lines, grass lines, those sorts of things. - And what is about getting hands on, getting in the equipment, whether it be shaping that ignites your passions? - Yeah, there's nothing like the ability to see what you wanna create and be able to work to that point through that process. When you're on a piece of equipment, there's a certain energy level and creativity that comes out. And sometimes things happen that are kind of surprising if you weren't necessarily intending, but end up better than what you had intended. So being able to see that and protect it instead of someone trying to just go exactly to what I had asked, but be able to kind of find something almost by mistake. It's a lot of fun and part of the deal. - And what did you listen to while you were shaping? - Yeah, so I really try when I'm in a machine to listen to music from the place I'm working. And here in Atlanta, certainly listening to ludicrous seem like the logical choice. And then also the reality that if you just put Luda into Amazon music or something, you're gonna get a playlist that's kind of all over the place but kind of connected to him. It created a lot of energy, a lot of fun in the piece of equipment, some really good rhythms and made it special for sure. - And so when was grass laid down here? - So the goal was to have the greens grass by the end of May. So all of them were planted over a two day period, even though we'd finished nine holes pretty much before Christmas, they had stayed in place until we crashed. And then we had sawed everything pretty much wall to wall throughout the property. The last bit of grass went down kind of middle of June. There still may be a little piece here or there maybe fell after that, but for the most part we were done off property by middle of June. - The second green from what you saw was a interesting creation. How did you take what they had and inspire what there is today? - So in the 1949 aerial, there's a lot of cool details. But on number two, when you start to look down on it, you see this double triangle green where the front half was a triangle that pointed to the player towards the tee. And the back half was kind of a triangle that was wide in the middle and pointed to the back. And so it created a diamond shape. The best way we could figure to utilize that was to kind of put a bit of a trough in between off on the left-hand side, just on the left. So if somebody might say it might look a bit like a Brits, but that was not the intention. The intention was to just have this feature that worked off the left side that created this dynamic of the two parts. And so depending on where the tees are placed and where the holes are placed, a back left hole location in particular, you have to fly that feature in the green itself to get to the back half. The front portion, obviously, you don't want to go too long or you might end up down there. Makes for a really unique start. When you pair that with a very demanding par four first hole, it'll be quite the welcome of the top 30 players as they tee off for the tour championship. - Is to a good exemplar of how the greens have changed. You have that back right shelf there that's really going to require precision, but then you have maybe a couple whole locations on the left that you can use some slopes to funnel towards. - Exactly, yeah. So the shape of the green allows for some creativity and ball flight and using some of the contours in the green to take on less risk in the air and still be able to get the ball close. - Let's walk through a few specific holes and let's start with eight. You touched on the drive old par four. What did you create there? - Yeah, so seven and eight kind of were lost in the previous version and eight was kind of just a modest par four and nothing overly meaningful about it. So the thought was to pull the green forward a touch, get it on the water solidly on the water and then allow the tour to set up in the tour championship days where it's fully drivable, days where it's a really, really good shot to try to get home in days where they potentially play from the dam and it's a thoughtful kind of mid-length four. And with that in mind, as the green slid left, we put short grass down the left-hand side so that a ball that misses left in the air would end up in the hazard. There's a kind of a speed slaughter, a special little spot down the right side. If you avoid the bunkers and some of the mounding and hummocks, you can land with a downhill kick and the ball propel itself onto the green. And then over the back of the green, if you go long, there's into some short grass back there that just adds some thoughtfulness and creativity for the golfer, you know, how aggressive they're playing, and especially if they're trying to get to kind of a back or left hole location and kind of just play away from it. The green is narrower on the right. So even if a hole's back on the left side, you could easily carry through if you're not paying attention or trying to avoid going left. - And the finish is much different, too. There's now two par fives. What was the reason for making 14 into a par five? - Yeah, I think 14 was always kind of in that kind of between stages of four or five. So it's a four and a half. And the question would be, is it a four and a half that takes everything in your power to make a four, or is it a four and a half that allows you some opportunity to be aggressive? And a lot of it's just in the player's head. But we pulled the T back as far as we could and added 20, 25 yards or something like that, maybe a smidge more and adjusted the green a little bit. And then we worked on that downhill slope to allow a ball that's well-struck to really get down there and not stop on one of these previous terraces. But if you're offline, you could really find yourself in some trouble. And the whole genesis of that was another place where a player could utilize their skill, execute some great golf shots and potentially make equal. And because the Tour Championship has that staggered start of scoring, it just added another opportunity for a player to be aggressive and catch up. - And then 15 is one of the most iconic holes here, but going to look a little different, go through 15. - Yeah, so 15 seen players talk about the idea of standing on the dam and you're looking at this target and there's no room to miss. As we were finishing it, I went and stood on the dam and then also up on the main tees. The target looked tiny to me. I swear it looked smaller than it was before. And I knew from the GPS and all the things, the tools that we had, measuring it out that we had in fact made a larger footprint. But man, it is intimidating. I think eliminating the bunker left-hand side makes it feel like there's not a place to miss. So it's either green or hazard left and right and short. Out of the back left, we worked on this historical aspect of a little bailout area, that if you go long through the green, there's some short grass there that the ball will settle in and give you something different than out of the heavy rough. I think East Lakes rough is legendary during the tour championship, but having some of those short grass areas, like on 15, is valuable. - It sounded like 17 was a change. You were really excited about making. - Yeah, 17, like maybe a couple others, it was kind of lost in the routing. There was a trench that was part of folklore of the club, of being part of the Civil War in Bankmen or in Campmen or a place of protection for the city of Atlanta. It kind of gets to the high point of the property. We saw a scar in the 1949 aerial that most definitely was a bunker. Also in reading information from Obie Keller about Bobby Jones, we know that that feature was there. So we started to really look at it and we found that it aligned perfectly with the streets on either side. So the best I can tell is it was part of an original road that Ross took advantage of as this kind of cut that made a perfect bunker. So now the left side of the golf hole off the tee is sand pretty much the entire length of the fairway and just really sets up some interesting angles of play. As you're trying to play closer to it for a little bit shorter approach into the green, it's going to be top of mind. - So 17 might be drivable one day, is that it? - Maybe potentially. - You can cover up to that left fairway. - Yeah, so I hope that we had that opportunity to play 17 up to potentially play as a short four. I'm just not sure how the setup team wants to utilize it. And then 18 is the final hole of the pursuit of the FedEx Cup. How will 18 be different? - 14 and 18 were really kind of a similar stance where the previous versions had these kind of stair steps or terraces to their landing zone. And I wanted to make sure that we tried to make them feel as natural as possible. In the process also wanted the ability for the golf ball to hang up a little bit on an awkward lie and not be dead level. Reason for that would be that as a player stands over that shot, they have something else to factor in as they're trying to potentially get home into or hit a layup. So off the T drive will be kind of in a similar direction as previously, but the ground is breaking kind of in three different directions as it goes over the crest. A lot of it's going kind of left and right and down and then some is peeling off to the right. So a good drive leaves you the ability to get home. If you don't want to take on that challenge or if you hit a poor drive, the lake that we manipulated to adjust the practice facility now runs more linear down the golf hole. And then there's a large bunker on the left-hand side that makes a layup shot really thoughtful, not mindless at all. And then up and around the green, the green has kind of an upper left level and kind of a middle right level and kind of a swale in between. So really allows the whole location to play into the angle of play that you're best able to attack and then how aggressively you play your shot will then result in how you might be rewarded. Bunkers around the putting surface and then some short grass out the back. When you play an aggressive second shot there, there's a chance you could get in a bad spot and then try to get up and down for a four. The goal was really just to create an exciting stage for the last hole of the tour championship. - When you're doing a project like this, obviously a high profile PGA tour course, they also have a membership. How do you balance the needs of those two factions? - While there's a lot of thought put into the best players in the world, this has to operate the other 51 weeks as an amazing place to play the game as a member and a guest. So the T placement for the members, we kind of push some players a little more forward so that they have more fun in getting around the golf course. The bunker depths are not nearly as severe as they were previously. For a better player, I actually think maybe a shallower bunker might be more difficult than a deep one at times. A lot of short grass around the greens allows the better players to be challenged and use their skill. It allows higher handicapped player to pull out a putter and recover versus out of heavy Bermuda rough. The greens allow for a lot of variety so that if you come play over a number of days, you can really experience the game in different ways. And then the width of the golf course overall, it probably got a touch wider than it was before. It's still not overly wide, but that plays into the idea of allowing anybody to come enjoy themselves here. - And how will pros be challenged differently than the previous iteration of Eastlake? - Yeah, I'm really intrigued to see what they're gonna think. They're so good. They hit the ball so well and they're so smart and that they'll beat me a couple times, I would think in their way through the course and I'm all for it. I hope they have a lot of fun. I really think the response will be that it is more interesting, more memorable, that they could use more of their creativity to find success than the previous version. And then I think the whole locations from day in and day out for them potentially make for a lot of different kind of thought processes. And the tour championship is very interesting in that when the players show up here, they've been on a long road, some tough days of hard play, hard golf courses. And so I'm not sure how much local knowledge they're gonna gain before they tee it up on Thursday. So they're gonna start to learn on the fly. And I think if I were to give them any advice would be to get out and just work around a couple of the greens and try to see what shots they might like to play because they're gonna experience so many different aspects way more than pitching that out of the rough that they did last year. - How do you think this finishing stretch will make for a more exciting conclusion to the FedEx Cup? - Yeah, I think as the player hits their tee shot on 14 they got a heck of a chance to make a good run and potentially make up four or six shots, maybe more. They also have the chance to really find trouble. A bad drive on 14 will be really troublesome. Obviously the water on 15. The back right of 16 is diabolical. A player misses it over there to the right. Really an interesting place to try to get up and down from. 17, the green, even though that trench bunkers kind of a star, the green is really interesting and it's got some nice movement to it. And then 18, you have a great chance to be aggressive and make a great score. But again, if you get a little careless or aren't completely committed to the shot you're standing over, you can find some trouble. (rock music) (rock music) - 38 tournaments down, one to go. It all began in January in Maui. It ends this week in the ATL. The final 30 players have qualified for the Tour Championship as we determined who will be the PGA Tour's FedEx Cup Champion. And we check in with the golf bet insider, Rob Bolton from pjtour.com, trying to withstand the withering heat of Arizona where we have broken a record, huh? What's happened in Big Fella? - Yeah, a couple of weeks ago, this will be the 94th consecutive day of 100 degrees or higher, it was 100 days yesterday. It'll be 100 and something today. And we're gonna keep going. I think the next two weeks it's at least 100. So Sharon Hill record, which was 31 years ago. Always tipping my visor to all of the outdoor workers I see out here, I know they're used to it. So thankful to have an indoor profession, Swani. I mean, even in golf, not walking the fairways like they have been for the playoffs and the heat and humidity. Unsung heroes for local workers here and people doing the Yomans work out there, getting the coverage to you and all of us as fans and gamers and investors to make sure that we're as in tune with what's happening. It's something else. I cannot wait for it to break though, man. It's crazy. This is our winter. It's cabin fever in a major way because of the heat. You just never go outside. You don't want to go outside, you cancel plans. It's really something that's a little bit more than we're used to out here and I've been out here 11 years. I'm glad you got that off your chest. I feel like that was therapeutic for you. Thank you. Hey, tip of the cap to you, by the way, for all of your Yomans work all season long, of course, and for doing the segment every week and for going deep, 30 deep, full power rankings this week. Short field, so there's going to be some short odds, but no betters are certainly aware of that and acknowledge that. I'll start right at the top with Xander Schoffley. I think kind of out of the player-of-the-year conversation, at least in my estimation, but he comes into the week at eight under. He's as close to Scheffler in the staggered scoring format as anyone starting the week, two back at Eastlake and relatively short odds at plus 450 for Xander, who sits atop the power rankings here. He's been the guy at Eastlake. The tricky thing this week is that Eastlake is not what we know it to be and not what they know it to be. And in retrospect, it'll be one of those weeks where we'll know who are the really good golfers. And if it happens to correlate with previous success on the course, it may be more of a coincidence. It's a different course because of the restoration by Andrew Green. Everything seems to be new and the guys are talking about it and they don't recognize certain things. And yet, the course record still applies, which is always one of those quirks for me and professional golf, like it's not the same thing. It should be a new course record. But be that as it may. That's secondary to what our objective this week. I love Xander Schofler just for the fact that in a sense, if we're thinking about starting our expectations at the bottom, ignoring the format for a second and his position in second place in the opening leaderboard, his floor is higher than everyone else right now. And Scotty Scheffler, of course, is a close second to that. And that's why they're slotted that way. So the scoring obviously benefits Scotty, but if there's a bogey birdie swap at the top, suddenly they're even, that's all it takes. I'm not reading too much into that spread. So many of the holes is a long way to go. We've seen a lot of guys over the years climbing from outside the top 10 into the top 10, typically five or six every year. Last year it was six. Expect the same this year. Sun J.M. and Schofler, these guys have climbed from outside the top 10 to finish in second place. Schofler's done that twice. He's finished as the low aggregate twice in this tournament and hadn't won it. And that was once before the starting strokes, otherwise he would have won it in the current format. So for all that he's accomplished, he hasn't accomplished this yet. And the form is there. Didn't have to play last week. He acknowledged that he thought about not playing and finished tight for fifth. All of the angles are just incredibly strong for the guy. And he was my pre-play-offs pick to win the FedEx Cup. So I'm just sticking with it. And lo and behold, he's as long as plus 225, don't win it. Schofler plus 120 is we're talking. It's a sort of stupid odd, but that's what you get in this tournament. They're just happy to have a board and a market for if you want to play. Which is what leads me to Sam Burns at number three. This is the guy for me, Rob. What are the starts of the playoffs? Fifth and second for Sam who starts the week at four under, six shots back, certainly a guy with the firepower. It's you gobble up that ground pretty quickly. And the value on Burns is frankly a lot better than I thought it would be in the neighborhood of 2021. That's pretty tasty. And as I'm saying, I'm seeing 40 to one here at Betum GM. That's quite a dispersion as I'm looking at the Outrights talking here on a Wednesday, which is crazy, got a run to the window for that. You know, in a vacuum and in my space and under my fingers, I'd be writing a lot more about the Nappy factor as a concern of Sam Burns. But he's Sam Burns. So how he's performing is kind of what we've expected from him. Yet he's still a human being and the Nappy factor still applies to him just at an elevated level. We saw it impact him in advance of having Bear a few months ago. Probably name of the year right there, I think, for all newborns on the PGA tour. I don't care what anybody says, that's... I wasn't necessarily a big fan of it at first, and it's really grown on me. And Sam has been performing like a new father of a son. That's how this thing works. And yeah, man, he's really exciting right now. And thank you for supporting him at number three. There's been a little bit of dissent for sliding him that high, but man, he's deserved it. Now, a lot of these guys who show up in Wyndham Clark is a perfect example, although he's trending too. Lately, a lot of hit or miss in that game. But Sam's playing as he needs to play. The only guy who's matched him, who hasn't won in the playoffs right now in the last two weeks, is Andrew Schofle, with the two and a five. Pullish on him, yeah. The problem with the odds at 40 to 121, whatever you're gonna find, is that, as you said, he starts six back. We saw Kyle Mercado open with a 61 last year didn't win. We saw Keegan Bradley open with a 63 last year didn't win. So even a hot round, no matter who it is, well, unless this may be Scotty or Xander, it's 72 whole tournament. So hang in there, it's probably gonna be one of those weeks where opening odds are gonna be much more, well, it will be one of those weeks. We're opening odds will be much more attractive for the guys who are at four under or in that vicinity. Then they will be, say, after 18 holes. So the live betting will not be as maybe lucrative as it would be in other weeks. Only one player is one of the FedEx Cup three times that's Rory McElroy. It is noteworthy that twice he has come from pretty far back, four under and five under. He's going on to win the cup on both of those occasions. He starts the week, four under here this week. For me, that's right in Rory's wheelhouse. I think it's a far more favorable position to see him stalking than actually in the poll position. And I think the markets agree because despite being six back, he's in the neighborhood of 10 or 11 to one here this week. Xander has Scotty right where he wants him. Well, I think Rory has the field right where he wants it. As you said, this is kind of what he expects. He loves that additional layer. Look, Rory can be a front runner, but man, we see so much more grit and fun out of him playing golf when he's not. And so he's seventh in the poll rankings. It's not an indictment. It's more a reflection of where he opens and maybe some pause in his recent form. Not as far as an indictment, he'd be much further down if that was the case. But I'm acknowledging the other guys who deserve to be one through six. That's all it is. He's a high seven if you wanted to think of it that way. It's got to be my fantasy lineup and he is, the outright odds are going to be favorable. I mean, right now, again, 20 to one, I got to find him a 20 to one most weeks, but especially in the week when this one, he starts with T5 or something like that, right? T5. He hasn't presented much reason to believe that he can't reconnect immediately. I dug what he said last week about can't wait to get to see the new restoration of Eastlake. So he was eager to get there in the first place. All good things from Rory. Let's talk about your man, Keegan Bradley, the last player to sneak into the field, the BMW last week at 50th. He now finds himself fourth. And he's going to have a very busy fall. I think he's going to be on that presence cup team as a competitor, he's already a vice captain. Who knows if he's going to be a playing captain at that page in the Ryder Cup. That's a different conversation about a year from now. But Keegan is in that neighborhood at 600. I don't know if I'd go much deeper than that down the board. It's a look for guys who could win, but Bradley certainly capable of doing that. And he's in position to cash for some investors here this week around 40 to one, maybe even better than that, Rob. - We go from not Keegan to your reference of Keegan of all the other 27 golfers in the field we haven't covered yet. If you're license plate doesn't say Mr. Segway or something along those lines, I'll be disappointed, pal. - And it still surprises me. I shouldn't. I shouldn't be surprised, but that was nice. So Keegan is trying to become the ninth in playoffs history to win consecutive tournaments in the same playoffs. We kind of covered this a little bit last week. He'd be the 13th in history to win multiple tournaments in the same playoffs. This is the 18th edition. It's not like this has been going on for a hundred years. And like that's still like a high percentage of it. It's a ridiculous stat. And it's an opportunity for these guys to put their head down and go to work. The thing is he's numbered nine in the power rankings because he's not the type of guy that does that. He has prevailed similarly like this, but it's six under and the confidence I have in him winning in the second week is not as high as it would be for others. The board reflects that at 33 to one despite his opening position. So if you're of that ilk where you want to dive into that history, which is on your side, have at it. That's a good reason. Like you rarely get that type of reason at all. So dive into that. The course will set up similarly in terms of unfamiliarity as Castle Pines did last week. And that favors his game. He lost 1.6 strokes to the field on the greens with his putter and still one by one for the week across 72 holes. This week it should matter more, but it's the same sort of setup even though guys have been there before. That's a really curious and intriguing angle for him this week. It's more of just a conservative in me and looking at some of these other guys who have done it here before. This is why it's a quirky, fascinating experience. We're going to see some of that coincidence because it is a new course. But then again, sightlines are going to be similar in other places and guys will find their groove and they'll feel the heat and humidity of Atlanta. There's familiarity there. So if anything, I'm just sort of swerving around the first timers who, there's nine of them in the field that they are benefited because the course is new, but they haven't never played in a tour championship. And I'm not dismissing the impact of that as well. - It's a lot of first timers. Basically a third of the field. So it's been a tumultuous start to the playoffs for Hideki, hasn't it? A victory in Memphis followed by a WD with a back issue after the opening round last week in Denver. Matsiyama's 12th in the power ranking starts the week at 700. He's only three back to start. Assuming he feels healthy and he's maybe not 100%, but there's a lot on the line here this week. Maybe betters are getting better value because of the back issue. What's Matsiyama on the board as we speak here? - You go from the winner of the BMW championship to the winner of the FedEx St. Jude championship. I don't know if we've had a more interesting pair of winners in the first two events in playoffs history until this year and both. Again, relatively have question marks on arrival at the tour championship, which is absurd because we're always careful. We're always looking around for the demons around the corner when it comes to where we're going to put our units with Hideki as we're speaking. He's third shortest at 11 to one and that's reflective of his opening position. Obviously, in a vacuum, he's outside my, was he number 12 in the power rankings and that's just a reflection of how healthy is he? I want to believe just as I was last week and I invested in fantasy that he's fine. The back issue, we've known about that forever. If you haven't followed the PGA tour golf for a long time, you're probably already familiar with his injury woes over time and hey, that's the way it is. That's why it's called gambling, you know? You just never know. So this week, the fact that he didn't lose any ground in the FedEx Cup rankings, he opens third and three back of Scotty. But yeah, it's again, the conservative of me. I'm like, no, no, thank you. I don't want to deal with that again. However, he has to be in fantasy and that was because of his opening position. I don't like him at 11 to one to win. If anything, maybe a top 10, but you're not going to get any value there. If you wanted to go on a top Asian market, that type of thing, have at it, but you're not going to get any value there because there's only like three or four guys in that market. So it's maybe just a good week to abstain or if you're a risky investor and you like all of those things that make him a contrarian, double down on the units in the outright and have fun with it. - Real quick thought before we close on Adam Scott. If you're looking for a dark horse, a long shot here this week, somebody who's seven back as Scott is, you could do a lot worse than the 44 year old Aussie. You just finished second at last week in Denver, huh? - Got him 15 in the power rankings. If you're thinking of this as a predicted finish of how the leaderboard will play out at the end, he's inside the top half. I say that sort of with a tongue in cheek because he's really thankful that his major streak didn't come to an end this year. He was on the precipice of that. And it's funny, I don't think that that's big of a deal in terms of a streak. He just wants to play in the majors and he just happens to play a lot of in a row because he's that good. But now 44 years of age, he's going to be in all of them next year. So he doesn't worry about that anymore. He's been able to reach the tour championship. He was my guy entering the playoffs from outside from the furthest outside to get in. Now obviously Keegan won and came from 50th last week, but he opened higher than Adam did. Yeah, I think he's just happy to be there in a sense not to take anything away from him. He's too far away to win with too many guys to cover even over 72 holes. I think he's really expented his energy. And this is a respect to everybody in the field. He's expented his energy. He's expented his focus to get to where he is and everything at this point will be icing. - 13 straight through Atlanta for Adam Scott. Matt Rob Bolton golf is where you follow the golf bed insider on X. Well deserved down week for you big fella. FedEx Cupfall is on the horizon. You will reconvene at some point. I look forward to it. Thanks so much. All right, buddy. (upbeat music) That will do it for the talk of the tour podcast this time around. Hope you dug it and Sean Martin's conversation with Andrew Green in my conversation with Rob Bolton. We hope you listen to the show every week. Download it. Subscribe to it wherever you get your pods. Look for me on X at Jay Swan PGA Tour. Next show coming your way on Monday as we declare a FedEx Cup champion once the dust has settled in Atlanta. And we'll have a little round table that will offer up for you with all of our editorial content providers from PGA Tour.com who are on site at Eastlake this week. I'll connect with them. Hope you connect with us on Monday. I look forward to your company. I'm John Swanson. Thanks so much for listening and being part of the show everybody. Thanks for hanging today. And remember one day I'm healing the next day I'm breaking again. Both days though, I'm not giving up. Think about it people. Have a great weekend. I'll catch you on Monday. (upbeat music)