🎏 Collin Dreams of Sushi

Las Vegas Review & Tokyo Preview | Stats, Trends & More!

Oct 17, 2023

Pleasure meeting a bunch of you last week in Las Vegas but man … did that week fly by! And now a short break with the fellas headed to Tokyo meaning that this event starts Wednesday night at 7:45pm ET! Get those lineups and wagers in early!

I’ve always dreamed of going to Japan. I think I’d love the technology, hustle and bustle of Tokyo and would thrive in that community. Obviously I started looking up how to play golf in Tokyo and realized (obviously) that there aren’t really any golf course in Tokyo. You’ve got to head a bit out of the city to find some available space.

Narashino Country Club, the host this week, appears to be open to the public. You can play for about ¥17,000 ($113) which can go up to ¥23,000 ($153) on weekends. As far as I can tell, all tee times come with lunch.

Enjoy
Rick

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🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup 🎰

(First time that I can recall consecutive weeks of $50,000.)

💪 Flex On ‘Em, Lex!

I was not very high on Lexi Thompson’s chances of making the cut last week. I thought there was a much better chance of her finishing last than making the cut. She proved me wrong and balled out — inside the cut line with five holes to go on Friday before making two bogies to end her chances.

Her final stat line:
OTT: (-0.76) | better than Taylor Montgomery and Eric Cole
APP: (-1.39) | better than Emiliano Grillo and Taylor Pendrith
ARG: (-1.41) | better than Tom Kim and Tom Hoge
PUTT: +1.15 | better than Lucas Herbert and Adam Hadwin

Friday’s crowds were almost entirely around Lexi’s group and you could feel a nice buzz around TPC Summerlin. She more than held her own and added some great juice to the event.

🎯 Tommy Darts

Since his PGA TOUR career began, Tom Kim has played 132 measured rounds. During that stretch, he’s gained 0.68 strokes to the field on approach. That would make him the 5th best approach player in the world since his career began. Pretty good.

(LOL at Scottie)

🏌️‍♀️ Double Digit Dahmen

Dahmen gained 10.00 strokes ball-striking last week in Las Vegas, becoming only the 52nd instance of that happening this season — Scottie Scheffler has 10 of them himself.

It’s building the case that Dahmen is starting to find something in his swing after slumping through the summer.

He had eight starts in the summer where he lost, on average, 2.56 strokes from tee-to-green. Since the Barracuda, six starts ago, he’s gained 4.5 strokes from tee-to-green per event.

I’m not sure this is a great course for him but something to monitor moving forward.

🏯 Land of the Rising Sun

This event is co-organized with the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO) which grants eight exemptions to leaders of the JGTO money rankings. Additionally, ZOZO gets nine special exemptions for the event which creates nearly 25% of the field that you may be unfamiliar with. Let me try to fix that.

Takumi Kanaya ($7,200 | +6500): has been ~~playing~~ destroying the Japan Golf Tour. He’s played seven events since The Open Championship and here are his results:

T2, T7, WIN, T16, T16, 3rd, T27

Expectations have always been high for Kanaya who was once the #1 amateur in the world (for 55 weeks!). He’s played this event at Narashino twice, finishing T7 and T53.

Ryo Hisatsune ($7,200 | +7000): he won the French Open on the DP World Tour just a few weeks ago and played the Japan Open Golf Championship last week where he finished T45. He has much more recent TOUR and DP World Tour experience than most of his peers.

In 2023 he’s played almost exclusively on the DP World Tour where he ranks 9th in driving accuracy and 15th in scoring average. Finished T12 last year.

Ryutaro Nagano ($6,500 | +30000): has improved his world ranking by ~200 spots this year, now up to #306. His last nine Japan Golf Tour starts have resulted in (4) Top 5 finishes and (7) Top 20s. He’s 6th in scoring average, 7th in birdies or better and 3rd in driving distance on the JGT.

🤩 Callum on a Tarren

There’s *something* happening with Callum Tarren right now who is 1) the hottest tee-to-green player in the field and 2) still have a ton of room to improve. Let me explain.

Thanks to a scorching Saturday (62), Tarren finished T23 in Last Vegas. That marks the five straight week that he’s gained strokes on approach and is making significant gains from tee-to-green.

He is the hottest T2G player in the field, gaining 0.72 strokes in the last 36 rounds compared to himself — which is defined as his 100 round baseline. In short, he’s been better from tee-to-green in the L36 than probably any other time in his career.

On top of that, he’s been significantly worse (-0.22) to himself with the putter. Which, when you combine the two, makes him an outlier in terms of “bounceback ability”. The rubber band is stretched tightly, ready to snap in favor of Tarren.

👂Let’s Play a Game!

Below are stat lines for two different golfers. You have to choose which one is the better player.

Admittedly, it’s very tight. Golfer A is better OTT and PUTT but worse on APP and ARG. When you add it all up, they are razor thin from tee-to-green and in SG TOT. Both have a very reasonable sample size of 150+ rounds. I, myself, keep going back and forth.

You ready? Have you made it this far without peeking?

Both golfers are Collin Morikawa!
Golfer A is “Recent Collin” — since his last win
Golfer B is “Old Collin” who racked up six wins.

This is a reminder that win luck is real and that there’s nothing inherently different from the guy who won twice in his first eight majors and the guy who hasn’t won in over two years.

⚠️ In Case You Missed It

🍣 Collin and Katherine Morikawa visited Sukiyabashi Jiro this week — a 10-seat, sushi only restaurant that was featured in a 2011 documentary called Jiro Dreams of Sushi.

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