This week on Inside Golf Podcast, Andy is joined by Twitterless Steve to discus an early majors preview, focusing on the Masters and PGA Championship at Aronimink. They cover past performances, potential changes, and ket strategies for both tournaments. They dive into potential changes, key strategies, course familiarity, and player analysis. They conclude the podcast with some future bets that have placed at the 2026 PGA Championship.

The Alfred Dunhill Championship is taking a one year hiatus from its regular home of Leopard Creek and is instead at Royal Johannesburg this year. Royal Johannesburg is a 36-hole facility and last appeared on the DPWT as host of the Joberg Open from 2007 to 2017. But while that tournament used both courses with one round played on the shorter West course, this year’s event will only be played on the longer championship East course.

The East course is a par 72 that measures 7,656 yards, although with an altitude of about 5,700 feet to take around 7% off, its true yardage is closer to 7,100 yards. There are four par threes and four par fives, but three of the par fives are on the front nine for an outward par of 37 and par 35 coming home. Similar to last week’s Nedbank, we have sticky Kikuyu fairways and rough with Bentgrass greens. The weather wont be as hot as last week, with temperatures around 80F. There will be rain on Wednesday night that softens the course, but the tournament days should be dry with a fairly constant wind of 10-15 mph.

Royal Johannesburg is a traditional tree-lined parkland golf course. The fairways are narrow, with most around 25-30 yards wide at their widest. The holes are generally straight, but the fairways tend to snake around the shallow fairway bunkers that pinch in, narrowing the fairways down to only 15-20 yards wide at their narrowest point which is often in the landing zone.

There are some holes where the longer hitters will have an advantage by being able to carry the fairway bunkers and reach a wider part of the fairway, but there are also holes where only the longer hitters can reach the narrow sections and have to decide if they take it on or hit less than driver. This is expected to be a driver heavy course though, with only the sixth taking driver out of the players hands due to the fairway narrowing significantly with a pond on the right at the 325 (300 adjusted) yard mark.

For the rest of our preview article, click here.

Worst Masters + PGA Championships Futures To Bet

One of my favorite episodes each year is when Andy and Steve preview all four majors. They identified some golfers for both the Masters and PGA Championship that they either already bet, or are thinking about betting. I tailed some of Steve’s futures at the PGA Championship, betting both Cam Young and Matt Fitzpatrick 80/1. 

While looking at the odds board, I saw a handful of jarring numbers that the bookmakers have on some players. I thought it would be a fun exercise to call out some of the worst futures to take at the Masters and PGA Championship:

Masters: Brooks Kopeka 29/1 (FD)

Rumors have been swirling on golf twitter that Brooks Koepka might not play on LIV this season and instead play on the DP World Tour. He is already exempt in all four major championships since he won the 2023 PGA Championship at Oak Hill. 

Koepka’s major championship resume has not been up to par for his standards. Since his win in 2023, he has two top 20 finishes, with a T17 at the 2023 US Open and T12 at the 2025 US Open. 

His game just hasn’t been sharp enough over the last two years at these major championships. He has shown flashes, but hasn’t been able to compile four quality rounds together at these tournaments that he is so used to dominating. In the last two Masters, Koepka has lost over four strokes from around-the-green, which is one of the most important areas of success at Augusta National. 

With Koepka, I need to see him play some quality competitive golf first to take a shot at him at a major championship. 

PGA Championship: Justin Thomas 18/1 (FD)

I’m a big Justin Thomas fan, but taking him to win a major championship at 18/1 is INSANE for multiple reasons. 

Let’s start with his major championship record. Since Justin Thomas’s 2022 PGA Championship win, his only top 10 finish was a T8 at the 2024 PGA Championship. His next best finish in that span was at the 2024 Open Championship, placing T31. He has been lackluster at majors to say the least. 

He announced a couple weeks ago that he had a microdiscectomy to repair his hip. From his recent appearance on No Laying Up, he has been dealing with a ton of pain and discomfort. He has yet to announce an official target return event for his 2026 PGA Tour debut. 

Given JT’s recent major championship record and the unknown status coming back from his major injury, backing him 18/1, even though he is a two time PGA Championship winner, is outlandish.

The Eagles Woes

Back to back weeks, the reigning Super Bowl Champions have been embarrassed on national television. As a huge Philadelphia Eagles fan that listens to 94 WIP, Philly’s marquee sports talk radio station, fans are calling in suggesting we fire one of either the head coach, Nick Siranni, or our offensive coordinator, Kevin Patullo. Additionally, fans are calling for the benching of last year’s Super Bowl MVP, Jalen Hurts, for an unproven Tanner McKee.

It’s been a whirlwind of a season for the Eagles. The season started with Jalen Carter spitting at Dak Prescott, which resulted in him getting tossed out of the game and a one game suspension. AJ Brown has taken a page out of Terrell Owens’ playbook, being one of the biggest diva’s in all of sports, taking to social media to call out the offensive woes of this team (he is right though). Two weeks ago, this same fanbase made headlines for egging Kevin Patullo’s house after losing to the Chicago Bears on Black Friday.

Everyone has been debating, who is the first person to blame for one of the worst offenses in the league? I am one of the biggest Jalen Hurts fans on planet earth. I took my massive victory lap last year for his MVP performance in the Super Bowl. Last Monday night seemed like an all time low for him, throwing four interceptions and losing a fumble. He truly looked like he was seeing ghosts. 

The play calling from first year offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo has limited Jalen’s chances to succeed. The Eagles refused to run the ball under center, which they found success against the Chargers with Saquon Barkley taking a 50 yard run to the house. The rushing attack has been abysmal with an aging offensive line that has battled injuries all year. When you can’t run the ball effectively, your offense becomes predictable and one dimensional. 

You need a balanced attack for Hurts to succeed. His decision making has been terrible, and he hasn’t been seeing the field like he did last year. Yet, Brown also didn’t help his quarterback much at all last night, dropping two, maybe three touchdowns, one of which would've sealed the game.

Nick Siranni needs a lot of blame for the offense. The team as a whole are up there for the most penalties in the league, most of which are just complete drive killers. They haven’t fixed any of the mistakes that he promised will be fixed every week. It’s been a tough year for the Birds, and all the haters are enjoying themselves from the couch.

The Eagles are running out of time to get this figured out before it’s playoff time. Will they fix the offense? Unfortunately, through 14 weeks of the year, you are who you are at this point. The Eagles are not a good overall football team.

Congrats to Kyle Hewett and to the rest of our community who either hit Hideki Matusyama at the Hero World Challenge or Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen at the Australian Open!