🌟 Stars Shine Bright In Hollywood
Phoenix Review & Riviera Preview | Stats, Trends & More!
It was humbling to be able to attend the WM Phoenix Open and provide analysis from the grounds. I truly am living my dream and it couldn’t happen without the support of you — someone who cares enough about golf and golf data to read an email about it. I couldn’t be more thankful.
This week, I’m headed back out to Riviera in the same week a Netflix show is going to drop and Tiger Woods is going to tee it up. What a time to be alive. Thank you for all the support — chat soon.
- Rick
🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup
⛳ Tee-To-Green Predictive?
Lack week, the course key stats model showed that all three tee-to-green metrics ranked very high in terms of correlation to success at TPC Scottsdale. It’s rare to have all three rank so strongly, so I personally put a heavy emphasis on this stat for the week. Here’s how the top finishers rank in T2G play this season:
Scottie Scheffler: 6th
Nick Taylor: 24th
Jon Rahm: 4th
Justin Thomas: 8th
Jason Day: 11th
🍿 Stay On Script, Scottie!
One of the key refrains from Phoenix last week was that Scottie Scheffler was just doing Scottie Scheffler things … nothing extraordinary in his route to victory. I was able to mine into this theory with Kyle Porter on site and I came to the conclusion that Scottie has been the model on consistency. Here’s what I mean…
The stat profiles below are the 22 measured PGA TOUR events that Scottie has played since last year’s WM Phoenix Open. They’ve been randomized so they are no longer in chronological order and the event names have been removed.
There are five wins and three runners-up in there … but which ones? You’d be pretty hard pressed to pick out the wins because Scottie does the same thing every week. He’s one of the best tee-to-green players on the planet and only needs to gain a few strokes putting to win.
I’ll put the results at the bottom of the email.
❓ Trivia!
Dating back to 2018, there are four golfers in this field who have played at least 20 rounds at Riviera and gained at least 1.5 strokes per round. Name them.
Hint: They’ve combined for only one win during that stretch.
(Answer at bottom of the email)
🦗 Poa Annua Specialists
Yeah, another West Coast Poa week which always sparks some nice discussion (debate?) on the internet. Here are the best poa putters in the field compared to their stats on every other surface. Those with the biggest positive differences can be considered “specialists” while those with the biggest negative differences can be considered “anti-specialists”.
Specialists:
Anti-Specialists:
Dated back to 2019, minimum 20 poa rounds for inclusion.
💯 The Century Club
Let me lay out a few things — When trying to be predictive in golf, looking at each player’s Last 36 rounds has generally been the gold standard for prediction.
It is more highly correlated to success than Last 12, Last 50, Last 100 or basically any other reasonable timeframe you could use — so I often default to the Last 36 rounds as my primary range.
Jon Rahm has now entered “The Century Club”, gaining over 100 strokes to the field in last 36 rounds — 108.42 to be exact. This is rate that only a few golfers will ever achieve over that timeframe. It’s 3.01 strokes per round for 36 straight rounds. It’s basically the equivalent of 2007 Tiger Woods, who won seven times in 17 starts.
As shocking as this is, he has a peer knocking on the door in Rory McIlroy. Rory has gained 97.29 strokes to the field in his last 36 with a massive gap to everyone else who might as well be in a different club across town.
Rahm : +108.42
Rory: +97.29
Scheffler: +69.20
Hatton: +63.03
Day: 62.80
⭐ Walk of Fame
Heading to Hollywood, it’s only right that we address the best Fantasy Stars of the season thus far. Remember, a “star” is a golfer who has finished in the top 10% of fantasy scoring for a given week.
There are seven golfers in this field who have been a STAR in 4+ tournaments.
Trivia Answer: Adam Scott (1 win), Patrick Cantlay, Tony Finau and Xander Schauffele.
Scottie’s Results:
