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Julie Stewart-Banks (0:35)
What's up everyone? Julie Swearbinks here along with former NHL player Nate Thompson.
Nate Thompson (0:40)
We're doing a new podcast together.
John Middelkoff (0:42)
Here we go.
Julie Stewart-Banks (0:43)
The name Energy Line with Nate and jsb.
Nate Thompson (0:46)
Each week we'll get together and talk about hockey life. All topics are fair game, right?
Julie Stewart-Banks (0:51)
Exactly. And you'll never know who will drop by to join us.
Nate Thompson (0:55)
Julia is pretty well connected. She has text threads going that you wouldn't believe.
Julie Stewart-Banks (1:00)
Listen to Energy Line with Nate and jsb on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
John Middelkoff (1:08)
The Volume what is going on everybody? How are we doing? John Middelkoff and a little Go Low podcast with a little Saquon Barkley talk at the end. So we're going to talk a little golf in regards to we got the Arnold Palmer Bay Hill this weekend all elevated event, all the stars there. Couple weeks we got the players. We had Fred Couples go on local radio say Koepka is ready to return. We had my guy Jake Knapp who I think moved to Scottsdale within the last year. I see him sometimes at tpc, looked like he was going to win his second tournament of the year and then had a disaster and I just wanted to talk disasters as a whole because they are riveting to watch. We also will do a we do it all the time every single week for this podcast at Golopod is the Instagram at golopod. Fire your DMs. Any questions regarding golf to get to get on the mailbag on this podcast. Obviously we do a football one is just my normal Instagram. I like to separate it for golf. It's just easier to find them at. Golopod is the way to do it. So make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Collins feed. Everything's up on YouTube. I did a little saquon reaction for YouTube but I put the audio here at the end of this podcast because he just got a big extension and I wanted to talk about it. So little golf talk, Little golf mailbag and a Little Saquon Barkley who just became an even richer man. So. But other than that, I did want to start with. This does start to feel like right around the players is when you get Masters commercials. And I'm a sucker for the west coast swing. I mean, those that stretch pebble waste. I know Riv didn't happen this year because of the fires. And I would include Tory as well. Has a soft spot for me. Even Hawaii, there's nothing like the, I mean, it used to be the Tournament of Champions. Now they allow like, I don't know, just random people in. But those views in Honolulu or in Kapalua, the, the water in the background, I've never played it. My brother's played it a couple times. It's just, it really kind of like, God, I want to be in Hawaii. And I would say right around now it feels like, okay, the golf starting to get real. And this week the Arnold Palmer with the elevated event, you know, Xander's back, obviously, Scotty, Rory, Ludvig, jt, All the big dogs are there. And then in a couple weeks we have the players. And then it feels like major seasons on. And I think sometimes with these golf tournaments, again, I, if you're listening to this, you're probably a pretty big fan, but listen, we get a lot of people that play golf, that don't watch golf, that consume this content and that was such a cheesy thing, consume this content. I'm saying, listen to me talk about golf. But ultimately, like the last couple weeks, the Mexico Open, the cognizant aren't really doing it for most. And I completely understand. This is a star studded sport in the sense of you need stars to get people to pay attention. Tennis, any individual sport is that way. You can't roll out randoms and expect people to care. And I think anytime that these guys all play together, we saw a couple weeks ago with Tory, we saw it pebble with Rory, that the bigger names in the mix, people will watch and you'll get 3,4 million people watching on a Sunday, which in this climate is really good. I mean, NBA games without LeBron James or Steph Curry are not sniffing 4 million people. And I think anything you can hope is when these guys are together. And I think the hard part about golf is like in a perfect world, you would start to see, you know, Rory's already won, Scotty's coming back off the injury, Ludwig's already won, Hidecki's already won. So the top guys heading into the majors with Bryson, Koepka, and kind of that crew waiting. Hopefully it's. And hopefully Jon Rahm gets his shit together. It's like a perfect emergence of all the stars playing well. And then all of a sudden, you look at the Masters leaderboard, and four of those eight names are in the mix on Saturday and Sunday. That's all you can ask for. And I think right now is when you start to see, you know, Rory's looked really good this season. Obviously, Ludwig, if he hadn't gotten sick, might have multiple victories. You know, Scotty is going to be just fine. I think the wild card is Xander coming off the injury. We'll have to give him a little time. But if he feels good, like there's a chance this major season, you know, Bryson, how good he looked last year in the majors. It's exciting. And listen, this tournament, I think my philosophy from a gambling standpoint, I'm going to hammer Ludwig every single week as a top 10. The moment I won, what bet that I win? Tony Finau to, like, top 10, I think, at Tori. And he kind of backdoored it, maybe. No, it was top five. And I turned 1000 into 1500. I immediately put $1000 on Ludwig to win the Players, and then I put another 500 on him to win the Masters. But I will also hammer him. That. That was kind of spur of the moment. I will hammer him every single week to top 10. Because right now he's played in four events, and he's top 10 in two of them. And one of them, he was leading after Thursday, and then he got deathly ill. And we all know people, this flu season, I mean, the flu came out of retirement a couple years ago and came back with a fucking vengeance. That thing just went away like Michael Jordan started playing baseball. And then it came back. You're like, holy shit. It hit me twice. So I just played golf with my buddy Fong on Saturday. He said he was in shambles for, like, two weeks. And he said the worst part is I had to give presentations for work. And he's like, this was. I own the company, so I couldn't exactly not show up. I'm like, yeah, bro, I had it. The chills. You just feel like you couldn't move. So there's a chance. I don't know if Ludwig would have won at Torrey, but I think it's fair to say that he would have had three top tens in four events. So to me, auto hammer Ludvig drives it straight, hits his irons pure. Now, historically, at this course they grow at the rough around the greens. You would say short game can be a little bit of a bug boo for the guy, but I would be stunned if he's not in the mix. And I think the same could be said for Rory, for Scotty. I also like Hidecki who's just been playing really well. So my parlay this week and the guys I'm hammering are Ludwig to top 10, Hidecki to top 10. I do think Shane Lowry one, he's been playing really good golf. Last year he I think was tied for third in this event. He is a Florida guy, lived there for a long time, so he's very comfortable in the environment. Plus is a big year for him, right? There's a Ryder cup year. I think he's trying to cement his status of like is he on the fringe to like I'm a lock Ryder cup guy moving forward until my game falls off a cliff. Like just write me in in Sharpie. And I've been hammering him for top 20s every week. He played well, pretty well last week. I just think you look at. Listen the scary part about the Ryder cup is the Euros look good. Good. I mean obviously Rory, I think his wedge game over the over the winner clearly put some emphasis in that. And if his wedge game improves by, I don't know, 5, 10%. Right. Because there were moments the last couple of years I thought it was pretty horrendous for an all time great player. And if it becomes like, I don't want to say a strength, but something that is not a liability, like he could easily have, I would say a Scotty Rom type all of a sudden. Rory won three or four times and a major or two and these are the type tournaments where I would expect him to be in the mix. Same thing with Hidecki. So I'm going Ludwig Lowry to top 20 and Ludwig and Hideki to top 10. I don't hate if you go with hidecki to top 20, but I think Ludwig moving forward is a auto top 10 hammer if you can get him at plus 150 or plus 175 or plus 160 like I just like my chances on a weekly basis. Again, he is a the flu. Coming around to having three top tens in four events, the other being a top five and a win. So I just, I think you got to like your chances with the young stallion. Pretty couples who I'm just a sucker for these old school guys going on local radio keeping, you know, keeping that medium alive. And Freddie just calling in probably talking some sports, BSing about the Seattle Seahawks off season. I saw Mike McDonald was asked if he could coach one player in league history, who would it be? I think he said like Lawrence Taylor. Of course he's a defensive guy. But spirits are high in Seattle well run operation good GM And Freddie Couples is fired up. Freddie Couples die hard sports guy in a loyal, loyal PGA Tour guy. And he has for a guy that's not like playing that regularly. I know he's play some Champions Tour but he has been extremely outspoken talking shit about the live guys from the jump. Now he's biased. His wealth, his status, where he stands in life is all created by the PGA Tour. And you could say that was the same for every guy that went to live. But he made a comment this week on the radio show that Koepka is one of his boys, one of his good buddies, obviously his bff, his Tiger. But he said that Koepka wants to come back to the PGA Tour and it's pretty clear that a lot of these guys, Koepka, Bryson, I would say John Rom who's also been outspoken about like he misses these events because you're just not getting the same juice. I can't imagine like I totally understand and I supported it is it was so easy for everyone to get on the moral high horse non the elite players and say wait, why are you leaving? It's like well, they just put $145 million guaranteed in front of my face. And then they say if I play well in these events I can win like $5 million. Like DJ won $50 million. I think the first couple years on live. That doesn't even count the couple hundred million dollars they paid him to leave. They gave Phil like 200, $250 million and he can't. It's not even good anymore. So when they offer John Rom 2 to $300 million, like yeah, it's easy for you to say no, just stay on the PGA Tour, keep playing the Arnold Palmer. It's like they just offered me $275 million and this cool ass jacket. So I understand. But then after you play there for a couple years you're like I kind of just miss being under the bright lights. I miss being in the events that really matter. And beside the majors, there are five or six events and that's what I'm fascinated to see like the integration of these guys coming back which feels inevitable. Are they going to play a normal schedule? Because if I was Koepka or I was Bryson, let's Use Bryson as an example because I think Koepka1 he never took regular events beside a couple that seriously. He was very successful at the Waste Management makes sense Bright light event, you know, the Riv, the Torrey Pines. Maybe like the players but you think like you're not getting him to play random non elevated events. I do think what's going to be fascinating for Bryson is like he's built a pretty important thing on the Internet and I can't imagine Bryson wanting to pivot off the YouTube. And one thing the tour has always struggled with is allowing these guys and in fairness they get so much money from these TV partners that they don't want you to rip the content like the CBS gets to own it. It's why they pay all this money. And that's been the pushback. Guys like Bryson that live allows them to use any content they want. So I think they're going to have to find and strike some happy medium because let's face it, they really need the three guys back. John Rom, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka. And then you know, for us golf nerds, the Cam Smiths, the Joaquin Neiman's definitely add to it. But I think most people just feel like whenever this does come back that this is going to be normal again. I have a hard time with that because if I was just paid a couple hundred million dollars I would miss the juice and I would want some of the juice in sense of like I'd want to play at Waste, I'd want to play at the players. But some of these other events, like I didn't like doing that before I was super rich. I don't plan on doing that now. And that's where I think the disconnect has to be with some of these players. Just act like you're going to do what we tell you to do. It's hard to tell someone to do something when they have more money than you and they no longer really need you. Like especially Bryson, he just won a major, he's in them for the next five years. Brooks last year won the PGA or two years ago. Like he's in majors for five years. Like the DJ hasn't cared for five years, doesn't even matter to him. But like those two guys, Cam Smith won the British Open a couple years ago. Like these guys don't have to worry about getting into the major. So bullying them around I think is going to be difficult. And one thing that's clear is like and I saw Alan Shipnock talking about this on Rapaport's YouTube show. That's not Ian, that's Daniel. Is these contracts are coming to an end, right? These weren't eight year deals. This wasn't Patrick Mahomes. Here's 10 years, $450 million. It was like three year, three or four years for a couple hundred million dollars. And then they end. Well, it's like, are you going to pay me another $300 million? Are we going to keep this going when 12,000 people are watching? That's what it does feel like. Probably not now. You can also never say never when you're dealing with people with trillions of dollars, with reserves that are more than most major nations all around the world. So I don't feel comfortable saying speaking in absolutes about this situation, but it does feel like we're headed towards somewhat of a resolution in the near, I would say year or two. I'm not confident it's going to be 20, 26, but. But I also am not confident that like, even when it's like, okay, they're quote unquote back together, that it feels like what everyone thinks it's going to look like. Oh, Bryson's just playing a schedule of 15 events. I don't know, because if I was him, it's like, no, I'm going to play some of the cool events, play the majors, and I'm going to do my YouTube stuff. Why? Because that's making me a star. The majors make me a star. Maybe the players may be wasted and Jack's tournament and YouTube. So I don't think he's going to pivot off that. I don't think Brooks Koepka is going to be like, oh, I'll see you guys at the John Deere. The other thing is, one thing that is unique to golf is like, even in tennis, like, you can start playing bad, hitting the net and missing serves, but there is nothing like a golf meltdown, because it happens on an individual hole when a guy in the lead or in the mix just has a disaster. And that's what happened to Jake Knapp on Sunday. And while it has to be just listen, we all can relate. If you play golf that all of a sudden you're just kind of cruising along, playing pretty good and then you get a triple bogey or you hit two balls in the water, or you just hit one out of bounds and then you three putt and you're like, did I just make an eight on a par five? It happens to all of us. The difference is we're not playing on the PGA Tour. And we're not tied for the lead on hole 11 after shooting a 59 on Thursday. And I was watching on my couch when Jake Knapp hits it into the water and you're like, okay, he's going to drop, try to make a bogey here. Then he tries to hit it out of the water because his ball is kind of submerged and does not get the ball out and it rolls back in. Then he hits it again. And you just. For as awesome as great shots are, I think the most riveting thing that can happen on television and professional golf is that I think it's just, I can't believe this is going on. And I would say the cognizant and Jake Knapp on the scale of 1 to 10 importance in the grand scheme of things is pretty low. But when moments like that happen, let's face it, I had a decent amount of money last year on Max Homa to win the Masters. I live bet them. I think I put $1,000 on them at like 15 to 1 on either Thursday or Friday, and we're cruising on Sunday. I'm like, I think, I think this is going to happen. This is going to be the biggest win or one of them. I guess. I hadn't hit my Bryson DeChambeau parlay that I would the US Open, which is the biggest gambling win I've ever had, but it felt like I'm going to do this. And then all of a sudden, hole 12 and he hits it into the bush. And I immediately, look, I have a cash out option that I think I got like $940 back. So I basically lost like 60 bucks and I immediately cash out. And then obviously he just, he implodes. I mean, anyone would have. He's in a bush. What's he going to do? And that feeling when you're watching it, I think some of the biggest moments in the history of golf are some of the big putts made or the great shots made. But I actually think we think about Jordan Spieth on 12 melting down, right? John Vanderbilt melting down. Greg Norman melting down. And sometimes a meltdown can just be an awful shot slash, an awful break. And sometimes, and I try to think about this and I do a terrible job of like, should I just hit out? Should I just chip out, live to fight another day. That's not fun. That is not an enjoyable way to play golf. And even if you're gambling with buddies and you could lose 50 bucks or whatever, I like being aggressive on the golf Course, it's not fun to just chip out unless you absolutely have to. So I understand when guys the first inclination and feeling inside is going to be like, I can pull this shit off now. One thing I saw Golf Channel. The dude in studio was kind of critical of Nap. When you're in like the submerged, not in the lake, but in that kind of mud area where you can step. He had to take his shoe off. You got to swing out of your ass and just get the ball on dry land, whether it's in the green or even deep in the sand. And he kind of pussy footed it. He didn't swing that hard and the ball barely went anywhere. And all of a sudden some dude no one's ever heard of with a bucket hat who was a Pepperdine a couple years ago starts draining birdies. Nap falls apart and he wins it pretty easily. But I do believe as a sports fan, watching an individual in the lead on Sunday fuck up is elite sports television. I mean it's just like, this is crazy now. You never want to have money on that individual because the Houma thing, my heart dropped when he hit it into the bush, which in the air it looked like a good shot and even Max was surprised. But it happens. And then I think Ludwig and Morikawa right behind him hit the ball in the water. Maybe Morikawa was playing with Max. Hit the ball in the water and 11. Yeah, it's just what makes golf so fun. Who's scoring big in the NBA this season? You are with the all new ways to get in on the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. From dunks to assists to rebounds, get behind your favorite player and the prop bets you can make on DraftKings, the home of NBA player props. Ready to place your first bet? Try betting on something simple like picking how many points your favorite player will have. 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