Denver’s a Mess! Plus, Live at the Masters With the Simmons Crew
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Please visit theringer.com slash RG to learn more. Listen to the end of this episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus presidents like states game problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com. Coming up, all hell breaks loose in Denver. I'm at the Masters.

This podcast is nuts. It's next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. If you liked White Lotus, go check out Prestige TV. Go check out The Watch because we covered everything that happened in the season finale. I put up a new Rewatchables, The Saint, that went up over the weekend because Val Kilmer passed away, so we want to pay...

homage to him. I am at the masters right now. I have a bunch of people we did not expect when we were walking off the course and got our phones back today that Denver had cleaned house. So I'm going to talk about that at the top with Joe house. We're going to talk NBA. We're talking Western finals odds and a whole bunch of stuff with Sal and house. And then we did a bunch of master stuff. We created a little draft that you can bet on a fan dual sports book.

and a whole bunch of other fun props, bets, and then last but not least, James "Babydoll" Dixon. He comes in. We've talked about him on the podcast a bunch, and we talked to him and Chang and Sal about Augusta and smoking and some of the stuff that makes Augusta what it is. So that is all coming up. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

All right, we're recording this on Tuesday, early evening in Augusta, Georgia, East Coast time. We're here for the Masters. We brought a whole crew, including Nathan Hubbard, your fairway rolling partner, Cousin Sal. He's going to be joining us later. David Chang and baby doll James Dixon, who's still talking. You can't hear him. But we're going to do a bunch of segments for this pod. We did not expect...

What happened when we left the masters? Because when you leave the masters, you have to give your phone. You're not allowed to have your phone on the course. We didn't have our phone for six hours. So literally anything can happen. And we're thinking we leave the course and we're going to find out the market has dropped like 150 points. Just another day that ends in Y. Yeah. Some sort of bad tariff news.

And instead, all these texts about, oh my God, Nuggets, can you believe Denver? And they fired their coach and their GM. And we're going to be one of many podcasts who talks about this tonight. But a true stunner. I don't remember. I have a bunch of thoughts on this. But to fire your coach and GM with a week to go in the season, when you have a chance to be like a top four playoff seed, this is like the NBA we grew up with. The NBA is like going nuts again. Well, I mean...

It is and it isn't. There is no precedent for teams firing their coach. We have now in 10 days two playoff teams with legit aspirations for getting to the Western Conference Finals firing their head coach. And Denver... Memphis being the other one. Yeah, Denver went a whole step further. They're like, we don't like...

The internal turmoil of this identity crisis fight that we've been having for what feels like to me, 18 months now, at least between Calvin Booth and his instinct to try and build a team with young guys. And Mike Malone, who has in front of him most of the pieces of guys that won an NBA championship a couple of years ago. Right. And this tension has been affecting this team for two years now. Well, but think back to the 80s, though.

I remember, didn't Larry Brown, like he was coaching the Nets and he just left for Kansas City or for Kansas University with like two weeks ago in the season, they fired him. It was the kind of thing that would happen all the time with the league we loved. And the league, even though it still has your Sacramento's and these, but now I feel like, here's my theory. I'm going to throw this theory at you. I'm listening. The league is so deep now and there's so much talent. It ties into something we talked about when we did the over under pods with Ursula. It's like shit.

There's going to be some unhappy teams, teams that thought they were going to be really good, teams that have max guys, teams that have this model that used to work of we have three stars, we have two really good stars.

And they're going to be like two games under 500 in February, wondering what they'll happen. And I'm looking at the West because the West is a way deeper conference than the East. The East is more like a traditional, you have the really good teams, you have some good playoff teams, some mediocre teams, and then crappy teams, right? That's the model we're used to. The West, like everybody's talented and everybody thought they were going to be in the mix. So look at all the teams that weren't happy just this season. Dallas,

traded their best player, one of the five best guys in the league. They just said, fuck it. We don't like where this is going. They trade him. The Lakers were unhappy too. They were trying to do all kinds of stuff mid-season. They make a trade. Memphis fires their coach. Denver just fired their coach at GM. Sacramento fired their coach, traded their best player. Phoenix tried to trade everybody on their team but Devin Booker for four months. They fired their coach last year. They're probably firing him again.

That's six teams in the West house. Oh, you left out golden state and golden state who knew that they needed another piece and went and paid, you know, but yeah, that's it. But at least that's not like, okay.

All right, that's not a Hail Mary. This Denver thing is a Hail Mary. This is... It's a what the hell is going on to me. We're going to the playoffs and we're going to get smoked and everybody wants to play us and we're in a situation where on Saturday, Sunday, teams might be tanking to try to get a matchup against us. That's the level Denver was at with the way they were playing lately. That's true. So what does firing the coach and GM have to do with the performance on the floor? It's a good question. I'm going to try to answer it. Good.

I think they thought their season was shot. I think they decided. I think they're right. This coach GM situation, they were going to get rid of both of them. Josh Kroenke basically said that in the press conference. We're going to do something after the season. Why not now? Why not see if we can save it?

This is a Hail Mary. Well, again, let's do it precedent-wise. Point to a team... That's done this with a week to go? Yeah, in the last 30 years. Point to a team that's had Jokic as their best player during this half decade he's had. That's one of the great half decades anyone's had offensively in the history of the league. And they have one title to show for it. I don't begrudge the instinct of wanting to do something to change the trajectory of

But the problem is it's the players. They're not good enough. They don't have a team that's good enough to compete to your observation earlier. Their top five is good enough. It,

They don't play defense. They haven't played defense in two months. That's why they have a losing record over their last 25, 30 games. It's why they have a, uh, they're five and nine over their last 14 games. Their last three games. I've been out over the last 14. Yeah. Yeah. I saw their 12 and 13 last 25. Yeah. They don't play defense. 19th net rating.

22nd defensive rating in their last 25 games. And we like looking at the net rating stuff. It's a nice little snapshot. You know, sometimes you can overreact to it one way or the other. Sometimes you have teams that are in the vicinity of where their playoff spot's going to be. Maybe they cool the jets a little bit.

Other times, it's a real sign either something's going really wrong or really right. Like with the Clippers with Kawhi back, all their net rating stuff is really good here for two solid months now. And it's like, let's take this team seriously. Detroit, who I think is going to be a six seed, I'm not taking them 100% seriously, but the math is the math and the math says they're a pretty good team. Denver, the math said this team can't guard anybody. The on-off stats with Jokic, which I mentioned Sunday with Rosillo, um,

and are the case if you're going to talk MVP for him, which I think today probably hurt that cause a little bit. But the on-off for him where they were the best offense in NBA history when he's on the court and they're 30th in the NBA when he's off the court, that's all you need to know. There's never been a disparity like that in the history of basketball. That tells you all that you need to know about the team-building effort and...

And look, I think this is... Well, when you say team building, though, do you blame Mike Malone at all? Because you and I both watch a lot of Denver. I don't blame him one bit. No. I mean, when you have the best player on Earth and you have most of the nucleus of a title winning team, then the appropriate thing to do is try and, in the first place, defend that title. And then in the second place, try and win as many as you can while you have the best player in the world playing at the level that he's...

playing at that seems like the right kind of decision and I think that head coach you know built a game plan for the season these last two seasons around the that that thesis around the idea of we should try really hard when we have this guy to be as good as we can in this moment they just it I do think that this new collective bargaining agreement is a real culprit is a real the apron stuff yeah because they were so they were like five million under the second apron

But next year, they're going to get killed by the apron. And I think they seem really scared of it. And, you know, there's some real money stuff with this team that has to be mentioned. I think around the league, if you talk to people who know shit or who have a vested interest in it, they're like, thank God Denver's not spending more money.

they have this incredible asset and they seem pretty good being middle of the road. It's the same thing people felt about the New England Patriots during the last 10 years of Tom Brady. Thank God they're not spending more than they are. Then you look at the Philadelphia Eagles in your division and they're super aggressive and they're trying to maximize the moment. I think that's what most fans want. I would not say Denver's doing that. I wouldn't call Denver middle of the road. I wouldn't characterize... I'd say middle of the road. They have the best player in the league and

And they're not even a second apron team. Well, they're going to be middle of the road this season. They were not middle. They went for it last season. And I think they paid the price. I think they flamed out the way they did because they saw the one seed as a viable possibility. They played balls to the wall at the end of the regular season. And it took a toll on them because Minnesota ran them out the gym.

I have a couple other theories in this. The play-in, I think, puts a crazy amount of pressure on these teams. Not only do you not want to be in the play-in, you're in a situation where you could just lose two play-in games and then you're not even in the playoffs, which was a real thing for Denver, right? True story. So this is why it's not a panic move, but it's a total panic move where you're like, five days left. Everybody wants to play us. Our defense is in shambles. We lost a catastrophic game.

game in overtime to minnesota that really feels like that tilted their season in all these different ways like this malone still have a job if they win that game maybe well they didn't play two of their guys that game right i mean i know but it was just how they lost and how bad westbrook was it was and how great yokich was it was agonizing so you have that piece um

You know, a lot of times when we're hinting at stuff in pods and we're talking about stuff and we're talking about scuttlebutt around the league and people go, where's that coming from? And shit gets aggregated, but it always seemed hazy. This Booth Malone thing. I mean, I talked about it. Everybody who's had a podcast has alluded to or talked about it. I almost and I really regret I didn't do it.

I had it, you know, you have the tweet lined up and you have the draft. There was some something Malone got something for like he won the most games in Nuggets history. There was some sort of ceremony and it was like a short video and it was Kalman Booth giving him something.

And I had this really sarcastic tweet and it was like rare footage of Calvin Booth and Mike Malone interacting. And I was ready to tweet it out. And I was like, you know what? That's not worth it. That's going to become a thing. People will be mad. And I was just like, I didn't do it. But that's how bad it was. I had this tweet lined up because just that they interacted seemed like it was an amazing event.

I don't like that whole kind of storyline and that dynamic because at the end of the day... Which part? The media part of it or the Coach GM part? The Coach GM part. The media part of it is perfectly fine, of course. Well, you know we're getting the now they tell us piece. TM Brian Curtis. You know that's coming. It was an open secret. Ramona kind of wrote it in the beginning of the season. I think Zach, if Zach had been writing for ESPN, I think Zach would have...

had something pretty major at some point. Matt Moore at the Action Network, who does a pod on Denver, has been talking about it. It's not a secret of that. No, all the Denver fans. Internal tension. They've been observing it. But really, the reason I say... It's more than tension. They didn't fucking talk. I don't like it because that's on Kroenke. That's on Josh Kroenke.

They're like, somebody needs to be the boss. At least he owned it today. The boss is the boss, right? You see guys not getting along. You need to sit in a room and reconcile whatever the differences are. Because, again, you have the best effing player on the planet on your team playing at his absolute best. So the thing to do is try and win.

capitalize on that. That would be my instinct. So you don't think everybody get along? Zeke Nagy extension? No.

Reggie Jackson. Peyton Watson, who could be something eventually, maybe someday. There's some really bad team building. We knew there might be signs of trouble. Kevin O'Connor, when he was writing for The Ringer, did that big piece about the Nuggets and their team building. And Calvin Booth gave all these secrets in the piece. Yeah. Which is like GM 101, don't do that. If you're doing stuff that's working, don't talk about it. What is the upside? What's the upside of...

Here, let me tell this reporter all of these things we're doing that we think are cutting edge. How are you winning with that? Now you're just giving your secrets to the other 29 teams in the league. Again. And he does this whole link thing. And it was just weird because it felt credit grabby. And anytime something's credit grabby,

You know, like, well, why is this guy doing? Obviously, he had a thing with Malone and it was already there jacking. Where's the moment on when that story came out on the ringer, which is what? 18 months ago, 16 months ago. Remember, he tried to disown it after he was like, I don't know. I thought I was off the record. Oh, right. Yeah. He's ludicrous. Fucking bullshit. Because KFC did a good job with that story. Anyway, so this thing was a problem all year. I think it affected the team. And then they finally acted.

I'm going to throw this at you. The great NBA asset wastes. Oh no. So remember when we were kids and Kareem was just on shitty teams for like seven years. Yes. He was on the bucks forever. They had nobody like basically Bobby Dandridge and that was it. Oscar was washed up. Um, and they were, he was still great. And then finally he's like, I'm going LA goes to the Lakers, but they trade a lot to get him. Then the Kermit Washington fight happens. And it's just, it felt like

There's seven years there where it's like, Jesus, is Green the best player in the league? Is he going to be on a really good team? The magic shows up and the rest is history. But there's been some good ones over the years. Even LeBron in the mid-2000s on those Cleveland teams. I was like, oh man, they're trading for Ben Wallace now. Oh, they're paying that much for Anton Jameson? Kobe mid-2000s, partly his fault because he's a shack out.

T-Mac for basically the entire 2000s. That makes me sad. That was a good one. Moses when we were kids on the Rockets. T-Mac could have, but Yao broke down on him. Yeah, Yao broke down. But T-Mac for all that Orlando run when Grant Hill was hurt. It makes me sad.

Um, yeah. And I don't think this Yoko thing is as bad because Gordon's obviously really good. Christian Brown's been good. Murray, when he's healthy, it's good. Turned out to be good. Uh, Porter's a good three point shooter. It's not, it's not that bad, but at the same time, their entire, it does hurt. Their entire fate is tied to Jamal Murray's health. And we said this at the outset of the season. I know, I'm not sure if I'm the only one, but I went under on them getting the 51 wins that

this, this season because you went over on the Sixers. I'm just saying, we're talking about the Denver Nuggets. I didn't want you to applaud yourself because you did go. No,

No, by the way, I went, I went under on the Clippers and under on the Lakers. Why are we going through this? Nobody cares. I don't, the observation I'm making is that the concern at the outset of the season for me was Jamal Murray. Do you trust that he's going to be able to play at the level that this team requires through the balance of a season for them to get into like the mid fifties and wins? And I didn't trust it at any time that he's not, he has been excellent Jamal Murray for

for a good stretch. And they won eight games going into the All-Star break. It was like, welcome to the season, Jamal Murray. Yeah, but you know, it was like, okay, so Denver's legit. So we love Denver at this level playing at that, you know, and then Gordon went out with some injuries and Michael Porter Jr. has been doing Michael Porter Jr. stuff and we have too much

and too many high leverage moments where the basketball finds its way into Russell Westbrook's hands. Well, he just shouldn't play in crutch time. That's true. I almost don't blame Russell Westbrook. I don't either. I don't blame him. When my son leaves the pantry open and the

The dog. My beloved dog Murph is just like, cool, I'm going to eat all the potato chips. Is that Murph's fault or is that Ben's fault? That's right. That's right. Russ sometimes in crunch time, he's just going to eat all the potato chips. And it's like, you left the pantry open. He has to be on the floor doing that, though, because they are trying to do this rotating rest thing. I get it. With their guys. I get it, too. They're just not good enough. Here's Russ's value.

We're giving everyone the night off. Russ, can you do everything and try to keep us close for this game against Charlotte, who's tanking anyway? Sure. Can we bring in Conspiracy Bill for a second? Oh, I'm here. I'm listening. He turned his head backwards. It's like an over-the-top slash conspiracy bill. I wonder if Jamal Murray's healthy. Oh, okay. And if they feel like their team's going the wrong way in the playoffs...

and Jamal Murray is not 100% healthy and they lose. And then that becomes the excuse for why they fell apart down the stretch. And then it becomes harder to clean house and fire everybody. And now you just do it now. So there's no excuse.

You 50, 50, maybe he's going to be where he was in December for the playoffs. Maybe not. But either way, it's a queen. It's a reset button either way. It's just, listen, I'm not saying conspiracy bill. I'm still conspiracy bill. Hold on. I'm back. I'm out. Good. Listen, conspiracy bill just came in. I'm not saying he's always right. Sometimes he's crazy.

But something doesn't pass the sniff test about the timing with this. I don't... Because it's ludicrous. The timing is ludicrous. The timing is ludicrous. There's nothing... I mean, Josh Kroenke said four times, we're going to see what we can squeeze the juice. We're going to see if we can squeeze some juice out of it.

There ain't no juice, buddy. Your team ain't good enough. He needs to squeeze the PD juice out of it. He should be squeezing. PD's all the way around. He needs to be squeezing the leadership juice he should have squeezed before the season started and sat down. It needed to be squeezed before the season started. They needed to come up with a game plan and not have this internal discussion

They got a best case scenario out of Christian Brown this season. They got a very good scenario. Dodging the KCP bullet. They got a very good scenario out of Jamal Murray, honestly. Considering his injury history. They have three max contract guys. They can't keep all three. They can't keep Aaron Gordon and Michael Porter Jr. and Jamal Murray and stay where they want to be. Michael Porter Jr. Wizards?

Flag, Sar, Porter? No, no, no. Flag, Sar, Porter? No. The new big three? No, no. I still wonder why didn't we hear more about them with Miami? Why was Miami not interested? I don't think Miami wanted any part of Michael Porter Jr. It must be. It must be right. Would you trade it for Michael Porter Jr.? No. Would you want to pay him $40 million? He's redundant for that team anyway. He doesn't help them. We're going to take a break and bring in Cousin Sal, and we're going to do the West.

where Denver fits in and whether we think there's any chance. Where Denver fits out. Or where Denver fits out. Let's go. Let's take a break and then Sal's going to come in. Swing it to the biggest golf event of the year with FanDuel, where every putt and drive can bring you closer to victory, or in my case, closer to all the putts and drives. Speaking of FanDuel, our friends over there have some amazing offers. For the first major this week at Augusta, check it out. All customers get from FanDuel a no-sweat bet

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We walked the course today. We're going to talk about that later. The Masters. Your agent, James Babydoll Dixon, is here. What a day. So much fun. We'll talk about that next segment. We're going to talk about the Denver Nuggets and the West and basketball and the NBA playoffs. Can I just first thank you guys for giving me some winning futures in the beginning of the year? I heard you talk about how you bet your own futures and lost. Maybe you should...

Come to me after your podcast so I can tell you who to bet. Houston makes the playoffs. Yes. Pelicans, no playoffs. Yes. Denver underwins. Yes. Spurs underwins. Yes. Suns over is a loss. Wizards under. Yes. We did above average on our locks. I'm really upset about how we handled the Pacific. The LA teams...

Sacramento and Phoenix. Phoenix and the two LA teams ruined my over-unders. Yeah. Anyway. It just went over. Those two went to crazy transformation. So it's not really. Anyway. So the Denver Nuggets. Yeah. We have FanDuel. I introduced these to you. Kind of buried on the FanDuel Sportsbook NBA page where they have two advance each round. And I don't remember seeing those last year. I was incredibly fascinated by them.

So round two, to make round two, that means you're winning in round one. And we're taping this before a couple of the Tuesday night games. There's going to be some standing shenanigans. We have five teams that have 32 losses. Denver is one of them who just fired their coach, Gia. Is Denver in a post Malone time period right now? This is good. Come on. Where's the drummer? I don't know. OKC is minus 1300 to make round two house.

And that jumped out to me immediately because what if they played Minnesota or the Clippers? I think OKC would beat either of those teams, but I don't think they're 13-1 favorites to beat the Clippers if that was the series.

or Golden State. I don't know. What do you think the price is? Because those guys, both the Clippers and Minnesota, super short prices as dogs. It must be that they think Memphis is going to be the eight because Memphis is plus 350. And honestly, that does make sense. I should have mentioned that too. So Clippers are plus 130 to make round two. Minnesota is plus 154 to make round two. Memphis is plus 350. But OKC is minus 1300.

It feels like- That doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense, right? If Memphis is even the eight at plus 350, Vandal screwed up. Thanks for sending us out here, but they screwed up. They're not smart people. We let Vandal, but you added something wrong here. And then the Lakers are minus 172. Gold State's minus 152. Denver is plus 106. And Houston is plus 114, which is another one that jumped out to me because they're going to have- We know they're the two seed.

They're playing as well as they played all season. And it's 2-7. And I just think they're going to be favored. So if I get them a plus 114, that's great. But I think that whole list, what shocked you the most out of those eight teams? I mean, that's weird now that you bring it up. If Houston is going to be a two seed as an underdog, right? If you're guaranteed, not guaranteed, but looking good, two seed.

Has that happened in a while where a two seed's an underdog? I mean, that jumped out. Every once in a while, they're like Memphis had that year where they were the two seed, but nobody believed in it and there was good value in them. Let's price it, cuz, because let's say it's Houston against Minnesota. Right. They won't be an underdog to Minnesota. It'll be like very close to even odds, don't you think? Right. They'll be a tiny favorite. Because they'll have home court. Yeah, yeah. So right now, Minnesota's seven and Memphis is eight. Mm-hmm.

And Houston's too. Argo will be playing one of those. Golden State has two easy games the next two. It's bizarre. Denver just fired their coach. They've lost four in a row. And they're going to be playing the Kings, the Grizzlies at home, and then at Houston in the last game of the season, which Houston might not care about because they'll have the two seed locked up. So I don't know. I think Minnesota versus Houston, just fundamentally, that's a 2-7 series house.

Where would your money be in that series? I'm definitely betting on Minnesota. There's not two ways about it. I think that's how I feel about it, too. I guarantee you. Because they've screwed us enough. We have this big parlay that needs Minnesota to run the table losing-wise to pay off. And it actually might be over by now because it's Tuesday night. Yeah, so we just want to figure out how much we want our teeth kicked in by Minnesota this year. What would you set that line at? Minnesota, Chicago?

I think House is right. Like Houston only because they're home. But it'd be tiny. Minus 125 or something. So maybe that explains these prices. I guess the problem for Fando and just trying to set these prices in general is if you have one upset, one anything happening. Yeah. Now all of a sudden I have Denver plus 106, but all of a sudden they're in the seventh spot playing Houston. And maybe they'd be favored in that series because of Jokic.

That's a great question. Who would you have favored in Denver-Houston? Yeah, so now you're talking... I think Houston's good. I'd be a little...

I'd bet Minnesota, but I don't think I'd put a lot of money on that one. I saw too many games with Houston where from the eight-minute mark in the fourth quarter to the end of the game, they turn flaccid. Did you see anything? They turned limp. Did you see anything of what Almond Thompson did to Curry in that game, though? It was awesome. Absolutely awesome. I thought that was impressive. He just took out. Now, Curry, the problem with Golden State and why they're going to be so hard to figure out is they're an older team. Right.

Their best three guys are either old or getting old. And they have a situation like they play two really hard Thursday, Friday games. And then they play Sunday against that young, big, powerful Rockets team. And they just looked old. Yeah. But at the same time, I thought the Rockets, they beat OKC and Golden State in the same weekend. They're good. With nothing to play for. And they talk a bunch of shit. They're good. I like it. E-May was talking shit to Steph.

I mean, this just shows me that FanDuel hates Houston. To make them a plus number as a two-seed, most likely, and then we don't have to go on to the next round, but to make the West Finals a plus 470...

Playing the four or five seed. Right. So Houston. Sorry, the three, six seed. And I should have flagged this for you. Houston was plus 790 like five days ago to make the Western Finals. Really? Two seed. They were basically getting eight to one odds. And if you just price that out, they're going to be the favorites are close in both series. Right. Houston's plus 470 now.

I think looking at the odds, the shocking thing to me is how much respect they give the Lakers and how afraid, and I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying the Lakers are being treated almost like they're a defending champ type situation. They're minus 172 to win a round. They're plus 168 to win two rounds. And there's a chance they might, you know, maybe they don't even have home court in round two.

Right. Potentially they couldn't, but it just seems like a lot of respect. That might be respect. That might be different from you saying there just might be a lot of tickets on the Lakers. Like right after that Luka trade, everyone must've just dialed into them and bet them. So they're so scared of that. So there's a lot of liability there.

But I do think for the West finals, all right, OKC minus 290, throw that out of there. If you think Denver's done, you got a nice opportunity to make some money here, picking either the Lakers or Golden State or the Clippers. Well, the problem is if Denver drops to seven out of nowhere. Yeah. And it's Houston versus Denver and a 2-7. I think looking at the odds, the best odds to me seem to be Minnesota to make the West finals. I think the odds have adjusted correctly.

But Minnesota basically 7-1 to make the West Finals to win two rounds. I'm going to... We need to take a break for this podcast so I can go. What? I'll be right back. Oh, to make it back. I got to go make a bed. I thought it was a bathroom thing. It could be both. I could do it in the bathroom. We did eat a lot of pizza today, cuz. I really wanted the clips...

to have better odds because I thought maybe they would be the sleeper pick. But plus 420 to win two rounds, there's no value at all. No, no value. And there might be underdogs both rounds. That doesn't make sense. And if you really wanted to get nuts, do Memphis plus 1550 to win two rounds. That's insane. It's just throwing money away. But there's a chance they could get the seven seed and be in the 2-7, right? Yeah. That would be the case. Memphis, Houston.

that memphis houston would be awesome that would be an awesome series that's two series at plus 450 and plus 300. would that be what they are in the first two series so that's basically what 1550 is so how for that first round the advanced to round two if somehow the clippers are the eight seed and okc's the one seed

and you have OKC at minus 1300 to advance to round two, I would be fucking nervous with that one. Because I think, I don't think the Clips can beat OKC, but I think they can make you nervous if you have a lot of OKC money, right?

Absolutely, positively. I want no part of that. If Kawhi, it seems like I should knock on wood. There's some wood in this house. Some fine marble, I see. But I'm going to knock on some wood because we want Kawhi healthy for the first round. I don't think they're going to drop, though. The Clippers are playing too well, and their last three games are reasonable for them. So here's the real value, though, to make the finals. This is three rounds. OKC's minus 145.

Lakers plus 650. I just don't think that's... They're going to be underdogs in two of those. You have to win three rounds. So this is to win the Western Conference. Yeah. That's the bet. Lakers plus 650, Golden State 7-1, Denver 10-1, Clips 16-1, Minnesota 21-1, Houston 24-1, and Memphis 70-1. So the case for Golden State or the Lakers is this. Other than that, they have famous players and a good infrastructure and all that stuff.

What does your record have to be? What's the worst possible record you could have to make the Western finals? A little math question for you guys. I mean, including the playoff, like all that first three rounds, what's the worst record you could have and still make the finals? Uh, four, three, four, three, five. Yeah. Yeah. 12, nine, 12, 12 and nine. Yeah. Yeah. So if you think of it that way, it's like,

could a team with Luca and LeBron go 12 and nine over 21 games? It's like, yeah, that seems realistic. Could Golden State go 12 and nine for three rounds? And it's like, yeah, they're going to have a game like they had Sunday where they look old. Steph has three points.

Even think of when they played Memphis a couple years ago in 22, and they got blown out in game five, and they just won in game six. When you think about 12-9, it's just not that hard. I like the way you're going with this. We usually look at this at this point of year, like, all right, who's the toughest out? Who's the toughest to beat four times? If you do it that way, 12-9 is doable. Think about the Lakers, like 12-9.

Let's say there's three incredible Luka games. There's three. Let's give LeBron two incredible LeBron games. All right, now I have five. Let's give Reeves...

one awesome game where they win just because Reeves is great. Now I have six of the 12. All right, now let's have a LeBron and Luka are awesome in the same game game. There's two more. You can get to 12 pretty easily. I think you're right. I think those odds are, it's weird because we just said a lot of people might have Lakers tickets, but when we talk about the toughest out,

Oklahoma City is the toughest to beat four times probably, but not six times as tough as the Lakers to beat four times. Well, so here's the case for OKC. Yeah. They're going to finish the season 68 and 14, 67 and 15, and then it becomes math. Right. So...

Over six months, they lost 14 times. And now we're going to get to the playoffs and they're going to lose nine times in 21 games. That's where it gets stupid. This was the case for the Celtics last year. At some point, the math takes over. But OKC did get their ass kicked the other day against the Lakers. And it's like, why did they get their ass kicked? Were they showing anything? Did they call off the dogs or did this actually mean something? I don't know.

Houston seems to be, I would say, most disrespected in the West. I think it's appropriate. I think it's fine. But they're going to be the two seed. Yeah. And they're going to have home court in the first two rounds. True story. 24 to 1 is a good price. The two seed getting the seventh best odds is remarkable. It doesn't make any sense. 24 to 1. Yeah. Yeah. For all three of those categories, Houston's getting ripped. All right, Sal, a couple other things for you. Yeah.

Who do you want Dallas to take with the 12th pick in the draft? Yeah. I want a lineman. I know there's like two. It's just crazy. I know we're going to screw this up. We're doing football now. I know. I kind of love it. We're talking about the Arizona receiver. This is a team that needs everything in my head. Everybody roots for their team. Oh, we need like eight positions. Not you, House. You free agent it every way. No, we need eight defensive positions. Give us a lineman.

I don't know exactly which one is going to drop to us because we lost one of the best in the game. So I was looking at the draft odds. Sadly, it seems like the draft has shook out in a way that's not great for the New England Patriots. Cam Ward's one. Seems like Hunter's going to be two. He's minus 280 now to go to Cleveland.

And then Carter is now minus 170 on FanDuel to be the third pick. Oh, you were really hoping for Shador to sneak in there. And I don't think it's happening. And Sanders, he's four to one to go third. He's 17 to one to go second. And I think the odds are probably better that he's going to fall. There's a team to draft Shador Sanders. Odds that I thought was pretty fun because you can really take it. I mean, Dallas is 26 to one, Sal.

You can take a couple of these. This is like a nice roulette thing, right? We put money on a few numbers. I never get it right though. Well, if people are right and, and I think it feels like as somebody who's watched a lot of this draft stuff and a couple of people have kind of like, eh, I'm not sure you might be closer to Andy Dalton than people realize, but nobody really wants to come out and say, I don't think he's a top five pick. Yeah. He's not good enough. Nobody has come out strongly, but I think that's coming.

And if he does the Aaron Rodgers slide into the late part of round one. Right. And we start going into like, I don't know, Miami range, 27 to one. Sure. Maybe even some before that. Colts 22 to one. Seattle Colts, yeah. Seattle 22 to one. Rams 11 to one. That makes a lot of sense to me, honestly. Steelers plus 450. But it seems like.

There's some sort of value there that we're not seeing. The other thing I was looking at was if the Pats trade back. I think Jenty seems like he's going to have some real juice as the draft gets closer. Raiders are minus 145 for him. They're picking sixth. Mm-hmm.

And if they get scared, somebody's going to leapfrog them. Maybe they just move up two spots with the Pats if the Pats want to take a left tackle. But him going to the Raiders is minus 145. Saints is 9-1. And then your team, Sal, 15-1. It's so funny because I would even look further down because to me it's still like, all right, if these GMs wise enough are running back that early, just even in the first round, but that early,

Should only go to a team that's one piece away from making the playoffs or making a deep run in the playoffs. I'm sorry. That's not your team. That's not the Raiders. Probably not the Bears. The only case for my team, for sure. But the only case for my team is if they're like, this is a Peyton Manning, Edge James situation. We'll have our two guys. We won't be able to block for either of them. But we have with this is an Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman. Like there's there's a model here for this.

I'm like, I'm pretty consistent with this. Like if you're picking that high, I need to get somebody that in free agency in four to five years is going to be like a $30 million a year guy. And running backs don't make that much, you know? Yeah. Tackles do. Cornerbacks do. Pass rushers do.

And I just feel like if you're picking that high, even if they took Mason Graham, it's like that's a guy that will, if he's good, will be like a $25 to $30 million a year player. A running back will not. But once you're in the range you're in, it starts to get more interesting. Then you're in that Jameer Gibbs range. Right. Yeah. I don't think, you know, I think you've got your player that everyone needs to be excited about. And that's a coach. The Pets.

Yeah, yeah. It's your coach. So now you don't have to, you know, kowtow to the fans. You can draft smart and go back to drafting smart like you do. I mean, I think like Denver at 75 to one, like kind of one-ish piece away from doing that, you know. Running back. Well, they did running back by committee. Yeah. And it was not very successful. Right. Exactly. So that makes sense. I like that price a lot. The Dallas Cowboys are seven to one to take a running back.

To take a running back first. Plus to take a running back first. Plus 230 to take a receiver. Yeah, you can do that. Fando has all these positions. It's a lot of fun. The kid from North Carolina has been getting a ton of buzz. And they're starting to do this thing about, you know, is this a B. John Robinson, Jameer Gibbs kind of year? What position do you think Washington will take?

I pray edge. I pray one of the guys that they like at edge. That's plus 170 on Fandle. Makes perfect sense, right? Yeah. That's the lowest odds for the position. Yeah. The one that they don't have yet that I think they should have is who's going to be the second quarterback drafted.

Yeah, they usually do. Because Dart versus Sanders is a really fun one. Ooh. Because couldn't you see the Saints just taking Dart ninth out of nowhere? Like, whoa! Right, right, right. Yeah. Like one of those? Yeah, for sure. And Dart, like, it's so funny because now we see how many people show up or

Everybody reports on how many giants showed up for Shador Sanders pro day. You know, it's like 37 giants over 14 players and three front office guys. It ends up being like ratings for this. And that affects the odds. Like how many, you know, so that's why people think, but yeah, the same thing for, uh, for what you're saying here. I could see it. Well, speaking of affecting the ads, uh,

you know, Fando there, they've been an awesome partner to us that they're the reason we're here at the masters right now. And occasionally I'll, I'll text them and badger them and make them do props and stuff, including some golf ones that we're going to talk about in one second. But, uh,

I made them do an exact order bet. This is my dream scenario for the Pats, which was Cam Ward, Sanders, Hunter. We get Abdul Carter fourth. So they put that up. They priced it. They had their trading desk priced it. And it's plus 750 for that foursome. This was two weeks ago.

It's now 17 to one. Did you make them change it? No, they're just dropping their, their increase of the odds. Cause what happened? Did they, they send in some tariffs? No buyers. It was their endorse to enters. Tariff wasn't a, did not turn out. Kill the market. Wow. What is it? What happened that made that go out that aside from the, I think what happened is Sanders, it became clear he wasn't going to go two or three. Okay. But, um,

For the top five pick bet was the other one I was looking at. Yeah. And Mason Graham is minus 140. And I just don't see how he falls past Jacksonville at five. Okay. Either somebody, either the Pats take him, which I'd be fine with because then they would have an awesome D-line with hopefully Barmore's healthy. Guy they signed from Philly they spent a lot of money on. And Graham, that sounds great. Let's have an awesome D-line. Or Jacksonville takes him. But that's minus 140. Yeah.

It seems like good odds. It gets a little scarier after that. Will Campbell, the left tackle, everyone thinks the Pats are going to take. I just don't think they take him at four. I think they trade back a couple spots if they're taking him because nobody else is going to take him. Is the NFL draft or the mock draft the biggest, all right, we're full of shit, but you have no choice but to follow us? No, I honestly, I think it's like the Denver, the Malone draft.

Boo thing. I think there's so much scuttlebutt. And I think they talk to so many people. And I think these guys get real info. They end up six out of 32. And if there's one trade, it screws everything up. No, but I'm saying info about who's kind of... Who's looking for what? By now, we know if Sanders is going to be a top four pick or not. He's just not. It's not happening. Right. All right. So maybe if you could... So we know stuff like that. You could outline the top three or four. But after that... We know Cam Ward. Tennessee's taking him. We've done that for...

A little while. Yeah. No, I'm just saying Joe Lenardi goes 67 to 68 and gets death threats. And then everybody else like Kuiper goes seven for 32. It's like, yeah, great job. All right. Well, because the NFL has teams like Atlanta who draft Michael Penix Jr. Right. Number nine. Right. Right. Yeah. Everything gets like, no, like, Hey, I'm zagging. Pretty good pick.

No, but that's what I'm saying. Michael Pettis might be the first pick in this draft. It's a great pick if you don't care about money. If you just don't care about money. I'm just saying, don't bet minus 170 on anything. Because I think that's great advice. Absolutely. With that said...

But Jenty plus 850, I think, is a really interesting bet. For where? For top five pick. Ooh. Nah, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. You can't have a running back at top five. If he's Bijan Barkley that level and everybody thinks that, and people think the Raiders are going to take him at six and they want to leapfrog him and get to four or five to take him, that's the path. Plus 850 seems like pretty good odds for that. That is a Raiders move.

That would be fun. Get the hell out of there. So you like that one? Would Tom Brady permit that? Yeah. Did any of the, since we did the NFL over under pods,

And we, so we did the, uh, Sal and I did that. I listened. And we told, we told house. Yeah. Here's the Niners price. And you would have thought I told house Trump's about to do tariffs. Assume all these short positions. I haven't heard house that excited about a win total. Probably my life. Stay the same.

No. It's down. Oh, it's still 10 and a half, but there's minus 135 juice now. That's still not a bad price. I held, you know, I caught my breath and I thought about it. Yeah. And I don't think they're very good. And I think they're going to have with this huge overhaul, it's not going to be the same team we're looking at and everything. But I thought about it and I was like, and I still don't think they should be favored to win the division. But I said,

Boy, if you had your choice of being in any division with any schedule, you would want to play a fourth-place schedule and against the AFC South and the NFC South. And that's what they're doing. They do have the easiest schedule, as we sit here today. We haven't seen what the rest situation and all that is and how it will affect it. But...

I don't know who's on that team. I don't know what the skill positions are. You took everybody from their team. It's Brock Purdy and it's Trent Williams and it's McCaffrey on how many, on half a leg, on one leg? One leg? Does he even have one leg anymore? It's Fred Warner.

play defense you know that's it we're gonna do some master stuff yeah before we do the draft we're gonna do we have a bunch of ringer specials that are on the FanDuel sportsbook right now including house's frog frenzy region parlay yeah which is Matsuyama top Asian

And McElroy top UK plus 460. Why is it the Frog Frenzy House? Because those guys are teammates. They're teammates on the Boston Common. Oh,

uh tgl team the ball frogs and uh you might be the only person that knows this hideki hideki i think played in like half a mile i don't i don't remember seeing him so we're very good explanation on so many different ways frog frenzy i that's it i thought you were gonna get canceled for a second i thought something horrible no no no it's like why did he frog i explained it when when i put it in there gotta

Anytime you have the ball frogs as a potential parlay, you got to do it. So, House, you have Justin Thomas winning the Masters. I do. What's the case? In the first place. By the way, 22 to 1. So that's the most important aspect of this. I think it's a great price for where he is in terms of his success this year.

His biggest problem over this drought, this winning drought that he's in, he hasn't won in over two years, has been putting. He putted very poorly last season. His putting has greatly improved. And his numbers, he's been competitive. I mean, he choked down the stretch two weeks ago in Tampa, Florida. He had a three-stroke lead, gone down the stretch.

going into the final five holes and lost to Victor Holland, who birdied two of the last three. So, I mean, it was a sensible loss. But I love where JT is in terms of his off-the-tee numbers. I love where he is in terms of approach. And the key thing for me is the price because I don't think you're getting any return on Scotty Scheffler or Roy McIlroy. And I will pivot immediately if one of those guys comes out and shoots 66 on Thursday because

But JT at 22 to one doesn't match up with the caliber and quality of his play thus far this season. So that's why I did it. And then Sal, you jumped on Morikawa, a bandwagon. Why is that? He's a bandwagon. I haven't heard anyone else take him. Bandwagon pick. Oh, so many people. Really? I love it. 16 to one on Fando. What was your case? Fourth in the world.

Came in third last year. He's came in 10th the year before, came in fifth in 2022. He's never missed a master's cut. So, you know, you're going to see him Saturday, Sunday. He's going to be on the board. I think people are down on him because of that outburst with house. You say that's not even an outburst. No. Blew a three stroke lead with five left in the Arnold Palmer. Yeah. Last month. And he wouldn't talk to the press. He gives a crap. Don't talk to me. I'll talk to you when I win here. No, he didn't talk to the press because he was waiting for the winner to finish last

And he was waiting and he was waiting and he was waiting. And the tour never got him and said, come, you know, here's how we're going to sequence this. He just left. Very misunderstood. He signed all these autographs. Tour apologist Joe Hess. I'm a Morikawa stan. He finished in ties in the top 20 in all four majors last year. I think he's a great bet. I have some Morikawa exposure. I just love the price for JT. That's the reason that I went with JT. We did hit one bet already at the Masters. What's that?

That we'd run into Scott Van Pelt and he would take us to the Butler Cabin and we would get a group photo. Yeah. Which I put on my Instagram. That was nice. That was like... The Butler Cabin. I haven't seen House that excited. Probably... I'm trying to think of a scenario where you would have the look on your face that you had. And I think it involves the word free massage. I won't go there. It was stunning. I'm not... I can't overstate how...

Like the set of the sequence of events. First of all, having eight seconds, we walked all the way up 10 to get to the top of the hill to where they're all the social scene is happening. The media people, all that happens at the putting green or where one and 10 come together. It's a big scene. Kudos to Nathan Hubbard, who's asleep right now because he had 14 pieces of pizza. But he, he was like, let's go up there. We'll run into someone.

It's a good call. We're running to somebody. But we had to stop halfway up because the Cousin Sal has never walked up 10. It's hard. It's a real walk. Forgot. It was like the Denver Nuggets bench with all the rookies. We forgot that Sal was a rookie and didn't realize we're just going uphill for an hour. Ridiculous walker by eating pizza and oysters. That's how I dream. But we went. The sequence of events went from that moment. Yeah. And then we're up there. And then I was like, hey.

But you know, there's SBP. Baby doll takes charge. It goes right up. He knows me. He knows me. He's going to fucking love this. Yeah. SBP. Good job. Baby doll only got scolded three times for smoking. For smoking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, we ran an SVP, saw the Butler cabin, which was about the size of the room we're in now almost. It's weird. It's small. But cool brick fireplace. Amazing. Really, it's a TV studio. It is completely like floor to ceiling outfit for perfect TV for video audio. It's like walking into a proper studio where you guys know how to do TV shows.

I was surprised by that aspect of it. Yeah, it's like there'd be a Ringer studio right outside Small World Ride in Disneyland. It's like, why is this here? It's also always fun to run into Van Pelt because he's gigantic. He's so tall. He's 6'5". You always forget how tall he is and just famous. What a homie. Great guy. My Masters winner is Rory McIlroy at plus 650. I always make fun of you for being sentimental about Rory. You do. You do.

Somebody that drove us around a little bit the last two days, Matt, who we've been fortunate enough to get to know a little bit. And he had some Rory intel about Rory was kind of popping back here and play the course and just making a couple extra trips. Yeah, Gus, the native Matt. Yeah. Keeping his eye on things for us. Just that Rory seemed especially focused this year. And I just like the moment. I mean, he's running out of time, you know, from a...

He's in his extended prime now, I would say. I don't think there's a lot more years where he's in the mix like this as a favorite. And this feels like to me, like if it's going to happen, it's going to be like, got to be like this year or next year. So that's interesting because-

We are in this era where we see athletes, you know, extend their career. And he has been very fortunate in terms of avoiding injury. He does seem like with his swing, he's been able to get more out of it. He hits the ball even further than ever in his 30s. And he doesn't have these injuries that pop up that much.

So I think there's a window of time that I would say it's at least like five years. But your point is right. There is not a long history of Masters winners, you know, once you hit age 35. If he could avoid injury like he avoided Babydoll today. So 35, four years left? I would give him like six or seven. I mean, remember, when we get in our 40s, are we still in your prime at this point in golf?

I mean... So basically he's got the 2020s left? Tiger 1 in 2019. He's got some time. I'm not ready. This is the moment, though. This is a crucial moment. It's not going to be any better because he's never come into a Masters having won twice on American soil, and his numbers are through the roof in terms of the quality of his... Look, in our defense, House and I bet golf every weekend, and we've had money on Rory blowing round four a lot, right? I mean, that's...

That's the hesitation. 36 years old, Rory. Yeah. So, I don't know. We're around when it should happen again pretty soon. It would be great. I'm rooting for it. I'll live bet it if he comes out. His biggest problem has been Thursday. He hasn't scored well on Thursday. Is he the number one player or team you've live bet the most? Oh, wow. And then I'll ask Sal. I think for Sal, it's the Chiefs.

It might be Alex Pereira, but it's funny. We discussed this on Against All Odds. If you had to assign a point value from 1 to 100 on guys and teams that you bet on the most. Pereira, McElroy, Chestnut.

I think mine are the Brady Pats. Oh, that's a good one. Like halftime bets, stuff like that. Oh, yeah. Just like, we're fucking badass. We're coming back. Man, I miss those days. Yeah. All right. We're going to take a break and come back and do a little master's draft. All right. For this last segment, I always make fun of NFL pregame shows when they have too many people on. And we're about to have a six-person segment. But we only have four mics, so I think it's going to work well. Dave Chang joined us. Hello, hello. Nathan Hubbard joined us. Hello.

And James Babydoll Dixon is here. Yo, Babydoll. So glad to be here with you guys. We have never been at the Masters together. No, we have not. Never been in the Masters with Sal. I've been with Chang. I've been with Nathan. I've been with House. Obviously, who no longer has a mic. Maybe that's a good thing. You guys don't need to share the mic. We're going to bring Chang in. But I want to share the mic. Well, Chang has a bum shoulder. He's got like a separated shoulder. They surgically removed his shoulder. Now he's leaning on his left side here.

I just want to make you as uncomfortable as possible. Okay. And he's also like cooking like a wild man with this really bad shoulder. It's impressive. Yeah. He's playing hurt. He's an inspiration to all of us and to everybody except Tiger Woods, who's not here. But there's a lot of good golfers here. Nathan, we didn't talk about, we both picked Rory to win this Masters. Yeah, we did. What was your case quickly? He, 10 years ago,

got 60% of his shots gained from off the tee. Last year, 51%. This year, only 37%. And he is still first in driving, which is to say the rest of his game has gotten way, way better. See, that was much better and much smarter and more stat-driven than my take, which is like more... Rory's now hitting his mid-late 30s. And the vibes are good. If it's ever going to happen, it's happening right now. And Matt, our guy, told us that he's been here a couple times. That was my case. Plus 650.

We're going to do a draft. You didn't trust Matt with your phone, but you do with the master's pick, huh? No, I wanted to put my phone. I like getting my phone from the pub house. We all left our phones with Matt. I don't know where Matt's going to go. What if his car gets stolen? Okay. We're doing this draft and FanDuel is going to put odds on it. And we are going to do a Thursday, Friday draft. The 48-hour frenzy, I think we're calling this. Each of us are going to be two golfers.

lowest score wins and people can bet on this on FanDuel Sportsbook. So if you like my pair more than everyone else's pair, put some odds on it. You don't have a mic. You can't talk. You talk when I talk to you. You sound like Alec Baldwin's wife. You're sharing baby's mic. Do you have something to say?

No. You did the Justin Timberlake, Barry Gipshia. Hold on. Can I just say, we haven't figured out what the booby prize is, but whoever comes in last has to do something stupid. Something humiliating. Yeah. Something humiliating Friday. Yeah. I think you have to mix all of the sandwiches on the, on the course. Oh, that's pretty good. And then eat them. Egg salad, pork. Great idea. I think I might've done that anyway today, but that's fine. Okay.

All right, let's do the draft and then we're going to interrogate baby on some stuff. Chang, I'm going to give you the first pick of anyone for Thursday, Friday. So it's not to win the tournament. Just who do you think is going to be the leader Thursday and Friday or have a really good score? Well, I know you guys are choosing Rory, but I'm going to go with Scotty Schaffler. Number one pick. I don't think he's going to win, but for the first two days, yes. That's my pick.

Okay. Make a case for Sheffield. I don't see. Where's this guy coming from? All right. That's good. And it's the lowest combined score, right? Yeah. So you have second pick. All right. Well, I did, you know, the last half hour, I said Colin Maracal. I've not wavered from that pick. I like him. What are his numbers?

Third last year, 10th the year before, fifth in 2022. Never misses a Masters cut. We had a buddy who said he had lunch with him yesterday. Delightful fella. Dead set on winning this thing. Welcome to Team Sal. Is that like a name drop? But it was like a mystery name drop. It's a mystery name drop. All right, Nathan, you go third. Give me Rory McIlroy. It's his time.

It's his time. That was my terrible take. It's a bad take because Rory has struggled on Thursdays. Yeah, that's the one. And that's really the narrative of this tournament. If he plays Thursday well, he's going to win this golf. Thursday and Friday. Fair enough. Baby, you get to go fourth. Who's your pick? I'm doing the Swede. Aberg. Ludwig? Ludwig Aberg.

It's kind of Oberg, isn't it? It's Oberg. I don't think if he wins, he shouldn't get credit for that. Wait, it's freaking Swedish. Oberg, A-Berg, Tato, Tato. It gives you shit. It starts with an A with that little dot over it. We're not supposed to follow this. All right. I'm going fifth, and I'm taking Beefy Bryson, Bryson DeChamber with my fifth pick. All right.

All right, house, you get to hold the mic down. You get two straight picks. Great. I'll take John Rom. Oh, and I'll take Justin Thomas. Okay. You got the best spot in the draft. John Rom, um, is a complete wild card because he plays on the live tour. Now he hasn't finished worse than six than any of his live events for the most part. Um,

But I like him this year as opposed to last year. He had a tide for 45th last year as the defending champion. And he was in disarray. His game was in disarray. His life was in disarray. He's calm now. Nathan gave me a very fine report of how he conducted himself at the press conference. He is poised. He's ready. He's locked in. I like that he played Doral last week.

Tough golf course. Played well. You know, ready for a major. And then Justin Thomas is my pick to win this golf tournament because I love the odds of 22 to 1. But Thomas has been gaining strokes on approach for about nine months now. And the key with Justin Thomas is that his putting has greatly improved. Now he is playing with a new caddy for the Masters.

I hope it's the guy that Ben Crenshaw used. We're on the 30th anniversary of Ben Crenshaw winning a 95. If he has that guy, you might have a chance, but I don't love the idea of a new caddy. Why is that? Why do people not like a new caddy? Everybody gets...

the sours on a player who has a new caddy. I think the caddy's actually dead, but... Oh, yeah. Crenshaw's caddy? Yeah. All right. R.I.P. Well, then he had to change caddies. All right. I'm up. I'm taking Zander. God. Wow. Steady pick. Best guy on the board. Wow. Big year last year for him. Maybe it'll continue at the Masters. So, House has Rahm and Thomas. I have Beefy Bryson and Zander as my two. Baby, you're up. I'm going with...

Say it right. Always. This one's easy. I'm going with Kepka as my second pick. Aberg played so impressively last year. Aberg or Oberg? Both of them played so impressively. Just call him Bergy. Bergy. Ludwig, he hits the ball a country mile, number one.

He's got the short game. He finished, I believe, second last year, if I'm not mistaken. And I think he's one of the absolute future stars of the tour and will win many majors in his career. Kepka. Listen, I love on this podcast when people suck up to the Swedes. Yeah, right. In general. No, but he's always a threat in the majors. He's had a very good recent history, Kepka, in the Masters.

I am not sure where his game is because I don't watch live, but I feel like he's always looming and could be a threat this, this week. All right. We got a lot of live guys already. Yeah. Yeah. Nathan, you're up. You have Rory and who? God, this is a tough one.

Because the money says you should take Joaquin Neiman here, but I just don't trust him based on the way that he played at Live last week. So I'm going to go totally off reservation and go Shane Lowry.

There's a small select group of guys who can actually win this golf tournament, and it's people who come in with great ball striking. And Shane Lowry is coming in with great ball striking, and he generally starts these tournaments decently well. So let's see how he does. All right. Speaking of great ball striking, Cousins of Europe. Hey, now. I'm going with the shaggy dog, Cam Smith. Taking him right there. Ninth last year. Top 10 in five of the last seven Masters.

and never missed a Masters cut, which means he's going to have a nice score on Friday, by Friday. And, and, he shaved the mullet. He shaved the mullet. That worries me. Mullet or not, here we come. Welcome to Team South, Hans Smith. Dave Chang, you have the last pick. Um,

So I asked our good friend, Chad GPT, to help me on this. And I asked, what if you were Cousin Sal, but successful at betting, especially when it comes to the Masters? And what would be the best long shot?

I sort of did. And it also helped me with alliteration. So we got Scotty Scheffler and we're going to Sepp Straka. Oh, nice. Who finished 16th last year. We saw him today. Great approach shots. He looked good. And I'm trying to make Cousin Sal look good. Okay, good. Good luck with that. I mean, that might be tougher than actually winning. All right. So here's who we have. Chang has Scotty and Straka. Sal has Morikawa and Cam Smith. Nathan has Rory and Lowry.

Baby has Bergie and Koepka. Yes. I have Bryson and Xander and house has Rahm and Thomas. Fan duel at some point tomorrow, we'll have odds on all of these pairings with our names and people can bet on this for Thursday, Friday. And I'm getting all the info from them who got bet on the most, all that. So I really want to have the most bets. You do. Yeah. You're going to get that. People like you. I think now I, I,

Looking at this, I think House is going to have the most bets.

Rahm and Thomas. Yeah, I think House will have the most action, which makes House public, which means he's not going to win. They're public. So there we go. That's it for our big draft. Check it out. I think we're calling it Ringer 48-hour frenzy. What do you want to call it? I think that's good. Yeah. And then we might do, we were talking about maybe something with the 16th hole number of people that hit the water. Oh, the Ringer rinse. The Ringer rinse Thursday, Friday.

Something like that. Good times. That's where we go. All right. We're going to take one more break and then come back with some more master stories. And now for a special part of today's show, Forward Thinkers of the Game brought to you by Workday, in which we discuss the players who brought something fresh to the court. When you're a forward thinker, the only thing you're afraid of is business as usual. And Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage people and money today so you can transform tomorrow.

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players like Caitlin Clark. It all basically starts with Steph when his career really starts taking off with the Warriors in 2013 and 14, and it changed the geometry of basketball. So that's one example. Anyway,

You can learn more about how Workday is changing everything at Workday.com. All right. Now it's just the four of us. Nathan and House have Fairway Rolling. They're taping tomorrow. They're doing their big master's preview. So I want people to listen to that. What you can't get on Fairway Rolling is what it was like to walk the course with baby today. What a day. What a day. So-

Was it fun? It was a lot of fun. It really was. I had a great time with you guys. I really did. Yeah, because you wouldn't shut up. You talked about your shot and your shoulder and your strokes and how you were as a 25-year-old golfer. I really was. You're right. The walking would have been easier. But, you know, I do like talking golf with house. Yeah. Because we're...

I think we have a very similar handicap and also a somewhat similar passion for the game. He was listening more than talking. He was very intently listening. No, no, I don't think he was intently. Listen, this was a real highlight of my day because I didn't know that you were such a golf lunatic. Oh, I'm a lunatic. And number two, I kept on walking in front of you guys with Sally here, and I kept on telling Sally, I was like,

This is insane. Yeah. Because you spoke nonstop, relentlessly. This is not a compliment, baby. Describe your entire golf history of how far you would hit every club in your bag at different ages of your life. I did. It was like the evolution, you know, the evolution of my game from age 12 to 60. It was like a sports documentary narrative series. Right.

that nobody signed up for. I didn't mean to annoy you guys with it. I just get so excited when I... You're getting upset now. No, I'm not upset. I just... When I walk those hollowed grounds, I just... I get like this energy about it. I just... I can't help myself. I'm like obsessed. How do you know that House was enjoying listening to this? I think House was. I think House really loves listening to anyone talk about golf. You gotta give him a break tomorrow. All right, tomorrow... I'll walk with you guys tomorrow.

Well, here's the thing. It's hard to keep up with Simmons on the course. You can't keep up with Simmons, so it's got to be someone else. His pace is very brisk. But he's talking about his golf game and everything, and this would go for 40 minutes, and then we'd get a break from baby. Like, oh, thank God. We don't have to listen to the golf talk. He'd go to the bathroom where he'd go to smoke somewhere, or he'd go to the fucking pro shop for the fourth time in a day, and then he'd keep us waiting for four. So half our day was spent waiting for baby.

Right. Well, I only dropped what? 4K today. That wasn't bad. It's right around the over under. Well, so Sal, baby does this thing where he's convinced everybody who's ever met him. Oh, yeah. Knows who he is. Most famously when he accosted Oprah Winfrey in Jimmy's dressing room. Right. And did Oprah, Oprah, you remember me? You remember me? And she didn't. And then he's like, no, Oprah, you remember me. Right.

And it's a famous story. So we were wondering if he would do that today in the golf course. And you take it from here. There were a couple, right? It was Cam Smith who's on my team. Yes. And because it was a Wake Forest connection, your daughter went to Wake Forest. Yes, two of my daughters did, yes. And he was eating a banana after his tee shot. And what'd you do? Well, so can I give background? So 17, and he's like, I'm going to,

I'm going to get Cam Smith's attention. Yes. Yeah. With the Wake Forest thing. Yes. And we're like, baby, definitely don't do that. He's doing a practice round. He's trying to figure out distances. He's not going to acknowledge you. No, no, no. I think I can get him. Yes. So he's walking by eating a banana. And what happens? Cam, Cam, Wake Forest.

Wait, oh, I said, first I said, Cam, we're rooting for you. We're rooting for you. Best of luck this week. Didn't look up from peeling his banana. Working on the banana, right. And as I said, as I said, Wake Forest guy, Wake Forest connection. He continued to peel the banana and stick it in his mouth and look the other way. He seemed like he paused for a split second. Yeah. Yeah, but he at least might have paused and then there was a follow up.

Well, so then there was another one that I thought was a better one. So they're Rory McIlroy. Chang, how dubious were you of this? When Baby said, I can get Rory to come over on the 18th. I can't express how I felt about...

truly because I didn't know I'd feel embarrassment on that hole because you said you were going to do it and I didn't think you were going to do it with Cam, but you did. And it was embarrassing, quite frankly, for you. Yeah. And us, because we were there. I wasn't embarrassed at all. I was delighted. He'd be lucky to know me. Now I knew you weren't joking that you were really going to...

Talk to Rory because you have had interactions. I have had multiple interactions with him. Not today. I don't want to say we're neighbors at the Bears Club, but we're neighbors at the Bears Club. So you position yourself. He's always been a wonderful guy to me and very kind. He's a gentleman. Can we? All that.

Can we unwind that for a second? Yes. I don't want to say I'm neighbors with him at the Bears Club, but I'm neighbors with him at the Bears Club. Yeah, because it sounds so ridiculous. His house is so incredibly beautiful. But does that mean you're neighbors with him at the Bears Club? I mean, he's around the corner. Yeah, there's only 80 houses. Sounds like neighbor. He's kind of a neighbor. That doesn't mean he knows you. No.

I didn't say he knows me well, but he know, he know, he, he doesn't know me well, but when he sees me, he knows who I am. How's that? So that bears clubhouse, that was like the fourth Colbert extension. Like when you try to, when you try to sign the fees to the houses, the Simmons wing, what are you complaining about?

Cousin Sal's my outdoor grill. Come on. That just means you're a shitty agent. So, go ahead. Who is he playing with? I can't remember. Amateur, I believe. And he hits a bomb of a drive on 18. And to Bill's credit, he got us to look at

how narrow and how stressful it is to actually play 18. The TV doesn't really do it justice. There's like five things you kind of have to see at the Masters. And one of them is you have to stand behind the 18 tee to see how hard that is to just thread the needle with the amount of pressure that you might be facing on 18. It's like, it's easy to share. It's like dead uphill. Giant, giant trap.

Only really one spot to hit it and 19 things can go wrong. Not to mention all the people lined up that you feel like. And it's 18. Yeah. And Roy bombs his drive right down the middle, 300 plus. And, you know,

You say you're going to talk to Rory and you have like this prime spot as he's going to walk past. Yes. And I had to turn my back to you. We backed off and gave him. We backed off. Like it was a yo mama fight or something. Let me give you some space, baby. I just couldn't see this car crash. So, Sal, do you want to reenact what baby said? But here's the other side of it.

Imagine if he came over, how great that fucking moment would have been, right? Wouldn't that have been cool? But what did you say? You said, Rory, Rory, baby doll. Yes, I did. That was it. It was just three words. That's exactly what happened.

And he heard real, he didn't, not only didn't he stop, I think he sped up when he heard baby doll. He cracked a little smile. I don't know. Maybe I'm imagining it. Like, oh, this is my prison cellmate from 750. So you were hoping. I had just, in my defense, he wins the players two weeks ago or three, how many weeks ago was that? Three weeks ago now. And you guys are neighbors. And I saw him in the men's grill.

And I, of course, congratulated him profusely. Like a thousand people did. And he was sitting with Shane Lowry at the table. And I talked to him for a minute and, you know, did the baby doll thing. What is the baby doll thing? I think we saw it today. He calls someone's name and they don't respond. But I thought maybe it was semi-fresh in his mind. So that's why I had...

a modicum of confidence that he was going to like, oh, baby doll. Okay, I'll look, whatever. Didn't work out that way. No. Well, as it turns out, these guys are practice rounding and trying to figure out their shots and the distances on every drive. You picked Rory. The baby doll didn't really trigger him at all. When you've been a little weirded out, you picked Rory. If he like was so unfocused that he did come over. I would have been concerned. I feel like they're actually...

I know they're, but like he's played this tournament, you know, 20 times, 15 times. It's loose out there in these practice rounds. All right. So he just doesn't like you. Yeah, I guess. So 0 for 2 is the legacy. I was 0 for 2. Sal, can you tell the origin? But there's always tomorrow. Can you tell the origin of the Babydoll story? Because you named him Babydoll. I don't think there's much to it other than he says Babydoll. He calls everyone Babydoll. And I thought this was crazy.

And then so I started calling him baby doll. That's exactly right. I mean, it's not fair that he gets to call everyone baby doll. We don't call him baby doll back. That was really it. There's not much to it. You are the...

You are the guy who coined it. But to me, this is like, I don't know why no one did this. I met him 25 years ago. Someone should have done this 40 years ago. True. This is like wheels on luggage. Like, luggage always should have had wheels, right? Yes. Not 1978, 81, right? I like that. I like that metaphor. Well, that's it. You should have been Baby Doll. So you were hoping because everyone calls you Baby Doll and you call everybody Baby Doll. Correct. Correct.

somewhere in Rory's head as he's figuring out the course, how his swing is, the distances that the baby doll would trigger like a Pavlovian response. Yes, I did. And he's like, oh, that guy I really like. Right. Yeah, totally. Isn't that insane of me? But yes, that was what was going through my fucked up mind. I have to say upon reflection,

It's your performance today was inspirational. Oh, I love you, Chang. Thank you. You have to try. Failure is not enough. You just got to try. You don't know what you're going to get. And that's the baby doll magic is just not being afraid. That's it. Is that the Wayne Gretzky quote? You miss 100% of the shots you don't take. That's exactly right. And I know he's a...

He's a really like decent guy. When you, when you talk to him, he's a gentleman beyond belief. And why should we believe you? No, because he just is. And, and like, he's not some, you know, disengaged guy. And, uh, he's, he's always very polite and engaged. And so I thought maybe, and it was relatively recent that we, we bullshitted.

And 0 for 2. What can I say? I tried. But that wasn't really the highlight. Sort of the highlight for me was we were talking to a member of Augusta National, and...

Somehow you just let it be known that you were a board member of Wake Forest right off the bat. Absolutely. Which had nothing to do with the conversation at all. You were so proud of that. Why did I bring that up? No, I'm like, you're right. I did bring it up. I hate to add context to this, but we're talking about the LPGA and Wake Forest Golf. Yes. Thank you for the refresher. Yes. And he was talking about

the ladies amateur being held at Augusta. - Which is picking up steam here. - One of the things I learned today is Baby's very proud to be on the board of Wake Forest. - I am, it's an honor. It really is. It's an amazing institution. - Weren't shy about it. You told the person who made us a pimento cheese sandwich about it. - Pretty much everybody else. - What is it? Your grandkids, your family, Wake Forest board?

Jon Stewart, and then way, way lower all of those other clients. Okay, I'll go with that. Jimmy's like not way down. Oh, yeah, okay. Jimmy's like under Jon Stewart. No, no, Jimmy's of course. But this Wake Forest thing shot to the top. Remember when The Bachelor, Matt James was in there for like

Right, right, right. A year. No, and he was like right there with Stewart. Right. It's like neck and neck. He was gaining. You were dropping his name everywhere. He was gaining, absolutely. Well, hey, you're only the bachelor once, right? There's one more baby doll. There's like so many baby dolls. It's been a true joy getting to spend the day with him. It's only been one day. It's been three days.

It just is amazing. It feels like Christmas. What's this going to be? So you disappeared quite often. You got in trouble for smoking cigarettes. That was also a highlight. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. But the real highlight was you disappeared. And I think amongst the five of us, we're like, what's going on here? Why are you not here? Right. And you come back and we all had to sort of eat crow because you bought us all hats. Yes, I did.

And then it was worth the wait. But funny. Can you decide what happened? Because we waited like a half hour for it, right? And I'm like, what? And we said he needed a hat because the sun was hot. And for some reason, he was scared about skin cancer for once. Yeah. Interesting. And decided to get a hat. No, I actually wanted this exact hat. Is that what it was? Yeah. Because they didn't have it at the Berkman's. He was in the pro shop for like an hour and a half. And then.

40 minutes later, has to shop even more. Yes, I did. Worse than my wife. Yeah, so then he comes out and like Chang says, he starts throwing, he gives us all hats. He's like, yeah, take a hat. He spent like $250 on hats. And we're talking to some fans of Bills. This happened in Bills. A guy smoking comes up, talks to Bills, says hi.

And baby doll. And I don't know how you said it, but you had an extra hat because so many of us had bought hats already 20 minutes before and you throw it at the guy and you're like, here, you're smoking, take a hat. Yeah.

You almost knocked the cigarette out of his mouth. And he's like, you almost hit me in the head. And you're like, well, you got a fucking free hat. Yeah, what are you complaining about? I mean, come on, dude. A little fucking hat hurt your neck? What happened? I think one of the masters is so polite. Yeah. And when people would get mad at baby for smoking in areas that you weren't supposed to smoke in, it wasn't like a...

Sir, you're going to have to put that out. It was more like a disappointed, sir, can you please? Yes, there are smoking areas we could lead you to. Yes, there's a designated smoking area over here. I can escort you. It's like, I just put it out already, okay? You don't need to escort me. I'll be lighting one in about five minutes anyway. Baby, what's the worst, most depressing designated smoking area you've ever smoked in?

Have you smoked in those airport ones where it's like almost your... In Europe where they used to have the... You're almost saying like Andy Dufresne, like solitary confinement. It's literally a smoke chamber. In a coma. Yes, I have smoked in there. Of course. I used to go like say to myself, why don't they have this in America? You know, I love that they have this in London. Smoke chambers? Yeah, smoke chambers. It's like...

They all have pet walking relief areas. Why not have smoking areas? Did you used to smoke like on airplanes, trains, everything? Just going to ask. Absolutely. Really? And did people, did you ever like get in an argument with anybody? You know, not really. No, because it was...

It's legal. Legal. Can you imagine someone lighting up next to you on a plane? Imagine sitting next to baby on a train. Oh my God. You're taking like the Xceler from New York to Boston. He's just like lighting up. But those were- You're like, oh, this cologne. I can't take this for a while. And what the fuck? What is this? A cigarette? What is he doing to me? Those were designated smoking sections. So if you were, all the planes were the worst. I don't even understand that. Not the planes, but like the trains. Yeah.

If you were in a smoking car, you know, not my problem at that point. Right. I mean, that was an amazing era where, because I would take the train back and forth between my mom and my dad. Yeah. And you're going to walk to the cafe car and you just walk through the smoking car and it's just like lung cancer for. Right.

Well, the insane were the planes where one row behind was not smoking. You could smoke pipes, cigars, cigarettes. And if you're one row behind, it's like, this is insane. People would use the actual ashtray in the armrest. Absolutely. I love that freaking...

I love that ashtray. I really did. They had them on the old cars too, remember? But no, wait, you were asking me about- Most depressing smoking places. Depressing? Yeah. Because sometimes the smokers get relegated to the kids' table of life. Yeah, it's not fair. Yeah, I'll tell you, the idea that I could smoke in the office up until like

wasn't even that long by nine by two in 2000 you could smoke in the office so 25 years ago you could even as an assistant sitting in a cubicle in common areas and i used to run like a fan under my desk that just kind of like spread the the the the smoke but uh

Yeah, that was insane to think that you could do that. Now, in New York City, it's 25 feet away from the building. So if you smoke near a building, you often get reprimanded. You've paid a smoking fee in a rental car like 50 times, right? Of course I have. And hotels. Good for you. Baby gets offended if there's some sort of penalty for smoking in a rental car. He just assumes. For the...

For the percentage of how many rental cars I've had that I've smoked in and the times I've been nailed,

I've done very, very well. Chang, what was it like to have a cigarette that your wife probably shouldn't know about with Babydoll last night? You know, every time I see Babydoll, Baby gives me a cigarette and it's just a joyous occasion. I sucked that thing down and it was awesome. Thank you. And you love that I have Marlboro Reds, right? I mean, listen, the only way you'd be cooler is if you smoke filterless cigarettes. Yeah, why don't

Oh, like the Italians? Yeah. Step it up. They get your fingers yellow. That's the problem with them. Otherwise, I kind of like the film. Yeah, baby's enough colors. He doesn't need to have yellow fingers. What is it? You have enough colors going on already. Yeah, I changed my orange fingers. You know, look, they're pretty good for smoking. My fingers be orange. No, like, another thing that happened. It's been total joy. By the way, is he going to come on Thursday night too? We'll probably have a thousand baby dolls. It's going to be the whole podcast. I mean, The Ringer has a great...

podcast about TV shows and White Lotus. Yeah. I think last night I almost pissed my pants because before we all went to bed, we were watching the last episode of season three, White Lotus all over again. And I just couldn't stop laughing because I think that we need to have a alt cast of you. A Manning cast? That's the baby cast? Not sequel work. It's like a rewatchables, but

Yeah. Because you were the only one seeing it live. I'm not sure live would be the best idea. It would need about 16 or 17 hours. But I think it would be good. We watched Last Thing. We'd all seen it, but Baby hadn't seen it. So we watched White Lotus with you. Wild.

I liked when he told the guy to jump at the end. Tim Ratliff is looking out. He's going to make them drink that shit. What the fuck are you trying to kill your kids for? You've been trying to kill yourself for nine episodes. Just fucking jump. Get it over with.

It's like you forgot that we were in the room with you watching. Yes, I did. You were so... I had a few glasses of wine. I was tired from the day. Yeah, there was a lot of strays on the White Lotus cast. Yeah, yeah. Guy talk. You put some chest hair on him during the show. Oh, yeah, Guy talk. Told him to grow a pair. Pussy. Pussy.

I mean, I've never seen a bigger pussy hold a gun. You know? It's like, come on. What other TV are you watching, babe, before we go? Any other favorites? I watched the first two episodes of Mobland. I thought it was amazing. Have you seen Mobland yet? I haven't seen it yet. How about 1923?

Nah, I haven't seen that. A lot of smoking in that show. I loved Mobland. Mobland, okay. Second episode, you know, a lot of setup in episode one. And it's good. Second episode, you see where it's going. It's awesome. Tom Hardy is incredible. Who, for your money, is the best smoker in movies or TV? As an actual smoker, who pulls it off? You mean like in real life? No, no. Who pulls off smoking the best?

I'll tell you, Brad Pitt's pretty good at it. What? Really? Doesn't he smoke in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood? He does, like the turns of the hand. Yeah, I like the way he smokes in it. Damon, we just did Good Will Hunting for Rewatchables, and Damon's really good in that movie. Is he? Okay. And Cole Hauser in that movie. Chris Ryan did a whole thing about how he gets rid of a cigarette, grabs a beer, and waves them for the car all in one motion. Oh, very good. I got to check that out. But De Niro is...

De Niro to me is the goat. De Niro, good fellas. That's the best ever. Okay, fair enough. I'll go with that. Remember the scene when he's sizing up Maury when he decides to kill Maury? Yeah, he's just kind of staring him down, taking a slow drag.

There's been some bad smokers too. Who would be an example? Out of movies we've done of rewatchables, there's a really tough Keanu Reeves hardball scene. Oh, really? He's trying to smoke. He's like a degenerate, but it's clear. You're right, though. But Tom Cruise is the worst. You can tell who the real non-smokers are who have never really smoked in their life or...

just smoking because the character i think kiana's a real smoker though you think yeah he screwed up the hardball thing i don't know he smokes a lot the people like the cruise type of people are always my favorites could you be brought on as a consultant baby he's a great smoker i'm smoking consultant yeah yeah you sure i'd love to like they have doctors for er because i think it kind of is yeah uh

leo leonardo in in uh django unchained yeah playing uh uh candy candy was his last name but i can't remember whatever not a great character but he smoked with that cigarette holder yeah and man he was good at it he was really good at it

I have tried them when I was a kid. They're fucking ridiculous. I mean, I don't even know what that is. It's like, Hey baby, did you ever go through a phase where you rolled your own cigarettes? No, never did. No. Yeah. How could you recreate a Marlboro, a work of fucking art? You know, you know, my old joke tearing up there. No, you know, you know, a lot of joke. Is it offensive? No, not at all. Okay. Not at all. No, baby doll. How much you smoke? I smoke a lot. No, seriously. How much you smoke?

I smoke a lot. No, like seriously, how much do you smoke?

Well, let me put it to you this way. I go through two lighters a day. There you go. That was a Bill Hicks line that I adopted. Oh, you just said that's your joke. No, well, I adopted it. May he rest in peace. But it does get people off. When you do that joke, they stop asking how much you smoke. It just diffuses the whole thing. I'm not going to stop. We asked you yesterday, what celebrity did you have the most cigarettes with over the last 35 years in your life?

Dennis Lurie's name came up. Bill Hicks. He was up there. Hicks was up there. Who else? Who was the one we decided? Chappelle. Chappelle. Tons of cigarettes with Chappelle. I mean, Chappelle is one of the all-time. He's the greatest smoker of this generation. Better smoker or comedian? Oh, wow.

Right. I mean, I, I'm going to go with comedian because that's a real talent and he's, he's, don't sell yourself. Sure. But what I love about Chappelle is he smokes everywhere. He goes, it doesn't matter. Hotel rooms,

wherever lobbies of hotels studio 8H on SNL it doesn't matter if it's a fire zone he's always smoking comedy clubs you're not supposed to smoke in there anymore he's got a cigarette going everywhere and

May God have mercy on the soul of anybody who tells him, put that cigarette out. And you've actually spent real time with Ship House. So if you did the ship, Dave, Dave, it's baby doll. He would actually stop and come over. Oh, come on, yo. He'd come over for, yeah, no, Dave, I've known since. I think you should have thrown a hat at Rory like you did that other guy. Maybe he would have gotten his attention that way. Don't give me ideas tomorrow. There's always tomorrow. Baby, before we go, what is your single favorite thing about Augusta?

and try to turn toward these guys. So you're on the camera at least a little bit. I'm just getting beside the baby sand for 20 minutes. I have no idea. I don't know how to tell it. Hold on. Let me think for a second because I love so much of it. I'll talk to Chang about it as you, for some reason, think of your answer for two minutes. Chang, what's your favorite thing about Augusta?

Because you're like a naturally kind of pessimistic guy. Yeah. We've been friends for a long time. This place is really where I'm like happy. Yeah, this place really. You said a whole thing in the car on the way to the course about how incredible Augusta and the operation and the whole thing. You've kind of been inside the gates. I'm one of the, maybe the only person that's ever had behind the scenes access because I filmed some stuff in 2019 when Tiger won.

And I think that it's number one, the best sporting event you can go to in America. Yes. It's the best run operation. 100%. Business or anything. Otherwise, maybe out there. It's flawless. Everything is done with intention and it's executed at a high level. Yes. And I think it's just...

I'm happy here. I just am, and I'm not normally, as Bill knows. I'm right with you. I mean, it's golf heaven when you step on that course. It's like no other course. But you don't even have to like golf to appreciate it. No, you don't. You don't, but if you love golf like we do, it's just so unique. It's such a different... Everything about it is so...

It's like if he died and went to heaven and that was, that was like field of dreams, cornfield. It really, it is that. And, uh, and also like, I just love being around anything golf. And that is kind of the, this is the, the, the cradle and apex of golf and golf fans. And it's just my whole vibe, you know? Uh, I love it. I was thinking, cause I was thinking about it today. Cause I'd been to, uh, I went to the U S open, uh,

I went to a couple of golf tournaments in the last couple of years. Sure, sure. And all these other courses, like basically every other course that has a tournament, they're also, the tournament comes in and out. It's the courses and built for the tournament. It's built for 52 weeks a year of having members. And then they kind of shoehorn the tournament into it. And there'll be porta potties and weird cart paths and the parking's weird and things are disjointed. All this place cares about is this week.

Right. I mean, they have other stuff. They have the members and all that stuff, but it's all like a long game for this one week. And every single thing has to be perfect for the moment you show up to when you walk toward the thing, you go through the gates, every single thing you see, they've really put thought into. And I just, I appreciate that. I think it was like a combination that has an immaculate feel of Disneyland and like central park. And there's like you said, and I think it's because they're not different events moving in and out.

There's no wasted space. Forget about the greens. You turn a corner and you're going to see a shade of green you've never seen before. That's great too. But even the pathways and everything like you're talking about, it doesn't seem like there's any wasted space. It's all beautiful. Well, and then we talk about this every time we come, but the no phone thing is actually a real advantage. Even Sal, we were worried about Sal. I think I did okay. Sal had withdrawal for the first like two hours. You did. Well, I went to my pocket like seven times in the first half hour. Yeah, you really were like jonesing for that phone. And then I felt like...

you know, it was a little like a little white lotusy when Saxon starts reading halfway through the season. Right. And it's like, maybe there's more. Interesting. Maybe that, maybe that's funny. Maybe I can test myself. Yeah. And it's like, you were like, maybe I don't have to try to figure out how to bet on this practice. Right. You're right. Like, just kind of like,

acclimate yourself to where you were and like accept it and then go okay i'm i'm it helped that we were all talking to each other making each other laugh it's like when someone's sick and they're gonna vomit you're like all right if you talk to this person enough they're not gonna get mad at it i don't have to focus on it but chang were you disappointed sal to need more what are you taught what number one on the course i mean on the course but for those that don't know sal

is not a big drinker. Right. And the fact that he started the day with the Bloody Mary, I was like, this is an auspicious sign. It's going to be a good week. Number one. Two, he ate a lot of food. Thank you. It was disgusting. Thank you. And then he hit the course. Yeah.

You ate a pimento cheese sandwich and I knew you were full. I knew you were disgustingly full, but you still waltzed it down. I was like, this guy is bringing your A game. For about $50, he's not wasting that. People need to know the food here is amazing. It's affordable. You could buy 12 beers for $12. Where could you do that anywhere else? It's only $3,000 to get in, but then they give for cheese and one to bread. That's what makes the master so different. Touch on what you said, Bill, which is

you know, it's the only, obviously the only major that's always in the same location. Right. So that alone sets it apart from all the other majors and,

Like everyone's just so fucking happy to be there. Yeah. Because it is expensive and you have to, you know, get to it. And like it's it's a bucket list place that at least half those people, at least half are there for the first time. And everybody's just like, holy shit. Pinch me. I did it.

Well, listen, all I'll have to say is, as the great Terry Coon said in White Lotus, I'm happy to have a seat at the table. But I am going to make a mess at that seat with bread and rice and cheese and everything else when I get up. Thanks for having us. I so hope Sal finishes last in the picks so that we can load down a pimento pulled pork.

Egg salad. Chicken biscuit. What else? BLT. It's the Masters Club, which is like a BLT. I mean, that sounds great. I hope I finish last two now. We'll put it that way.

We're going to be back Thursday for more stuff. Yeah. Chang, you have a beautiful face. Sal, you have a beautiful life. Baby, you're just beautiful in general. So are you, baby. Thank you. Thank you to you three. Thanks to House of Nathan as well. Thanks to Gahow and Kyle and Eduardo for helping us out today on the pod. And we're going to be back

on Thursday. Don't forget to check out the Prestige TV podcast and the rewatchables as well. If you missed White Lotus, if you missed our rewatchables, we did on the St. Luke Valcomer. And I hope you're checking out Celtic City on Max as well. We will see you on Thursday.

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