There was a brief stretch of about 10-15 minutes last Saturday morning where, if you ranked every person on Earth who was playing basketball at that time by the level of ability at which they were playing it, I would've been jockeying for position in the bottom five. For some context, I play most Saturday mornings with a bunch of 40-65 year old guys so the bar isn't that high to begin with but, for the love of Pete Maravich, I was a hot mess of lackadaisical defense and front-rimmed threes.
At least I maintained a good attitude and positive body language throughout the experience, never once jogging back on defense, slumping my shoulders in absolute disgust or muttering profanity laced self-flagellating monologues. It finally reached the point where I had to bench myself for the sake of my teammates and frankly the game of basketball itself which had suffered enough.
Three hours later I played golf and opened with a sloppy bogey on the first before playing the next seventeen holes four over with a couple birdies including the one to closeout the match. To quote my partner after he added-up the scores, "the way you were pissing and moaning, I thought you shot 85."
I think the late great Peter Alliss said it best with "sometimes you're the pigeon and sometimes you're the statue." There's probably a lesson in there somewhere that I will never learn.
This week we travel to the exclusive Philadelphia Cricket Club for some old school east coast golf. With that in mind, we've focused our attention on U.S. Open style grinders who have demonstrated good form as of late while shying away from those who may be playing with one eye on Quail Hollow (Rory McIlroy, Justin Thomas, etc.).
We're not putting Xander Schauffele in that latter category because frankly he could use a win. His PGA Championship title last year came after a runner-up at the Wells Fargo so the precedent is there and he's got to be chaffing a bit at being the odd man out of the current Big Three despite his status as defending champion at two majors.
The pick of the week came down to Corey Conners and Shane Lowry with the nod going to the Canadian thanks to his consistency as he has been on a heater since the Arnold Palmer Invitational including top tens at Sawgrass and Augusta. Patrick Cantlay and Russell Henley also got a look but just couldn't get excited about either of them which is saying something considering who we've picked ahead of them.
Daniel Berger and Brian Harman fit the profile and both come in off of T3's in Hilton Head. We would not be the least bit shocked to see Daniel get a win this year and praying that it happens on CBS so we get the classic Jim Nantz call of "how do I like my Berger? . . . WELL DONE!!!"
|
Place |
Player |
Odds |
|
Winner |
Xander Schauffele |
+1600 |
|
Top 5 |
Corey Conners |
+500 |
|
Top 10 |
Daniel Berger |
+280 |
|
Top 10 |
Brian Harman |
+400 |
|
Top 20 |
Matt Fitzpatrick |
+225 |
One and Done Pick: Corey Conners
 |
| We need to put a tariff on the spelling of that last name. |
Other Guy I'd Pick: Shane Lowry
Sleeper Pick: Matt Fitzpatrick
DraftKings Top Ten Values
|
Xander Schauffele |
$10,200 |
|
Patrick Cantlay |
$9,500 |
|
Russell Henley |
$9,400 |
|
Corey Conners |
$8,800 |
|
Daniel Berger |
$8,600 |
|
Shane Lowry |
$8,500 |
|
Denny McCarthy |
$7,800 |
|
Brian Harman |
$7,500 |
|
Matt Fitzpatrick |
$6,800 |
|
Tom Hoge |
$6,700 |
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