🔮Match Play Made In Heaven
Valspar Review & Match Play Preview | Stats, Trends & More!
For those of you who know me, you know that I LOVE the match play event. The event itself, the bracket, the fantasy game theory — everything. It’s the best.
So it drives me absolutely insane that it’s not on the schedule for next year and its future is unknown. This would be the perfect opportunity for the PGA TOUR to create a Match Play Major — $30m purse and field of 128 golfers. Yes, it would take a week with a built in off day but it would quickly grow to be the most compelling event of the year.
The TOUR, which currently runs zero of the four biggest events in the world, would suddenly own two of the five biggest events in the world. It’s too good.
- Rick
PS — my proposed schedule:
32 groups of 4:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday: Round Robin
Thursday: OFF
Friday: Round of 32 and Sweet Sixteen
Saturday: Elite 8 and Final 4
Sunday: Championship and Third Place Match
Obviously the week before would need to be a BYE week or let Corales stand alone.
🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup
🔦 Spotlight: Nick Gabrelcik
The 20-year junior, Nick Gabrelcik, from the University of North Florida is an amateur who is catching attention from the scouting department of my Vegas Straight Flushers.
Seven-times a winner at UNF (program record) in just three years while earning Ping All-American honors twice. His resume is growing after already making it to the semifinals of the 2021 US Amateur at Oakmont — where he lost to eventual champ, James Piot.
The numbers from the Valspar are bonkers — he led the field gaining 6.17 strokes ball-striking through three rounds before a small regression on Sunday. He finished the week as the 11th best ball-striker … in his TOUR debut.
Giddy Up, young man!
🤑 Building Optimally THEN Lineup Optimizer
The Match Play is the event on the fantasy schedule with the biggest built-in edge. I cover all this in my DFS Preview this week, but here’s the short version:
You need to maximize an opportunity for points. So you need to choose six golfers who won’t run into each other early in the event. Choosing two golfers from the same group is a cardinal sin. Choosing two golfers from “neighboring groups” is just as bad. You need six clean paths to the Elite 8 AND four clean paths to the Final 4.
Sounds simple enough, but SO MANY PEOPLE SCREW THIS UP. They are drawing dead right out of the gate. Last year, ~26% of all lineups were not build optimally. They were basically donating to the prize pool.
In the past, investing in the time/energy to hand-build optimal lineups has been worth it. But, I came up with something better. The Match Play Optimizer is back on RickRunGood.com.
By default, it won’t let you choose two golfers from each neighboring groups and it won’t let you choose six golfers from three quadrants — which would block your path to a perfect Final Four.
If you desire, you could also limit the number of Top Seeds that you allow to advance, but more on that in the next section.
Using this tool alone is going to give you the best chance at winning this week. You can use my projections or anything you want to import into it. Enjoy!
👑 Trouble For The Top Seeds
When you look through these groups, it’s easy to assume the Top Seed is going to advance but don’t be fooled — this is the true March Madness.
Since moving to this format in 2015, only 33% (37/112) of Top Seeds have advanced out of group stage.
We tied the record last year, with eight Top Seeds advancing but that has certainly been rare. Here’s the advance rate for Top Seeds in format history.
2022: 8/16
2021: 1/16
2020: Cancelled
2019: 5/16
2018: 5/16
2017: 5/16
2016: 8/16
2015: 5/16
😍 Homa Is Where The Heart Is
I probably don’t need to remind you how well Max Homa has been playing, but I will. Since the calendar turned to 2023, Homa has teed it up six times. He has one win, three more Top 6s and another Top 15. His worst finish was T39 in Phoenix.
Of players in this field, since January 1st — only Scottie Scheffler, Jon Rahm and Jason Day have gained more strokes per round than Homa. Only Tom Hoge has been better on approach.
But Rick — he’s never made it out of his group at this event!!
I get it, that’s true. In 2022, he was beat by Dustin Johnson who went 3-0 in the group stage and made a run into the Final Four. In 2021, he lost a three-hole playoff to Billy Horschel to get out of the group stage. Horschel would go on to win the whole thing.
I think we can give him a pass for those AND remember that he’s a much better player now than he’s ever been.
Last 50 Rounds (Current): +1.54/round
Last 50 before 2022 Match Play: +0.47/round
Last 50 before 2021 Match Play: +0.85/round
📈 May The Odds Be Ever In Your Favor
The groups were drawn on Monday morning and there are certainly some better draws than others. Remember, each group has a “Top Seed” so I’ve removed them from the equation and ran the numbers based on the other three golfers in the group to see which Top Seed got the best and worst of it — using last 36 rounds of data.
Group 9 is a gauntlet. That’s Collin Morikawa, Jason Day, Adam Svensson and Victor Perez. The three challengers to Morikawa are averaging 1.26 strokes gained per round during that period.
Group 11 isn’t much easier. That’s Matt Fitzpatrick having to battle Sahith Theegala, Min Woo Lee and JJ Spaun. They are the only other group (with 9) that the three drawn golfers are gaining at least a stroke per round.
There is only one group where the challengers are actually losing strokes to the field in the last 36 rounds. It’s group 15 and Cameron Young is smiling from ear-to-ear. He gets Sepp Straka, Corey Conners and Davis Thompson in, by far, the best draw.
You’re reading that right — the three challengers to Young are LOSING STROKES to the field over the last 36 rounds.
Max Homa also draws a great group out of #5 — Hideki Matsuyama, Kevin Kisner and Justin Suh are breaking even over the last 36.
❓ Trivia!
Since moving to this format in 2015, no golfer has won the Match Play twice. However, there are (2) golfers who have won the event AND finished runner-up.
Name Them.
(Answer at bottom of the email)
🩴 It’s Wyndham’s World & We’re Just Living In It
There is another event this week, the Corales Puntacana Championship. There is only one golfer in the field gaining 1+ stroke per round over the last 36 and his name is Wyndham Clark.
As pointed out by Greg DuCharme, Clark is in the midst of something special right now. The five best approach weeks of his career are all in his last six starts. So he’s either on an incredible heater or he’s found something tangible moving forward … or both.
🧠 Join The Bracket Challenge
Last year, the RickRunGood Bracket Group was the largest private group on the PGA TOUR Fantasy website. I want to run it back, even bigger. I want to show the TOUR that passion lies in this community and we can show up for the game.
I’ve included a handful of prizes for those who do well and I hope you’ll join me.
Join: bit.ly/42rxjAl
PW: “tiger”
⚠️ In Case You Missed It
😰 Our optimal March Madness Bracket is still alive — There’s plenty that can go wrong from here, but we avoided most of the disaster. We have six of our Elite Eight teams still in the tourney as well as all of our Final Four teams.
🤬 The golf ball might be getting rolled back and people are very upset by it. — We covered it on The First Cut Podcast including some ramifications that might stem from this decision.
Trivia Answer:
Scottie Scheffler (2022 win, 2021 runner-up)
Kevin Kisner (2019 win, 2022 and 2018 runner-up)