The Open Championship
Stats, Trends & Things You Don't Need To Know
The Open Championship
Course: Royal St George’s
Par 70 - 7,189 Yards
Bentgrass Greens
Hole-By-Hole Flyover
A True Test of Golf
Open Championships are designed to examine every single facet of your physical game and every single facet of your mental game. While the latter cannot be quantified, I can pinpoint the golfers in this field who are most “well-rounded” — meaning they gain strokes in all four major categories.
(Since the start of 2021, sorted by DK Price)
No Level Lies
The picture below offers some better perspective on the rolling undulations that will be featured at Royal St George’s this week. There are very few level lies anywhere on the course which reminds me a lot of Augusta National and Kapalua.
Here are the highest scoring DraftKings averages for the last four years of the Masters and the last four years of the Tournament of Champions:
Harris English: 110.5 DK Pts (2 starts)
Xander Schauffele: 102.3 DK Pts (8 starts)
Dustin Johnson: 101.0 DK Pts (8 starts)
Justin Thomas: 99.0 DK Pts (8 starts)
Will Zalatoris: 99.0 DK Pts (1 start)
Webb Simpson: 92.3 DK Pts (6 starts)
Micro-Stacking
As discussed with Pat Mayo, this is a really interesting strategy to try and catch the correct side of the ever-changing weather. Since the winds/weather can change so quickly, targeting a set of golfers with tee times in the same 60-90 minutes can be a high risk/ high reward strategy. As an example, here’s a non-complete list of golfers who all tee off between 9:25am and 10:42 am on Thursday:
Jordan Spieth, Bryson DeChambeau, Brandon Grace
Jon Rahm, Shane Lowry, Louis Oosthuizen
Lee Westwood, Stewart Cink, Martin Kaymer
Dustin Johnson, Will Zalatoris, Justin Rose
Scottie Scheffler, Sergio Garcia, Harris English
Short Game Matters
You might not be able to win an Open Championship from greenside, but you can certainly lose it there. Just ask Thomas Bjorn who had a lead heading to the par-3 16th on Sunday in 2003. He landed in the greenside bunker, took three whacks to escape and cost himself the Claret Jug. Here are the best Short-Game players (50% on Putting, 50% on Around-the-Green) in the last 36 rounds.
Feel free to run your own models at RickRunGood.com
Things To Consider
Since the start of 2021, Jordan Spieth has been the best player on TOUR. At +1.98 strokes gained per round, he narrowly edges out Jon Rahm (+1.96) for that distinction.
Speaking of Rahm, in his last four starts worldwide, he’s only been beat by 13 other golfers in total. That’s a T8 at the PGA Championship, leading the Memorial before WDing on Saturday night, winning the US Open and finishing 7th in Scotland last week.
Joaquin Niemann ranks 25th in Strokes Gained Putting this season and Bentgrass is his best surface — gaining 0.21 strokes per round.
With an average finish of 14.3, Tony Finau boasts the best mark of any golfer in this field with at least two Open Championship starts. (3rd, T9, T27, T18)
Some Sneaky Euros
There are plenty of Euros you know (Westwood, Rose, Casey) but the one’s you don’t know might be even better. Here’s a few notes on who to keep an eye on:
Lucas Herbert (49 OWGR) - On a major run right now that includes a win and T4 in the last two weeks on the European Tour. His two events prior were PGA TOUR events in which he finished T18 at the Memorial and T19 at the Travelers Championship.
Robert MacIntyre (53 OWGR) - Very volatile, but possesses all the raw talent. We’ve seen him pop up at the Match Play (T9) and the British Masters (T8). Played well enough at the Scottish Open last week (T18) and has only missed one cut in his last 19 events.
Jason Scrivener (103 OWGR) - 14th on the European Tour Strokes Gained rankings for this season (right ahead of Guido Migliozzi). Doesn’t drive it far, but is accurate (19th on ET) and gains over 0.50 strokes per round on approach. His putter is arguably his best weapon.
NOTE THE TIMES!
This is a strange week where golf will be on in the middle of the night and in the morning. Which means I’ll be firing nonsense tweets at 2am like I’m back in college.
The Cut Sweat Show is tentatively scheduled for 2pm ET on Friday but that is definitely subject to change. Make sure you’re subscribed to the RickRunGood YouTube channel and turn your notifications on.
There are THREE live chats this week.
All available at YouTube.com/RickRunGood
Wednesday, 3:00pm ET - Open Championship Live Chat (Ownership, Q&A, etc)
Wednesday, 8:15pm ET - Jock MKT Power Hour (all things Stock Market DFS)
Friday, 2:00pm ET* - Cut Sweat Show (exact time subject to change)
Best of luck this week and I'll talk to you guys soon
-Rick
*All statistical models referenced this week can be found at RickRunGood.com*