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Closing Stretch

Josh Segal

Paul Tesori on modern technology, his preparations as a caddie, his pick to win the 2026 Masters, and some fun rapid fire questions

Josh Question: At Inside Sports Network, we like to handicap these golf courses and use data to make decisions on how we think the course is going to play for the professionals. In a given calendar year, the PGA Tour courses/venues really don’t change. However, three of the major championship courses change in a given year. As a caddie, if you're going into a major championship that is a new course, what is your process to prepare for the tournament? Is using strokes gained data a part of your process?

Paul Tesori: There's a lot of answers here inside of it. I mean, first of all, I'll just be honest with you, I've used sites like your site, like Inside Sports. I've used them before, not during a tournament or trying to figure out how to play a hole, but, you know, a guy like Webb right now who's only playing 11 to 13 events a year, he by choice,, he's still fully exempt on tour, but he's only choosing to play certain courses.

I'll go to Inside Sports and I'll look, okay, hey, where do they have this rated for? What Webb strengths are? Webb’s strengths are still short iron play, you know, golf courses, typically Bermuda Greens, even though he is good on all of those different greens. I'll definitely look when I was with Tom Kim, if we had questions, I would go look just because Tom's a shorter player but really straight.

And then with Cameron Young who was longer,, obviously you would go try to find courses that were built towards that, like Houston. So I'll use that kind of information more for where to play schedule wise if we have questions. 

My typical thing I do is I show up a day before the player. Because our yardage books are so good now, and because strokes gain stats are so good, that's helped yardage books. My work on the course is typically about six hours. That's what it takes for me to properly walk a golf course,, you know, look at wind directions for the week. I'll have all the wind directions that they're expected to have Thursday through Sunday, if you're lucky. 

But if they're different directions, you're gonna look at, you know, different rough heights. You have holes on the PGA tour where the right rough is thicker than the left rough or left is thicker than the right. And so those are information, that's information you need to have. I have definitely hired Austin Powell in the past.

He has helped me a lot with strokes, gain stats. I don't really use it as much now., I feel like at times you can almost be a little too reliant on it. And the truth is, you know Webb, he’s a guy who's a pretty accurate guy. Tom was a guy that's an accurate guy, but they see golf courses completely differently.

One hole that might look great to Tom will look terrible to Webb, and so it's more trying to get the guys to communicate. Once I've walked the course, I'm gonna come up with my game plan, how to play it. Now, Webb and I have pretty much seen every course together, so I'm already gonna know his idiosyncrasies, but I'm still gonna ask.

Josh Question: Obviously, you've been on tour for, I believe you said 26 years caddying. You've seen it all with how the modern golf game has changed with swing speed, driving distance, driver heads, and the overall improvement of technology. There’s been a ton of talk about rolling back the golf ball. Do you have any takes about this? What is your opinion on where golf is at right now and headed with technology?

Paul Tesori: So rolling back the golf ball is the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. The golf ball has not had any advancement since 2004. The Pro V came out in 2004 and it definitely changed golf forever, there's no doubt.

But the USGA figured that out very quickly and came up with new guidelines. Those guidelines have not changed,  the golf ball is not the problem. There's some big decisions coming up when that comes to play. I'm not so sure the PGA Tour’s gonna go along with the new rule. 

I do have a little bit of information about that, but to be honest with you, I'm a caddie. I'm kind of on the outside looking in and we never really know what the board will end up deciding there. But no one on the PGA Tour is really for it, except for I've heard of Rory McIlroy. 

Titleist has tested 80 guys. The only guys that don't lose much distance are high launch, low spin guys. There's been people that are going to lose up to 7%, so that's 20 yards. Some guys will lose and other guys won't lose any. 

I think the two biggest problems we have in our game is golf course architecture and the size of our drivers, and the size of our three woods. I would like to go back to the 360 CC driver, let amateurs use bigger heads, there's nothing wrong with that, which is an easy fix for manufacturers. They don't have to spend that much more money doing certain things. It's penalizing your bigger companies with golf balls, your Titleist and all that because they're the ones that have to redo everything that they've done.

I think with a smaller head, you can still get the same distance. You just gotta hit a little more in the center of the face and then your weekend guys can continue to play the four sixties.

I think that should go down in golf course architecture. We're building courses that are longer and longer and have more force carries where, you know, maybe the best designer of all time when you look at any of your old school, Alistair, McKinsey golf courses or Jones, when you look at these, they had bunkers that were what we call runout bunkers, not carry bunkers. Now, these golf courses, they're building bunkers that are, oh, it's 305 to carry. That's great. There are 50% of the guys on the PGA Tour that can carry it.

The answer is if you think the ball in the distance is changing the game, make it to where it's not as big of an advantage. Augusta's got some problems with that, you know, number one at Augusta, now guys are bombing it over the bunker. But then guys like us, we can't see the green.

I know with Tom Kim last year we hit a hybrid on number one when it was the end of the wind and a little drizzly and other guys were hitting wedges. So like just change, we don't mind that guys are longer, but change the force carry aspect of it. We're not against guys hitting the ball long, we're against fairways being wider for guys that hit it a long way, like that's not the way it should be.

Here's the great thing, Titleist agrees. They think that the ball change is absolutely ridiculous. They're going to make sure that the longest guys in the game are even more dominant now than they ever have been. 

We have a new leadership at the PGA Tour coming into play. Obviously PGA of America, their leadership does not wanna see this go through. They know that golf is at the height it's ever been as far as new people coming into the game and  now we're gonna try to make it shorter. I guarantee you when a guy goes out and shoots 97, he doesn't care as long as he can tell you that that golf ball went 302 on some hole or 305 on one hole. 

The guys like Rory that come out and say, oh, five percent's not gonna affect anybody. Oh my goodness. It's gonna affect so many people. Yeah. 5%. For a guy like me who's now almost 54, it's gonna be 13 yards shorter off the tee, which is gonna be a different club into the green.

Josh Question: Since you talked about golf architecture, before we get into some fun questions, I wanted to ask your thoughts about the Ryder Cup and how they set up the golf course?

Paul Tesori: Yes. I've been fortunate to do 12 team events, nine President's cups and three Ryder Cups. I think there are two misconceptions. Number one is they don't think Americans care. I think they care more than the Europeans care. They want to win this thing so badly. And in sport, almost every sport, unless you are playing a position where aggression, anger, anxiety and all that can come out in a good way, the more you try, the worse you play. It just typically is the case.

Through four matches, in all the strokes gained in the world that you're in, like nine of the top 10 best putters were Europeans. That's why they lost. There are no other reasons, but Keegan did say they had everything to do over again, it would've been golf course setup, and. There were some confusions about things that happened.

They wanted the course firm and fast. Having the fairway cut down on a firm and fast golf course made complete sense. However, rain came in and then the green speeds were much slower, much slower than anybody thought they were gonna be. It turned into a situation where the best putting team was gonna win.

If anything, it's gonna be the most nervous team or the most anxious team, which typically is not gonna do as well as a team that's more relaxed. The Europeans are relaxed in Ryder cups. Now, are they intense? Yes. Are they nervous at times? Yes. But they're just more relaxed. They've been the ones that have been doing all the butt whooping.

We've seen the President's Cup, who's the most relaxed team in the President's Cup? It's the USA. They keep winning. When you win, you just have a different walk of confidence with you, a different walk of calmness with you, a different walk that things are just gonna work out.

I was on the Tiger captaincy team in 2019 in Australia. We were getting hammered, but there was just not a sense of stressing out or a sense of pressing, and we ended up winning that. So I think at the end of the day, Keegan admitted, if he had one thing to change, and I have to be honest with you, I think it's 'cause he relied too much on strokes gained.

Josh Question: You can’t say Scottie Scheffler, but who do you think wins the 2026 Masters and who is a dark horse?

Paul Tesori: When I worked for Cameron Young, that was our second event together. I think we finished seventh, but we had a three shot bad wave that week. So did the winner, Jon Rahm, who came outta that. We played with Jon the first two days and in the last six groups played in torrential downpour, the last five holes. We played I think those holes at  four over. We still finished seventh and back then Cameron couldn't putt.

The golf course is designed for Cameron Young to win the masters, and now he's one of the top five best putters in the world. Obviously what he did at the Ryder Cup does not surprise me at all. We knew if he ever could figure out how to putt, the guy was gonna do incredibly special things. He's got one of the most unique qualities that almost no one has. 

He (Cam Young) loves to draw it. He hits it forever. Augusta's a drawing golf course. He's a dead ball putter. He doesn't hit his putts hard. That's great there. So I would go with Cam. 

Then it's just, it's really so hard to look and think that a guy like Maverick McNealy, he's not gonna have a chance to win Augusta. He's the best putter in the world, or one of them. He hits it long, a lot longer than people realize. And obviously you can go to your other. Big guys that you think could win there. I also think Hatton's gonna win a Master's at some point.

Josh Question: I have rapid fire questions. What's your favorite course to caddie on Tour? 

Paul Tesori: It's only because of what it's meant to me as TPC Sawgrass. I was born and raised here. My grandfather taught me the game here. I hit shots at TPC Sawgrass before there was grass laid, so it was dirt.I hit shots on 17 while there was just dirt. That's the one term that I've wanted to win more than anything.

Josh Question: Your favorite PGA Tour stops based on the town, restaurants, and places to go out?

Paul Tesori: Yeah, I would say probably Hilton Head. First of all, we get treated great there. We have an omelet maker there. We have great parking there. Parking's tough for caddies at a lot of places, but Hilton Head treats us like kings. 

You got five different places to go and just hang out and relax. You can go to the beach afterwards. You can go, you know, like you said, hang out at a local pub, but great restaurants to eat at. There's really no negatives to Hilton Head. So that'd be my answer. 

Josh Question: What's your favorite par three in golf?

Paul Tesori: What a great question. I would probably say 16 at Augusta, I think it is just an incredible par three. I don't really know how you could make it better, I probably would make the bottom of the slope maybe a smidge less so you could put it a little closer from up. 

I don't love number 12. I think it's two penal with so much wind that comes through there, even though it's short. I would say 13 at Sawgrass is very, very close to 16 at Augusta. For me, I think it's perfect. A good shot almost always gets rewarded, but a poor shot gets punished pretty highly.

I'm missing a bunch of them there. There would be a bunch in that little mix. Riviera number 16 would definitely pop up in my head,, as being one of those. But, you know, none of 'em are very long. I always like those between 150 and 180 that just have a lot of, just a lot of character to 'em.

Josh Question: What’s your favorite golf course outside of TPC Sawgrass?

Paul Tesori: Pine Valley is just incredible. I've had a few trips there and a few to Augusta, Seminole been able to play and Cypress Point. 

I've never had the fortune of playing any of the ones over, uh, across the pond. There's been no one that's been over there that hasn't said they're as elite as anything gets to. I can't speak to those, but if I had a chance to play Pine Valley again, I would take it with everything that I have.

Here is the full link to the podcast if you haven’t listened yet!

Bryan

Best Ball Review

As many of you know, I have been taking the golf offseason to talk about PGA Season Long best ball from the contest that Underdog was offering. I wanted to give you all a quick little update on some of the plays I gave out and their change in ADP since the start of my drafting the Scramble to now right before Sony.

1. Burns 17.0 ADP to 3.0 ADP

2. MacIntyre 17.9 to 9.7 ADP

 Here it was just capitalization of everyone figuring out the schedule. These guys play a lot, are in everything and just ended up being great 3rd round values where they were being taken originally.

1. Poston 33.5 ADP to 24.2 ADP

2. Echavarria 43.8 ADP to 31.3 ADP

 Two solid risers. Neither are in the Masters and Echavarria has to play his way into more signature events. I still have been taking them at current cost.

1. Brennan 57 ADP to 24.9 ADP

2. Keefer 67.9 ADP to 46.4 ADP

3. Kirk 69.6 ADP to 38.2 ADP

Kyle Hewett

NEW Majors Heat Map

Tyler Martin and I put together the following on the live odds page for the majors (below the odds board). Its a heat map of finishes in majors since 2017 (so if you’ve played in major since then you are on the page) + OWGR + Data Golf Ranking + summarizes numbers of top 5s, 10s, 20s in majors since 2017 and since 2023 for more recent form. We will layer in the ADP for Underdog majors once contests starts.

Congrats to our very own Rishi for winning a total of 160k in week 18 DFS contests. He won 60k on Saturday in the two game slate and then a combined 100k on Sunday.

Hop in the discord as we will be talking NFL playoffs all the way up until the Super Bowl!

Here was Rishi’s lineups: