🌵 Cactus Makes Perfect
Pebble Beach Review & Phoenix Preview | Stats, Trends & More!
🌵 Cactus Makes Perfect
Pebble Beach Review & Phoenix Preview | Stats, Trends & More!
Not even a Monday finish could dampen my spirits — the WM Phoenix Open and the Super Bowl in the same city … and I’ll be there! I can’t wait to see TPC Scottsdale for the first time and see if the atmosphere lives up to the hype.
CBS Sports is building a huge stage for us on the driving range, so say hello if you’re walking by! Since there Pebble Beach Pro-Am didn’t finish until Monday and I’ll be traveling to Phoenix on Tuesday, this will be the only edition of the RunGood RunDown this week. There is also a modified content schedule that can be found at the bottom of this email.
Good luck this week!
- Rick
Last Week’s Optimal Lineup
📣 Did The Buckets Work?
Lots of pre-tournament discussion about the 100-125 yard range and how shots from this range happen twice as frequently at Pebble Beach than TOUR average. Here’s the Top 10 on the leaderboard and how they rank in this proximity bucket this season:
Justin Rose: 205th
Brendon Todd: T24
Brandon Wu: 171st
Denny McCarthy: T59
Keith Mitchell: T28
Peter Malnati: T42
Taylor Pendrith: T181
Kevin Yu: T154
Ryan Moore: T166
Joseph Bramlett: T55
👁🗨 Should We Have Seen It Coming?
Matt Fitzpatrick Missed Cut - Fitzy complained of a neck injury during Wednesday’s press conference and called the Pebble Beach Pro Am a “warm-up week for me … just kind of see where I’m at”. He’d go onto say he’s “not 100%” and “don’t have my normal speed”. So yeah, maybe we should have seen it coming.
Justin Rose Success - Rose entered with four straight Top 30 finishes with tangible improvements in the ball-striking categories during that stretch. He hadn’t played at Pebble Beach much, with middling results. I didn’t see it coming personally, but probably should have given him a bit more respect.
Peter Malnati Top 5 - Missed four of his last five cuts and six of his last nine. Had lost strokes ball-striking in eight of ten. Had eight previous trips to Pebble Beach with one finish inside the Top 35. Fair to say that we shouldn’t have seen this coming.
❓ Trivia!
Who won the WM Phoenix Open the last time the Super Bowl was held in Phoenix?
Answer at bottom of email.
💪 Strongest Field of The Year
This is the first true taste of an “elevated event” on the PGA TOUR and it. is. massive. The field features 22 of the top 25 players in the world and 37 of the top 50. The alternate list alone includes guys who have been playing well this season (Detry, Gordon, Burmester, etc). The Top 10s from last week won’t even crack this field!
Here are the best players when playing in “Strong Field” events:
🧿 Sticky Course History
Since the redesign in 2015, this event has rewarded the high end golfers. Koepka with two wins, Hideki with two wins, Woodland, Fowler, Simpson and Scheffler. As the Strength of Field has continued to increase, the course history seems to have gotten stickier. Here are the best players at TPC Scottsdale:
🌏 Golf Is Played Around The World…
Lucas Herbert Edition. Herby is feeling it right now, but if you’re only paying attention to the PGA TOUR — you’ve missed it. He finished T10 in Australia to close out 2022 and has started his 2023 campaign with a third place finish at the Hero Dubai Desert Classic and a third place finish at the Saudi International.
🧨 Rory Is The Floor & The Ceiling
Rory McIlroy is playing unbelievable golf. He has three wins in his last seven starts and hasn’t finished outside the Top 8 since August. But here’s another way to look at how clinical he’s been.
Over the last 50 rounds, McIlroy is gaining strokes to the field in 92% of them — the highest rate of anyone in this field and 16% more often than Jon Rahm. McIlroy is gaining 5+ strokes to the field in 14% of those rounds, second to only Rahm.
To put it bluntly — McIlroy has the highest floor and second highest ceiling in the field. That’s absurd.
🎥 Content Schedule
With traveling to Phoenix this week, the content schedule will look a little bit different. Please reference below!
Monday: DFS Preview
Tuesday: Betting Preview (6am ET)
Wednesday: WM Phoenix Open Live Chat & RunGoodProps Mega Show! (10am ET)
Wednesday: WM Phoenix Open Jock MKT Power Hour (8:15pm ET)
Saturday: RunGoodProps Super Bowl Prop Show (10am ET)
All can be found on the RickRunGood YouTube Channel and the RunGoodProps YouTube Channel.
On top of all that, there will be at least 14 live hits from TPC Scottsdale on CBS Sports HQ from Wednesday to Sunday. You can tune in here and follow along for the coverage.
Trivia Answer: Brooks Koepka (2015) beat Hideki Matsuyama, Ryan Palmer and Bubba Watson by one stroke. The New England Patriots beat the Seattle Seahawks 28-24. Just give Marshawn the ball!