It may have taken five days, a wildly funky schedule, and a whole lot of frustration across the board. But Kansmith, a whole lot richer right now after his win at the Players. And that makes us, here at the Heat Check, a whole lot happier as we are a pro Kansmith podcast, meaning we head into the Valspar Championship, despite recording a day later than usual in a good mood. So we're gonna carry that good mood, carry those good vibes into the Valspar, try to win some money this week in PGA DFS. Welcome on into the Heat Check Fantasy Podcast, powered by NumberFire. That's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network and NumberFire.com. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com. Joined here as always by Brandon Gedula. He is the managing editor of NumberFire.com. Brandon, I have a question for you. Now, Kansmith is a guy we typically are higher on than Consensus. And we talked about it a lot last week. You bet him, use my win pick. We talked about it a lot for DFS. My question is, can we consider him our guy, or is he too good for that? Cause I'm leaning towards thinking that he's too good. He's way too good. Yeah, he's- Disappointing. He's phenomenal. He's gonna be a very popular pick at Augusta here in a few weeks. He's got the game for that. At Augusta, you can spray it off the tee, which I know you were, I know you had a lot going on this weekend with some FanDuel obligations, but- Several things. Cam got there. He made a ton of birdies and he had eight. And in the last round it was phenomenal, but a little iron off the tee, but he's gained some distance. So I think that he's gonna be someone that we bring up plenty when it comes to Masters Week. And yes, pulling up the odds on FanDuel Sportsbook. Cam Smith, 14 to one to win the Masters, same as Rory McElroy in trailing only. Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Colin Morikawa, John Rom. So yeah, I think Cam is- The price is out of us. Yeah. Dang, that's really exciting. Also, wasn't he like 34 to one last week? He was. And now he's 14 to one to win the Masters. I know that it's like a different setup, it's different field, et cetera, et cetera, but like, you know, my how things changed there, but good for Cam Smith. Happy for him for sure. Excited to see him break out and excited to benefit from a win pick perspective too.  So hey, we're happy across the board here. So let's again, translate that to the Valspar Championship, which is this week coming up tomorrow, recording on Wednesday here because we wanted to let all the withdrawals hit after the players first, but let's talk about it now to get you set for tomorrow's event. It is at Innisbrook Resort, the Copperhead course, of course. It is 7,340 yards in a par 71. Of course, no course data from 2020 because this was one of the events canceled due to COVID-19. Last year's event was at a different point in the schedule because it was between the Masters and the PGA Championship. And that obviously is something that does matter in terms of field strength, et cetera, et cetera. It was right after the players in 2019, but between a WGC event and the Arnold Palmer Invitational back in 2018. So all around the calendar, all the different points in the calendar, different situations in the calendar, keep that in mind looking back at course data. There are 144 golfers in the field for this week. The top 65 plus ties will make it cut after the first two rounds. So Brandon, we know what you expect from Copperhead course and really difficult polls towards the backend of the 18 here. What do you see when you dig into the data from this course in terms of what we should look for within our golfers? Yeah, so as you mentioned, last year this event was held in early May. It's back in March, which is more typical. So it's really been, I struggle with this whenever there's been, what should have been two years. It's, I guess, if you add that full year in, it's been like three years since we've seen, like till today, three years since we've seen like a Valspar in March. So it's been a while that can throw a wrench into course history, things like that. But again, you and I don't really look too much at course history and not one of the most predictive weeks with course history anyway. So don't get too caught up in those numbers for this week. But yeah, lots of bunkers, lots of dog legs. It can play tough. It's probably gonna play pretty tough relative to par. Last year, the winning score was 17 under before that. It was eight under, 10 under, 14 under, seven under. So that's the kind of scoring we're probably gonna return to this week. But I mean, these guys are just getting so much better that maybe they'll take it 17 under again anyway. But looking at cut lines that might be flirting with even maybe a little bit over par. So it's gonna be one of those not gonna be a birdie fest again. And the reason for that part of the reason for that is just it's a tough course with lots of bunkers to get into. I think I saw and I think I see it phrased as like every like 17 of the 18 holes have some sort of dog leg which is why you'll see driving accuracy pop up as a key stat. That's not gonna be a key stat for me this week which I'll get into in just a second. But data golf, they have this course table tool where it shows difficulty in terms of picking up strokes in different categories. And they have, this is the third toughest course on tour to gain strokes off the tee and it's 17th in approach out of like 76. So we're gonna see again, we're gonna see driving accuracy pop up as something that's important. But I think if you can gain strokes off the tee cutting corners wherever you can but still being able to put it on the planet whenever you need to, it's gonna be key. And just overall gaining fairways, gaining greens gonna be, it's gonna be at a premium this week. And if you look at some past winners recently see a mix of good putters with Sam Burns who I definitely consider as a good putter, Adam Hadwin, Jordan Spieth, but also great ball strikers which also Sam Burns, Paul Casey, Toys, Kevin Strillman. So there's not really one archetype of golfer who wins. And so what all this sort of boils down to is we're looking at a, let's call it a 10 underscore to win bunkers, placement off the tee distance whenever you can, irons getting up and down. It's an all around test. That's why for me, my key stats are gonna include all four of the strokes gained categories but not necessarily just strokes gained total. You can break them out and you can weight them differently which is what I'm doing. I rank them, strokes gained approach, strokes gained off the tee, strokes gained putting birdie or better rate for whenever you can find them and strokes gained around the green. I think they all matter this week and I'm gonna make sure that I'm not getting too careless with some guys who have big red flags in their games. I think the key word you said there in terms of the off the tee stuff is placement because that can mean several different things which leads me to also going with strokes gained off the tee versus distance or accuracy because I want guys who can make things work and it's similar to last week in that regard where I just want them to be able to like make it work. I don't care what route they go to making it work, just do it. And I think that when you look at past guys who have done well here, I think that taking that approach is going to lead you down a better path because like Sam Burns is not accurate. Finish 124th in accuracy last year, 33rd in the distance but 44th off the tee. John Victor Hovland last year who did well, he's not a standout in either department but is good in terms of strokes gained off the tee. Abraham answered it well too. So to me, I think that skewing towards strokes gained off the tee versus one of the other is a way to go here because of the stuff you discussed. I also do have around the green play in mine, not just because of the unique challenges here but because it's a tough course. And I think at a tough course and you alluded to this too, I'm okay valuing in that more because it gives me fewer paths to, more paths to gaining strokes but also fewer paths to collapse I guess is, like I don't really care about floor but I just, I don't know the right way to phrase it. I don't care about floor but I want fewer routes to disrupting a potential ceiling if that makes sense. And like if you're losing strokes off around the green, you're taking, you're giving me one more path to disrupting a really good ball striking week or really good putting week stuff like that. Is that a proper way to explain that?  So I'll give you an example. This week we have, I think to me the top two plays would be Justin Thomas and Vickir Hovland. They are either first or second in strokes gained off the tee and approach Thomas's third, sorry. Over the past year with my adjustments, Thomas 93rd percentile and adjusted around the green, Hovland third percentile adjusted around the green. I'm just going to take that as the tiebreaker and go with JT this week. So I think that's really, I want to love Hovland more and I think I still love him more than I probably should with the issues maybe around the green but in that instance, I can just go to JT or Morakawa or Xander, these guys all with significantly better short games that then Vickir Hovland. I'd agree with phrasing it that way for sure. We'll talk about golfers who have done well at Copperhead in just one second but first is it is that time of year. It is March, which means Fandals giving you a chance to bet on NCAA tournament games this year risk-free presenting Fandals risk-free bet the bracket. Here's what you do, log into the Fandals Sportsbook and opt into the promotion then place a wager on any college basketball game with odds of minus 200 or longer. If your bet loses, you'll receive a refund and site credit, head over to the Fandals Sportsbook today, place a wager on any 2022 NCAA men's basketball game today must be 21 plus and present Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, permitted parishes only Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, gambling problem call 1-800-Gambler, visit Fandal.com slash RG in Arizona 100 next step or text next step to 533-4-2 in Connecticut 1-888-789-7777, visit ccpg.org slash chat in Indiana 1-800-9 with it in Louisiana 1-877-770 stop in New York 1-877-8 Hope NY or Text Hope NY in Tennessee call the red line at 1-800-899-79 or in West Virginia visit 1-800-gambler.net Let's dive in here to past history at Innisbrook Resort at the Copperhead Chorus and talk about some golfers who have long history here but also in good history. Louis Westhason is one of the guys who has both. He's been here plenty of times but also has done well in those trips. So Brandon, what are you seeing with Louis in terms of his history here, specifically what he's done here most recently? Yeah, so he's got a lot of missed cuts in here. He finished, what, 20th and then three straight missed cuts. So figure that one out in terms of wanting some course history. Like what matters there, right? Like 20th, oh, he's figured it out in his debut and then three straight missed cuts. So, oh, and then he comes back with the 7th, 16th, 2nd and 8th. So like, look, course history's at best a part of the puzzle, usually a small part of the puzzle but he's been golfing pretty well lately as well. And in 2022, he has a 14th at the WM Phoenix Open, 30th at the Honda, 42nd at the players in like, you know, those aren't all top 10s but making cuts, finishing, playing well. The players, I think just making the cut was enough with how all of that went down. And statistically, he is just phenomenal. That's why my model always likes him more than the betting odds. The betting odds like him a little bit less because he doesn't close out the wins but a salary of 11,400. We don't necessarily need that win, although at odds of 24 to one, I like him for a win, again. But I think Louis is kind of a standout here at that salary, any thoughts on him? Yeah, so I think that when you look at what he's done recently, you mentioned that it's like making cuts and being fine. That is without his irons being like fully on but we know that like in the long run, Louis is a very good iron player. So I think we talked with that with Rory previously where it's like, okay, he's doing well in the other categories. If he can re-add a component of his game where he's typically very good, there's a lot of upside that's potentially untapped there. So I think at 11,4, he is under salary, I would say. And I think that if we're like ranking out these guys, like ranking out options at the top end, I think I'd probably have him a little bit lower than I think the Ivan would be higher than where he's currently ranked. So Louis to me, sorry, no, yeah, I'm not. Lower in terms of salary. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, thank you. I would say to me, the only question I have is, I'm probably gonna have a lot of JT this week. And if I go JT, can I fit in Louis at 11,4 as well? I think yes, but there will be some inclination in my head to dip down a bit lower for my second golfer. I think that if I don't go JT or Hovland, I'd be okay having Louis being my top guy and maybe going like Louis with someone else in this range. But I think there is a guy at $83 in a dollar, so I like, and that might change the equation a bit, Pat Perez. Oh yeah, me too. Yeah, yeah, so I think that could change the equation a bit, but it is a little bit top heavy to go JT plus Louis, but that's the only downside I see with him right now. Yeah, so JT-Louis start gives you 91, 25 on Fandall. I think that's doable. I don't love it. The win equity for me kind of culminates with JT and Hovland. I have them about 7.5% even to win. It's kind of reflected in the win odds too. I could see that. The only thing I want to advocate probably against is like a JT-Louis answer. I don't know who's like, I don't want three golfers below like 8,800. Right. I think the 88 range is fine, but I don't want to have a ton of stock there effectively. So that's why I get a little bit uncomfortable, but like if I go with like, for a single entry type thing, and I'm not like building every line of this way, but like a JT-Louis Pat Perez start, that could work. That I'm okay with, but I don't want to make that like my default build. So just being conscious of like not getting overextended on value plays is the only thing I have against Louis because I plan on being pretty high on JT, but otherwise I think that his profile is really nice. Let's move on now to Jason Kochrak, the Koch baby, been good at Copperhead for a while now. His first top 10 came back in 2015, finished seventh in that one. He was 14th a year before that. The past three trips have been good too. Kochrak 13th last year, second in 2019 and eighth in 2018. And two of those came despite the low average around the green play. We talked about valuing that and Kochrak is not stellar there necessarily. And he hasn't been spectacular recently, but did win the Houston Open back in the fall. He has not missed a cut since the Shriners. So solid, but unspectacular. The problem is that a lot of them has been fueled by good putting rather than the typical ball striking for Kochrak. So he's 10-six, that is not low. What does your read on Kochrak for this week? He's fine, but I prefer a name above him and just below him as well with Matt Fitzpatrick and Tommy Fleetwood going across the pond for those. So it's less to do with Kochrak and more to do with the fact that I would rather just play Fleetwood or Fitzpatrick at setups that I think maybe favor them a little bit more. So could I venture a head-to-head bet? No, with neither. I think that with Kochrak, my concern is the last thing I mentioned there where it's fueled by putting and that seems kind of fluky. His ball striking has not been typical Kochrak-y. So that's my concern there. So I would like both of those guys more too and feel pretty okay with that personally. I also like Shane Lowry's 10-eight. I might go Shane Lowry above Kochrak too. So I think he's worth mentioning here because of the good course history but it's not enough to overcome the recent form from you with Kochrak. So I'm very okay being shy there. And I mentioned Pat Perez as being a guy who could potentially balance out a Louis plus JT start. Your next person in the course history section is Charles Schwartzl, who is minimum salary, $7,000 on FanDuel. Sell me on this, talk me into Charles Schwartzl so I can feel better about a JT Louis start. I don't know if that's where the conclusion will wind up but I think that it would be a disservice not to talk about some and minimum salary with who is the term that everyone likes to throw around is course horse. So let's take a look, right? Why not? Former winner here in 2016 followed that up with a sixth, 49th missed cut and 21st. If you get a 21st or a six or even a 49th from some and minimum salary and you really kind of hit on your other five, that is valuable. However, if there's not a modicum of recent form, can you trust that he's gonna finish 49th even? Cause he's missed five straight cuts in 2022. Over the past three months, Datagolf has him ranked 116th in this field and adjusted a T-degree in play of what they call true T-degree and 133rd overall. Usually we just straight up ignore golfers who have flashed at a course but are not in good form. I think though the form at Copperhead is enough to bring him up the salary. He's not even 8,000, he's 7,000. Now he was golfing a lot better entering those past events than he is now. So that's a very important thing to look for when looking at course history but you want some studs this week, can you consider a minimum salary, Charles? So he's played one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 events since the start of the new PGA tour season. So the end of FedEx Cup playoffs. He has had a positive total strokes gain number on Datagolf adjusted for field strength twice and that was in the Abu Dhabi HSBC and the World Wide Technology Championship. It's not even recent, like, no. I need like something, something in the recent form to get even a little bit drawn in and I don't see anything there. So I'm not, are you going that way or no? He's like, he's got good iron play. He's 53rd percentile over the past year if you adjust for recency in field strength. Pretty good. I mean, even better around the green play. The putting's bad, the off-the-tees bad. I think maybe if I were, let's say, if I'm someone who's gonna multi-entry, I'd consider it. But again, the caveat there is there's really no one else you can consider down there. So you're gonna have to build some lineups that are unique to having one goal for a minimum salary. So I'm probably not gonna get there, but I do think other people might have a question with shorts will be minimum salary and having played well here recently. Yeah, I'll pass. But maybe someone else will talk to himself into it. And if it goes well, you can yell at me on Twitter or not, not believing in old Charles. Just praying for the Charles top 10 now. Yeah, that's fine. I've done this before. It's okay. I've had that happen plenty of times. Let's talk with Bubba Watson here. He's $9,900. Bubba is a guy who seems like he is a bit more course history dependent or he really excels in some spots, does not excel some others. Could build well for this week because he does do well at Copperhead typically. Watson has a pair of top fives here. He was third in 2010 and then fourth in 2019. Followed that up last year with a 13th place finish where he was at least slightly positive in each of the strokes game categories. Watson missed the cut of the Genesis. Thanks to his poor approach play and he struggled with the players but we know that could have been a result of weather. Obviously I'm kind of okay downplaying a lot of the players for fairly obvious reasons but Watson was second to the Saudi international. That's not too long ago. The form is mixed but with upside. It's the way I'd phrase it. So he's $9,900. How are you feeling about Bubba this week? Well, for a minute it looked like Bubba was gonna be a bit of a threat posting a round 268 at the players and then followed that up with the 78, 76 which is a little bit tough to see but you mentioned Bubba is someone we talk about. Bubba and Brooks basically we just kind of throw the data out for largely which it hasn't really been a good process I guess. I mean Brooks was good until things got absurd on whatever day, Friday or Saturday and he's putting off the greens and stuff like that. It was fine for a bit. Yeah. I think for me, I have enough other names right around that range that I'm not gonna get to Bubba necessarily. Although again, so many dog legs here it would make sense. Nobody moves a ball more than Bubba does. I think I'm gonna prefer Alexander Noren at 98, Russell Knox at 98 as well. And I think that's enough where there's another name at 10-5 I like Tommy Fleetwood. I'd love to get back up too. I know 600 is asking a lot but I think that with those names that I kind of wanna prioritize I'm probably not gonna get to Bubba myself although I will root for Bubba. He's got some of the sickest shoe game on the PGA tour. I see the case for it. I just don't know necessarily if I'm getting there myself. I think I'll be in this range a decent amount because I think my default construction will be JT and then Matt Fitzpatrick, Tommy Fleetwood somewhere in that like high 10,000 range. And that will allow me to get back into this upper 9,000 range. I like Noren more and we'll have Noren above Bubba for sure. I do agree with you that Knox is interesting as well. So I'm not gonna post that. So I think that there are other guys in this range and Bubba will not be first but I might be here enough where I still get to him despite that. Yeah, if I go like Louis Joel Damon who's 88, I got 99.50, one more in the low 9,000 and I can just live here. So I think maybe again, I'm not out on Bubba. I just don't know if he's like a top four player in this range or he's probably fourth if I can consider Fleetwood here. So yeah, Bubba will be. So let's have a Fleetwood. He is in the current form section because Fleetwood is trending back up after a pretty long lull in his performance but Fleetwood 10-5 makes sense. Some good finishes recently. What are you seeing with the data in Fleetwood or the past couple of events? Yeah, so with the data, it's trending up. He's in 2022 in his past five. He has four top 25 finishes and one missed cut when the Irons just sort of evaporated for him. And again, I'm usually lower on Fleetwood than consensus I think just because I find him to be a little bit more dependent on his short game long-term and the ball striking but that can work this week, especially with the bunkering, getting up, saving par, getting up and down. And his salary of 10,500 is also a really nice discount if you think that he is not that far from, let's say, a Shane Lowry, an AB answer, something like that, maybe a Tiro Hatton. I have a gap there, but like still, it's a good salary. He hasn't played here before, which is a little bit of a concern, but I think like there's definitely a case to be made with Fleetwood. I know he's a popular player. I know he flashed at the players for the first round. You mentioned he had a lull in the data, but I've heard him on podcasts, specifically the No Laying Up podcast talking about how like the COVID layoff hit a lot of the European guys harder. He didn't really get to play a whole lot, so it makes sense that there was a lull and training back up. So maybe it is time to buy in a little bit early, because I think that we haven't missed that window at 10.5. So I like Fleetwood a lot this week. What are your thoughts? So I was gonna, my assumption always with Fleetwood is kind of what you were talking about where like he's a very popular player, which tends to lead to inflated roster rates. And I kind of thought that, oh, you know, Fleetwood, like you said, he was on TV a bit this past week. Maybe that will lead to increased some steam. It's not. He has one tag on fan share, which is fewer than Paul Casey, who withdrew. Also shocker Paul Casey withdrew from his, the only event he's allowed to win, but whatever, weird choice, bud, bud. Well, he got that check last week at the players. I think he just, it's all right. Where Paul Casey cares about money? Weird. Breaking news, breaking news here on the heat check. Fleetwood is getting no buzz. My boy, Matt Fitzpatrick is. He's back to me, my boy, by the way. I'm no longer rooting against him versus Sung Jae. I think with that being the case where there's such a massive, massive gap between the two, Coke rack answer also getting buzz. Everyone in this range except for Fleetwood is getting buzz. So I would say single entry tournament. Fleetwood might be like one of the first guys I put in. Is that weird? The buzzless Tommy. I like that. As long as it's not a buzz cut. I'm not a general pro. He shaved and people didn't like it. Although my, I mean, my hair is not that far from Tommy Fleetwood's at this point. You could do a canned Smith if you tried. My wife would not like that. Just like do it temporarily, take a picture and then just get rid of it. Get rid of the rest. I don't know. I don't know how that would go over. I need this, please. I don't have much. Let me have this, this one thing. Just one mullet pick of Brandon. That's all I asked for. That's all I asked for. It's not that much. But I think that like for single entry tournaments a JT plus fleet would start allows me to get two guys I feel very good about avoid what could be more popular players in that second range and still keep things fairly balanced. You got 93.50 left per golfer. If you go those two, if I go Perez as well then I'm just basically living in that high 9,000 range which I would like to do this week. So I think to me, fleet would very attractive for single entry tournaments. He's attractive in general, even without the beard. But I think for a single entry tournament specifically he's a really good play this week. Yeah, and we can leave it at that. But we'll circle back to the top of this field because the tags are not going the way that I kind of thought they might go. Yeah. So we'll talk about that whenever we talk about the betting odds. Okay. So let's move now to the second current form golfer and someone you mentioned before, someone I like a lot this week in Alexander, Alex, Noren, Alex, Noren, Alexander, Noren, both, you know, let's go with it. Spreadsheet, he's a spreadsheet roominer. He is, he is. But Noren is a well-balanced golfer. He finished 21st year last year. So he knows the course and his form seems to be on the rise. Noren has been to seven events since the new year. He has finished top six in two of those and both of those have come across his past four events. Noren was sixth at Scottsdale. I'm just going to avoid the WM waste management thing. I'm just going to say Scottsdale from now on. He was sixth in Scottsdale. He was fifth at the Honda Classic. He putted well in both those events and that could be fluky, but the approach point at the Honda was really, really nice too. Noren has gained at least 3.5 an approach in three straight events. He is a good Bermuda putter, solid short game. So I like Noren a lot. I think he checks every box for me. What about for you? Yeah, I'm in on Noren. It seems like whenever I'm in on Noren finally, it's not going well, but he's doing it with the approach play and usually I'm trying to buy Noren at a course where like it's all about short game and just hoping that the ball striking is there. You know, usually you should be a little bit hesitant whenever you see a big deviation in ball striking from older golfers and Noren's almost 40, but it's been a little bit consistent enough and it's sort of growing week after week.  It's like consistently gaining like three, two to three and that to me feels less fluky than he's popping off for a seven burger every now. Yeah, so I think for me, Noren is one of the best plays of the week at salary. I wouldn't have been surprised if he were in like the low 10,000 range. So I think any savings we can get are going to go a long way, especially if your goal is to get back up to a second stud who we can probably say is like Tiro Hatton and above at 11-3, sorry Brooks. But like, if that's your goal, I think that dropping down from Fleetwood to Noren is totally fine to do that. Yeah, I think Noren will be probably in my head to head versus you, if I had to guess, he's in there as of right now. So I think that there is a good chance that that does wind up happening. Let's move down to some value plays here. Starting with Martin Laird, Laird is $8,900. I kind of gave away the game you were gonna play here with the opening of this, but Martin Laird 89, what draws you towards him? What game? You had in your notes a question and I didn't want to give away the question. Well, too late, sorry.  Hit me, hit me, hit me. Okay, Jim, Jim, listen up.  Jim, what if I told you that you could get the guy who ranks ninth in the field and adjusted T-degreeing over the past three months at a salary of 8,900, would you be interested? I would say is Lukas not, I thought Lukas wasn't in this field this week, is did something change that I was not aware of? Well, we have that with Martin Laird this week. Wow, crazy, wow, I've blown away. I love the idea that I just went on with my script not hearing what you said. He's 116th in putting in that span, but if you factor that in, he's still 30th and their true strokes gained over the past three months, that's still pretty good for that salary. The long-term putting, not good, but he can stripe it. Very accurate off the tee. I was trying to check this out and then I got distracted because you said, I think he had big line movement. Laird did? No, he didn't, Martin Kimer did. Oh, that's what I was thinking of. So any thoughts on Laird? Yeah, so Laird 89, when I was doing my player picks yesterday, he was one of the guys I dug into because I mentioned this before, I think that 89 range is pretty good. You mentioned Joel Damon already, he's a guy in that range. We have Johnny Vegas at 89, we have Mito Pereira 89. Laird 89 is there too. So I think this is actually a good range in terms of what you talk about a lot, where you have a lineup, duplicate it, plug in someone else with the same salary and then plug in that one too. I think the 89 range is ripe for that approach. Because you have Laird Pereira, you might not like Mito or like Johnny Vegas. Okay, but I think that range is very good for that. Damon as well. So to me, I feel like he's good enough to fit in that rotation. Would I rank him first in that range? Probably not. I think I'd probably go Vegas if Forrest had to choose. Sounds like you'd probably go Damon in that range. But I would say that he's top four for sure and top four in that range will be high enough to be my player pool for this week. Yeah, I got Damon over Vegas. Let me find this quick. I mean, historically, I don't want to do that to my guy Joel Damon because I never win these. No, I'll do that, I'll find that. I'd actually, do you want to double down and do a Mito versus Damon too? No, because Mito is someone else I like. Okay, cool. So we just have Vegas versus Damon? Yeah, Fandall points straight up.  What is the thing again? I'm not gonna entertain this. I've seen that episode. You can't be there to be too late. I have, I've seen that episode. I just forget, it was like three years ago. You want him to be the day man. I want him to be the day man. You want him to be the night man. You got me all mixed up with the boy. I'm gonna go with night boy. I'm gonna go with that instead. Rootin' for night boy, Joel night boy to be. Although I'll probably have him too. So maybe I shouldn't root that much against him but I'll street for Vegas anyway. Let's talk about Adam Hadwin. Hadwin is 94, so not a value value play but in a range that we might be in if we do decide to go with more of a top heavy approach with guys like Louis and JT in the same line. Hadwin, coming up with top 10 of the players, largely aided by good approach play. The approach play was trending up before that too. Since January 1st, Hadwin has gained 1.2, 1.0 across two rounds, 3.5, 3.7, minus 2.6 in two rounds and plus 4.2. So a lot of good numbers in there, some downspots for sure but had some spikes. Hadwin still not great off the tee but he's pretty respectable elsewhere. Is that enough to draw you in on Adam Hadwin here at $9,400? I almost wrote up Hadwin in the course history section because he has some interesting stuff. Former winner here, he followed that up with a 12 but overall just three made cuts out of six tries. So I thought that was intriguing but Hadwin also is a player pick for me. So I think he's a really good fit here at a really good salary. The irons have been there. His putting has been up and down but he's coming in with three top 26 finishes and has passed four. And again, I don't really like to cite just finishes but I will call them out if the data is good enough and for the most part when he's making the cuts and finishing well it's from good iron play. So I'll take that. And they're a good illustration of upside too. Even if they're like imperfect, they can illustrate that. Like, okay, you can have spike weeks in certain categories. Like if it's some putting, you know, but like. Yeah.  Yeah. So, but I still try to like avoid that. Yeah. So I like Hadwin and I'm broadly open to him. Would you do? I shouldn't do that. Nevermind. Retract. Can I like delete all that? Aaron's nice. Yeah. Then I like had like these visions in my head of like watching Shot Tracker and having like six shots of like the little like little yellow pins around the green. It's like, oh no, I don't wanna do this anymore. I don't wanna be here anymore. I'm gonna retract that. I'm not actually offering that head to head. So I thought about it. But I also thought about Lonzo. I don't like Lonzo two at 92. But I think I'll stay away. I think Hadwin's a pretty good option for this week. Let's dive into the bookmaker odds for this week over at Fandals Sports Book where Justin Thomas and Victor Hovland pretty even. Thomas is 10 to one. Hovland is 11 to one. Collin Warakawa checks in the 12 to one with Dustin Johnson at 15. Sam Burns is back. And they had a shuffle able 21 to one. There is a group of three at 24 to one with Louie, Tyrell Hatton and Matt Fitzpatrick. Shane Lowry and Brooks Kepka are 29 to one. Abraham Anster is 34 to one and Jason Kochrak rounds at the top group here at 36 to one. So the betting odds Brandon are saying there's a tier of four at the top. And that tier is JT, it is Victor Hovland, Morakawa and Dustin Johnson. Do you agree with the assertion of the betting odds that those four are cut above the rest for this week or no? I don't know if I'd put DJ there. I honestly don't know if I'd put so weird because I love Collin Warakawa and I wasn't that in, like I liked him last week but I didn't want to bet him at his odds. Things got a little out of hand with the Morakawa love last week. And this is another course where accuracy is something that will be discussed plenty. But might not matter as much as perception? Possibly, which is why I said I'd circle back to this but according to fanchairsports.com Morakawa is so far the most talked about, most buzzed about stud followed by Victor Hovland. And then there's kind of a drop to JT and I'm having trouble with that. Like why? Why is that- I think it's because Morakawa, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's an accuracy heavy core statistically he missed the cut so he wasn't grinding things out on the weekend but look, one of the things I still struggle with with golf because I come at this from a data perspective and I'm trying to work on this more but like shot shaping and stuff because I think sometimes just certain courses fit certain players and I don't know this stuff but I was listening to the Shotgun Start podcast and they were talking about how Collin Warakawa hits it, hits his irons better than anyone but he hits them straight and he's not really like a shot creator and this course is just full of dog legs. So I'm not really that interested in Morakawa if I could just play JT instead especially at maybe lower popularity perception. So I hate to speak ill of Morakawa but I think I'm just lower on him than most. Yeah, I think I am too in part because of that but also in part because I just like JT a lot and I feel very comfortable putting JT above Morakawa and if you'll give me him at a roster rate discount I'm skeptical that happens because as you've researched the betting favorite gets steamed up, the highest salary guy gets steamed up JT checks both those boxes. So I think if anything like the tag discrepancy indicates they'll be more even than they otherwise would. But that also if you're gonna give me them at even roster rates, I'll just take JT if I'm not using roster rates as a tiebreaker there. So I think that to me, I think it's more JT Hovland tier one and I feel like JT is like half a step above Hovland as a result of the around the green play. So to me, I just like JT. I think that's the key takeaway here is I like Justin Thomas a lot this week. It's hard not to like him unless you think guys who were in contention to some degree who had to wait it out who were playing until Monday that you don't like them. That I think that's really the only case you can make against like JT Hovland this week. I mean, DJ surged. I think DJ is gonna get talked up because he had what a 63 on Monday. I have no idea what days. So I woke up this morning and was like, is it not Thursday? I was like very confused. I was like, golf events haven't locked yet. And I was like really confused and just disoriented across the board. I also didn't work Monday hardly at all outside of the bracket show. So like I should be thinking it's like Tuesday and then we have a golf podcast but it feels like Thursday. It's a very weird week. Yeah, I'm all out of sorts with that. But yeah, I have JT and Hovland in their own tier. I have more Ocala and probably DJ on the same tier behind that. I will say DJ shot that 63 but he's been just putting like crazy. The ball striking is not really been there. And despite not being a course ready I'm pretty sure he's actually done pretty well here in the past, which is like it's enough but I also don't wanna write off someone like Xander. If I'm trying to get different I think I like Xander, a DJ 48th last year, sixth the year or two years before that in 2019. Like I think I'm actually gonna disagree with the betting odds right here. Yep. That's how I'd tier those top four. Okay, which golfers odds have shifted since things opened on Monday? I know there are a lot of withdrawals so you have to start through all that but who has seen the biggest movement? Well, these don't, I don't know when I pulled these my notes say Monday but that's just out of habit. Was it before after the Bergoon pontoon is added because that could shift everything? This I think I, I think this was like Tuesday around one. Sounds after Bergoon. Okay, that's all that matters. JT was 11, he's now 10. Usually I'm more formulaic with this and pulled a certain time but I didn't this week. Matt Fitzpatrick, 28 to 24. Gary Woodland, 70 to 46. Bubba Watson, Keegan Bradley, 55 to 46. Adam Hadwin, Harold Varner, 75 to 55. Kevin Kisner, 75 to 65. Martin Keimer, 190 to 90. Johnny Vegas, Mito Pereira, 160 to 120. Who is putting this much money on Martin Keimer? Why is it happening? Well, if you look at his course form in 2016, he missed the cut in 2013. He missed the cut in 2011, was 20th. In 20th is doing a lot of work here. He's played one event since the start of the new year. He was cut at the Honda back in November 32nd at the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai, 1334th, I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Okay, fair enough. Which lower salary golfers have odds to that? To you, including our boy Martin here. Martin Keimer, apparently 90 to one at 8,200. So I don't know what's going on there. Kevin Strillman, Patton Kisire, Adams Fenson, Jonathan Vegas, Mito Pereira and Martin Laird, all 120 to one. That's the best you're gonna do below 9,000 this week on Fandall. Kisire, I looked into, he is at $9,000. Good putter, obviously, he's had some okay finishes recently. The data's not bad. What's your read on Kisire? Should we put him in that, that the Martin Laird, Mito Pereira consideration? We could or we could make him a player pick. Man, I did not look at your player pick. According to today. I saw you at JT at the top and I was like, cool, I don't need to worry anymore. I just like cashed out at that point. So glad to hear it. We'll talk about him later on. Weather for this week, thankfully brief. Two things of note, winds will start low Friday and then steadily work their way up to around 12 miles per hour during the day. So there might be a slight edge for golfers with later Thursday tea times. It is not something that I would say is all that drastic, though winds will be high on Sunday around 15 miles per hour, which is less than half of what they were this past weekend. So, you know, a little bit windy and maybe a slight edge to those teeing off later Thursday, but overall pretty straightforward for this week. Bless it. Let's move now to the player picks here for the Valspar Championship, starting off with the Topper tier, Topper tier. The Top tier, it was a combination of top and upper. The Topper tier on Fandall, who are you turning to there, Brandon? I think it has to be JT. We have enough salary savers to get to JT if we want. I think he's just, I think again, it's down to JT and Hovland for me is like the top guy. And they're both phenomenal ball strikers, basically best in the field. If you include off the tee play, so that bumps down Calamora-Calla out of that discussion for me. Thomas has an edge in course history around the green play, bunker play. Hovland is significantly more accurate, but that's not enough. Gimme JT as the top play this week. The only way I wouldn't play him in our head-to-head is if I try to start with Louie and go a little bit more balanced, but I think JT's probably a lock. I agree, he's a lock for me as well. And the reasoning is very similar to what you mentioned, where the around the green play for him, relative to most guys in the upper tier, is pretty different. He's 22nd around the green, the past 50 rounds per fantasy national. And you know, not a good putter, Ombremuda, but that's kind of like the one thing he lacks, and he's still done well here, despite that. He is the best golfer in the field, according to DataGolf's true strokes gained over the past six months and over the past calendar year. I'm fine letting it ride with JT as both a cash game lock and a tournament building block for this week. Who else do you like in this upper range as a high-salary player pick for this week? Louie, but again, if I'm playing JT, I'd also go Fleetwood as like my second guy, but I think Louie's really underrated here at 11-4. He's the best value in my model, among guys with a salary of 10,000 or above. 88th percentile are better in all three adjusted T-degree stats, which for me accounts for field strength, but also recency. He's 86th percentile and putting in that same stat. That's phenomenal. Like 86th percentile and all four of those across the board with adjustments. It's hard to hate on that. Accurate off the tee. He's played well here in the past. Again, I love JT. I think Louie, you can make a case, is your top play this week. Yeah, I think Louie is worth the roster rate or the roster construction mess you kind of get yourself into to get him with JT. That's okay. I think that that's fine for some spots. Okay, with that, I think that you need to make sure you're getting a good golfer to have that top-heavy lineup, but you are getting two really good golfers. I think he's worth that. I think my typical approach, especially for a cash game, will be to jump down a bit more for my second guy. It would be Fleetwood for a single entry tournament, but I do like Matt Fitzpatrick for cash gains. Let's talk about Fitzpatrick here. He missed the cut last week, but I'm willing to write that off. I think last week is wild, and Fitzpatrick actually leads the field and strokes gained off the tee over the past 50 rounds, the corner fantasy national. We know a lot of that, or most of that is due to his excellent placement. He's also third in remute of putting the past 100 rounds. Before the missed cut last week, Fitzpatrick had finished sixth, 10th and ninth since January 1st, and we're getting that for 10-7. I'll take that. And I think that from my head to head, Fitzpatrick will be in there for a single entry tournament to be JT, plus Fleetwood for a cash game and for multi entry tournaments, I'll be in on Fitzpatrick there. What are your thoughts on Matty Fitz bounce back scism? Yeah, nothing bad to say. He's an other to consider for me and my helper on Number Fire. I don't have a strong play between he and Fleetwood. I like both. I'd love to get both, maybe mess around and see. Like I said, JT and Damon kind of goes a long way. Let's do this here. Let's do Louie, Matty Fitz and Timmy Fleetz. 91-33. So that's actually very similar to the JT plus Louie start with three golfers left versus four. So I think that's Damon, not Louie. Damon. No, 91-33 left. If you did JT plus Damon, you would... No, 91-33. I gotcha, I gotcha. Yeah, yeah. So 91-33 left for the final three spots. I can make that work. I will make that work. I think that's a good build too. I agree. Nice. Okay, let's move down for that. Thank you for that. That was really nice of you. Yeah, I know, it hurt. But anyway, here we are. Let's move to the mid-range. Who stands out to you there? I'm gonna be nicer again. We both have the same guy. I'm gonna let you talk about him first. Okay, that's Alexander, Alex Noran. I'm just gonna call him both from now on because I think that's funnier. Trending up with the approach, the rest of this play always has been pretty good. 50th off the tee, 30th around the green, the past 50 rounds, also good for me to putter. Noran has decent stats, solid form, showed he can handle this course last year too. I think that makes him pretty easy to sell at 98. What draws you towards him? Everything. Good iron play, trending up, great short game. That's right. I'll take that. That's right. You mentioned Adam Hadlin was on your player picks before. I talked about him in the form section. What puts you on Hadlin at $9,400? He's got good irons largely lately. He's accurate. He's a good putter generally. It's been a little more up and down than you would expect from someone who puts as well as Hadlin, generally does long-term, but top 10 at TPC Sawgrass last week. That's again a third, top 26 finish in his past four starts. The miscut in there was with bad putting, and I think that Hadlin makes a lot of sense at 94. Whether I get back up to 94 is another question, but in this range, I think Hadlin stands out. So you mentioned bad putting, which brings me to my second player pick, Aaron Wise. Wise is 95, really massively bad blip in February, and it led to some rough outings, but he's bounced back with a ball strike in the past two weeks, so I'm buying back in on Wise here. He has finished 17th and 50 at the past two weeks, despite losing a combined 9.4 strokes putting in those. The putting will remain bad. That's not gonna change, but will it remain that bad? The answer is yes, it could, like it definitely could, but if he can just lose a couple fewer strokes, I'm not asking you to gain. I'm asking you to lose one stroke on the greens. Lose one stroke on the greens, Aaron Wise challenge. That is what I'm issuing here this week, because if he can just not be as disastrous, he'll have upside. Wise, 15th and Data Golf's true strokes gained over the past six months, and that does include his hideous putting. So for 95, I'm in. I will not do a head to head versus had one, and I won't use him in a cash game because of the putting, but I think for tournaments, I do think Wise grades out well. Where are you and Aaron Wise this week? He's another to consider for me as well. It's the putting that holds him back. Again, not the same caliber, but you kind of make the same case for JT. Like when JT doesn't do well, it's generally because of the putting. JT can be less terrible though than Aaron Wise, so would you take a Wise versus Varner bet? I like both, but would you do that? Let me look first. Okay, HV3. Same salary too. I'm not trying to take any equity from you out of your pocket. Yeah, why not? Let's do it. I think they're very similar. Every time. We only have one head to head, so I kind of need to get more action down in here. Like, you know, just a little itchy. For anyone who's- The last car's stuff this week is pretty bad, so I don't really have that as an outlaw. I have Formula One, I guess, so. But like, I need something. So yeah, I'm in. I think that they're very even. I probably shouldn't have done it, but like whatever, I don't care. I like both of them. I shouldn't even have proposed it, but that does mean that Wise will do better than Varner because I get stompings. You're saying it was Wise of me to do a head to head bet on him. So my first low salary play for this week is... Fair enough. Just keep going. Because if you would ask me to lead in, I would have done the desire for Kazair a bit, and I'm just gonna like, I don't want to like make you quit. Making you transition off of me is fine. Making you quit seems a bit too far. I like Kazair. You asked me about him before. He's on the upswing. 17th in this field in true strokes gained T-degree over the past three months with a respectable top 40 mark in putting, made three or four cuts at Copperhead in his career, T-22 last week as well. Yeah, I think Kazair is very interesting. And I'm definitely in on him in terms of that like, rotation we discussed before with the high 8,000 guys, if I want to get a more top heavy one guy, I'd also include in the area is Jonathan Vegas. Did we do a Vegas head to head or no? No, we did, we did, I have Damon, you have Vegas. Oh yeah, okay. So I'm on Vegas. Okay, I can talk about him good and feel good about him. Past months for Vegas underwhelming. I need to trick you into betting against one of your player picks. I never remember like what my like things are. Like I had like, I didn't remember that I picked Kim Smith. Like I kind of vaguely remember like thinking his betting odds were too long, but like I had a message you'd be like, Hey, did I do this or? I never, I black out with the other podcast anyway. Vegas, he has been 55, 55th, 42nd and cut the past three. And it's not all due to short game, which is kind of concerning, but he's $1,800. That seems too low to me. Vegas ranks third off the tee, 16th and approach the past 50 rounds. We know he's not a great putter, but Bermuda is his least bad surface. So I'll take that. And I can live with him at such a low salary. So Vegas to me, pretty fun option 89.  What puts you on Damon over to Vegas? Better, just better, that's the whole analysis. Better. Damon better. So no, this is Patrick. Even though he's really not more accuracy, although, yeah, more accuracy for me. Good ball strikers both, but I think I worry a little bit less about the course fit for Damon. Imagine betting against Vegas during the opening week of the NCAA tournament. Like it just seems wrong. Like, I don't know, just saying, just saying. Poor form by you. Anything else you want on Damon or Vegas? Better. Better. My second low salary guy is Pat Perez, a guy we had mentioned before. Well, okay. So the reason you asked me is because Damon was my second player pick. I thought you were just referring to specifically. Oh no, no, no, no, no. That was my transition into it. I didn't actually say he was your second player pick, but yeah. Okay, that's why I was, I was like, better. Yeah. I'm not showing your notes, Sage, just better. Golf better. Night boy better. That's from Brink, I hope he got that one. Skate better, I didn't, but like now I do, okay. All right, I'm down for any Brink reference. The dad in that movie grills brats, and therefore I've had an undying affinity for that movie ever since. I think that's the best scene in cinematic history where the dad is grilling brats, none of your business. That's what my second player pick is, none of your business. I'm gonna clip that. What? Me breaking down film? No, just like you said, like my favorite scene in cinematic history is a dad grilling brats. Yeah, man, let's party. I grew up in the Midwest. Well, a good brat. Find me a better scene.  None of your business. I think Skate better is just more. People who aren't like between the ages of like 27 and 32 have no idea what movie we're talking about right now. It's on Disney Plus. You should go check it out. It's great. Well. Phantom of the Megaplex also S-tier Disney original movie. Isn't it though? I mean, I rewatched it recently because why not? Phantom of the Megaplex S-tier, Brink S-tier, everything else is I don't know. I don't remember most of them, but those, those two were elite. Yeah, I'm gonna refrain with any Disney movie takes till I've rewatched them. But I think Brink would hold up. It would. As does Phantom of the Megaplex, guaranteed. I've never had a bad take about a movie. Just throwing that out there. Also rush hours better. Are there, are there brats being cooked in Phantom of the Megaplex? I don't recall, but he wouldn't shock me. So I'm not going to rule it out. There's a giant inflatable dinosaur if that counts. I know we're off the rails, but it's the end of the show. Jim rarely- I'm not listening anymore, who cares? Jim rarely, I guess unless they're waiting for Winpex, but Jim rarely takes my like television suggestions and actually watches. I watched like two seasons of Community, I watched All the Wire. So like I do take your recommendations. It's, it's rare and sunny, but I'm just gonna tell you, there's a scene of a dad cooking brats. I watched White Collar because of you. Huh, well that's- And I liked, I liked White Collar and the Wire a lot. And I liked what I watched Community, I just lost motivation. Okay, well, whenever I want you to watch something next, I'm gonna say that there's a scene of a dad cooking brats, you just have to wait for it. I'm in. Sign me up. Neil Kaffir grilling brats, best show of all time. I mean, Peter Burke would be the one grilling if we're trying to keep the analogy going. But- No, Neil's, Neil's secret brock guy, closet brock guy, same. Anything else on Damon for you? No, let's do Winpex, unless you have someone else. I just want to talk about Perez. So Perez 83, rough swing season for him, but better since January 1st. He's made five of the past six cuts. Two of those were top tens at the Farmers and the Pebble Beach Pro AM. A lot of that has been due to the short game, but over a larger sample, Perez, 26 in approach. So he does some other stuff pretty well too. The off the tee play would be bad. And that's like the, that's why he's 83, I would guess. But it's, he does a lot for a low salary. What's your read on Perez at 83? So I have like the ideal sort of game fit for the course with just sort of being accurate. He's made five of six cuts, including four straight at Copperhead. I think he's very much in the conversation, just someone who I don't like to get overexposed to. And that honestly applies for almost anyone below 8,500 always, just kind of a week where I don't want to say like, I'm going to build around Pat Perez and like, it's not the kind of week for me to do that. You use Pat Perez in DFS and then you bet Sergio Perez to do something in Bahrain. That's the name stack of this week. Just throwing that out there. If you need the optimal name stack, I've just given it to you and you're welcome. Let's finish up here with the win picks for the Valspar championship based on the current odds over at Vandalsports Book, which I have closed because I was checking to see where Pierre Gasly was in Formula One to see if we can get some good old CLV on him. I'm distracted. Let's go back to golf. Okay. Based on the current odds, Brandon, where are you turning right now? Current odds, definitely Louie at 24. Okay. And it's a little bit, where's he at now? Where is he now? Where is he now? Did he move? Buddy, where are you at? It was a little longer than I usually go, but I'm going to go Alex Norr in a sec. No! No! We can both go there. I know, but like it's not fun to both.  Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I know, I know, I know. I took it back immediately. He's good. He's very good. And I would have picked him had you not done so. You can have him though. You can have Norr and Louie. I can do- No, they're both- No, no, no, stick with it. So I know. Because you can bat me for eternity if Norr and win. So no, no, I'm not letting you pivot off that. You were locked in with Norr and Louie. No, no, no. Then whenever you got DJ with a 10 stroke head start back when we couldn't- You shouldn't have lost to Bobba had the week before. I'm sorry. You know? He's erroneous. Sorry. Play better. You picked Louie so many times on this show. I have. We both have. No. Speaking of that, I can't- No, I'm not going to do that. Never mind. You can have the same too. No. Oh boy. I kind of want to go Matt Fitzpatrick at the same number as Louie. They're both 24 to one. His brother's in the field this week. Maybe a little bit of like a sibling rivalry thing where he wants to stick it to his brother. Could do that. I think they're buddies. I think I see photos of them all the time like Catty in or something. No, it's a farce. They don't actually like each other.  Matt, if it's to be motivated to blow up this week. I think honestly the only bets I like this week are Louie. I might just go with Hovland even though I don't like betting anyone 11 to one ever. I don't care what it is. It's not enough. I know my second one. Sorry, I just figured it out. Fleetwood. Okay, I'm good with that. Yeah. So you have Louie and Noren. I have Fitzpatrick and Fleetwood. I am just going all Brits, all Muppets for this week to win the Valispar Championship. Bring any final thoughts for you before we close up shop for this Valispar podcast to send people off to fill out their lines before lock tomorrow morning. You can get a little bit different without getting too strange and that might just be like taking a long look at Xander or Tiro Hatton or something. I mean Fleetwood is different without being dumb. Fleetwood, yeah. So like my ideal for DFS is finding ways to be different without being dumb. And I think I have that for this week. So that is to me very attractive for sure. That is all that we have here for the Valispar Championship. We'll get back to our regular recording schedule once we're not having golf played late in the day on Monday. So back to a regular schedule in the very near future. Of course, we also have plenty of other stuff here on the Fanduel podcast network specifically. If you're looking for some NCAA tournament takes, the men's side of things, go to the covering, the spread podcast feed. It's also in the Number Fire Daily Fantasy podcast feed, but like, you know, whatever, it's on YouTube too. We were showing some Number Fire stuff. So if you want to check it out on YouTube, go to the Fanduel YouTube page and look for the Bracket Breakdown with myself, Dr. Ed Feng, Bennett Corcoran, and Jessica Gridiron as well, all up over there. Brandon, people have questions for you on Twitter. Where can they find you there? I'm at Goodwill 13, G-D-U-L-A-1-3. You can get my definitive broad scene rankings by going to atgymsonus, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the Fanduel podcast network at Fanduel podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your PGA DFS lineup to the Valspar Championship. We'll talk to you once again next week. This has been the Heat Check Fantasy podcast powered by Number Fire.


So, welcome to the lecture series on distal switching systems, this is the first course so I will be introducing what we are going to cover in the whole course and then how I will be actually proceeding. So, basically the idea is what we understand from distal switching is, it has to do something with the switching, switching basically is an action where either there is going to be a path that is I think the most basic way of understanding most of the people understand only this way that usually they will use a switch to for example, switch on their lamp and they will usually will be a power source and they will switch on or off. So, this is what basically is the switch, but we need to talk about distal switch and basically switching functionality is what is more important how it is implemented is a different issue. So, what we are talking about is not switching in the sense of electricity, but switching in sense sense of communication. So, usually what will happen is how y y we required actually a switching let us come to that. So, essentially it is a communication requirement. So, usually what will people will do for communication there will be a transmitter. So, I am putting up a telephone here and telephone on the other end and user 1 wants to talk to user 2 they can actually lay a line and they can start working on this. So, this is a point to point communication link which gets created between them and they will communicate. So, they can just lift the handset they need to have some power source or to actually energize both the phones and that is all the communication happens whenever they want, but there are only 2 users, but this kind of communication system will actually not work. So, usually what we desire is we are going to have instead of this we would like to communicate not with 1 percent, but everybody whom I know. So, if I actually know a lot of people. So, in general they can be 1 2 3 4 N N. So, if I still want to create same kind of communication mechanism is a basically long distance telecommunication thing then what I need I need to lay my wires all the way to every user which I know, but this is true only for 1 same is going to be true for node 2 same is going to be true for node 3 and same is going to be true for node 4 and so on. So, usually what you will require is N into N minus 1 this is which is by 2 which is N C 2 bi directional links bi directional actually means where the information or voice can flow in both the directions. Now, when such a scenario actually happens the number of wires which has which are required you can actually observe is going to have a complexity of O N square. Now, this is not acceptable because as my number of users in the communication networks are increasing number of links which are required are going to be 2 I and now what will be the utility of basically of each link if we take a case where by only a user talks to only one another user it is a 1 to 1 communication in general total N by 2 communications actually can happen at any point of time. So, what you will figure out is that there only N square communications happening and I have invested money on N into N minus 1 by 2 links. So, N by 2 basically is the number of communication. So, utilization is basically number of links which are utilized divide by total number of links. So, I will be using N by 2 links and I have total number of links which is these many. So, this will be the maximum utilization factor which you can actually have in such a scenario and once you solve this will turn out to be 1 in divide by N minus 1. So, this is the utility when everybody every user is talking all the time it is that kind of situation. Now, when this happens what you will find that as my N grows in limit when N goes to infinity when number of users become very large my utilization will go to 0. Now, this is not acceptable because each cable which you are going to lay will cost you something and its utilization is going to be low. So, the cost per unit of call is going to be very high, but if you carefully observe the cost is because you are laying so many cables and a user using only one of them at any point of time. Now, this is a full mesh network actually which I have created a switching is happening here it is done by users. So, if as a user I would like to talk to say 1 wants to talk to 2 he will be now switching off basically there will be some person sitting in here which will be having a handset and a microphone they have to be connected to on to this particular line. So, other lines will not be used and tomorrow after some time for example, if he decides that I am not going to talk to node 2, but I want to talk to 3 he will stop he will take out this handset and microphone from line 1 and then will connect to line 2. So, he is doing switching in that sense actually. So, this all switching functionalities are happening at the user end not in the network network is purely passive end sense of switching actually. Now, question is my utilization also becomes almost 0 as n grows very large. So, my cost becomes very probability actually. So, this kind of communication systems cannot be built. So, only kings or top bureaucrats can actually afford a hotline running all the time dedicatedly for them. They are nothing, but dedicated hot lines being created between all possible pairs of users in the whole community. So, that is what actually is happening. So, there will be a better situation I can create I probably can ask what I can do is a better option is let me create a central switch. Now, there where the actual switch functionality will come and let every user gets connected to this. So, I am connecting all users to this thing. Now, how many links I need to actually lay for n users in this case? It is not going to be n c 2 what I require is only n links. Every problem is I need a mechanism whereby if one wants to talk to two he should be able to tell this box and it should be able to create a path between one and two. Next time for example, if this guy one decides to talk to somebody else say three. So, a path can be created in this fashion. So, I am now creating switching functionality is being implemented by this box and that is what we mean by a switch. And when we represent of my voice signals or data whatever it is being transported between users in digital formats I will call it a digital switching system. Now, in general in common sense term this is also known as exchange telephone exchange is what the word which lot of people are aware of. So, commonly it is not called as a switch is a technical term, but telephone exchange is what people commonly know of this particular system.  Now, if all users here will talk all the time for all 24 hours then what will happen? What you will find is that you will have for n by 2 possible communications n links will be consumed and there are only n links. So, utilization will be n by n which will be going to 1 in limit when n goes to infinity for that matter for whatever be the value of n it will always be going to be 1 inverse case scenario. Utilization is not 0 it is independent of n now that is a very good thing once it is independent of n. So, my cost is going to be very very low of course you can see I am not using a number of links is not n into n minus 1 which is o n square, but it is o n now. So, this system will work wonderfully well we have to still figure out how this switch will get implemented because now important thing is that the node has to talk to this switch this switch has to understand the logic or whatever link or whatever destination which one would like to connect to. In earlier case one simply decides that I am going to connect to 2 or I am going to connect to 1 and as per that it makes a decision. So, there is some intelligence which need to set in this box. Now there is another problem actually we have been assuming that all links are being used 24 hours almost all the time somebody is busy on the equipment he is talking. So, I am taking example of voice communication, but this is true even for data. Now if you are now going to work talk only for say half an hour a day. So, remaining 23 and half hours the line is empty and especially if for example line is very long say for example I am in in the capital city of Delhi we have a central exchange or central switch and all users all across India are connected to that place and I have got dedicated wires. So, think of number of wires which you have to lay is going to be huge and the cost on each wire is going to be also quite large because is about 450 kilometers from here from Kanpur if I have to lay from Kanpur 450 kilometers from Bombay 30 and so on. So, this is going to be a costly affair and you are going to use only for 1 by 24, 1 by 48 hours for my 48 of the day only that much fraction of the day you will be using it. So, can I actually take care of even this. So, idea came what we can do is we can create a smaller switch within a city and let all users gets connected to this and when they want communicate I have to ensure that this length is as small as possible. So, that my cost of this digging because the utilization of these lines are very small they are connected directly to the users. So, their cost has to be as low as possible. So, length has to be kept a small now I can create in another city another exchange of similar kind and I can connect the users there. Now, I can connect few lines in between these two cities. So, what will happen is these are known as trunk lines and I keep them in few numbers not a very large number. So, I did not actually lay a very thick cable and what will happen is whenever call this even if this guys are talking only for half an hour a day I can keep these lines busy for because everybody is not talking all the time. So, people will talk at different times of the day. So, I can probably make the utilization of these lines to be very very high I can make them to be say busy for say 14 hours in a day or 16 hours in a day kind of thing. So, the per unit call the cost is going to be lower for a trunk line in this case. So, now the thumb rule in any network design which you can actually perceive from here is that in any network whichever is a costly link your utilization factor has to be high as high as possible. So, usually we keep them about 0.8 to 0.9 roughly in between that range because this number of calls which are being made simultaneously will they will they keep on fluctuating. Sometimes there will be too many people calling sometimes less, but the average you would like to keep around about 0.85 or 0.9 roughly in between that and remaining is for taking care of if suddenly the large burst of calls will come in for that period, but that actually reduces the cost. So, wherever the cost is high reduce the length to reduce the cost. So, here utilization is low cost is high and henceforth we keep the length less. Now, this actually creates kind of a network in general the most of the telecommunication networks or data networks are created in such fashion and these kind of things where users are connected this particular portion is known as access network actually. This is access network and of course then you will have this is also going to be access network the part which is there in between this is known as trunk network trunk or core that is a word which is been used depending on whether it is a voice or whether it is a data. I will actually then again we will basically merge everything into data network ultimately. Now, in between it is also possible that I might connect to another exchange something like this. So, there are no users connected to this one, but it is permitting the calls to go through it is using like an interconnect we call it a transit exchange actually. So, now we at least understand that what is a switch functionality? Switch functionality is in this box and we need to understand how this gets designed actually how we can implement this. So, in earlier days how we used to do it. So, in earlier days this we used to have something called manual telephony I think this is not being used currently not being practiced anymore most of them are now automatic fully automatic exchanges. In fact now we are moving over to voice over IP based systems instead of manual exchanges. So, manual exchanges were typically was very simple these are all analog there is no distal thing here a simple voice is being just captured and is being transmitted. So, actually in this case a person. So, I have given these telephone instruments at the various houses they are connected to an exchange subscriber exchange we call it or a access network. Then there is a backbone or trunk there can be other exchanges now each exchange there will be a person sitting there a human being. So, earlier days this is what how the telephony actually started automatic exchange came much later actually. So, a simple thing is the protocol which can be followed here is you lift up your handset and that handset once you lift there will be a board here sitting and somebody will be sitting there are pins or jacks which are connecting to your wires for all users and for making a connection you have to create a jumper wire or you have to put in take a wire and put your pins into these slots and which will make the connection. So, that is how it can be done and usually there will be display here depending on whether you have lifted the handset or not and there will be users there will be an operator which will be operating this particular thing. So, whenever you will lift the handset the circuit will get completed and a light will glow here. So, once the light glows operator will see the light and of course, if operator is not there nobody is going to put through your call. So, once he sees he or she actually sees the light he has to put in an earphone which is maintained by this person along with a microphone. So, this guy will then actually put his jumper into your port. So, that now he or she can listen to you and you can and she can also talk to you. Now, once she greets you this light is being glowing and she knows that you have she will talk to you and she will ask you after greeting that which particular number you would like to get connected to and you will tell the number. Now, remember whatever steps I am telling are exactly followed even in current day telephony. So, this basically if gives a framework of how the protocol is going to be built and once you tell the number this lady will probably will have a music generator or some something. So, that music generator will be connected to you and this particular thing will be taken off and she will note down the number on which you would like to make the call and she will search the directory that on which particular port that number is connected. If that number is not in the same exchange it is in the next exchange she has to then talk to the person who is there in the next exchange same protocol and then she will tell that this is the number which her subscriber need to be connected to. So, in this case I am actually assuming that the other subscriber is in the same exchange. So, she will pick up the other person she will find out there is somebody there is already there on that exchange. So, there will be another box. So, meanwhile remember the music is being played back to the this guy. So, this is like search tone which we actually see. So, this music being played to this guy for the next person once you know that this is the person whom the call has to be who is that the other person whom the call has to be made. She will use a another what we call ringing generator. So, this ringing current has to be applied from here on to that particular jacket this is the restriction ringing current will be applied here which in turn cause the phone here to ring. Ringing current usually is a not in the audio band this is actually the current power which is being modulated which will cause the ringing of the phone. So, phone will start ringing at this end and once the user comes here and he will says there is a current he will lift up the handset the moment he lift up the handsets the light will glow here corresponding to that person and once the light glows the operator has to now take this particular ringing current out. So, that now there is no more ringing here and then she will put her own jacket in this case.  So, her own jacket will be put now she can talk to the destination she will tell that this is the guy who want to make a call to you would you like to take up the call. And once this person agrees that he would like to take up the call she will actually have a record register we call it a call detail record nowadays CDR and the CDR she will make an entry that who was the person who made the who initiated the call who is the person to whom the call has to be made at what time the call was made and then there is a call closing time which she will actually enter at the end of the call. And what she will do is one of the both people agree she will just put a jumper wire she will take out her own jumper and then she will connect a jumper wire between the two people and once the call is through this light will remain both glowed up because their handsets are lifted because this is being driven by the DC current circuit which is gets completed when you lift the handset and they will talk they will keep on talking and once they are talk is over any one of them can push back the handset once that handset is put back this lady will actually observe the light is off and that point of time she will note down the time when the call was off call was actually completed and once the one of the light is off she will take out all the jumpers and these guy will simply put their handsets back on the cradle and the call will get completed now this is exactly still nowadays the phone call does get completed in the same fashion except now complication will come if there is going to be another operator sitting here another console board which is sitting so if the call has to be through a trunk route so it usually takes more time because the user will tell the operator operator will take the next operator and this operator will also keep this operator on hold and then and so on and each operator will keep their own CDRs at their end and as per that they will start doing mutual charging from each other so based on this essentially then the bill has to be generated at the end of it now this is a very cumbersome process but this how the telephone actually started it became popular but remember the human cost involved is pretty high and that chances of mistake there is a chances of making a mistake in call recording and then as for generating the bills now this was the most elementary switch which we can talk about this one is manual switch okay or manual exchanges in a still defense I think some places if everything else fails this will always work kind of thing so this is still used as a backup especially in defense organizations but I think nowadays most of them have moved on to packet switch based systems now another important thing which I would like to tell here is that what I am talking about is a circuit switch okay so this circuit switch technically means I am creating a path from source to destination as it is intact throughout and once a path has been created the information or voice just simply flows okay so currently as of now it is circuit switching I will tell at some point of time where we will move over to packet switching later on because once we complete all the theory of even the circuit switching then it will become much more clear I still distillation has not started in this case it is still analog now this manual telephony is a problem because operator can always listen to what you are talking to other person so you have to either talk in code words if you are talking to that person if you want to maintain secrecy otherwise in form can leak so there was a b Stouger actually I think was the person who realized this and he started working on automatic exchanges he said I think this manual operators need to be removed and we should have fully automated system and he learned it of with something called Stouger exchanges and he it was purely an electromechanical system and it was built with very very simple devices so one of the elementary thing for example it simply uses a ratchet wheel so a B Stouger actually built up an automatic exchange which was pure electromechanical thing and basically it uses electromagnets for creating mechanical motion and thus creating contacts between electrical contacts between the input and IO ports input and output ports and thus creating switch basically voice paths so it uses basically two kind of elements one is uniselector and in fact there is a whole lot of logic which got embedded using relays actually for implementing this kind of system so or flip-flops which are actually used but the basic switching elements was only uniselector and two motion selector so I am just showing that how it would have been looked like so unimotion selector usually will consist of a hinge which will be like this and this is the hinge this can rotate around this part so there is a spring connected to this and there is a hook which is there this is again connected to the spring and there is a hard surface so it is always trying to pull this thing upward and this is being tried to pull towards this side ok and then there is a electromagnet which is here and whenever you actually supply current to this so this will actually come down and then it will go up once the pulse is over so with every pulse there is a motion of this particular bar coming down and going back up and as a result and there is a ratchet wheel which is being used on this side so every time this motion this pulse happens this wheel actually moves by one one teeth in this particular direction because when it comes down it will engage with the next teeth because of these two springs and it goes back in the return this wheel is going to rotate and this can be used to create now the central there is a current which is coming and this is a wiper electro this is going to make electrical contact and I can actually have on this circle many points where every time it rotates it keeps on moving here so I need to have mechanism to take it back to the 0 position so usually it will count from 1 2 3 n till 0 and then it will come back to and home situation when there is no connection so these are like outgoing ports so usually it will be like one input it is a switch of this kind now it will have 1 2 0 the total 10 outgoing ports and this can rotate and connect to any one of them so this was the unit selector which was actually used and this wheel actually should not go back when it is this electromagnetic is working there is a always a stint which is put so this is a very simple drawing and this what was the unit selector which was invented by him and he built up what is known as trouser exchanges and this is a reverse drive type of ratchet wheel we call it reverse drive because when the pulse is switched off that time there is a reverse thing when it is going back at that time the ratchet wheel will move reverse drive type ratchet wheel is mechanism there are other mechanisms which also people have built and this is what is known as a ratchet wheel actually what you are seeing here so this was the one element which was built and secondly what he built was a unit selector that is what he designed so the other one was actually two motion selector it required two electromagnets to actually work so one was a straight bar which is going to have gears on this so as this bar moves and then of course this is also a gear drive so this can move upward and downward this vertical motion is happens because of another electromagnetic depending on the pulse and this motion happens because of this bar so it will turn into rotation of this thing and I can then connect a wiper and these are the connection points in one plane similarly in another plane and so on so you can actually usually have this actually means this will move into these are like ten points being there in the one plane and there will be ten such planes so total 1900 actually outgoing points and one incoming point which will be there this was used to work in two dimensions using two electromagnets basically you require pulses for driving this kind of thing so if this will work from 00 technically yeah I call it 11200 that is a way because one is always what is start 0 actually means 10 pulses and of course there are many control circuits which are built using relays and these are integrated with these kind of things okay he also now started something what we call a concept of common control switches with this in this case the control circuitry usually is going to be common which is going to be then used for different unit selector and two motion selectors at different point of time depending on requirement it's not all the time so common control switches are were actually slightly complex but the amount of hardware required is going to be small now remember all these are mechanical components their failure is going to be pretty high and as a result their mentors cost is also very high so using less amount of hardware always make sense also direct control switches are also built where the control circuitry was directly integrated part of the unit selector or two motion selector but they were actually having a problem because of the lot of failures which were happening in the exchange and of course here also for the first time now the different kind of circuits came up now which we can I can just actually mention what were the circuits which were built of course with voice over IP coming in most of this will not be required so various circuits which were built were like this so one was a guarding circuit so in this case what happens that whenever you are actually trying to set up a call you actually use a one particular unit selector and call is still not through but you have made the connection so at that point of time you have to make you have to actually set the status of that unit selector to be busy so that nobody no other call should actually try to again try to capture it and use it for some other call so only when it is freed up then only it should be used so it's basically maintaining the status of each unit selector into motion selector so it was basically purpose was for that purpose second was the impulsing circuit so idea here is again remember the electromagnets are being used to drive both the systems so whenever you have to now move this particular arm on to any one of the connection points you need to give certain amount of power so when you are giving a signal the power is going to be small it's only signaling pulses and you have to now convert it to a drive current and we call it a impulsing circuit which will generate this much of power or drive current so that these electromagnets can move these arms to appropriate point so basically it's like a power amplifier then similarly we have a homing circuit which was built which is required so once you have made a call and call is over this actually should come back to its home position all either unit selector or a two motion selector both have to come to their one one position or there is a home position before one one where it they should come and then again you can give the pulses depending on which number you have to connect you want to connect the incoming port to which particular output port you want to connect to basically based on that you will give the number of pulses so that for putting all these things back to home position after a call is over we require a homing circuit. Now this is another innovation in the manual telephony the lady was actually writing on a register the source destination the call start time and call end time so that the bills can be generated here the bills were generated using a metering system so usually the things which were the way it was used is we were having kind of a pulsing system so may be say every six second there is going to be one clock pulse which will be there or every second there is a clock pulse and whenever the call is through at that point of time this timing the clock thing is also fed to a counter and there is one counter for every user actually sitting in the exchange so this counters are nothing but kind of dials so like meters so whenever call is through this meter will start counting and based on total count in the whole month the bill actually can be generated and if there is a long distance call you might probably will connect a faster clock to the meter if the short call short distance call you will be connecting a slower clock to the meter actually so that was the metering circuit then there was a ring trip these were conventionally used now so ring trip circuit is whenever you are actually applying a ringing current the bar is ringing of the at the for the destination user and it is a powerful current which can actually transfer power to the bell so that the sound can be very large and people can listen that there is a call coming in the moment he lifts the handset this information will come back in form of a electric circuit getting completed back to the exchange and that time this ring trip circuit will actually get activated and the ring generator ring tone generator will be disconnected from the subscriber earlier it was the operator which was doing it now it has to be done through this particular circuit and then of course alarm circuits were built this was for administration purposes so for certain kind of faults the alarm will start beeping and then at least the maintenance guys will figure out that there is a flaw in the system they can come and rectify it so this actually improves the maintenance this kind of system were not very very they actually have been in use for a long time but there was lot of this mechanical problem that oxidation of the contacts and then of course is a mechanical thing maintenance is going to be pretty tricky people have to be well trained for doing the maintenance thing then this need to be improved so ultimately again the invention being made to take care of this particular thing and people came up with an idea of something in the capsule and saying totally doing away with electro mechanical thing so there is no motion there is no pulse there are no gears so they will not gears will not get damaged over time and you did not replace them you did not do this all kind of machine maintenance will not be required so ultimately idea came they let there be a glass bulb which is sealed and I can put an inert gas inside so there is no oxidation problem also so connection quality will also be good and I can now actually have two simple wires and whenever they actually just snap they will connect to each other the connection is on otherwise it is off but how to control it so then you can put the electromagnets similarly you can put an electromagnet here in fact I have done it incorrectly I will just rectify the figure so this particular part will be in the glass this particular thing so this outer electromagnet will be outside the actually glass bulb so whenever you will actually put energize this electromagnet as well as this electromagnet so this will be pulled downward this will be pulled upward and there will be going to be a connection which will be snapped in and the moment any one of the electromagnet is switched off the connection will be broken and voice communication cannot take place and we call this thing as a cross point this is a cross point this is a electromagnetic thing still and this cross point now can be used to build up the basically the switching module and this particular switching module which was built is known as cross bar so how you can actually make the connections with this that is a question so very simple thing is for example there are four users which are connecting in a four users which are connected so technically I have to I am now splitting these are not bidirectional lines these are unidirectional lines so signal comes in signal goes out both are for user one so I will connect them together and I will use something called a deplexer so it converts bidirectional into unit to unidirectional things so one is where the signal enters one where signal goes out so this will be I will doing for all other users so I can call them one prime two prime three prime four prime and one two three four and now I can connect them and that is why we call it a cross bar because there are many bars they have been crossed with each other and at this point between these two elements I am going to put this cross point which I have talked about this is a cross point so n by n switch so n users connected to n users I require n square cross points now that is the only problem here this can be reduced by using only upper triangle or lower triangle because I can connect one to one through this this of course will never happen but one to two connection can be made through this cross point as well as from this cross point and if it is a unidirectional I require both the cross points to be operated and if it is bidirectional for example this link can be bidirectional because this is nothing but mechanically I am connecting the wires signal triven in both ways so I only need to operate only one of these two so it all depends on this so most of the time these electromagnetic systems are going to be electromagnetic systems are going to be nothing but bidirectional elements input IO ports so I need not use this lower half I need to only use so one to one connection I will never make because that is not required because the same user so I will be only using these elements first building up the complete switch this is known as upper triangle actually so this actually means n into n minus 1 by 2 cross points will be required in this case n is 4 so 4 into 3 divide by 2 which is 6 and you can see I require 6 cross points here to build up the cross bar if all ports are bidirectional ports now question is how to operate it how to set up the paths that is an issue so I can stop now and then probably we can discuss how the algorithm is going to be worked out for operation of this particular switch so that we will see in the next


The study reports the expression pattern of angiotensin I converting enzyme 2, ACE2, across over 150 different cell types in all major human tissues and organs, revealing that ACE2 is mainly expressed in enterocytes, renal tubules, gallbladder, cardiomyocytes, male reproductive cells, placental trophoblasts, ductal cells, eye, and vasculature, with limited expression in the respiratory system. This article was authored by Feria Hickman, Lauren Mayer, Asa Edvinson, and others.