00:00Welcome back to Newswire here on SportsGrid. One of the big golf events of the year is this weekend, the
00:05fifth major, the Players' Championship at TPC Sawgrass.
00:08We're going to break that down for you with Brady Cannon, who joins us, of course, to have the latest
00:13and opinions on golf.
00:15And certainly before we go forward, Brady, let's go back. We just had the Bay Hill or the Arnold Palmer
00:20Invitational.
00:21I guess that's the name of it now. This is sort of a warm-up for a lot of players
00:25for this big week where the purse is, you know,
00:28certainly astronomical for the Players' Championship. But we had a very fun finish, I thought, last week.
00:35And, you know, certainly very big odds on Ash K. Batia ended up coming through.
00:42Yeah, I mean, that's two weeks in a row now. We saw Shane Lowry collapse at the Cognizant Classic.
00:47And I'm not rooting for this type of thing. It's unfortunate for those guys.
00:51But then Akshay Batia, you know, just steady Eddie all the way.
00:56Daniel Berger was leading that tournament from gate to wire and then finally surrenders it on the 18th hole.
01:03They go to a playoff and he loses. I mean, just really tough.
01:06And, of course, I was on Berger the week before at the Cognizant, but that's neither here nor there.
01:12Now Batia, his third win as a professional.
01:15I mean, to win at Bay Hill, that's a big deal.
01:19And the defending champion, Russell Henley, I thought was very impressive, finishing sixth.
01:25Yeah, I mean, it feels like there's a lot of table setting going on right now, Craig.
01:30We've got conference tournaments before the big dance.
01:33You've got the World Baseball Classic before opening day.
01:36And you've got Bay Hill and the Players' Championship before we get to that first major of the year in
01:41early April, they call the Masters.
01:43So we're getting ready for some big parties coming up here in the world of sports.
01:48Yeah, definitely so.
01:49Great to have all the basketball and, of course, World Baseball Classic and the Naturally Golf this week.
01:53Okay, so let's talk Players' Championship.
01:55And I'll start off with the first part of the conversation, which is always what is Scotty Scheffler favored by?
02:01And as we can see, interestingly enough here, I've noticed a little bit of fallback here for Scotty at plus
02:07480.
02:07Not significant and still insane that he's plus 480 to win a golf tournament.
02:13But generally speaking, he was down to about plus 390, plus 410.
02:17You can see some pushback here.
02:19I've got to tell you, Brady, everyone seems to love Morikawa in this tournament.
02:23That's the big name that I keep hearing.
02:24I don't know why.
02:25You'll explain to me why.
02:26And then Rory after that at 18 to 1.
02:29I want to get your favorites, but first, I guess, two parts.
02:32Scheffler to start, why does everyone love Morikawa?
02:35I see that's a very popular bet this week.
02:37You are spot on about Colin Morikawa.
02:40And, of course, he picked up a win earlier at Pebble Beach this year.
02:43And a little spoiler alert, I have bet him to win the Masters.
02:46I found 30 to 1.
02:47But I'm not ready to go on him just yet.
02:51You know, it's hard to win again so soon after you've won.
02:55And especially for Morikawa, who hadn't done it in almost three years.
02:59So it takes a while to come down from that.
03:01I'm not ready to jump on him so quickly like thousands of people apparently have.
03:06He is the number one liability at BetMGM.
03:10Number one.
03:11Number two is Ludwig Oberg.
03:13Number three is Chris Godderup.
03:15Scotty Scheffler, I'm not on board with him yet this week either, Craig.
03:21And it is interesting what you point out there.
03:23This seems like the first time in forever that he's been higher than three to one to win a golf
03:28turn.
03:30It's the second week in a row that he has lost strokes on approach.
03:34I mean, that's like unheard of for Scotty Scheffler.
03:37He almost lost three shots to the field with his irons last week.
03:41And, you know, he mentioned the final day that he really started to find his groove.
03:46This golf course, TPC Sawgrass, is so difficult.
03:49You have to be so spot on.
03:52I'm not saying Scotty's going to play poorly again.
03:55But I don't know if he's going to turn it around so quickly that he's going to go on and
03:58win for the third time here at Sawgrass.
04:01Yeah, he's been great there.
04:02We will see.
04:03And also, you never know, I see some rain maybe in the forecast this weekend in Jacksonville, too.
04:07I've got to keep an eye on that as well.
04:08All right.
04:09So Brady always gives us some great picks here and some really big long shots as well.
04:13But it looks like the shortest number here that you're going with is Russell Henley.
04:17Let's talk about him and everyone else that you potentially like to hit this week.
04:20Yeah, I mentioned, you know, very impressive in his title defense last week at Bay Hill.
04:25And I think this golf course sets up perfectly for him.
04:28He's finished top 25 here four times.
04:31He's just been a monster on the correlated courses.
04:34He has ascended to, you know, kind of quietly as one of the best players in the world.
04:39And I thought 30 to 1 was a really good price.
04:41There's a lot of 25s out there, which I still don't think is bad.
04:45And then I went, Craig, I'm going to do it.
04:48Ricky Fowler.
04:49This guy is red hot right now.
04:51He is playing tremendous golf.
04:54He's also ranked 60th in the world right now.
04:57He's got three events to either win or get to 50th in the world rankings to, yes, qualify for the
05:03Masters.
05:03And then I went with a couple, another older statesman, Adam Scott, Shane Lowry, Maverick McNeely, Christiane Bazudenhout, and Sahith
05:14Tagala.
05:15We'll see if we can get one home.
05:17All right, Brady.
05:17Thanks again.
05:18We'll talk soon.
05:18We'll see if we can get one home.
05:18We'll see if we can get one home.
05:18We'll see if we can get one home.
05:19We'll see if we can get one home.
05:19We'll see if we can get one home.
05:19We'll see if we can get one home.
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