📢 Fore, Please…

The shortest offseason in all of sports has come to a glorious end. We got to experience a week of NFL action, but who cares about that anymore? The Tour is back. Rory is playing this week at Wentworth. The time differences are going to give us like 15 hours of golf a day, it’s glorious.

Let’s lock in!
Rick

📈 Let’s See The Trends

Now that the official PGA Tour season has ended, I’ve been digging through some records and trends. This one stood out to me — the relationship between fairways hit and greens in regulation.

The PGA Tour has been tracking these stats since 1980 and, at that time, the percentage of GIR (64%) was barely higher than FWs (62%).

Driving accuracy peaked in 1999 but it has been declining ever since. A few years ago we hit an all-time low (59%) but we’ve ticked up a bit to 60.5% in 2026.

The rate of GIR has mostly stayed the same over the last 40+ years but has improved a few percentage points.

But with the decline in accuracy, the gap between these two stats is basically at an all-time high.

I’m sure there are many things that we can attribute this to, but here are my best guesses:

• The strive for distance at the cost of accuracy.

• Longer players hitting shorter clubs into greens.

• Removing trees from courses that would penalize wayward shots.

• Player skill outpacing the “defense” that courses can play.

🤷 We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know

Let’s be real, we have no idea how this week’s course (The Cliffs at Walnut Cove) is going to play. There’s never been a Tour event there and there is certainly no ShotLink data. We can make some educated guesses, but the truth is that we should probably discount any “course fit” significantly. There’s a really good chance we will be wrong about our assumptions.

With that being said, here’s what I think is important:

• 6” of Rough — Kentucky bluegrass to be exact. The agronomy team expects rough to start the week at 6” and probably won’t be cut at any point. There are fairly generous fairways in most spots, so you might not see a ton of missed fairways. If you do, I think that’ll cause problems.

• Wedges into greens — There are nine par-4s on the course and almost every one of them is going to give the field a wedge into the green. Combined with the course length and above-mentioned rough and this could be a “bomb and gauge” type situation. The only thing that gives me pause about a true “bomb and gauge” is that many greens have water hazards that cut right up to the edge of the surface. That’ll eliminate some natural bailouts and penalize the wayward shots.

My gut tells me to reset most golfers back to their 50 round baseline, rely on talent, then find long hitters who can hit their wedges well.

Super Darkhorse: Pontus Nyholm — the main only does two things well. He can hit it far and he can hit his wedges. The rest of his game is abysmal. But the two things he does really well might just be the two most important things this week!

☝️ Playing Shape

It’s always a weird time of year to see how frequently (or infrequently) golfers have played. There are only 41 players in this field that have played a competitive round anywhere in the world since the Wyndham Championship. That was over a month ago.

Two men, Haotong Li and Jeremy Paul, have played four times each — leading the way.

Another 12 have played three times with a mix of PGA Tour playoff events, KFT events, and DPWT starts across those dozen players. Here are the players who have played the best during that stretch — min two starts.

1. Rasmus Hojgaard: +2.03

2. Marco Penge: +1.92

3. Keita Nakajima: +1.65

4. Ben Martin: +1.45

5. Zac Blair: +1.37

There is not a single play with multiple top-5s during that stretch but there is just one golfer with multiple top-10s. That is Jacob Bridgeman who went T30-9th-T4 in the PGA Tour playoffs.

🎉 Build-A-Golfer Is Back

A few hundred of you played “Build-A-Golfer” last year. For those of you who didn’t, here’s the short of it.

It’s basically a Frankenstein Golfer that could allow you to get Cameron Champ’s Driver, Scottie Scheffler’s Irons, Hideki’s Wedges, and Denny’s Putter. That’s an extreme example, because you’ll have to stay under the salary cap, but you get the point.

Then, your new Build-A-Golfer competes on the leaderboard and earns season-long points similar to how the PGA TOUR functions. It’s a fascinating way to experience a tournament.

The new Fall Series starts this week. The BAG team has put together some prizes and so have I — the winner every week is getting a month subscription to RickRunGood.com. The entire league is free and it’s a fun way to play fantasy.

You can sign up and play here: https://buildagolfer.com/

🦉Across The Pond

The DPWT is in the midst of a fantastic part of their schedule. They just concluded the Irish Open, won by Shane Lowry, have the BMW PGA Championship this week, and still have a handful of National Opens and playoff events.

The BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth this week has, like always, garnered a massive field. Rory, Rahm, Fleetwood, Reed, Hovland, Aberg, Fitzpatrick (both), and plenty more!

The darkhorse though — is Tom McKibbin.

He missed the cut at The Open but has rattled off five straight top-20s after that including a pair of Top-6s in his last two starts. Those were the British Masters and the Irish Open, where he gained a total of +14.08 strokes on approach.

Over the last 24 rounds, he’s the fourth best player in the field — gaining +1.59 strokes per round. It also doesn’t hurt that he finished T11 at this event last year and T10 in 2024.

He’s currently +3400 to win the event, right between Alex Noren and Tyrrell Hatton on the odds board.

🫵 You Asked For It!

A few weeks ago, I floated the idea of having a fall “three and done” where it would function like a normal One + Done but you’d pick three golfers each week for the eight fall events.

The response was … resounding. Literally hundreds of people saying they’d play and a few who followed up a few too many times (thanks for the passion, though!).

Well, we’ve got it up and running. It starts this week and has $50,000 in guarantees with $6,000 for first. It also has segment payouts, each segment with four events.

It’s already more than halfway full so I would act fast if you want in. My hope is that this will create a desire for more “OAD Sprints” next year.

But wait, there’s more! Our tiers Listener League is back as well, with a $10,000 guarantee. That’s also making good progress on filling and it’s still early in the week.

Play: bit.ly/4x7BX5L

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.

📢 Fore, Please:

T-Minus 48 hours until the NFL season really kicks off — then back to golf, I promise. But this is one last call and offer for NFL Survivor.

Splash Sports is running the biggest Survivor Contest in the world ($21,000,000) and I’ve secured an offer for both new and existing users because that’s how I roll. I hate offers that only reward new users, where’s the loyalty in that?

Anyway —

1. Join/Deposit on Splash with code RUNGOOD

2. Enter the $21M Survivor World Championship

3. Splash adds a $100 credit to your account.

4. Link: https://bit.ly/4xU9XCW

🤑 If you're interested in $10,000+ in entries contact vip@splashsports.com for exclusive RRG offers.

Rick notes: I have three entries in this contest and I am giving away shares to you guys, for free. I’m going to pick four people who will each receive 33% of my entry across two entries — basically a $333 freeroll.

I had to coordinate with Splash Sports on this because they will need to credit your account so you can “buy-into” the entry with me. It’s just logistics but we will make it work.

The way to enter is simple — drop your Splash username in the comments section of my YouTube video below. I’m picking winners today.

YouTube: https://youtu.be/d9IynJjCr0U

If you’re a visual learner — click to watch my YouTube video.⬆️

📢 Fore, Please:

As most of you know, I am not going to pretend that I’m grinding All-22 film at 2:00 AM trying to figure out whether the Jaguars’ left guard can handle a certain defensive front.

That’s not really my thing. But — solving a problem is my thing! And NFL Survivor is a really, really good problem.

This is one of two yearly emails that I send that are not golf related, with March Madness being the other. Below you’re going to find strategy around three pillars, contests to play, and a way to split entries with me in the $21M Survivor on Splash this year.

There are also two offers from our longtime partners — PoolGenius and Splash Sports. They are the best offers they’ve ever made available. That comes from our sustained relationship between the RRG community and these sites. I’m proud of what we’ve all accomplished.

Let’s dive in.

If you’re a visual learner — click to watch my YouTube video.⬆️

✏️ Make A Plan, Stan!

The game is called “Survivor”. That implies you need to be the last one standing. Not the second to last, or 50th to last, or 100th to last. There is no prize for making it to week 8 and then being eliminated. You suffer the same fate as those who went out in week 1.

Yet — it feels different! It makes you FEEL better to last until week 10. It validates your time and effort. I hate to tell you this, but your feelings do not matter. But it’s these feelings that literally change the strategy for many people who a) use their best teams too soon and 2) view this is a weekly game.

This is not a weekly game! This is a season-long game where you’re going to have to be perfect every week. Your weekly selections should reflect that larger goal.

The truth is that you are almost certainly going to get eliminated at some point. Even if you have an 80% win probability every single week (you don’t), the chances of you surviving three weeks is 51.2%. The chances of you surviving ten weeks is 10.7%. The chances of you surviving 18 weeks is 1.8% and that doesn’t even include weeks with double-picks.

I’m not saying this to scare you, I’m just trying to set expectations that you need to be perfect. So squeezing out small percentages over 18 weeks is critical and having a view for the entire year makes that way easier.

The season plan is just a plan. There are going to be a million factors like injuries and teams over/under performing that will change future weeks. So the real advice is have a plan, but re-evaluate it every week.

📈Link To Discount: https://bit.ly/47ccEmB

🔮 Look Into The Future

I’m cheating a little bit because this pillar goes hand-in-hand with Season Planning. You will face two big questions every week:

1) What team should I use?
2) Should I use this team or save them?

Future value helps answer both, but specifically the second.

Every team is an asset and once you use that asset, it’s gone. I know this intimately from golf One & Done — using Scottie Scheffler at Riviera (doh!)

So the cost of selecting a team today isn’t simply the probability that they lose today, there is also an opportunity cost. Let’s use the Rams as an example.

Their projected Week 1 win probability against San Francisco is only around 65%. That’s solid but look ahead. They are currently projected to have a ton of games where they are 65+% to win including 90% in week 6 against Arizona, 75% in week 7 against Vegas, and 83% when they play Arizona again in week 10.

PoolGenius has a “Future Value” score on their data grid and the Rams are the highest FV team on the slate because they are going to have so many good spots throughout the year.

Buffalo is another interesting example. Some of their most attractive projected Survivor spots don’t arrive until much later — including an 87% projection against Miami in Week 11 and 84% against the Jets in Week 18.

I personally have a great relationship with PoolGenius and use their tools for golf One & Done as well as March Madness. They are giving the RickRunGood community a discount up to 60%. Can’t beat that.

📈Link To Discount: https://bit.ly/47ccEmB

 💪 Leverage Is The Magic Word

You are not playing against the NFL, you are playing against everyone else in your Survivor pool. Again, there’s no difference for being the last one standing in week 18 or the last one standing in week 9. You just need to be the last one standing.

The size of your pool matters a ton here. Like — a ton! Whatever the most I could explain and then some. The difference between 50 people and 50,000 people literally changes your entire gameplan.

There are going to be a lot of situations where you should weigh the likelihood of a team advancing against the number of other managers who are going to select that team.

Let’s use the current Week 1 numbers.

PoolGenius currently has:

Los Angeles Chargers
80% win probability
35% projected popularity

Detroit Lions
74% win probability
16% projected popularity

Jacksonville Jaguars
73% win probability
23% projected popularity

Las Vegas Raiders
65% win probability
7% projected popularity

If our only goal was surviving this week, Los Angeles would be the easy answer

Imagine a 100-entry pool and roughly 35 people select the Chargers and you select the Lions. If both teams win, great. Everyone moves along. But if the Chargers lose and the Lions win, you just knocked out 35% of the league. Your relative share of the pool just increased by roughly 54% in one afternoon.

That is leverage. You paid for it though. You paid about six percentage points of immediate win probability — Detroit at 74% instead of Los Angeles at 80%. In return you received the benefit of a large increase in your entry’s EV if things fall your way.

Let me remind you what can happen very early in the season. Look back to 2024 —

Cincinnati was the most popular Survivor selection in Week 1 and lost outright to New England, wiping out about 34% of Circa Survivor entries.

The following week, Baltimore became the most popular selection at roughly 31% and lost to Las Vegas.

Then Week 3 arrived and four of the five most-selected teams lost. Across ESPN’s Eliminator Challenge, 77.2% of the remaining entries were eliminated in that week alone. After three weeks, only 5.5% of ESPN entries remained alive. In the $14.266 million Circa contest, approximately 95.5% of entries had already been eliminated.

THREE WEEKS!

🤔 Week 1 Drama

Let’s drill into Week 1 and see if we can get off on the right foot. There are currently nine teams that are 64% or better to win in week 1.

We can remove the Ravens and Rams immediately. They have too much future value to waste in Week 1 when one is on the road and the other is in Australia.

We can probably also rule out the Lions and Seahawks thanks to their future value considerations. Down to five.

The Chargers will be the most popular (35%) but they could also be valuable immediately in Week 2 OR later in the year (11, 14, 16). No real reason to be with 1/3rd of the entire world. Down to four.

Jacksonville, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Cincinnati are all very playable in my eyes. If you chose any one of these teams, I would be fine with it.

If you want to nitpick, Jacksonville is gaining a lot of steam and will be roughly 25% owned which is maybe too much to consider with three other teams in the mix.

If we believe that Philadelphia (65%), Vegas (65%) and Cincy (64%) all have basically the same chances of winning then we should probably just take the least popular team — Cincy.

In practice, I will probably use all three and I really like that Vegas will probably have ZERO future value. Though — it does feel a little trappy.

🐋 Whale of a Time

Last year, Splash Sports set the bar by giving the RickRunGood community a $1.25M One & Done. It was, and still is, the largest golf one & done on the internet. They put their money where their mouth is.

Well — they did it again. They have a (gulp) $21,000,000 guaranteed Survivor which is not only the largest in the world but can also be played online in over 40 states and most of Canada. No more flying to Vegas to enter. No more proxies. Just do it from your phone.

To celebrate, they have given me tons of offers and I’ve matched theirs as well.

New Users — use code RUNGOOD at sign-up and receive 10% back on your entries in the $21M and $3M contests. That means the $1,000 buy-in becomes $900 and the $100 buy-in becomes $90.

All Users — I am SPLITTING my $1,000 entries with you! I have three entries and I am going to pick users to share with. This is a function within Splash, so I will add you to the entry. Could you imagine splitting $21M? I could! This is my offer personally as a thank you. Visit my YouTube video and comment with your Splash username.

The Survivor World Championship
🔗 Join Link: https://bit.ly/4gwjzNX
💵 $1,000/entry
💰 $21,000,000 Guaranteed
🎙️ Hosted by Splash Sports
📝 The Largest Survivor in the World

The Big Splash
🔗 Join Link: https://bit.ly/4zRA6U8
💵 $100/entry
💰 $3,000,000 Guaranteed
🎙️ Hosted by Splash Sports
📝 More Affordable Option

RickRunGood NFL Survivor 2026
🔗 Join Link: https://bit.ly/4gKj7uu
💵 $50/entry
💰 $50,000 Prize if filled
🎙️ Hosted by RickRunGood
📝 Our Official Listener League

🫵 You Matter The Most

Awww, that’s sweet. But it’s true. All of the information in the world does not help you if you use it incorrectly. The decisions you have to make are completely reliant on your league. The difference between a 50 person Survivor and a 5,000 person Survivor is the difference between Scottie Scheffler’s golf game and mine.

Depending on the number of opponents, specific rules, payout structure and a million other things — your best options are completely unique to you.

This is the biggest advantage to the PoolGenius tool. Before you are given any information, you’ll enter the specifics of your league. If you have multiple entries, you can tell the tool. And you’ll repeat this for every league you’re in.

That way your weekly recommendations and information is customized and specific to you.

📢 Fore, Please…

Next week, the Presidents Cup teams are going to be selected. The first six spots for each team are auto-qualifiers and the captain will choose the rest. I want to soft-launch my idea for team events.

All picks should be captains picks, no automatic qualifying.

1) This makes the captain’s job matter a lot more.
2) No one is going to leave off the top players, who are currently auto-qualifying.
3) It opens up the entire breadth of the player pool to the captain.

Right now, the captain basically picks six players who are 7th to 17th in the standings. The captain is afraid to go deeper than that because they will be criticized for “reaching” or “passing over qualified players”.

Without a points list, there is no guideline anymore. Young players like Jackson Koivun are much more likely to be selected. That golfer who is ranked 10th because of what he did in the first year of a two-year points period is no longer “obligated” to make the team.

The captain role should be less honorary and more serious.

Tell me if you hate it.
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

$8,700: Wyndham Clark (132.5)
$8,500: Patrick Cantlay (122.0)
$8,600: Collin Morikawa (106.5)
$8,900: Chris Gotterup (103.5)
$6,600: Gary Woodland (97.0)
$8,000: Maverick McNealy (94.5)
$49,300: 656.0 Pts

😕 It’s Not How You Start

The man, Wyndham Clark, rolls on! He’s having an unreal year and would be my pick for the POY if the voting ended right now. It doesn’t, but I want to plant my flag.

Wyndham Clark now joins Scottie Scheffler as the only player on the PGA TOUR with 2+ Majors, 2+ Signature Event wins, 1+ Playoff win since 2023 — when the Signature Event system began.

His year started out as … kind of a disaster. His first eight starts earned him just one top-30 finish which was a T13 at the American Express. His putter was unconsciously bad. Over those eight, he lost 18.13 strokes putting. It was brutal.

Then the Masters. He still lost strokes putting but finished T21. It was the first of three straight top-25s. The flatstick started to cooperate and the high finishes started piling up.

His three wins, three more top-5s, and five more top-25s all came over his last 14 starts. During that more recent stretch, he’s gained +46.06 strokes putting.

Hat tip! Open some grape.

🥵 Shuffling To The Beat

It’s been four years since Patrick Cantlay has gotten his paws on a trophy. But, I am willing to give him some hardware as the “flusher of the year” right now!

Since the Valspar Championship, 13 starts ago, Cantlay has gained +0.85 strokes on approach per round. The only players better (in this field) are Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim.

In his last 12 rounds, the approach numbers have skyrocketed. He’s now gaining +1.59 strokes per round in that stretch.

The man lost nearly four strokes putting last week and still finished second. I truly have a hard time figuring out if/when Cantlay is going to play well but it’s clear that his game is in proper form. He heads to East Lake where he’s had a mixed bag of results.

☝️ Just One Thing

I’m going to try something. I am just going to throw a handful of names down below and I am only going to write one thing about them. It could be anything. It might be bad. It might be nonsense. It’s just the first thing that pops out of my head. We are going to call this (maybe) recurring section “Just One Thing”.

Scottie Scheffler — the only golfer on TOUR this year to gain strokes off-the-tee in 100% of his starts.

Tommy Fleetwood — no player has ever won back-to-back FedEx Cups, something that Fleetwood will try to do this week.

Hideki Matsuyama — lost 4.79 strokes putting last week in St. Louis, the second worst putting week of his season.

Cameron Young — does not have a finish between 11th and 21st this season.

East Lake — the average stimp reading last year was 13.76 across the entire week.

Robert MacIntyre — has finished exactly T17 in each of his two trips to the TOUR Championship.

🎉 The GRAND FINALE (for two weeks)

The tiers contest this week is funnnn. There are six tiers, each with five golfers. Something about the equal tiers just feels right! Still $35,000 in guaranteed funds.

I’m working on some fall contests for us, stay tuned!

Choose one from each of six tiers, lowest score wins!
Play: bit.ly/4x7BX5L

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.

📢 Fore, Please…

Wow — I asked for book recomendations and you guys came through! The most recommended was Red Rising. I’ll be starting it shortly. Thanks all for being great.

On to golf!
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

$13,500: Scottie Scheffler (125.5)
$9,500: Sam Burns (96.0)
$7,100: Alex Noren (90.5)
$6,700: Sungjae Im (88.5)
$7,000: Jake Knapp (84.5)
$6,000: Pieceson Coody (79.0)
$49,800: 564.0 Pts

🏫 Somebody Learned How To Putt!

With his stellar putting performance in Memphis, Scottie Scheffler is now having the best putting year of his career. That’s a scary thought in general, but I wanted to look into what has truly changed and allowed him to unlock this new height.

Scottie has improved from last year, the second best putting year of his career, in nearly every putting distance. He went from TOUR average from 3-5’ to now making significantly more than his peers.

The biggest separator appears to be the 10-15’ range. He’s hitting a whopping 39.2% of these putts which is significantly more than the 28.2% TOUR average. He’s also making twice the rate of 25+ foot putts than the rest of the TOUR.

It’s impressive to see how far he’s come over the last two years. He was already dominant and this has taken him to new levels.

😤 Breakout Boy

Jake Knapp is a very good putter. He’s gaining +0.40 strokes per round this year which makes him the 9th best putter in this field. However, he lost 2.07 strokes putting last week in Memphis. He was still able to finish T7 but it felt like there was a little juice left out there.

That’s what this breakout candidates chart below details. It’s golfers who are playing over their T2G baseline but below their putting baseline with the theory that the putting will normalize.

Knapp is firmly in the optimal quadrant and basically in an area to himself. Alex Noren and Hideki Matsuyama are both in solid positions. As are Ben Griffin, Cam Young, and Ryo Hisatsune. But Knapp is camped in the upper right quadrant like he owns the place!

He’s been +1.00 stroke per round better from tee-to-green than his 100 round baseline and he’s been 0.60 strokes worse than himself on the greens. He’s brewing.

With a little extra added motivation, Knapp will need at least a Top 15 to make sure he gets to East Lake next week.

📈 The Course Dilemma

The last time we went to Bellerive was the 2018 PGA Championship. That was eight years ago and the course has seen significant work done since, making the course history pretty useless. We can, however, expand the pool of courses a little bit if we include the course comps from the Key Stats model.

Remember, these are the courses that players of the same statistical profile also find success at. It’s basically making groups of players and then running a bunch of regression models to compare success at a variety of venues.

The three comp courses are — Memorial Park, TPC Craig Ranch, and Detroit GC. That passes the sniff test.

So I queried the course history for all three of those courses, since 2020 and came back with the top players (min three starts).

1. Scottie Scheffler +2.43

2. Patrick Cantlay +2.26

3. Min Woo Lee +2.10

4. Cameron Young +2.09

5. Hideki Matsuyama +1.68

That is a “big four” before a sizable gap to Matsuyama in fifth.

There are only two players in this field who are losing strokes to the field at these courses…

Robert MacIntyre (-1.32) and Ryan Fox (-0.59).

💼 Get In While It’s Hot

Becoming a staple at this time of the week, our Listener League is going to fill early. It’s $35,000 in guaranteed funds with smaller tiers this week since there’s only 50 golfers.

Choose one from each of six tiers, lowest score wins!
Play: bit.ly/4x7BX5L

🤢Beware of the Sick Golferr

Michael Thorbjornsen battled an illness last week that probably took quite a bit out of him. He ended up finishing T47 but guess what .. I DONT CARE. I’m throwing that result right out the window. Imagine being sick and having to play four rounds of golf in 101 degree heat … no thank you.

Let’s rewind to one start prior when Thor won at Detroit Golf Club. A comp course for Bellerive. He’s been incredible off-the-tee this year and he’s starting to find the rest of his game.

He needs at least a solo 8th to get into the TOUR Championship. His top-10 odds are +270. I think he’s a boom or bust player who clearly has the upside to finish inside the top eight.

If you are looking for all the scenarios, you can find them here.

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.

📢 Fore, Please…

Alright y’all, I’m looking for some book recommendations. Over the summer, I have blitzed through (nearly) all eight books in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. If you don’t know what this is … oh momma. It’s like Mad Max meets Hunger Games meets Ready Player One. I didn’t know I was into LitRPG but apparently I am.

As I wind down the most recent book, I am left feeling a void. These books are like 24+ hours of audio listening so I have been locked in for MONTHS. What am I going to do next? I’m hoping you can help.

No genre limitations. If you liked it, send it my way.

Thanks!
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

$8,600: Michael Brennan (142.5)
$7,400: Ben James (127.5)
$7,000: Beau Hossler (127.0)
$7,100: Kevin Yu (111.5)
$9,500: Hideki Matsuyama (111.0)
$6,900: Andrew Novak (110.0)
$46,500: 729.5 Pts

💪 Elite But Different

We are learning something really interesting about Michael Brennan. He’s an elite driver of the golf ball, but it feels different from other elite drivers like Rory McIlroy or Bryson DeChambeau. It’s not necessarily better, it’s just different.

Brennan has two wins on TOUR — Sedgefield CC and Black Desert Resort. These are, statistically, two of the most demanding driving courses on the schedule. Sedgefield is tree-lined with thick rough and Black Desert has literal lava rocks that gobble up wayward shots.

There is a wide range of outcomes off-the-tee at both places which allows Brennan to separate even more than usual. That’s very different from courses that are simply long with thick rough everywhere.

Brennan isn’t a “bomb and gauge” guy as much as he is a true and complete driver. He’s exceedingly long, can work it in both directions, and is accurate enough to make a big difference.

The really scary part is that he’s not a one-tool player. He’s stout on approach and he’s an average putter. If he fixes his short-game at all, he could contend in Major Championships.

🥲 Two Pieces of Pain

I lowkey love TPC Southwind. I do not love being in Memphis in Augusta, but I do love the course. It’s a stout test for the best players in the world and it doesn’t require any tricking out. There are two main things that keep scores in check:

1) The cost of missing the fairway off-the-tee — this is a big one and you’ve probably heard me talk about it 40x already … but it’s a big deal! Every time a golfer misses a fairway at TPC Southwind, it increases their average score by +0.49 strokes. That is a ton! There are only three other courses where the cost of miss is higher.

2) the water on the par-3s — you’re probably thinking, well the par-3s must be a reprieve since the driving task is so difficult. If you were thinking that, you’d be wrong! TPC Southwind has seen more water balls on par-3s than any other course in the ShotLink era.

2,367: TPC Southwind
2,050: PGA National
1,666: Harbour Town
1,458: TPC Sawgrass
917: Muirfield Village

More than the Bear Trap! This course really asks for precision throughout the bag and does not allow for an uncommitted swing. Just for fun, the top-10 players in this field with water balls on par-3s at TPC Southwind:

9: Si Woo Kim
8: JT Poston, Jordan Spieth
7: Harris English, Shane Lowry
6: Corey Conners, Gary Woodland, Russell Henley
5: Justin Rose, Sam Burns

🏆 Playoffs?! (You knew this was coming)

I tweeted out this graphic the other day and was surprised to see Viktor Hovland had gained the most strokes in the playoffs over the last five years. I realize he’s won a FedEx Cup but so have others. The normal Scottie/Rory dominance didn’t exist. In fact, Rory was 7th on the list! That could be in part to others playing more frequently but this list genuinely shocked me.

Below, you’ll see a new table — only with players for this week AND broken out by each leg of the playoffs. Hovland has been the model of consistency, gaining almost exactly the same totals in all three events.

Rory gets off to a slow start but then closes strong.
Sungjae Im gets off to a good start then limps to the finish line.
Tommy has been awesome in a smaller sample.

✋ Five Dollar Footlong

We have a “5 & Done” starting this week which is the same as a “One & Done” but you pick five golfers each week for the next three weeks.

I started tinkering around and the strategy is really fun. Especially when referencing the table above.

Logic dictates that saving Rory for either next week or the TOUR Championship is probably sound. He hasn’t really played well at TPC Southwind in his career, we haven’t seen him since The Open and there’s generally a lot of risk involved there.

But what about Jackson Koivun? Could he actually win this thing? Could he actually contend? I think the answer is yes. He’s 70th in the FedEx Cup Standings so there is no guarantee he will even be around to use after this week. And if he is around, that’s because he had a great finish in Memphis and you probably should have used him!

Then there’s the endless stars like Justin Thomas, Collin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood, Ludvig Aberg, Hideki Matsuayama, etc. etc. Would you be surprised to see any of these guys win a playoff event? No! But they are mostly interchangeable across the three weeks.

The strategy that I’ve mostly settled on:

• Wait on Rory, probably hold for the TOUR Championship

• Two “Fliers” each week

  • This term is used loosely. That doesn’t mean Ricky Castillo, but it means going outside the top 15 and looking for upside (Kitayama, Alex Fitzpatrick, Ben Griffin).

• Be flexible — I have a plan for the next two weeks but I’m not committing to anything now. Why would I? I’ll have more information later.

I’ve already spent more time thinking through these entries than I imagined I would, which is a good sign that this format will be a positive one. If you aren’t signed up yet:

Link to Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

🔮 Looking Into My Crystal Ball

If I could look into my crystal ball and get an answer for anything it wouldn’t be “the price of Bitcoin one year from now”, or “the winning Powerball numbers”, it would be “what version of Alex Smalley are we going to get this week?”.

This man was a buzzsaw in the spring, when he rattled off six straight top-25s. Three of those were top-10s and he damn near won the PGA Championship. His stat profile was aspirational and he was knocking the cover off-the-ball and adding in timely putting. And then came the Memorial.

Smalley started a skid of five events where he failed to make the cut three times and posted a T47 as his best finish. The game was lost. He was doing nothing well.

But! But! He was dynamite in Greensboro last week, finishing T6 and gaining more than eight strokes ball-striking. He looked magnificent and exactly the way he looked this spring. So now what? What version are we getting?

If you have an extra crystal ball handy, please let me know.

🫵 Mark My Words

Well, I told you that I was going to walk into Splash HQ and demand a higher guarantee and that’s exactly what I did. I kicked down the door and said “we’ve been filling this thing 12 hours early! Who do you think you are? I am!”

They quickly cowered and caved to my demands. So this week, we are up to $35,000 in guarantees with the same $25 price point. Help me to not look stupid!

Cheers to y’all for taking good care of us.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

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• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

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📢 Fore, Please…

The FedEx Cup Playoffs start next week and we launched a FIVE & DONE for the occasion. Pick five golfers for each week of the playoffs (15 total picks) but you can only use each golfer once. Total money takes it, but there are also payouts for each tournament as a segment.

I’ve never done anything like this, so it’ll be a little bit of a trial to see how well received these types of contests are. I hope you enjoy!

Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

$8,200: Michael Thorbjornsen (129.5)
$7,400: Matt Wallace (114.0)
$6,200: Davis Riley (111.0)
$10,200: Xander Schauffele (110.0)
$6,900: Rasmus Hojgaard (108.0)
$6,900: Rico Hoey (107.5)
$45,800: 680.0 Pts

🔫 Young Guns

The world of golf is having a youth movement. Jackson Koivun and Michael Thorbjornsen have arrived with authority the last two weeks but they are just the tip of the iceberg. The game is getting younger as evidenced by Blades Brown, Tommy Morrison and a variety of more young studs coming up through the ranks.

They’ll have their moment in the spotlight, let’s circle back to Michael Thorbjornsen and what he was just able to accomplish.

Michael Thorbjornsen becomes just the 20th 24-year old to …

1) win in their age 24 season
2) have at least (3) Top 10s
3) gain at least +0.50 strokes per round

The rest of the players on that list are certainly names that you’d want to be surrounded by. Many are clear cut HOFers and there are plenty of major champions amongst them. This doesn’t mean that Thorbjornsen is going to turn into one of these guys but it certainly helps to get off to a good start.

🔥 Heat Check

With four rounds to go until the FedEx Cup Playoffs, now is a good time to be playing your best golf. We are seeing a handful of players find their stride at this point of the year and they are working hard to extend their seasons.

Here are the ten “hottest players” on TOUR based on their SG in the last 24 rounds.

Zac Blair, despite being one of the worst players off-the-tee in the last 24 rounds is one of the best overall players. That speaks volumes to the rest of his game.

Ben Kohles has done nothing but play great golf all summer long.

Matt Wallace sneaks up on me here. He’s fueled by a runner-up at the Italian Open and a T5 at the Rocket Classic amongst a bunch of other decent finishes.

Doug Ghim is a zero with the putter, always a good sign for a first ballot #TeamNoPutt Hall of Famer.

👴 The Don

Sedgefield CC is a Donald Ross design that dates back to 1926. He was well known for doing his best to move as little earth as possible, using the site’s natural undulation to create its identity.

With over 400 courses in his portfolio, there’s no shortage of Ross designs in professional golf. Here are the Donald Ross Specialists — dating back to 2020.

1. Patrick Cantlay +2.66

2. Brooks Koepka +2.01

3. Aaron Rai +1.95

4. Billy Horschel +1.82

5. Cameron Young +1,78

6. Johnny Keefer +1.51

7. Chris Kirk +1.48

8. Max Greyserman +1.47

9. Davis Thompson +1.34

10. Ben Griffin +1.32
    

🎲 Playing For Comps

When I ran my regression model this week, the three most statistically comparable courses to Sedgefield were Harbour Town, Colonial CC, and TPC Twin Cities. I love this!

Especially off-the-tee, these are courses that are tree-lined and/or extremely penal for missing the fairway. They are positional venues where precision often outduels power.

So — I wanted to make a “Mega Course History” query. Here are the best players in the field this week on those four courses, since 2020 (min 5 starts).

🥵 Filling It Up!

Our britches are getting quite big. Another week and another (very) early fill of our listener league. You can no longer wait around until Thursday morning to get into these contests. As I write this, on Tuesday, there are less than 500 spots to go. That’s abnormal but very good!

Cheers to y’all for taking good care of us.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.

📢 Fore, Please…

There are only two events left before the playoffs begin. It feels abrupt considering we just wrapped up The Open but there’s no time to sit on our hands. Let’s get after it.

Enjoy!
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

$9,200: Jackson Koivun (155.0)
$6,700: Chandler Phillips (132.5)
$9,700: Hideki Matsuyama (126.5)
$7,400: Brian Harman (121.0)
$7,100: Denny McCarthy (121.0)
$7,300: Emiliano Grillo (118.5)
$47,400: 774.5 Pts

🌍 Well I Guess, Hello World

The Jackson Koivun hype-train is hyping! He turned pro just a few weeks ago and there were already a ton of expectations on the shoulders of the young man.

He was the #1 ranked amateur in the world. When he did play in PGA TOUR events, as an amateur, he played well. He had three straight top-10s in 2025 and then finished T23 at this year’s U.S. Open. So when he turned pro, three starts ago, it’s safe to say that people were expecting a lot.

And now, ten rounds later — we are expecting … even more? He missed the cut at the John Deere then rattled off a T10 at the ISCO and held off a charging Scottie Scheffler to win the 3M Open. Woah momma.

Koivun’s Stat Profile — Small, but mighty.

There are lots of reasons to be excited about Koivun, but it’s his putting that does it for me. Let’s face it, all the young guys can mash it. Gordon Sargeant can mash it. Luke Clanton can mash it. Blades Brown can mash it.

The true benchmark in evolution tends to be in their short-games. Koivun is already steps ahead of his peers on the greens, gaining +0.89 per round in his limited sample. And it’s not really a fluke. He’s played 11 PGA TOUR events over the last two years and has gained strokes putting in all of them.

It’s nice to watch him bomb it or knock the paint off flagsticks, but it’s his putting that could allow him to become a star very quickly.

🏅 Percentage of Podiums

The horse is dead and beaten in regards to Scottie Scheffler’s “lack of wins” this year. However, I would like to cover it in a different way.

Mr. Scheffler has eight podium finishes (first, second or third) this year which is the most on TOUR. Of those eight podiums, only one is a win. Below is a graph of how that compares to all other players on TOUR who have at least three podium finishes.

The way to read this — Matt Fitzpatrick has six podiums, half of them are wins. Look at Chris Gotterup go! He’s only earned three total podiums and has won them all! Si Woo Kim has the most podiums without a win, at four.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, I just thought it was interesting and you might find it interesting too.

👴 The Restoration

There was $16,000,000 spent to renovate Detroit Golf Club since last year, but I’m not sure how much of a difference it’ll make for one of the easiest courses on the schedule.

The winning score will definitely be worse since they converted the 7th and 17th holes from par-5s to par-4s making the overall par a 70 — down from 72. Though, they could have done that part for free and kept the $16M.

There has been an increase in bunkering both in magnitude and in depth, which could provide a few spots of nuisance.

There will be more fescue and native area, however my gut says this is more aesthetic than impactful to scoring.

There’s just so little danger out there to contend with, I find it hard to believe they could turn this into Muirfield Village in one year with $16M. Expect a few less eagles from the generous par-5s but there should be little resistance to players this week.

Above are the best players in the field, their last 50 rounds on easy courses. Note: that Mazzoli result is one event — his win in Puntacana.

🤩 The Sticky Shuffle

The interesting thing about Detroit GC is that the performances have been quite sticky. The players who have success here, tend to do it year-over-year — and vice versa.

In terms of “stickiness correlation”, it ranks as the 5th strongest out of 43 eligible courses meaning that we should probably put a heavier emphasis on course history this week. You can decide how much you want to knock off based on the course changes, but I think history will still be rather correlated.

Best Players, Detroit Golf Club — min three starts.

🥵 Filling It Up!

Our britches are getting quite big. Another week and another (very) early fill of our listener league. You can no longer wait around until Thursday morning to get into these contests. As I write this, on Tuesday, there are less than 500 spots to go. That’s abnormal but very good!

Cheers to y’all for taking good care of us.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.

📢 Fore, Please…

We’ve been lucky enough to travel a lot this year but our golden rule has always been that work cannot be compromised if we are going to be away from home. That means the preview shows are still getting done, the live chats will still be (mostly) on time and this newsletter will still go out.

As long as I have my laptop, it’s business as usual and that opens up the world to be our oyster. With that being said, sometimes finding reliable internet can be questionable. I use my phone as a hotspot but sometimes that to step out into public. Here is a look at me, writing this newsletter from an Italian bookstore/library/workspace thing.

Enjoy!
Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$6,300: Ryan Fox (110.5)
$9,000: Cam Young (96.5)
$7,800: Sam Burns (92.0)
$10,500: Tommy Fleetwood (88.0)
$6,200: Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (85.5)
$6,100: Lucas Herbert (81.0)
$45,900: 553.5 Pts

🦊 Sly Like A Fox

On a Sunday where many players were melting down and Cameron Young’s clubhouse lead was getting better by the moment, Ryan Fox showed up and stole the Claret Jug. Obviously, I mean that as a compliment. He was the only player on the back nine, in contention hitting shots — stone cold shots.

That includes three perfect shots to birdie 18, something that had been exceedingly rare all week. That was a finish of pure execution at the highest level. Hats off to Ryan Fox.

Now a three-time PGA TOUR winner but who has seven wins globally. He’s got wins at Wentworth, St. Andrews, and now Royal Birkdale. Foxy is starting to build an incredible resume.

🥹 The End of a Major Season

With another major championship season in the rearview, let’s look back at the four majors together. There were only six players who gained 30+ strokes to the field cumulatively in the majors. Of those six — only one (Rory McIlroy) was a winner. There were only two golfers to eclipse 40+ SG — Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns. Both came up empty handed.

Winning is hard and winning majors is even harder. You can be clearly the best player(s) over four events and walk away wondering what happened. It’s a gift and a curse to be graded only on your output in these four specific events a year.

Scottie Scheffler’s Major Seasons Since 2022:

2026: +40.85
2025: +56.16
2024: +43.04
2023: +44.80
2022: +38.64

You’re reading that right. Scheffler’ 2026 was his worst major championship season in the last four years. It was also the best of any player in the world.

🔊 Speaking of Scottie

The number one player in the world is going to make his 3M Open debut this week and he will certainly be licking his chops when he arrives in Blaine, Minnesota.

With only one win in 2026, this will be Scheffler’s best opportunity to double that number for the rest of the season.

The gap between him and everyone else is shockingly large. Over the last 50 rounds, Scheffler is a +2.14/rd player. The second best player in the field, Casey Jarvis, is a +1.44 and the third best player, Ben Kohles, is a +1.04.

That’s it. There are only three players in this field who are gaining at least one stroke per round and Scheffler is twice as good as that. It should also be noted that this is raw SG so with Scheffler playing almost exclusively in majors/signature events, the real gap is actually much larger than this.

⛳ The Surging Sleepers

There are so many guys playing great golf right now but it’s been disguised behind a weaker schedule or opposite field events. Here are three that I want to highlight that could firmly be in the “without Scheffler” discussion for this week.

Ben Kohles - depending on how you slice it, either the second or third best player in this field over the last 50 rounds. Won a KFT event during that stretch and “should have” won the John Deere Classic. Historically bad putter who has gained +11.887 strokes putting in his last twelve rounds.

Zac Blair - Gaining +0.51 strokes per round this season, making it the best PGA TOUR season of his career. enters off back-to-back top-10 finishes and should be rewarded as the second most accurate driver on TOUR.

Aaron Wise - has only played 22 events over the last three years with nine coming in 2026. After six straight missed cuts, he’s finished T39 - T3 - T15 in his three most recent starts. That includes +11 strokes ball-striking over his last eight rounds.

👈 Left Over Right

TPC Twin Cities uses water to strike fear into the hearts of the players. There are 15 holes with water in play, many of which have it both off-the-tee and on approach. The first priority at TPC Twin Cities is keeping your ball dry. If you can do that, it’s quite an easy course but that’s a big “if”.

From a statistical standpoint, missing left off-the-tee is wayyyy better than missing right. The natural miss for many righties (right) is worth an average of a +0.45 stroke penalty, making it one of the most penal misses on TOUR.

Missing left still isn’t great, but it’s cost is only +0.35 strokes and below average by TOUR standards.

These are the players in the field this week, sorted by right round tendency (whether they have enough rounds to qualify or not). Lucas Glover, Ben Kohles, Zac Blair all stand out to me since I liked them already.

Doug Ghim has been sneakily trending and could benefit from a few extra dry balls this week.

🎶 This Feels Like A Litmus Test

Over the years, Splash has challenged our listener league with higher and higher guarantees. This week feels like another litmus test. Instead of dropping the guarantee down to $25,000 or $20,000 for this week, it remains at $30,000 which is the same as it was for the Scottish Open — hell yeah!

Now, we just have to fill it so we can continue to see these go up. We’ve been in a really good spot since I committed to the strokes format (you guys were right, I was wrong).

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.

📢 Fore, Please…

Weeks like this make you romantic about golf. Tee times from 6:30AM until 4:30PM. On a proper links course that has bred nothing but elite winners. In a country that just closed out Wimbledon and now has their football team in the World Cup semis. There’s a buzz in London, where I am now. Can’t wait to get up to Southport and see the boys in action.

Chat soon
Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$7,600: Tom Kim (123.5)
$8,200: Min Woo Lee (116.0)
$9,000: Robert MacIntyre (110.5)
$7,000: Johnny Keefer (108.5)
$9,900: Matt Fitzpatrick (106.5)
$6,700: Keita Nakajima (100.5)
$48,400: 665.5 Pts

😤Tom Kim is Him

We’ve had a lot of popular winners on the PGA TOUR this year and we can now add Tom Kim to that list. After a few down years, Kim is back in the winner’s circle and this is not a fluke.

He entered the Scottish Open gaining strokes on approach in six straight events for a total of +26.30 SGAPP over those 24 rounds. Anytime a player is gaining 1+ stroke per round on approach, they are in the top tier on the TOUR. Tom Kim was doing that prior to the win and had some solid results along the way.

The other thing to remember is that Tom Kim just turned 24 years old. He’s a baby! He’s two years younger than Ludvig Aberg!

When you compare him to other similarly aged players (above), by any metric he is having the best career. His fourth win ties him with Bhatia for four career wins but Akshay only has three on the PGA TOUR.

📈 Give Me The Stat, Stat!

One of my favorite things about working with the PGA TOUR this year is that we have access to all the coolest toys — like some insane studio set-ups. This week, I was able to move into one of them and we did a quick little stat breakdown for The Open.

I “invented” a stat called Total Scrambling which looks at players who are better than their peers in three areas:

1. SG ARG (Fairway)

2. SG ARG (Sand)

3. Putting Inside 10’

I thought this was pretty important for an Open which is either going to have shortgrass OR bunkers protecting most green complexes.

You can watch the whole video on the PGA TOUR YouTube Channel to see why we picked scrambling and who appears on the top-10 list!

🤷 Scottie Doesn’t Know

Everybody panic — Scottie Scheffler has missed a cut. For the first time in nearly four years, I scrolled a leaderboard on the weekend and could not find Scheffler’s name! WTF!

This has added a new bit of fuel to the “Scheffler Down Year” conversation which, for me, is quite ridiculous. There are definitely two sides to the story but they are not equal. Both of these things can be true:

1) He’s not as good as he was last year.
2) He’s the best player in the world by a wide margin.

By most metrics, the 2026 version of Scottie Scheffler is the worst version of Scottie Scheffler since 2022.

Of the last four years, he’s having his worst SG year, his top-10 rate is the lowest it’s been, and he has the fewest number of wins.

The biggest culprit is his approach play, but more specifically, his wedge play.

From 100-125 yards, his average proximity has ballooned in 2026 to 39’ which is way up from last year (22’) and 2024 (20’).

The numbers are quite as stark from 125-150 but they tell a similar story — Scheffler is not hitting it as close to the pin as he used to. And these are scoring opportunities with a wedge or short-iron in play.

Proximity is just one way to look at it though. How does this translate into real world golf scores?

In 2024, he hit 39.2% of his approaches from 100-150 years within 15’
In 2025, the number was 38.8%.
In 2026, it’s 27.2%.

In his 13 measured events this year, he averaged 17.5 shots from this range per event. In previous years, he would hit roughly seven of those within 15’ for a solid, make-able birdie attempt. In 2026, it’s fewer than five per start.

It doesn’t seem like a lot but these are averages. They add up over rounds, events, and months. He’s finished second four times and third twice. A few strokes is the difference between him having one win and six.

⛳ This Course Is Not That Course

Royal Birkdale, the one you remember from 2017, is not the Royal Birkdale that will be played this week. I mean that both figuratively and literally.

Obviously over the last nine years, lots of work has been done to the grounds, with every hole being touched in some way. That’s pretty normal.

The biggest difference is that some holes don’t even exist anymore! The old 14th hole has been removed and replaced by re-working the old 15th and then adding a brand new par-3 to play as the new 15th.

Because of this important distinction, the course isn’t the “same”. The old scoring records are now set and any new scoring records would be attributed to the “new course”. That’s nerdy stuff that mostly doesn’t matter but it does illustrate how little you should care about the 2017 results of The Open.

I will defer to those who know a lot more than I do in terms of architecture. You can check out Geoff Shackelford and his Quadrilateral as well as the Fried Egg guys who always do a nice job.

One of my favorite things about Royal Birkdale is the routing, which runs in every direction. It’ll force players to play in all four cardinal directions within the first six holes alone. You’re not going to be able to luck out with a single favorable wind direction.

🤡 Tiers of a Clown

The Open can be pretty hard to predict. The weather dynamic, pot bunkers, general “unfairness”. However, there are players who seem to thrive in these conditions more than others which is why you see guys like Rory with pretty immaculate records across all Open venues.

I wanted to try something different this week and provide the definitive list of golfers who can win the Open, by tier:

Yes, Obviously: Scheffler, McIlroy, Rahm
Trending: M. Fitzpatrick, Gotterup, MacIntyre, Clark, Hovland
Are They Dogs?: Fleetwood, Ludvig, Schauffele
Definitely Dogs: Justin Thomas, Tom Kim, Patrick Reed
No Idea: Morikawa
With a Little Luck: Rose, Burns, Rai
With a Lot of Luck: Henley, DeChambeau, Si Woo Kim

🎶 Warm Up The Bagpipes

I’m enamored by Bobby Mac this week. I don’t trust him, but I sure am excited to see what happens.

This man has been reliant on his putter for the vast majority of 2026. He was miserable on approach, losing strokes in that category in ten of his first 13 starts this year. But now, something is happening.

Since the Canadian Open, across 16 rounds, MacIntyre has piled up +15.8 strokes on approach. And he hasn’t lost the putter! That has resulted in three top-15 finishes including a T3 last week in Scotland.

We often say things like “if he can just put it all together…”, well — MacIntyre is putting it all together right now.

🍫 Unwrapping a 100 Grand Bar

Our Listener League this week is a whopping $100,000 guaranteed and will feature eight tiers of golfers. Pick one from each, with your best seven scores counting.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.

📢 Fore, Please…

Hi yall — I’m lucky enough to be heading over for The Open but I accidently bought too many tickets. It was months ago and I was expecting a bigger group. Anyway … I have a few tickets available that I’m just trying to move at/close to face value. I can transfer them digitally.

Monday: $50
Tuesday: $50
Thursday: $150

If you or anyone you know is interested, just reply to this email.

See you then
Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$10,700: Chris Gotterup (137.0)
$7,400: Max Homa (119.0)
$7,300: Ben Kohles (119.0)
$6,900: Lucas Glover (118.5)
$7,000: Lee Hodges (114.5)
$8,600: Doug Ghim (111.5)
$47,900: 719.5 Pts

🏇 Giddy Up, Indeed

Thanks to a final round 62 and a little help from Ben Kohles, Chris Gotterup is back in the winners circle.

This marks his fourth PGA TOUR win in the last 365 days joining Scottie Scheffler with the most during that period.

4: Scheffler & Gotterup
3: Fitzpatrick & Cam Young
2: Rose & Clark
1: 30 players

He will now defend his Scottish Open title this week at The Renaissance Club.

🥵 Big Boy Still Running Hot

I cannot get over this absolute heater that Wyndham Clark is on right now. Outside of Scottie Scheffler, I’m not sure we’ve seen a more impressive three month stretch in the last five years.

Not only has Wyndham been one of the best players in the world since April 1st, but it was such a complete 180 from his play to start 2026.

Clark has now gained +71.75 strokes to the field this year, which is the 5th most of anyone on TOUR. This is a running total, so it does matter that Si Woo Kim has played 70 rounds while Scottie Scheffler has only played 56 — but bear with me. The visual will still make sense.

Above is the running SGTOT for the top five players on TOUR this year. That pink line is Wyndham Clark. He basically spotted the others three full months of TOUR average play before he kicked it into gear.

As if I wasn’t enamored enough with this Wyndham situation, it gets better. Or should I say … he gets better. The last five starts have been his best five starts. He’s gaining a staggering +3.20 strokes per round during that run, which includes both wins and T11 as his worst finish.

His +3.20 strokes gained per round is split evenly, +1.60 from his tee-to-green play and +1.60 from his putter. Ahhh — symmetry.

🥃 The American Style Links

This will be the eighth straight year that The Renaissance Club has hosted the Scottish Open. That’s split between it being only a DP World Tour event and a co-sanctioned event. There are a handful of players with really strong course history here:

Rory McIlroy leads the way — he’s gained +2.18 strokes per round in five trips but his last three have been even better. Those three are a win, T4 and T2.

Tom Kim has never finished worse than T17 in four trips. He’s gained +1.14 strokes on approach in his career at The Renaissance Club which is the third most of anyone with at least four stars (Scheffler, Hatton).

Tommy Fleetwood has played here six times, tied for the second most number of starts of anyone in this field. He’s earned three top-6 finishes — one as a DPWT event and two as co-sanctioned events.

Wyndham Clark — there goes that man again. He’s earned four top-25s in four trips, best finish is T10. He’s gained 12.96 strokes putting in his last eight rounds.

Speaking of putting, no one putts better than Matt Fitzpatrick at The Renaissance Club. He’s gained 32.5 strokes on the greens in his 26 career rounds.

🌏 Worlds Colliding

Since this is a co-sanctioned event, the PGA TOUR cannot completely dictate who is in the field for this week. And since Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton have squared up their fines with the DP World Tour, they are going to be playing this week. Along with Patrick Reed, we are seeing worlds collide outside of a major championship for the first time in years.

Outside of his miserable round on Friday at the U.S. Open, Jon Rahm has been great in 2026. He has two wins on LIV and eight top-5 finishes — which includes the PGA Championship. His off-the-tee numbers are gaudy. He’s gained 34.88 strokes in the category across 42 measured rounds.

Hatton has lacked the consistency of Rahm but has gotten scorching hot recently. He won LIV Golf Andalucia by gaining at least 2 strokes in each of the four SG categories. He backed it up with a T7 at Shinnecock Hills, the last time we’ve seen him play a professional event.

Patrick Reed has only played 10 times in 2026. He was shot out of a cannon to begin the year, winning twice and earning six top-12 finishes in his first eight events. He’s cooled a bit recently — missed cut at the US Open and T45 at the Italian Open in his last two starts.

LIVE at 3 PM ET

🐋 Coffee Golf & Guarantees

The next two weeks might be the best on the golf calendar. It’s waking up early, staying up late, and watching the best in the world play a style of golf that we rarely get to see in America.

The only way to improve it would be to have two guaranteed contests on Splash where we can make lineups and compete against one another. Oh wait!

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📢 Fore, Please…

Programming Note this week — I am traveling again this week and my schedule is all screwed up. With that being said, the LIVE CHAT has already taken place and you can watch the replay here.

I realize that may be jarring for your creature of habit (I’m one of them) but I figured that was better than not doing one at all.

See you then
Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$8,500: Viktor Hovland (144.0)
$9,200 Collin Morikawa (124.0)
$10,000: Matt Fitzpatrick (121.0)
$7,400: Akshay Bhatia (115.0)
$6,700: Corey Conners (114.5)
$7,900: JJ Spaun (113.0)
$49,700: 731.5 Pts

🔊 Listen When He Speak

Viktor Hovland never says nice things about his game. I believe he gave himself a 3/10 when he won the Valspar Championship last year. So when he does say something positive, it’s time to listen!

Hovland gave praise to his game after the second round of last week’s Travelers Championship. He described how he was hitting it much better in Canada and the U.S. Open but he was punished for one bad swing/bad result at Shinnecock Hills. He feels his game is getting tighter and the stats are backing that up.

He’s now gained strokes on approach in five straight starts and the results are following suit. Prior to the Canada Open, Hovland only had one top-10 finish this season — his first start of the year, a T10 in Phoenix.

He finished third in Canada and won last week.

🍩 Dink & Dunk

Not Harbour Town. Nor Pebble Beach. Not even TPC River Highlands. It’s TPC Deere Run that has seemingly let the shortest hitters run unfettered to the top of the podium.

This is only looking at one single position, first, but my goodness. What a collection of short and accurate winners.

Brian Campbell, Sepp Straka, JT Poston, Lucas Glover, Ryan Moore, Brian Harman, Zach Johnson, Steve Stricker (3x).

It makes sense with the cost of miss being +0.38, which is the 12th highest on the TOUR schedule. The other big thing to consider is that the Stickiness Rating is #3 — which means there are only two other courses on the schedule where course history matters more.

Best SGTOT at TPC Deere Run, min three starts.

There are four golfers in the field for this week who have gained 2+ strokes per round in their TPC Deere Run Career (min three starts) — Davis Thompson, Emiliano Grillo, Michael Thorbjornsen, and Jordan Spieth.

🐣 The Youngins

This event has been a breeding ground for young stars thanks to two big reasons:

1) The tournament staff has actively tried to offer exemptions to up and coming talent, like Jordan Spieth, in hopes that they will return to this event yearly once they’ve “made it”. This has worked pretty well.

2) The timing of the event, after both the U.S. Open and collegiate season, is the perfect spot for the best amateurs to make their professional debuts. Let’s focus on some of the younger talent in this field.

Jackson Koivun — making his professional debut after being the number one amateur in the world. And I know what you’re thinking — “Rick, he’s just turning pro, I’ve seen him all over the place”. You have!

Koivun has played eight PGA TOUR events since the start of last year but I want to focus on his five most recent.

2025 John Deere: T11
2025 ISCO: T6
2025 Wyndham: T5
2025 Procore: T4
2026 US Open: T23

This kid … is a stud. That’s four top-11 finishes in his last five PGA TOUR starts. His worst finish was the T23 at the US Open where he gained strokes in all four categories.

Blades Brown — already a pro and has been for quite some time. He has a much more extensive professional record across the KFT and PGAT. He has three podium finishes across his last 11 starts. That record is highlighted by the third place finish he had in Puerto Rico earlier this year.

His short-game is a little weak but that shouldn’t be a detriment here. He’ll be asked to go back a bunch of birdies, which is something he is certainly capable of doing.

🏇 Giddy Up, Gotterup

I’m looking right at ya, Chris Gotterup. You can’t fool me.

Gotterup got off to a disastrous start last week in Cromwell. He was +4 thru his first ten holes and destined for the bottom of the leaderboard. Until … he wasn’t.

Gotterup caught fire

15 under on next 44 holes (thru three rounds)

Now he’s headed to TPC Deere Run, which on paper, doesn’t seem like the best venue in the world for him. However, he’s played here three times to the tune of T4 - MC - T21. He’s been dominant off-the-tee in those twelve rounds and he could very easily be the best player in the field this week.

🐋 $30,000 In Prizes

I have been getting my butt kicked in the tiers contests lately. But — that’s changing this week. I’m coming for blood. No mercy!

Pick 6 golfers, one from each tier.
Best 5 scores count.

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📢 Fore, Please…

This week I’m feeling grateful. I just left an awesome U.S. Open and now get to be on PGA TOUR Live this week. Even crazier, the RickRunGood YouTube channel is just a few clicks away from hitting 40,000 subscribers.

I started that channel 12 years ago and have posted 1,630 videos. It’s been the most constant “work” thing that I’ve done even though it doesn’t ever feel like work. And 40,000 of you have clicked subscribe?! That’s crazy. I love you.

Oh, and if you haven’t already — subscribe.

Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$7,800: Wyndham Clark (102.0)
$6,200 Keith Mitchell (80.5)
$6,200: Tom Kim (79.5)
$7,400: Joaquin Niemann (79.0)
$7,700: Sam Burns (77.0)
$6,300: JT Poston (75.0)
$41,600: 493.0 Pts

🔥 This Man Is On Fire

Since the Masters, Wyndham Clark has been absolutely scorching hot. In his seven starts since, he’s gaining +2.36 strokes per round which is second to (say it with me now) Scottie Scheffler. They are the only two golfers to eclipse the +2.00 threshold during that span.

His two winds are about as different as they get. He destroyed TPC Craig Ranch to the tune of 30-under and then he slayed Shinnecock Hills and one of other three golfers to break par for the week.

This success is running firmly through his flatstick. During that seven start streak, he’s gained +1.33 strokes per round on the putting surfaces, also the best in the world. That makes up roughly 50% of his total strokes gained with +1.36 coming from his tee-to-green play.

He became the 24th player in men’s major history to win multiple U.S. Opens. Hat tip, dub.

✒️ Siggy Siggy Siggy

We are a few years into the Signature Event system and many players have played ~20 of these things. I think they are a good comparison point because they are all so similar. They often feature no cut (there are some exceptions), have the same size field, and have many of the same players in those fields. It’s probably some of the strongest data we have in a game that usually is ripe with variables.

Here are the best players, overall, in Siggys:

1. Scottie Scheffler +2.21 (19 starts)

2. Collin Morikawa +1.27 (21)

3. Patrick Cantlay +1.00 (22)

4. Tommy Fleetwood +0.92 (22)

5. Xander Schauffele +0.76 (20)

6. Ludvig Aberg +0.74 (21)

7. Russell Henley +0.73 (22)

8. Maverick McNealy +0.67 (16)

9. Justin Thomas +0.66 (20)

10. Sungjae Im +0.62 (21)

There are only six golfers who play better in signature events than non-signature events. They are:

Scottie Scheffler, who is +0.60 strokes better in Signature Events than non-Siggys. Followed by Sepp Straka (+0.36), Collin Morikawa (+0.36), Si Woo Kim (+0.24), Maverick McNealy (+0.07) and Russell Henley (+0.02).

⏱️ This Is Certainly The Time, Right?

Over the last few years, Xander Schauffele has gone from one of the game’s best putters to a slightly above average putter with a lot of volatility. His last three starts — +7.50 at Aronimink, -5.04 at Muirfield Village, +3.83 at Shinnecock Hills. That’s a 12 stroke different from his worst to best performance in his last three starts alone. Sheesh!

If there was ever a spot for Xander’s putter to get right, wouldn’t it be at TPC River Highlands? He’s gaining +0.88 strokes per round putting here. It’s his best putting course on the PGA TOUR schedule.

🏇 The Stable Is Full

TPC River Highlands is sticky! The players who play well here usually do it year-after-year and vice versa. Here are some of the most interesting course horse nuggets:

• Xander Schauffele has gained +0.88 strokes per round putting here, the best rate of any course he’s played at least five times.

• Patrick Cantlay has ten (!!) different courses that he’s gained at least 1.5+ sg/rd in his career. This is one of them — he has eight top 10s … in a row!

• Brian Harman’s best course is TPC River Highlands, +1.54 in 15 starts. He’s never won but he has eight top-10s in his last 11 trips.

• Since Jordan Spieth’s win in his debut, his best finish in T42 and he’s failed to make the weekend in 3/6.

• This is the only course that Collin Morikawa has played at least four times and has also lost strokes on approach — make that make sense.

🐋 $30,000 In Prizes

I have been getting my butt kicked in the tiers contests lately. But — that’s changing this week. I’m coming for blood. No mercy!

Pick 6 golfers, one from each tier.
Best 5 scores count.

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📢 Fore, Please…

Shinnecock is … incredible. It creates elite champions and makes elite champions putt their ball while it’s still moving.

There’s a chance for the Career Grand Slam this week. In fact, a good chance. Probably an 18% chance if you believe the Vegas odds.

Even par might win. EVEN PAR MIGHT WIN!

How can you not be romantic about golf?

Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$7,800: Bud Cauley (135.5)
$6,500 Jimmy Stanger (112.5)
$10,500: Matt Fitzpatrick (111.5)
$6,300: Brice Garnett (107.0)
$7,000: Jesper Svensson (105.0)
$9,200: Viktor Hovland (104.5)
$47,300: 676.0 Pts

🍺 This Bud’s For You

It’s over! Bud Cauley is a winner on the PGA TOUR for the first time in his career. He was one of a few dozen players who have at least 200 career PGA TOUR starts without a victory since 2005.

He was the most deserving of the non-winners as he had gained +0.44 strokes per round in his career entering last week. That was the most of any of his winless peers who were much closer to average players in their eras.

He also had a 12.5% Top-10 rate during his winless stretch, which was second to only Robert Allenby. Cheers, Bud!

📫 Shipping My Sticks

Something weird happened this week but let me back up for a second. I’ve taken my golf clubs to Florida seven different times this year plus a handful of other trips. I hate everything that goes into traveling with golf clubs but I love having my set with me on the road. But I’ve had enough.

I got fed up with checking my golf clubs on flights and decided to use ShipSticks so my clubs will be in Florida when I get there.

I tweeted out “does anyone have a promo code for ShipSticks?”. I figure, they run ads, there is probably some discount code somewhere. Then — ShipSticks themselves DM’d me and said they’d pay for my bag if I posted a review (good or bad) about my experience.

Joke’s on them, I would have done it for free.

Seriously, I’ve used ShipSticks two or three times now and it’s always been great. If you don’t need access to your clubs immediately, it’s a no-brainer.

Option 1: Check your bags with the airline. Arrive early to wait in the check/dropoff line. Pay $50 each way. Wait for who knows how long at baggage claim. Lug clubs to rental car.

Option 2: Leave golf clubs on doorstep. Pay $100 each way. Grab golf clubs at hotel.

If your time, energy, trouble is worth like $20/hour then you should probably just be using ShipSticks. They gave me a 20% off code for you which is “RICKG20”.

Pro Tip: flip all your clubs so the heads are at the bottom of the bag. It stops the club chatter and redistributes the weight to the bottom. Now the weight is where the wheels of your travel bag are instead of in your wrist/forearms. Feels 20x lighter.

👑 Crowned Greens

One of the most notable features, and there are many, of Shinnecock Hills is the crowned green complexes. Everything funnels off the edges which makes the greens effectively much smaller than their square footage on the course sheet.

The penalty for the ball funneling off-the-green can fluctuate. Sometimes the ball will roll into a collection area on the short-side of the green. Other times, it might funnel 30 yards back down the green. Neither are great results but it makes the margins of missing/hitting greens very small.

Let’s start with around-the-green play. This week will ask for a variety of shots from multiple locations (thick rough, short grass, bunkers, fescue, etc). I think it’s safe to look at ARG play as a whole but I also want to see who improves at majors.

The way to read the chart above is — “Rickie Fowler has the biggest SG:ARG difference between his 2026 year and his Major Championship career”. Rickie has the hands of an angel at majors but has struggled in 2026. Using purely the difference might not be the best because it would reward golfers who have actually struggled in 2026.

This updated chart is probably better. This is every golfer who has been a positive ARG player in 2026 AND gets back in their Major Championship career. Considering the fact that the top three are all major champions, yeah this checks out.

The new chart reads — “Jason Day has gained +0.507 strokes around-the-green in 2026 and still has a higher average in majors”

Now, we could simply just hit the green and not have to worry about getting up and down at all. That would be nice, wouldn’t it? But that would require elite distance control. I’ve always wondered about a “distance control” stat, so here’s my crack at it.

Distance To Pin +- Distance of Approach Shot
Must be measured with radar.
Must be categorized as approach shot.
Must be inside 250 yards (to weed out second shots into par-5s)

This doesn’t account for any left/right dispersion but neither does your playing partner when he yells “at least it’s pin high!” as you’re 30 yards into the woods. “right club!”

Si Woo Kim is the best Distance Control player on TOUR this year. His average long/shot miss is 26’ or ~9 yards. Followed by Sudarshan Yellamaraju and Matt Fitzpatrick.

While this is only half of the equation, it’s interesting to not see Scottie Scheffler’s name (he ranks 36th).

💨 Coastal Winds

“Mother Nature will have her say in this Championship!” is a silly phrase that often gets uttered this time of year. I’m guilty, I’ve said it. But it’s true!

Precipitation wise, the current forecast is showing rain on Thursday and Friday. Thursday looks worse than Friday and there’s still a lot of time between now and then. The wind on Thursday looks tough — 18 MPH with gusts higher than that.

Shinnecock Hills is already exposed with wind coming off the bay and the fact that there are like … zero … trees out here*. Even a 10 MPH wind is going to be impactful.

So let’s just do it. Let’s look at the best approach players in “strong wind” conditions since 2023.

Hey look, it’s some of the best approach players in the world. It makes sense that the guys who flush it in normal conditions also flush it in the wind! Maybe some of the standouts include Viktor Hovland getting a boost, along with Shane Lowry, Sepp Straka, and Akshay Bhatia.

*wear your sunscreen peeps.

🦗 Gradually Getting Tougher

There is a bit of wiggle room off-the-tee at Shinnecock Hills, which is nice because a big miss is going to be a brutal punishment.

Please don’t read this as “Shinnecock is easy off-the-tee” or “bombs away!”. There’s actually a lot of strategy with the way the fairways are angled and the conditions will dictate the runout and club selection for many players.

I mean, from a statistical standpoint, there is a little bit of wiggle room off-the-tee. The fairways are wide enough (again, effectively smaller in many places), with a bit of rough before giving way to the absolutely brutal fescue, high grass disaster that lurks for big misses.

Photo Courtesy of The Fried Egg and their insanely good course breakdown.

I stole the photo above from the guys at The Fried Egg (sorry boys). They have a very sick course breakdown that I would recommend.

I think the photo illustrates what some of the numbers also demonstrate. There’s plenty of fairway, then a few angled yards of symmetric rough, then some random sandy area, then all out chaos.

Kudos to the USGA for shaving down the area leading into the fairway bunkers, those will be magnets. The strip of rough and long grass around the fairway side of the bunker will be annoying (woohoo!).

Obviously long and straight plays here and everywhere. Slightly crooked won’t be a problem. Big misses will be the worst.

There are only eight players in the field who are inaccurate but not by much. They rank in the bottom half of driving accuracy but the top half of distance from edge of fairway.

omg, is it a Spieth week?

 🧑‍🍳 Yes, Scheff!

This will be the 15th consecutive Major Championship in which Scottie Scheffler has single digits odds to win. Of the previous 14, he has three wins and countless trips into contention.

This is the final boss standing between Scheffler and the Career Grand Slam. It would also raise Scheffler to his fifth major championship which has only been accomplished by 21 men in the history of the game.

Scottie would be one of the fastest to accomplish the “race to 5” with this being his 28th major start.

Tiger did it in 22, Jack did it in 25.

If Scheffler wins this week, or at any point in the next year, he would get to five faster than Watson did, who ended with eight for his career.

Rory is already at six and Brooks has five. Scottie and Spieth are one away from the Slam. It feels like every major championship has a chance to be a historic one which is pretty incredible in a post-Tiger era.

🐋 Splashing Around

We are getting the front page treatment on Splash Sports right now. The featured contest is our Listener League for the U.S. Open that is boasting $200,000 in guaranteed funds.

Winner gets $20,000 — second gets $15,000 — third gets $9,000 all the way down to 200 payout spots.

Pick 8 golfers, one from each tier.
Best 7 scores count.

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📢 Fore, Please…

I was happily surprised when I saw the field for this week’s Canadian Open. Sure, no Rory McIlroy or Scottie Scheffler but it’s pretty meaty at the top.

With a three-pack of favorites in Tommy Fleetwood, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Sam Burns, we also have Collin Morikawa, Viktor Hovland, and Brooks Koepka. Those names alone get the juices flowing but they aren’t alone. This is setting up to be a lowkey great week. Let’s have a good one!

Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$6,600: JT Poston (115.5)
$6,900 Ryan Gerard (110.0)
$7,300: Wyndham Clark (102.0)
$6,900: Kristoffer Reitan (96.5)
$9,100: Tommy Fleetwood (93.0)
$8,800: Sam Burns (90.5)
$45,600: 607.5 Pts

📫 The Postman From The Heavens

Sometimes the wins just come out of nowhere. I’m thrilled for JT Poston to capture victory but as a data guy, there was nothing pointing at this outcome.

Prior to the win, his best finish in 2026 was a T21 at the Valero Texas Open. His last top-5 finish came over a year ago at the 2025 PGA Championship.

Even after the win, Poston is gaining +0.23 strokes per round in 2026. This is the 7th best year of his ten year career.

If you didn’t see the Poston win coming, you are not alone. In our OAD, out of 5,556 users, there were ZERO Poston selections. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many people go without having the winner selected at all.

He continues the trend of longshot winners, closing at 145-1. At this point in the season the average winner’s odds at +7000.

Congrats to JT — on to Canada.

🚫 Refusing To Fade

There are two players who have changed their entire lives in 2026, but instead of relaxing they are forging on. Of course, I’m talking about Alex Fitzpatrick and Kristoffer Reitan.

Alex Fitzpatrick has five PGA TOUR starts this year. His win at the Zurich Classic has been followed up by three more top-10 finishes in Signature Events. His worst finish was T75 at the PGA Championship — dreadful!

He doesn’t have enough rounds to qualify, but if he did, he’d be top-20 in SG: Off-the-Tee and first in SG: Approach. He’s very clearly one of the most talented players on TOUR. THIS DOESN’T EVEN ACKNOWLEDGE the fact that he has another win and another four top-20s on the DPWT this year!!!!

Since January 1, 2026 — Fitzpatrick has gained +2.33 strokes per round. It’s the second best global mark behind only Scottie Scheffler.

Okay, let me catch my breath. Now for Kristoffer Reitan.

His win at the Truist Championship capped a run of four lead-in events with three top-15s. His best finish was two weeks before the win, a runner-up at the Zurich Classic with Kris Ventura.

He’s lost strokes off-the-tee just once in his last 13 events and he’s compiled two “complete gains”* in his last three starts. In his last six measured starts he’s gained +34.7 strokes from tee-to-green which doesn’t even include his runner-up at the Zurich!!

Consider me a bull on these two until otherwise noted.

*gaining strokes in all four categories in a given week.

🔥 Catch Him While He’s Hot

It shouldn’t be a surprise that Wyndham Clark is running hot right now — he’s one of the streakiest players on TOUR. It is springing, however, the magnitude of his putting increases.

For much of the year, Wyndham was dreadful with the flatstick. Every week (or round) seemed like he had a new set-up — with little improvement. But he’s figured it out now.

Over his last four starts, he’s gained more than 19 strokes putting. The +12.57 that he gained during his win at TPC Craig Ranch is the most by any player this year. It’s the second most by any player since 2022.

Now he has back-to-back top-10s for the first time since 2024 and enters this week with the fourth shortest odds to win (+2350).

👉 Long Par 4s

The most fascinating feature of TPC Toronto is how long some of the par-4s are here. There are six different par-4s that are over 480 yards long with 16 and 17 combining to play 1,043 yards.

Best Players in Field, Par-4s over 480 yards since 2022.

Keith Mitchell is prepared to thrive this week as he is betting on long par-4s than anyone else in this field. He’s played 621 par-4s over 480 yards since 2022 and he’s gained an average of +0.12 strokes on each one.

Michael Brennan and Sudarshan Yellamaraju have smaller sample sizes, fewer than 100 holes played, but both are off to great starts on these types of holes.

🐋 Big Run of National Opens

We have two massive contests on tap for this week (Canadian Open) and next week (U.S. Open). We’ve settled into our solid total strokes format and y’all are filling the contests faster than ever. Thank you for that.

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📢 Fore, Please…

As many of you know, I’ve been on PGA TOUR Live this year for their “BetCast” shows which take place 12x (siggys and playoffs). We are more than halfway done but apparently they are doing really well.

So well that they’ve added a LIVE PREVIEW show on Tuesday next week for the Memorial. I don’t have a lot of details but it’s going to air live on ESPN+ at roughly 11AM ET.

It’s really nice to see the TOUR, DraftKings, and ESPN all get behind something like this. I couldn’t have imagined this a few years ago. Progress, baby!

Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$8,800: Wyndham Clark (166.0)
$9,900 Si Woo Kim (143.5)
$6,900: Jackson Suber (134.5)
$9,400: Keith Mitchell (125.5)
$7,000: Tom Hoge (125.0)
$7,200: Tony Finau (119.5)
$49,200: 814.0 Pts

🏆 Win-Dham Clark

Golf is weird, man. Wyndham Clark won the Byron Nelson … kind of out of nowhere?

This win is his only top-10 of the year. It’s his first win since the 2024 AT&T Pebble Beach and it’s his first four-round win since the 2023 U.S. Open.

His first three PGA TOUR wins came across a stretch of 274 days. The time between win #3 and win #4 was 840 days.

He had hemorrhaged strokes putting this year and has gone through like … 8-10 (?) different putter combos to try get back on track.

Then he hoops everything last week and gained 12.5 strokes putting. That’s the best putting performance by anyone in 2026 and the second best of anyone since 2022.

It’s hard to see stuff like this coming but it’s a solid reminder how good some of these guys are. If they catch fire for four days, they can beat the world’s best.

🙂‍↔️ Si Woo Not Shaking That Ass

Normally when a player has a five shot lead after 36 holes and then loses by three strokes, I would blame them for “choking” or “vomiting all over themselves” or any other silly way to poke fun.

But while that scoring description matches Si Woo Kim for last week, I don’t think I can blame him! The man shot 68-65 on the weekend! He was 6-under from the final group and got boat-raced! This is way more bad luck than it was bad play — which has been the theme for Si Woo this year.

He continues to hold the dubious distinction of “best player without a win” this year. He’s gaining +1.34 strokes per round which is the fifth most of anyone on TOUR with at least 10 starts. He has five top-5 finishes, which is tied with Ludvig Aberg for second most on TOUR — both have zero wins.

He’s having the best year of his career by a country mile. He’s already surpassed his career highs in both top-5 and top-10 finishes. He’s nearly twice as good in 2026 as he was in his second best year (2024) from a strokes gained perspective.

👈 Left Over Right

There is a fairly significant cost of missing the fairway at Colonial CC. It ranks 11th out of 37 tracked courses and, on average, costs the player +0.38 strokes. The interesting thing is that this is one of the wider gaps between a left miss and a right miss.

The right miss is quite penal, 9th out of 37.
The left miss isn’t so bad, 25th out of 37.

It’s a 0.13 shot difference between sides which is pretty large for a course that doesn’t have a bunch of water on one side of every hole.

This is the entire field of qualified players and how frequently they hit it in each direction. You want golfers who have a lower “MoreRight%”. The way to read this is — “Russell Henley has a 1.79% lower rate of missing a tee shot right than he does left”.

Hideki Matsuyama, has a 12% left miss rate and 16% right miss rate so that is +4% to the right (wrong way!).

The guys who play big fades are often going to miss right more frequently. Notice the four most expensive lefties (MacIntyre, Bhatia, Harman, Yellamarju) all have good rates. Most guys play a fade which is right to left for southpaws. Meaning their misses are going to be in the better spots.

This may be too deep into the data, but what else is this newsletter for?

👉 This Week’s Wyndham Clark

This is a fun exercise. Which guy in this week’s field is most like the guy who won last week?

Wyndham Clark is an erratic multiple time winner who hits one shot-shape all over the yard who caught historically hot with the putter.

Could it be Keegan Bradley who has nine wins, including one Major (like Wyndham). I would argue that Bradley’s career is leaps and bounds better than Clark’s and Keegan doesn’t hit it all over the place. Erratic though? Sure!

Maybe it’s Justin Thomas. Again, the resume is too good but he definitely hits it all over the place! The only problem is that he cannot get white hot with the putter, at least to Clark levels from last week.

No, no, the answer is Tom Kim. A few wins in a really short period of time had us projecting his greatness. Then multiple years of subpar play with some recent improvement to give signs of hope. Can he spray it? Ehh — not really. But he can get scorching hot with the putter. Tom Kim’s Wyndham Championship victory was the second best SGPUTT week in the last five years — until Clark passed him last week. Congrats Tom!

⏱️ Tony FiNow or Never

I haven’t spent much time writing up Tony Finau in the last year (?) because he hasn’t deserved it. I love Tony but he has been in an extended slump, dating back to the start of the 2025 season.

Last year, Finau was a below average player on TOUR, losing 0.18 strokes to the field in his 21 starts. This year has been better, but well below his career baseline. Finau is a perfectly average 0.00 player in 49 rounds this year. He’s notched two total top-10 finishes in those 35 starts. However!!

His T6 last week looked different. He was dynamite off-the-tee, gaining +4.5 strokes which is his best driving week since the 2024 Masters. It was his best tee-to-green week since the 2024 U.S. Open.

Now he’s going back to Colonial CC where he has the best sg/round number of any player in this field (min five starts). It’s now or never.

🐋 Strokes For The Folks

• Pick One Golfer From Each of Six Tiers

• Worst Score Dropped

• Scoring is TOTAL STROKES!

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📢 Fore, Please…

Last night was the first night I’ve slept in my own bed in 20 days. I love being on the road and doing cool stuff but Dorothy was right — there’s no place like home.

I also need to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. RickRunGood.com is having a great year, on pace to be the best year ever. I’ve worked really hard to continue the improvements as much as possible and am proud with the direction it’s headed in. Thank you all for being a part of it.

Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$6,700: Aaron Rai (117.0)
$6,100 Alex Smalley (96.5)
$10,400: Jon Rahm (87.0)
$9,800: Ludvig Aberg (84.0)
$9,400: Justin Thomas (84.0)
$7,300: Kurt Kitayama (81.5)
$49,700: 550.0 Pts

🔒 Closer Mentality

The PGA Championship was up for grabs for nearly all of the final round. There were countless players who were two birdies away from stealing the Wannamaker but it was Aaron Rai who ran out and grabbed it.

By now, you have probably seen how he closed the final round:
Eagle on 10, then four more birdies coming in, to play his final 10 holes at 6-under.

Considering how difficult the scoring average was, Rai gained +6.07 strokes to the field on the final ten holes alone, which got me thinking:

Was that the best closing stretch to ever win a major? The answer is … almost! We don’t have hole-by-hole data for all majors in history but Rai’s +6.07 was the best 10-hole stretch to close a major, FOR A WINNER, in history.

Gary Player’s 1978 Masters win and Jack Nicklaus’ 1986 Masters win were the only two better than Rai. Helluva list!

🩳 Scottie Short Odds

History is happening this week. Scottie Scheffler is a staggering +150 to win this golf tournament, which is the shortest odds I’ve seen in at least seven years. My suspicion is that these are the shortest odds for any golfer since Prime Tiger was playing in Majors and being priced at -120.

Those odds imply that Scheffler is going to win this full field event 40% of the time. 40%!!

Prior to this week, Scheffler has been shorter than +400 on eight different occasions. He won three of those events and his worst finish was T7. So it’s certainly not crazy!

Scheffler has been the tournament favorite for 46 consecutive starts, with average odds of +453 during that stretch. He has 16 wins.

I do always think it’s funny when someone says “you can’t bet that number!”. And it’s like .. why not? You can bet any number for anything. Just because it’s +150 doesn’t automatically make it a bad bet. If we flipped coins and I offered you +150 odds, you’d take me to the cleaners.

If the odds imply Scheffler is going to win 40% of the time but his true probability is 50%, then this would be a good bet, eh?! The argument should be whether or not Scottie can win the event 40% of the time, not simply dismissing it because the odds are perceived to be too short. I see this happen constantly and it’s growing to be one of my pet peeves!

✋ Weak Field!

All signs point to this being one of the weaker fields of the year. We’ve just run through the siggy-siggy-major stretch. There are only four golfers who are shorter than +3200 to win. Keith Mitchell has the fifth shortest odds (sorry, Keith!).

The field average has lost 0.12 strokes per round this year and they are 551 strokes to the negative in the aggregate. Another way — the field, as a whole, has lost 551 strokes in 2026.

Scottie and Si Woo alone are +168.13, so everyone else is -719.

Here are the best players in below average fields since 2022, min 10 starts:

👉 This Week’s Aaron Rai

Looking through profiles prior to the PGA Championship, Aaron Rai did something that always catches my attention. He had a “complete gain” in his most recent start. That’s when a golfer is positive in all four major SG categories and it is highly correlated to success in their next start.

The player who catches my attention this week is Max Greyserman. His complete gain at the PGA Championship:

OTT: +2.356
APP: +0.255
ARG: +3.631
PUTT: +1.243
Pos: T14

It’s been a miserable year for Max but he’s starting to get back to his roots of being a great driver and putter. It would also be a nice “full circle” moment considering it was Greyserman who held a commanding Sunday lead at the 2024 Wyndham Championship. He coughed it up and allowed the eventual winner to come back and steal it from him … Aaron Rai.

🙋 Don’t Forget About Me!

With the run of massive events, it’s easy for guys to get lost in the shuffle. Maybe they played in alternate fields or haven’t played at all. But now they are coming together again, so I wanted to point out three guys that I think are flying under the radar this week.

• Hayden Springer

  • Hasn’t missed a cut in 10 starts across the KFT and PGAT this year.

  • Has four top-25s including each of his last two.

  • T2 at Zurich with Alex Smalley (transitive property?).

• Zach Bauchou

  • Has three straight Top 28s.

  • Gained +3.8 strokes on approach at Myrtle Beach (T24).

• Karl Vilips

  • Has gained strokes on approach in four of five.

    • The non measured start in there was T13 at Zurich.

  • Three total top-25s in last five starts.

  • Made the cut here last year after a stellar opening round.

🐋 Flip Flopping

I’m usually confident in my decisions, but this one has eaten me alive. The last five months have been a constant battle between using “total strokes” or “total dollars” for our listener league. And trust me, I’ve heard the discourse. I’m not going to make everyone happen but I have had an epiphany.

We are going back to total strokes and that’s the end of it. Total dollars removes the ability to sweat it live (too much calculation) and it’s similar to OAD which we have plenty of. The tribe has spoken.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

Note — this week’s Listener League is still dollars because it was created before I had my Come To Jesus moment. Expect strokes for next week.

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📢 Fore, Please…

I want to give a shoutout to something cool that is happening this week. The PGA of America has partnered with Splash Sports to host their official PGA Championship Fantasy Game. This is cool for a variety of reasons because it means that Splash is getting the nod from a major golf organization and further cementing their space in the golf ecosystem.

It’s also cool because they’ve put together a stellar prize package that includes:

• Trip for two to 2027 PGA Championship, travel expenses paid.

• Tickets to PGA Championship for Saturday and Sunday

• Round of golf on Fields Ranch East the Monday after the championship.

There are actually more prizes but there’s really no need to read further. This is free to play and open to everyone in the United States.

Join: https://app.splashsports.com/contest/894e

Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$6,900: Kristoffer Reitan (124.0)
$7,800: Nicolai Hojgaard (107.5)
$9,000: Rickie Fowler (105.0)
$6,300: Sungjae Im (101.0)
$6,800: Alex Fitzpatrick (98.0)
$9,800: Tommy Fleetwood (95.0)
$46,600: 630.5 Pts

📈 New Tool In Town

In case you missed it, I launched a new Course Key Stats model on RickRunGood.com which is now on a shot-by-shot level for the 25,000,000+ shots that have been hit on the PGA TOUR since 2004.

The model still breaks down each facet of the game but expands into statistical comparable courses and a much more transparent course fit calculation.

This is technically data for Aronimink, but it’s seven years old. This course hosted the 2018 BMW Championship that was won by Keegan Bradley.

The three closest courses to Aronimink on a statistical perspective are East Lake, Caves Valley and Quail Hollow. There’s a lot of small samples coming into play here but East Lake and Quail Hollow certainly make sense. They are both major championship caliber venues.

Best Players at Quail Hollow + East Lake (min 4 starts)

I wasn’t at all surprised to see Rory on top of the list, but I was surprised to see Justin Thomas on the podium. He’s played better at East Lake than I remembered.

👊 Major Men

Since the start of the 2022 season, there have been 17 Major Championships contested. Scottie Scheffler has won 23% of them.

That’s amazing but it’s even more amazing that he has a top-10 in 76.5% of the majors during that span. That includes a top-10 in eight of his last nine.

It’s hard to fathom a player with a high floor AND a high ceiling. For comparison’s sake, there are only four golfers who have a 50%+ top-10 rate in that period — Scheffler, McIlroy, Schauffele, DeChambeau.

Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Young, and Collin Morikawa all have the highest top-5 rate (23.5%) without a victory during that stretch.

There are nine golfers who have gained at least +1.5 strokes per round (min 5 starts) which includes:

Scheffler, McIlroy, Schauffele, Morikawa, Rahm, Fleetwood, Hovland, Aberg, DeChambeau.

✋ Brooksie Szn

There is only one man in this field who has lifted the Wanamaker Trophy three times — and his name is Brooks Koepka. There is no one in the Tiger Era who has gained better than +2.22 strokes per round, which is Koepka’s rate at PGA Championships.

And in true Brooks fashion, he has given us just enough solid play to get the juices flowing once again.

He fired a 64 on Saturday at the Myrtle Beach Classic and would eventually finish T11. But I’m more impressed with how he finished T11.

He gained +3.9 strokes off-the-tee (2nd) and another +5.2 (5th) on approach. The putter is still a problem as it has been all season but his ball-striking is rounding into form as he heads to his favorite championship.

 🪖 Speaking of Myrtle

Here are the golfers who played in Myrtle Beach last week that will be teeing it up at the PGA Championship.

A few things jump out to me:

• Aaron Rai finding his ball-striking right before he goes to a course that, on paper, should magnify his ball-striking.

• Christiaan Bezuidenhout has flashed this elite approach play before and he’s one of the best putters in the world — deadly combo.

• Casey Jarvis has won twice on the DPWT this year, flushed it at Myrtle, and will now make the third major start of his career.

 🔨 Breakout Candidates

If you’ve ever seen my “Trends” tool, you’ll know that my favorite section is the Breakout Candidates section. It looks at the golfer’s recent ball-striking and compares it to their historic putting to find golfers that are ready to “breakout”.

The theory is that putting is more volatile and will return to the mean faster. The calculations before assume the golfer is going to get back to their own putting baseline not the TOUR average or anything like that.

I’ve zoomed into the upper right portion of the chart which is the “optimal” section, where you would want your golfer to be.

Alert, alert — JJ Spaun! As if I couldn’t be more excited about JJ’s chances this week, he’s in the ideal position on the quadrant. He’s a historically great putter who has struggled with the flatstick in 2026 but he gained two strokes last week.

Nick Taylor, Andrew Putnam, and Andrew Novak are all in the money spot. Cameron Young still having some juice to squeeze is terrifying for the rest of the field.

 🥷 Big Boys In Big Boys

Some men are just made for the moment.

Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy are both ~one stroke better per round in Majors than non-Majors.

Chris Gotterup has a very small sample size, but he’s at the same improvement (+0.86 per round) as Scottie Scheffler. Obviously Scheffler’s baseline is already significantly higher than Gotterups.

The best players who get worse in Majors includes Justin Thomas who is 0.75 strokes worse in Majors than non-Majors. This data is from 2022+ so only one of his Major Wins gets counted. He’s been pretty dismal the last few years.

Sungjae Im is a half shot worse.
Akshay Bhatia is 0.38 strokes worse.

🤦 The Big Q With X

It’s been incredibly frustrating to watch Xander Schauffele play golf and I mean that as a compliment. I find him to be one of the most talented players on planet Earth but he’s simply not getting enough out of these starts.

I was trying to figure out what the problem has been and I stumbled onto his putting numbers for the last few years.

In 2024, when he won two majors, he was making 61.1% of his putts from 7-9’. That’s mostly a 50/50 range on TOUR so he’s crushing his playing competitors.

The same could be said for basically every putting range inside 15’ — Xander was significantly better than average. But those numbers have fallen off a cliff.

Instead of making 61.1% of his coin flips, he’s making 53.8% in 2026.
Instead of making 72.5% of putts from 5-7’, he’s making 67.3% in 2026.
Instead of making 38.4% of his putts from 10-15’, he’s making 30.4%

Across the board, he’s worse than he was two years ago. And truth be told, he’s still “good” at putting but this is him leaving multiple strokes on the table every round compared to himself from a few years ago.

So if it feels like Xander isn’t getting everything out of these rounds, you’d be correct.

🐋 Tiers of a Clown

Our friends at Splash Sports continue to do us right. We are headlining the site with the biggest guaranteed golf contest this week — a whopping $150,000.

Rules are simple — pick one golfer from each of eight tiers. Their money is your points.
$100 entry, $15,000 to first, min payout is $300.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

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📢 Fore, Please…

It’s an absolutely stacked week of golf. Two PGA TOUR events, DPWT is in Spain, LIV is in Virginia, and Rick is in Florida for the BetCast.

Let’s get to work.
Rick
PS And our pet’s heads are falling off!

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$10,200: Cameron Young (124.0)
$8,400: Adam Scott (102.5)
$8,000: Ben Griffin (98.5)
$9,200: Si Woo Kim (96.5)
$6,800: Matt McCarty (93.0)
$6,700: Matt Fitzpatrick (88.0)
$49,300: 602.5 Pts

🛶 Build An Arc

Often when a golfer finally breaks through for their first win, someone (maybe even myself) will say “and this will open the floodgates!”. It doesn’t really happen. Winning golf tournaments is really hard, so winning a bunch in a short period is exceedingly rare.

However! Cameron Young might have truly just opened the floodgates!

Below is a timeline of Cameron Young’s career. The first 93 starts, zero wins. The next 14 starts, three wins. It’ll be interesting to see how this is looking in another 100 starts.

This includes his two KFT wins.

It’s not just the wins, but how dominant he’s been in the wins that is really exciting. In his wins alone, he’s gaining +4.02 sg/round which is second behind only Scottie Scheffler in strokes gained per round as a winner.

Of all players with at least two wins since the start of 2025, he’s the second best putter during wins. The second best putter. Um, let me remind you that Cam Young is one of the best tee-to-green players on the planet. But he can ratchet up the putting to elite levels? Mercy.

Strokes Gained, in wins — back to 2022 (min 3 wins)

🏇 In The Starting Gate

There are Course Horses and then there is Rory McIlroy at Quail Hollow. He’s dominated at this venue, gaining +2.58 strokes per round over 54 rounds. That includes four wins, and nine total top-10s.

While Rory has gained 2+ at five total PGA TOUR venues in his career, Quail Hollow is his best. There are only two international venues that rank higher which are Emirates GC (+3.0) and Abu Dhabi GC (+2.67).

The reason for his dominance is that Quail Hollow is the club that most accentuates Rory’s best weapon — his driver. He’s gained 1.37 strokes per round off-the-tee at Quail Hollow, the highest rate of any course in his career.

It’s also the highest Player/Course combo* in the ShotLink era, making Rory’s driver at Quail Hollow the best driver of any player at any course.

*min 10 starts

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Not The “Other” Fitz

The discourse around Alex Fitzpatrick is incredible. You’d think he was a Make-a-Wish kid that Matt felt sorry for and then handed him a PGA TOUR card. It’s wild.

Alex is so good at golf and was going to be on the PGA TOUR next year thanks to his great play on the DPWT. He’s just here seven months early because of his win at the Zurich.

Let me remind you that he rattled off four straight top-25s on the DPWT which culminated with his win at the Indian Open. Yes, the same Indian Open that Akshay Bhatia missed the cut.

By himself last week in Miami, he finished T9 and gained eight strokes from tee-to-green. He’s now played seven straight worldwide events where he’s gained strokes in both ball-striking categories.

The dude is legit and he’s here to stay.

 🪖 Weekend Warriors

Signature events are kind of weird. The guys who are really struggling would probably love a cut, be able to go get some practice in, before having to tee it up again. But that’s not an option. They just have to play it out.

But sometimes, somebody finds something that could spark them into the following week(s). Which is why I like to look at the best players on the previous weekend, particularly if they weren’t really “in contention”. From Miami:

+10.75: Adam Scott
+6.75 Sepp Straka
+5.75 Lowry, Noren
+4.75: Griffin, M. Kim

Adam Scott didn’t make a bogey on the weekend and was head and shoulders better than everyone else. He’s working with Trevor Immelman as an instructor and we got some insight from brother, Mark, on the Second Cut Podcast last week.

Apparently Scott and Trev have made some adjustments to Scott’s left arm while using the broomstick putter. It’s a slightly different position and a different feel.

Well, it’s working. Adam made nearly everything on the weekend. The rest of his game has already been stellar and this might be the one thing that unlocks his first win since the 2020 Genesis Invitational.

 🦁 Apex Predators

Despite having large greens, 6,500 square feet on average, Quail Hollow has some of the most difficult greens to hit on the TOUR schedule. This comes down to two main factors:

1) Longer shots coming in — QH has one of the longest average approach shots on the TOUR.
2) It’ll play firm and fast, when Mother Nature cooperates.

The longest players, who can hit it the highest, are going to have an easier time to hit these greens. I know what you’re thinking “okay, Rick — we get it. Who are the players?”. Well, here they are, sorted by Radar Measure Carry.

🐋 Make A Splash

Our Listener League is live on Splash Sports right now. It has $30,000 of guaranteed funds for this week, keeping the $25/entry price point.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

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• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.

📢 Fore, Please…

Ahh, it’s good to be back in the saddle.

Programming note: I am back on PGA TOUR Live this week for the BetCast (tune in on ESPN+) so I’m traveling to Florida. This week’s LIVE CHAT will be Tuesday at 3:00PM ET.

Let’s get to work.
Rick

🍔 Matty FitzPatty

This guy! Since the start of 2022, he has six wins globally — which is the 8th most in the world. Notables that he’s ahead of include Max Homa, Patrick Reed, Tommy Fleetwood, Patrick Cantlay, and basically everyone else.

Obviously I opened the window to include his U.S. Open victory but if you want to zoom it — he has four wins in his last 11 starts worldwide. All four wins since the Ryder Cup — think about that! No one else in the world has four wins since the Ryder Cup … Fitzy does.

It’s no surprise that 2026 has been the best year of his career but it would be the ninth time that he’s gained at least one stroke to the field. He keeps finding ways to get better and he’s entering the prime of his career.

Note: I almost made this section title “Quadruple Patty”. Which, looking back — I probably should have!

🦩 Down At Doral

It’s been 10 years since the PGA TOUR went to Trump National Doral (Blue Monster) but LIV used it for each of the last four years. Let’s get on the same page about the total usage of the course in professional events:

2025: LIV Miami (Individual)
2024: LIV Miami (Individual)
2023: LIV Miami (Team)
2022: LIV Miami (Team)
2016: WGC Cadillac Championship
2015: WGC Cadillac Championship
2014: WGC Cadillac Championship
2013: WGC Cadillac Championship
2012: WGC Cadillac Championship
2011: WGC Cadillac Championship

Those are the last ten instances but the WGCs go back another four years to 2007.

Justin Rose and Adam Scott have played here the most and both have won at this course.

🖼️ The Set Up

There might not be another course on the schedule that is so set-up dependent. In the history of this event, 19-under has been the winning score and 4-under has been the winning score — in back to back years.

Last year, Marc Leishman won LIV Miami at 6-under across three rounds.

My hunch is that this is going to definitely skew to the more difficult side of things. I don’t think the PGA TOUR is going to show up at a venue for the first time in a decade and not make it more difficult than LIV. The Twittersphere would chew up a Mickey Mouse set-up and spit it out.

If I’m right, a few strokes under par each day might be good enough to get you into contention.

The biggest defense will be the distance — playing 7,700 yards as a par-72. The par-5s are monsters, averaging 610 yards which would be the second longest average par-5 on the TOUR schedule since the start of last year. That’s behind only Oakmont which was a U.S. Open set-up.

Just a collection of awkward tee shots, all from the first 11 holes.

I find the driving task to be quite difficult. Obviously length is one issue but there are also water hazards and bunkers everywhere. The other thing to consider, especially when comparing to next week, is that there is no “magic number” of distance that sets you apart.

Next week, there will be a few drives where carrying 310+ yards puts you in an extremely advantageous position because you can remove the trouble. I cannot say the same about the Blue Monster. It’s just long and there’s not a point where a player could conceivably overpower it.

These are the best players in the field on long golf courses, which are courses longer than 7,400 yards. Sungjae Im stands out to me. He’s not particularly long but I think long courses also share attributes that often demand ball-striking prowess and a competent short-game for the inevitable amount of missed greens in regulation.

 📈 So Many Stats

There are a lot of benefits to being on the PGA TOUR Live coverage but my favorite is the sheer amount of research and information that they provide us with. No stone has been unturned and they ensure that we are all prepared with pages of information.

Here are a few of my favorite nuggets that have come out this week, with all credit to the research and production team at the PGA TOUR.

• Scottie Scheffler averages 76 days between wins, the “Shortest Average Days Between Wins” in TOUR History (of those with 10+ wins).

  • Rick Note: it’s been 93 days since his last win!

• Jordan Spieth had made 15 consecutive starts without a Top 10 finish, tied for his second longest streak in his PGA TOUR career.

• Collin Morikawa has a Driving Accuracy Percentage of 73.48 in Signature events since 2024, the best of any player.

• Tommy Fleetwood has (7) Top 10 finishes at Signature Events without a win since 2024, the most of anyone in that span.

 🔦 One & Done Dilemma

This is arguably the most difficult OAD week of the year. Obviously it’s a massive purse, so we want to get it right but it’s a course that no one has played on in at least a decade.

It could also be one of the weaker Signature Events ever (?) without Rory, Xander, Fitz, Ludvig, MacIntyre, Cantlay …

There’s a ton on the line but do you really feel comfortable doing anything? Here at the golfers in this field that have already been used the most in the RRG OAD:

• 62%: Si Woo Kim

• 59%: Russell Henley

• 51%: Collin Morikawa

• 51% Scottie Scheffler

• 43%: Hideki Matsuyama

• 40%: Maverick McNealy

• 39% Tommy Fleetwood

My spidey senses say that Cameron Young will probably be one of, if not the, most popular options for this week. He’s only been used by 30% of the league and he’s got the second shortest odds. If I hadn’t used him already this would definitely be the spot.

It’s actually an easier decision to make if you’re chasing because there are so many good “high upside, low owned” options like Viktor, Min Woo, Woodland, Spaun. If I needed to make up ground, I’d be comfortable with any of those options.

🐋 35,000 Reasons To Join

We crushed the Masters Contest last week and Splash Sports has given us a raise. They’ve bumped our weekly contest up to $35,000 of guaranteed funds for this week, keeping the $25/entry price point.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.