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00:00live right here on this Tuesday on the early line on Sports
00:06Grid. A recap of the opening weekend of Olympic golf over in
00:11Paris in the men's tournament before we get to the women's
00:14tournament that starts tomorrow over in France as well. We do
00:19that by welcoming on Keith Stewart joining us here on TEL
00:23bright and early on this Tuesday morning. Keith, we appreciate
00:26the time as always. Thanks for being here. Ben Donnie. It's a
00:30pleasure. Um Paris 2 weeks in a row. The same golf course.
00:33Let's handicap this thing and and figure out some more
00:36winners. And it was a record setting on Sunday at Les Golfes
00:40Nationale matching a course record. That was Scottie
00:44Scheffler. A final round sixty-two. A final nine on the
00:48back. Twenty-nine including four consecutive birds from fourteen
00:53to seventeen as Scottie Scheffler stands atop the medal
00:56podium with a gold medal around his neck. Keith, how did
01:00Scottie Scheffler accomplish this in record-setting fashion
01:04in Paris on Sunday? Well, once again, Scottie Scheffler has
01:08asserted himself as the best player in the world. Guys, he
01:12lost strokes putting for the week at Les Golfes Nationale
01:15and he's still won by one and took home the gold medal. You
01:19know, I I sat with Joe Ranieri, a good friend of ours on Sports
01:21Grid on Saturday, game time decisions and he said, hey,
01:25what do you think? I said, well, I'm invested in ROM and I
01:27feel pretty good about that but if I was gonna take anybody at
01:30this point, I would take Scottie at plus fourteen hundred.
01:33He's more than triple his odds to start the week and we only
01:36have one round to go and we have precedent for this. When
01:39you go back to Sawgrass, he shot sixty-four on Sunday to
01:42take that title away from Wyndham Clark and Xander
01:44Shoffley. You go back to API and Bay Hill, he shot sixty-six
01:48on a Sunday. Scottie is making a name for himself for these
01:51Sunday spectacular comebacks and guys are paying attention
01:55to the leaderboards more and more when he's in the field.
01:58It's unbelievable to try to watch this too, Keith because
02:00you take a look at sixty-seven, sixty-nine, sixty-seven, and
02:03sixty-two. That was a phenomenal final round but also
02:05when we talk about like the pricing at the Fan Blue Sports
02:08Book, I sort of joked to myself, five, six, seven shots
02:11back with let's just say a day and a half left in the golf
02:13tournament and he's still priced right there as if he
02:15could win it but he keeps providing this day after day
02:19but the point I wanna talk to you about is here. Scottie
02:21Sheffler, not a huge emotional guy, gets to the podium and
02:24breaks down there for what it meant to him here. That was an
02:27unbelievable run and maybe he didn't anticipate on Saturday
02:30or early Sunday being in that position then it all hit him as
02:33once. A gold medal for him just to put on that mantle was
02:36fantastic. Well, I tell you what, the Olympics, Donnie, it
02:40has really evolved over the years. We talked about this a
02:43lot last week. In 2016, we're sending Bubba Watson and Patrick
02:47Reed to these events. Now, all of a sudden, we have Xander, we
02:50have Scottie, we have Colin, we have Wyndham, we have these
02:52stars going and it really actually means something to him
02:55and once the golfers have bought in, obviously, it meant
02:58something to Hideki. We saw Tom Kim move to tears because we
03:01know about the the mandatory military service that he faces
03:04over in South Korea. These guys have really bought into this
03:08and I think that Scottie, above all else, he had to be in a
03:11very emotional moment. I mean, think about the year he's been
03:14through. We forget about all this because with the seven
03:17wins, the gold medal, the green jacket, but he's the only guy I
03:20know in the top ten in the world that spent time in jail this
03:22year. You know, he's the only one that had a mug shot.
03:25Imagine the emotional roller coaster he went through that
03:27day. I was there in Valhalla. I saw that press conference
03:30after he shot sixty-six and he warmed up in a jail cell. This
03:33guy has had an unbelievable season and although you know
03:37some of the critics are going to want to say, well, it's not
03:39as good as Tiger. It's not this. It's not that. Tiger used
03:42to always win from the front. Tiger's Scottie's doing a lot
03:46of winning from behind and that's really unique in my mind
03:50and pretty special for what we get to see this year. Yeah, it
03:54certainly is and Keith after we had the open championship
03:58where Xander Shoffley won his second major of the year as the
04:01champion golfer of the year. We compared the season resumes of
04:05who was the best this year in the world of golf. Scottie
04:09Sheffler, the green jacket at Augusta. Seven victories. Now,
04:13if you include the Olympic gold medal, six of course on the PGA
04:17Tour, two majors for Xander, two top ten finishes in the
04:22other two major championships this year in the 2021 Olympic
04:26gold medalist did finish top ten this time over in Paris.
04:31Does the gold medal for Scottie Sheffler confirm that he is the
04:35golfer of this year? Without a doubt, Ben. In my mind, yes and
04:41you know, you look at he's had seventeen starts this year. If
04:44you include the Olympics, he has eleven top fives. Now,
04:47seven of those are wins. I get it but he has eleven top fives.
04:50Think about how consistent this guy has been event after event
04:54after event but there is one thing hanging over his head.
04:57The last couple of years, he's gone in as the FedEx Cup leader
05:01to the final at Eastlake and he hasn't pulled it off. He lost
05:04to Rory. He lost to Hovland. So, at the end of the day, I
05:08think that Scottie wants to finish this thing off and leave
05:10no questions but in my mind, it'd be tough for Xander to do
05:14anything but maybe win a couple playoff events and then take
05:18the FedEx Cup. In my mind, it's Scottie's to lose 100%. Yeah,
05:23he's been absolutely fantastic but if we do look at the podium
05:25there over in Paris, gold went to Scottie Sheffler, silver
05:28went to Tommy Fleetwood, bronze went to Hideki Matsuyama when it
05:31looked like it was going to be John Rom here of Spain to get
05:34that gold medal. How do you feel about that one, two, three
05:37finish and also what did happen to John Rom? Well, I tell you
05:41what, the John Rom thing is interesting. All of a sudden,
05:44Liv is catching a lot of heat outside of Bryson. These guys
05:47are fading late in tournaments. Is the three-round format that
05:51they play over there at Liv? Is this causing these guys issues?
05:54Are they not getting the reps that they need to go deep
05:57enough into tournaments? I mean, it wasn't like Rom was
05:59playing bad. He shot thirty-one on the front and then he went
06:02thirty-nine on the back. He lost to Scottie by ten strokes on
06:06the final nine holes. He was up by four with eight to go. I
06:09mean, there's a lot to look in the mirror about there and you
06:12can see it on Rom's face when he double bogeyed the fourteenth
06:14hole, the par five. You can see it. He knew he had lost that
06:17tournament and he didn't know why. He's got to figure that
06:20out and here's the thing. We won't be talking about John Rom
06:23till the 2025 Masters, right? That's like seven or eight
06:27months away. So, Rom's got a lot of time to get get back
06:30into it but boy, that was a huge disappointment and you
06:33gotta feel good about Fleetwood and Matsuyama. He was there in
06:372021. He lost a heartbreak in a playoff for bronze, right? In
06:41his home country of Japan, he comes back and he wins bronze
06:44here finishing well on those final four holes. You gotta
06:47give it to Hideki. Yeah, you certainly do. A bronze medal
06:51for Hideki Matsuyama. Tommy Fleetwood tested Scottie
06:54Sheffler down the stretch finishes second earning that
06:57silver medal and Scottie Sheffler a gold medal in the
07:01emotions that follow suit for representing his country atop
07:05the medal podium. What will we see this week over at Les
07:08Golfes National in the women's tournament in Olympic golf?
07:13There's been dominance at points this year from Scottie
07:15Sheffler. There's been utter dominance out of the American
07:19Nelly's quarter. Does that continue in Paris? We'll break
07:21it down next. The men's golf tournament at the Olympic Games
07:25in Paris sensational. That final round Sunday as dramatic
07:29as you will find all around the sport. Keith Stewart back for
07:33his second consecutive segment and Keith, we heard that
07:36sentiment from Rory McIlroy who I thought made a great point
07:40after the final round on Sunday. Of course, he's been a
07:42figurehead for everything that's happening in the world
07:45of golf often taking shade because of it saying with how
07:49much of a blank show the sport of golf has been the last 2
07:53years to see the emotions of these guys out there on Sunday
07:57at Les Golfes National without a $3 million check on the other
08:01side. Just the pride of representing your country. It
08:05was the beauty of why we play sport. I think we should see
08:08the same this week in the women's golf tournament that
08:11starts tomorrow at the same course. So Keith, it's the same
08:15course. It's Les Golfes National. What's the format
08:18like for the women's tournament that starts
08:19tomorrow? Ben, we have a beautiful setup for this. It's
08:24I guess since Japan in 2021 or when they played the women's
08:28and the men's open back to back in 2014 at Pinehurst. We
08:31haven't had this opportunity to handicap the golf course with a
08:34professional event the week before another professional
08:37event comes in. The ladies are going to play the golf course
08:40at a par 72. The men were a par 71. It's 6374 yards. So it's
08:45much shorter but of course it's appropriate for their
08:48driving distance and for the length of golf courses that
08:51they normally play. It's 60 women in the field just like
08:55the men. Four rounds. 72 holes of stroke play. No cut. The top
08:59three. They get a medal. We've done this before. That's the
09:02routine. Taking a look here also at Nellie Quarter as the
09:07favorite here. She had one of the more unbelievable stretches
09:09in golf. I mean, mirroring Scottie Sheffler at that point
09:12and maybe even better. Six out of seven wins but technically
09:15struggling as of late entering into the Olympics. Are we
09:19worried about the Nellie Quarter we saw about earlier in
09:21the season that was dominating or maybe the Nellie Quarter that
09:24technically we're getting now over the past month and a half.
09:27DRS, I am very worried. In these elite events, Nellie has
09:31not shown up since she won that sixth time there in Jersey City
09:35right near all of us. She went into the US Open with a bad
09:39miscut and then of course she came right back into a regular
09:42season event, the Meijer with another miscut and then another
09:45event. She goes to the KPMG Women's and she shoots in the
09:4860s in the first round and then she misses the cut. So, she has
09:52definitely had a lot of question marks around here. She goes
09:54over to the Avion which is their fourth major of the year in
09:57France and she finishes T26 but she didn't look strong and it
10:02the thing that gives me huge pause about her this week in
10:05playing well and defending her gold medal. Remember, she was
10:08the gold medal winner in 2021 in Japan is her approach game.
10:12She's been excellent off the tee and one of the things that's
10:15unknown about Nellie is that she has a really, really good
10:17short game. One of the top five on tour but her approach game
10:21has been off and as we saw with the guys, you miss here, you
10:24miss these greens in the wrong spots and it got really
10:27challenging really quick and the golf course, the way they set
10:30it up, the Olympic Golf Committee, they did an excellent,
10:32excellent job. A fifth of the field had 20 subpar scores or
10:37more for the men, right? But yet, they had a bunch of guys
10:39that finished over par. That is a perfect setup for us. So, for
10:43Nellie, she's going to have to ratchet down that approach game
10:46and get her iron game on target. Nellie Korda booked from the
10:50odds makers perspective almost similar to Scottie Scheffler
10:54four to one, $5 in front of the rest of the field at the
10:58Olympic Women's Golf Tournament. So, Keith, outside
11:01of Nellie Korda, who are some names to keep an eye on with
11:04the odds associated this week over in Paris. Nellie Korda is
11:09number one in the world. I'm going to go with her American
11:11counterpart at number two, Lillia Vu. When accuracy
11:15matters, Lillia Vu gets it done. In major championships,
11:18in regular golf tournaments, she's fully healed from her
11:20spring injury. She's already won once this year and she's one
11:23of the best putters there in the LPGA. So, I love her at ten
11:27to one or plus a thousand and of course, if we're going to
11:30talk accuracy again and on a global stage, Jin Young Ko at
11:33plus 1400. I love her opportunity as well. You know,
11:37she gets a lot of flack because she's not super long off the
11:39tee. This golf course is 100 yards shorter than the one they
11:43played last week at the Portland Classic and that was
11:45the Portland Classic guys. They want these ladies to attack
11:48this golf course and shoot subpar scores. One last one for
11:52you, Lydia Ko at plus 4000 and that number's dropping quickly.
11:56I'd get on it. She she has two medals to her name in two
12:00Olympics and she's going for gold this time to fill out the
12:02trifecta. Lily of you last year on the LPGA Tour, the
12:08player of the year for titles to major championships. You saw
12:13there a nine to one price behind Nelly Korda as well
12:18trying to represent the United States on the medal podium this
12:20week over in Paris. Keith Stewart, we appreciate the time.
12:24Thank you for joining us here as always on this Tuesday on
12:28the Early Line. Guys, it's a pleasure to be with you. Let's
12:32do Paris all over again. Saturday, wrap it up. So, make
12:35sure you pay attention to the schedule.