🌳 Glory's Second Shot

Byron Nelson Review & PGA Championship Preview | Stats, Trends & More!

May 16, 2023

I cannot describe how much I am buzzing for this week’s PGA Championship. The work done at Oak Hill in the past few years has been incredible and it’s going to 1) look awesome on television and 2) be a complete examination for the best players in the world.

I’ll be on site all week long, if you see me — say hello! Looking forward to seeing you all out there.

Good Luck,
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

I’m working from my laptop this week so I don’t have access to my fancy graphics. But here’s the optimal lineup from last week:

❓ Trivia!

There are only three golfers in this field who have made the cut at eight straight PGA Championships. Despite that impressive feat, their overall performances have been a bit lackluster.

Across the three of them, they total just (2) Top 10 finishes with both coming from the same golfer.

Name any of them.
(Answer at bottom of the email)

🪖 Major Scottie Reporting For Duty

Scottie Scheffler’s streak of Top 15 finishes in starting to get really crazy. He’s currently posted 13 straight worldwide but his run in Major Championships is nearly as good.

He’s earned a Top 20 finish in 9 of his last 11 Majors, with a T21 and MC in the other two. The run began at the 2020 PGA Championship and Scottie has gained 2.30 strokes per round (42 rounds). That’s the best mark, of anyone, with an sample size. Seriously, Trey Mullinax has gained 1.87 per round in four rounds and Marcel Siem has gained 1.70 in his four rounds. That’s … insane.

Here are the best players in this field, in Majors, since Scottie’s dominance began:

Fun Fact: Jon Rahm is the only golfer who has made the cut in all (12) events — playing all 48 rounds.

👍Welcome To The Club

One of the cool aspects of the PGA Championship is that 20 PGA Club Pros qualified to tee it up from a massive field. They all have great stories and there are going to be some fantasy formats that ask you to choose from one of these 20. Here are the two most likely to compete:

Braden Shattuck — this dude is a flusher. He was dynamite in the PGA Professional Championship and was already the reining Philadelphia PGA Player of the Year. He earns a spot in the field this week and six more sponsor exemptions on TOUR in the next twelve months.

Wyatt Worthington — I’m biased because I work with Wyatt here in Vegas but he’s teeing it up in his third PGA Championship and his game is looking sharp. He won the APGA event at TPC Las Vegas a few weeks ago and has all the ball-speed metrics of a TOUR pro.

💪 Only The Strong Survive

Oak Hill will feel a lot like Bethpage Black and Winged Foot. It’ll challenge golfers through distance and accuracy off-the-tee. The penalty for missing by a little, is basically the same as missing by a lot. So while distance is probably better than accuracy, I’d love to have both!

There are 33 golfers in this field who hit it 305+ in the last 50 rounds.
Of those, nine hit 60%+ of their fairways… ranked by distance:

Keith Mitchell
Anirban Lahiri
Patrick Cantlay
Scottie Scheffler
Brendan Steele
Tony Finau
Tyrrell Hatton
Joaquin Niemann
Hayden Buckley

📊 Couldn’t Wait For Weights

With the DraftKings pricing coming out so early, I couldn’t help myself but run a model at RickRunGood.com as soon as they dropped. I allocated 100 weights into the stats that I think will be most important for this week and allowed the system to rank my golfers for me.

25 - Driving Distance
25 - SG APP Last 36 Rounds
15 - SG ARG Last 50 Rounds
15 - SG PUTT Last 50 Rounds
10 - SG Hard Courses
10 - SG Long Courses

Maybe not a ton of surprises here but it cements the idea that a star/superstar is going to win this event.

Tony Finau is likely being overlooked as a real contender for his first Major while Rickie Fowler and Wyndham Clark break into the Top 10. That shows how well they’ve been playing.

You can run your own model, choosing from ~150 different stats, then create lineups and export them to DraftKings — all at RickRunGood.com.

🎯 When Par Is A Good Score

Major Championships, in general, are a test of complete golf. You can’t fake it and you won’t be able to fake it around Oak Hill. It’ll demand competence in every facet of your game and those who are well-rounded will find themselves separating from the rest of the field.

There are sixteen golfers in this field who are gaining 1+ stroke per round, with gains in each of the four major Strokes Gained categories — over the last 36.

💵 Drivers … Drivers Everywhere.

I hate to keep bemoaning the importance of length this week, but I really believe it’ll play a large role in the outcome of this Championship. Oak Hill is a par-70 listed at 7,349 yards so let’s find the best golfers on “Long Par-70s”.

💡 Player Spotlight: Taylor Moore

Hat tip to Taylor Moore who has been playing stellar golf this year. Since the start of 2023, he’s gained 1.40 strokes per round — the 9th best mark in the world. That’s the same rate as Rickie Fowler and better than Max Homa and Jordan Spieth.

His highlights include a T11 at Torrey Pines, T14 in Phoenix, T11 at Harbour Town and, of course, his win at the Valspar Championship.

That victory got him into the Masters, the first Major of his career — where he finished T39.

The weakest part of his game is around-the-green (-0.24 per round) but he’s a great ball-striker (+0.72) and putter (+0.85). His L36 statistical comps are:

OTT: Keith Mitchell
APP: Sungjae Im
ARG: Viktor Hovland
PUTT: Sam Burns

🏋️ The Slump of Bryson

Since the start of 2022, Bryson DeChambeau has been more competitive as a YouTube Content Creator than a professional golfer. And I mean that with great respect to his content game (it’s top notch).

He’s played 65 rounds since January 1st, 2022 — losing a total of 27.24 strokes to the field during that stretch.

That’s a stark contrast to the player that he used to be. In the 65 rounds prior to this slump, Bryson gained a total of 84.22 strokes to the field.

The 65 before that? +105.58

That is the rolling total of strokes gained for every 65 rounds of Bryson DeChambeau’s career. There was rarely a time where he hadn’t gained 65 strokes for every 65 rounds, often living above 80 SG.

His current form is essentially 85 strokes worse than his career baseline. This doesn’t even consider that his recent competition is significantly worse than in the periods of dominance.

I don’t have a solution or a point, but it’s jarring to see a lack of competitiveness from DeChambeau.

🚨 Giveaway — Find Your Range!

A few months ago, I went through some testing for rangefinders. I was left with an extra Pinned Rangefinder that I’m giving away this week.

It’s been used for (maybe) 15 minutes and works great. I just don’t need multiple rangefinders so figured someone else could put it to good use.

If you’re subscribed to this newsletter, you’re already entered. If not, subscribe below and I’ll draw a winner next week.

⚠️ In Case You Missed It

🎥The single best series of content on the internet is Golf Digest’s “Every Hole at…” which features drone footage of amazing courses with more history and fun facts than you can handle. Obviously I was over the moon when they released “Every Hole at Oak Hill”.

🍳 The guys at The Fried Egg also do phenomenal work and their PGA Championship Preview dives into the architecture of Oak Hill.

🤑 Recent Major Winners have generally been the favorites. Outside of Phil, most have been generally well regarded in the betting market.

Share The RunGood RunDown

Trivia Answer:
Bill Horschel — Best Finish (T23) 2x
Webb Simpson — Best Finish (T13) 2016
Jordan Spieth — Best Finish (2nd) 2015