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00:00And I always love talking to Keith Stewart from Read the Line
00:03as we get ready for this week's PGA TOUR event.
00:05The good news is, Keith's nice enough,
00:07while he's still there at Eastlake
00:09at the TOUR Championship,
00:10to jump on on a Friday and get us ready for the weekend.
00:14I'm not sure how much is gonna be at stake
00:16in terms of the actual tournament at this point,
00:19but we do have Scheffler at 20 under,
00:22six up on Xander Schaafle,
00:24and he's about to putt for par here on 13.
00:26Keith Stewart from Read the Line.
00:27Hi, Keith, I missed you.
00:28How are you?
00:30Mike Carver, it's great to be with you here
00:31on a Friday afternoon,
00:33and hit me, what are we talking about today?
00:35College football?
00:36Because this thing's over
00:36from a FedEx Cup point of view.
00:38You can go to the Clemson-Georgia game tomorrow
00:40if you want, instead of going there,
00:42you can go over to the Mercedes
00:43and see a great college football game,
00:46because I don't know what you're gonna have left here.
00:48Now, we'll always find something.
00:50Yesterday, me and Cam threw the top five
00:52on Bermuda Burns in there.
00:54You know, we'll always find a little something
00:56to get us through the weekend,
00:57but in terms of this 72 holes with the strokes,
01:01which I don't like, Keith,
01:02I know I didn't talk to you Wednesday,
01:04there's gotta be another way.
01:06I don't have the answer,
01:07but there's gotta be another way
01:09to crown this FedEx Cup champion.
01:12You know what, Mike?
01:13It's pretty simple.
01:14You just run the tournament like every other tournament.
01:16There's no other playoff system
01:18where, you know, the football game,
01:20the guy, you know, because, I don't know,
01:22because you won your division,
01:23you get a seven-point lead because you're Pat Mahomes.
01:25I mean, the stuff, it just doesn't make any sense.
01:27And, you know, they're just trying to deal with these guys
01:30who complain about the fact that,
01:31oh, I played great all year.
01:33All right, so then jack up that Comcast top 10 purse
01:35that they get after the Wyndham
01:37and then pay the guys more money there.
01:38But if the playoffs are like this,
01:40every other playoffs, it's basically an elimination.
01:44So let's eliminate people.
01:45I don't understand all this.
01:46It all goes back to 2018,
01:49the famous Tiger walking down 18,
01:51you know, where he looked like the Pied Piper
01:53with all the fans coming behind him.
01:54Nobody knows that Justin Rose won the FedEx Cup that year,
01:57right, because Tiger won the tour championship.
02:00And that really kind of was the tipping point
02:02that they were like, well, we need to make it
02:04so that whoever wins this wins the FedEx Cup trophy.
02:07Well, it's not a regular season contest.
02:11There's just too much going on.
02:12If you want to make this thing, you know,
02:14I've talked to a bunch of people this week.
02:15I said, give me 32 people.
02:17We'll play match play, 32-16,
02:19eight, and then four and two on Sunday.
02:21But instead of match play, we'll play stroke play.
02:23We'll play 18 holes head-to-head, you know,
02:26and the low score moves on, you know,
02:28instead of going hole by hole like you would
02:29in the Ryder Cup or President's Cup or something like that.
02:31I mean, there are ways to do this, Mike,
02:34but what they're doing right now is the worst of all worlds.
02:37You know, Scottie goes out,
02:39and they don't even really kind of get it.
02:41You know, the tour doesn't even know how to market themselves
02:43properly because after yesterday,
02:45they said he had the largest lead ever in PGA Tour history
02:49after 18 holes. It was seven.
02:51Well, he started with a two-shot lead over Xander,
02:54and not only that, but it was really a one-shot lead
02:56because Kyle and a bunch of other guys shot five under,
02:59and Scottie shot six. It's just out of it.
03:01It creates so much confusion amongst real golf fans
03:04that we have here on SportsGrid
03:05that you and I, we talk to every week.
03:07I don't get it. I'm with you.
03:09I think that's the biggest thing, Keith,
03:11is obviously we've done this all year.
03:13We've had a great thing with Golf Wednesdays.
03:15We've had a lot of winners, all of us, me, you, Cam.
03:17We've done a great job, and I think even the people
03:19that have gotten into it with us,
03:21you know, they'll look at a week like this,
03:23and I got some hits on social media about it.
03:26Like, what am I looking at here this week?
03:29Because there's a market with the strokes.
03:31There's a market without the strokes.
03:33Now we've got markets without Scottie in the strokes,
03:35with Scottie in the strokes.
03:37Like, it's confusing, Keith, from a betting perspective,
03:40to get involved with this tournament this week
03:43with only 30 golfers in it. It shouldn't be.
03:45And I think that that's what makes it toughest.
03:47So let's talk about what we can do here.
03:50Scheffler's minus 300 with the strokes.
03:53He just dropped when he's 19 under,
03:55and Zander just birdied to get to 15.
03:57So it's back to four, and Zander's plus 400 live right now.
04:02The 72-hole stroke play,
04:04which is without the starting strokes,
04:07Scheffler's plus 175,
04:09Morikawa plus 340,
04:12Zander plus 650.
04:13I'm guessing, Keith, that's more of the market
04:16where you'd like to look at over the next two days.
04:20100%, and I think that the guys that you want to favor
04:23are actually really live in that market, right?
04:26You've got Tony Finau, he's at nine under after two days.
04:28Colin Morikawa, nine under after two days.
04:30Zander, seven under.
04:32Wyndham Clark is in there.
04:33And you look at some of these guys, like a Finau, right?
04:36I mean, his ball striking has been really, really good,
04:38and the putter has kind of kicked in.
04:40We've been talking about him a lot in the playoffs.
04:42He'd be a good play over the weekend
04:44to continue doing what he's doing.
04:45He's a perfect fit for this place.
04:46He's long, he's straight,
04:48and if the putter is somewhat good,
04:50then he's got an advantage here down on the Bermuda grass.
04:53And, you know, this thing's far from done,
04:55especially in the 72-hole stroke plate tournament.
04:57You know, Scottie now, with the bogey there,
04:59he's tied with these guys at nine under par,
05:02so there's a lot to play out.
05:04Now, I know, this is where it kind of stinks,
05:06is that it's tough to find that leaderboard.
05:09You've got to do the math on your own
05:10because you have to know where they started,
05:12and then you have, but hey, here's the thing.
05:14You can also follow the odds.
05:16If you follow the odds on the books
05:17that are running the stroke plate tournament,
05:19you can see who's really making moves,
05:21and you can adjust accordingly.
05:23I mean, Adam Scott, I'm not gonna mention his name, right,
05:28after what happened last week with the putter,
05:30but he's first in putting this week,
05:32and he's second off the tee.
05:33Here's another guy, right?
05:35Scottie is, what, he's eight under or nine under.
05:38You know, I looked at the board
05:40right before I came on with you,
05:41so I'm not 100% sure where he's,
05:42but he sits right there.
05:43He's right in the mix, and of course, Bermuda Burns,
05:45I still feel really good about this guy.
05:47I walked the front nine and almost passed out today
05:49with Wyndham Clark and Sam Burns.
05:51I walked all 18 holes with Sam Burns yesterday.
05:53He is hitting the ball beautifully.
05:55You just can't make every putt on these greens.
05:57They're brand new.
05:58Like, they did this renovation so quickly,
06:00they should have taken a year off.
06:02I understand why they come here.
06:04Atlanta, Coca-Cola, everything, the money,
06:06but you know, man, they should have just moved
06:08over somewhere.
06:10The greens are really, really fresh
06:11and just growing in a lot of green in that Bermuda grass.