Comparing PGA Tour Rookie Classes: Insights and Highlights

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00:00I want you to kind of sum up this, this class. I don't know why I want to call it a draft

00:09class. This isn't a draft. These guys earned their way out here, but what, you know, just

00:14describing this class versus maybe last year's or just something that has stuck out about

00:20these 30 guys. Um, anything that come to mind, look, I thought last year was going to be

00:26incredible. I think I picked five winners coming from, you know, the corn free to our

00:30last year's graduates. We've we're at three. So there's still a couple of events left to

00:35get to that five. Um, but I thought, look, it's so difficult. You know, you know how

00:40it is Smiley and getting onto the PGA tour. Now, if you're not in those signature events,

00:44it's I think what only seven guys that didn't play in the signature events made it into

00:49the FedEx cup playoff. So it's like, it's, it's such a leg up. And for these guys coming

00:54in off the corn free tour where they kind of slot in, I think Rafa Campos have finished

00:5930th and got the last card last year. He's only played 20 events this year or 21 events.

01:04So it's, uh, and he's first event came at the farmers. So it's really, it's hard making

01:09up ground quickly. So you do need to do what a Jake Knapp or a Goddard does and go out

01:13and win early. But I think the difference between the two classes, um, it felt to me

01:19this year that there was just a lot more experience, even though we're going to have a lot of rookies,

01:24um, there was a lot of two-time winners. So a lot of the points were sucked up into

01:28the top of the points list. So there wasn't as much, there was, there was a lot of separation

01:32around that 30 number. So I felt like, like you said before, and it's so important in

01:37professional golf is security turns you into a different golfer. So if you have that security,

01:44then you could be, it's, you could have a guy that could live on the cut line or win

01:48PGA tour events. It's that, it's that like valuable to have in your back pocket, knowing

01:53you've got a full season. So I think like guys like Harry Higgs heading back, look,

01:58I think he, he talked about it himself. I think he needs to be a little nicer to himself

02:03when he's competing, but Tim Vitting, Swedish kid, he won back to back in the middle of

02:07the season. Frankie Sappen, he's a kid that shot 58 this year at the Vertex bank championship.

02:14He just got his first win. And he's, he's a guy that I think, even though he's going

02:19to be a rookie, he just feels like he's been on tour for a couple of years. And, and yeah,

02:25Frankie Sappen. And like, when he, he's a kid that just won, he's had a little success

02:29on the PGA tour of some sponsors invitation, but he just won at Ohio at the Scarlet course,

02:34which I hate, by the way, it's brutal. It's not fun. And I mean, he hit, I think he had

02:39one green in regulation over the last eight holes and still extended his lead. So he's,

02:46he didn't play his best, but it looked like he won very easily and he was never stressed.

02:51He was, he had the swagger, he was club dwelling, even though he was missing greens, but the

02:56short game under that pressure, when he hadn't won on the corn free tour before, I thought

02:59that was pretty impressive. So look, there's, as I said, multiple winners, there's guys

03:04that are coming to the PGA tour that already know how to win. And look, I could go down

03:09the top 30, but if there's some other guys that I've touched on.