🍁Succession S5 E1: "Oh Canada"

Memorial Review & Canada Preview | Stats, Trends & More!

Jun 06, 2023

Obviously this week’s event will be overshadowed with the news of the PGA TOUR merging with LIV Golf and the DP World Tour.

We covered that in an emergency podcast, with the little information that we had at the time. It’s jarring news that seems like the players got the rugged pulled out from under them. Rory McIlroy and others who stuck their necks out for the TOUR should be livid.

Obviously plenty more coming from that topic but I’m going to forge ahead with my normal statistical breakdown for this week.

Good Luck
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup 👂

📊 Statty Scheffler

In case you’ve been living under a statistical rock, Scottie Scheffler is doing things rarely seen on a golf course before. There’s so many little nuggets that I could do an entire newsletter dedicated to him or even open my own Chick-fil-A.

Let me just use one section to summarize — Scottie had the best finish for someone with the worst putter. The gap between his tee-to-green plan and his putter shattered any modern records. His tee-to-green performance was second to only a monsoon in La Jolla.

⛑️ Tackling The Toughest

Viktor Hovland gained 13.18 strokes to the field en route to a playoff victory at the Memorial. That’s 13.18 strokes over 72 holes, but really he did his damage on the closing stretch.

Hovland played 16, 17 and 18 at 2-under for the week while the rest of the field played them at 4.45 strokes over par — allowing him to gain 6.45 strokes over just those 12 holes. In other words, he gained nearly 50% his strokes to the field on 16% of the holes.

Holes 1-15: +6.73
Holes 16-18: +6.45

❓ Trivia!

Tiger Woods won the “Triple Crown” in 2000 — winning the U.S. Open, Canadian Open and Open Championship in the same year. Before Tiger, the last to accomplish the feat happened in 1971.

Who was it?
(Answer at bottom of the email)

🙆‍♂️ McIlroy’s Short Odds

Depending on where you look, McIlroy opened at +450 or +500 to win this week’s Canadian Open. That marks his shortest opening odds (PGA TOUR) since I started tracking this in 2019.

There are only four other full-field TOUR instances of a golfer with odds that short in my database:

Scottie Scheffler (+500) | 2023 AT&T Byron Nelson: T5
Jon Rahm (+380) | 2023 Mexico Open: 2nd
Jon Rahm (+450) | 2022 Mexico Open: WIN
Jon Rahm (+400) | 2021 Fortinet Championship: MC

🕯️Player Spotlights

Adrian Meronk — fresh off a T5 at the KLM Open and winner of the Italian Open just three starts ago. Has played in six TOUR events/Majors in his last nine starts worldwide, certainly not a stranger to this stage. Has gained over 16 strokes off-the-tee in his last three measured starts.

Aaron Cockerill — Plays exclusively on the DP World Tour, earning (5) straight Top 21 finishes. His skill-set lies in his putter, gaining 26.21 strokes putting in his last five events. Has improved the ball-striking and appears to be playing the best golf of his life.

Jake Knapp — Resides on the Korn Ferry Tour where he has made ten straight cuts. During that stretch he has (4) top 10 finishes. His metrics on the KFT are eye-popping. He’s 12th in driving distance, 6th in scrambling and 8th in scoring average. Makes a ton of birdies and dices up the par-5s.

➡️ Pivot Opportunities

$10,000 Range: Sam Burns (15%) compared to McIlroy (28%) and Hatton (21%)
Burns clearly has the upside, winning the Match Play just eight starts ago. Burns has gained 5+ strokes to the field in 5.56% of his last 36 rounds. That’s twice the rate of McIlroy.

$9,000 Range: Sahith Theegala (12%) compared to Cameron Young (25%)

Theegala has struggled off-the-tee in his last three, but still carries an 18 event made cut streak — the third longest streak on TOUR. The driver is lost but he’s in the midst of the best short-game stretch of his career and the approach play is solid.

Projected ownerships from RickRunGood.com, at latest run — will update a few more times before lock.

🔥Who’s Hot & Who’s Not? ❄️

Carson Young retains his title as the “hottest golfer” on TOUR, gaining 0.90 strokes to his own 100 round baseline. That runs him from a literal TOUR average golfer (0.00) to Top 30 player in terms of Strokes Gained.

Justin Rose continues his hot run and while he has smaller improvements (+0.64) to his own baseline, his baseline was much higher than Young. This run turns Rose into a +1.63/round golfer which is trending towards elite play.

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Trivia Answer:
Lee Trevino
He beat Jack Nicklaus in a playoff to win the U.S. Open.
He beat Art Wall Jr. in a playoff to win Canadian Open.
He beat Jack Nicklaus by one stroke to win the Open Championship.