Previewing the Field at the Olympics: Scheffler or Schauffele?
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00:00We had the conversation last week after the Open Championship, who should be the PGA Tour golfer of the year?
00:12Is it Scottie Scheffler? His green jacket? His six PGA Tour victories this season?
00:18Or is it Xander Schauffele? Two major championships and two other top tens.
00:23We can see what the gold medal race looks like.
00:26Scheffler, the favorite, plus 360, but less than $2 behind.
00:30It's Xander Schauffele at a plus 550 price.
00:34Is it a two golfer race, both coming from the American side?
00:40Well, I'll tell you what, I would be worried about the lack of course experience there.
00:44There's six guys under 20-1, under plus 2,000.
00:47And two of whom are Jon Rahm, who's coming off, you know, winning Live London.
00:52He has course experience there.
00:54He's been there a couple times. He's got two top tens.
00:56And then there's another name, Rory McIlroy.
00:58He's been there a couple times, competed, and he has two top fives.
01:02Of the other guys up there at the top, Colin Morikawa, Ludwig Ober,
01:06they have not played this golf course before.
01:08The golf course is kind of quirky. It is very positional.
01:11It is one of those golf courses over here on the PGA Tour.
01:14They always pick a certain type of player.
01:16It is not one of those that features length over accuracy.
01:19It is the opposite of that.
01:21So I think that some of the superpowers of Scotty Scheffler are a little bit hindered.
01:26And if I'm picking one over the other, Zander over Scotty,
01:29for all the reasons that Zander won Royal Troon,
01:32you would have to think that Zander is the favorite here again.
01:34Do we live in a world where a guy is going to win two majors and defend his gold medal?
01:39Well, if there was one guy who could do it, it would definitely be the X-Man.
01:43If we're looking at this tournament, Keith,
01:45and typically the international flavor usually adds to the excitement here.
01:48When you take a look at the Ryder Cup, the crowds are really into it.
01:51Is this more of like a PGA golf crowd?
01:53Is there going to be wild cheering with people rooting for their nation and or golfers at the same time?
01:59I think it's going to be much more like a Ryder Cup or even a World Cup crowd.
02:03And one of the big questions I have this week, DRS,
02:06is what is your motivation for winning a medal?
02:09For the guys over there, for Scotty running around with Meredith, his wife, and his kid,
02:13and they're at the Louvre looking at the Mona Lisa.
02:15He's going to watch ping pong matches.
02:18I'm not quite sure what his motivation is.
02:20Sure, he wants to win a gold medal.
02:22But when you talk about a guy like Shane Lowery,
02:24who's got on the front of the boat and was the flag bearer for Ireland,
02:28or you're talking about Tom Kim, a person that's facing career question marks
02:34because he has mandatory military service coming up in South Korea.
02:37What is your motivation to win a medal?
02:40I think that's the biggest question you have to answer before building your betting card this week.
02:45So, Keith, let's take some of those early leans here on the early line.
02:48What are some of the odds you are looking at in the players associated in the final minute of this segment?
02:55I love Shane Lowery at plus 2,400.
02:57He won at Royal Portrush in front of a home crowd so he could handle that kind of pressure.
03:02I also love Tom Kim for the reasons I just outlined.
03:05How about a couple of bombs?
03:07You've got Victor Perez and Matthew Pavone playing at home.
03:11They're going to know the golf course better than anybody.
03:13And both of them are pushing triple digits as far as the odds go.