🤠 This Ain't My First Rodeo
Match Play Review & Texas Open Preview | Stats, Trends & More!
Howdy Folks! One more week in the Lone Star State before heading to Augusta, Georgia for the first big one of the year.
Below, I’ll take you through some data nuggets from the Match Play last week and looking forward to TPC San Antonio.
I’ll also be discussing some big updates to my website, RickRunGood.com.
Hope you enjoy
Rick
🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup
🔢 The Wonky World of Match Play Stats
Below, I’m going to show you the Strokes Gained results for the Match Play — which are available on RickRunGood.com. These are official, straight from the TOUR, but can be a bit wonky. Not every golfer plays the same number of holes, there are concessions, etc. So keep that in mind as we look through the numbers.
The winner, Sam Burns, gained the 6th most strokes to the field last week — spurred by his 10.2 strokes gained with the putter. He actually lost strokes from tee-to-green for the week. You’ll also note that he timed his losses well. He lost strokes on approach in each of his three group matches but was still able to survive and advance. He then gained strokes on approach in three of his four knockout matches.
It was Lucas Herbert (!!) who gained the most strokes for the week with +14.56. Even crazier, he did that in only four matches. That marks the 3rd most strokes he’s gained in any event in his career. It also marks a staggering 34 stroke difference between his last two starts. He lost 20.45 strokes in two rounds at THE PLAYERS Championship before a great week in Austin. Golf is weird.
Unluckiest Player: Russell Henley who gained the 3rd most strokes (by average) of anyone in the field but didn’t make it out of his group.
Luckiest Player: Andrew Putnam who lost 5.08 strokes for the week (8th worst) and won his group.
🤑 Taking Care of Business
In last week’s email, I calculated the strength of each group draw. Now that we know the outcome, the results were pretty staggering…
The Top Seeds with the five toughest draws all failed to win their group (Morikawa, Fitzpatrick, Rahm, Hovland, Finau).
The Top Seeds with the four easiest draws all won their group (Young, Homa, Schauffele, Rory).
👑 Best of the Bunch
The RunGood Community caught another W last week, hosting the biggest Bracket Challenge on the PGA TOUR website — by a mile. We had 2,818 entries which was a multiple of any other league. Meaning the winner of our league very likely had the best bracket submitted anywhere in the world.
Well — that was “Speedy-G” who put together this bracket:
He correctly identified Burns over Young in the finals and got 3/4 Final Four correct. He nailed eight group winners and earned 580 points — well done!
Also — I promised prizes for the top brackets so here are the users that I need to get in touch with. If your name is on this list, please email me:
Speedy-G, edancohen5, spives1, FringeinRegulation, spendock66, wstanton15, Irsn18, thomashogan447, linkcalhoun, jschwar55, zemkeevan, squeaky1680, bmuhlhan.
😍 It’s okay to miss…
But don’t miss big. TPC San Antonio has narrow fairways but the rough isn’t very penal. It’s not a big deal to miss a fairway as long as it’s not a big miss — where the rocks and nasty stuff comes into play (ask Kevin Na).
While Driving Accuracy isn’t a great indicator for this week, there are probably two stats that better illustrate the skill-set you’ll need off-the-tee in Texas.
Good Drive % - How often a golfer either hits the fairway OR hits the green/fringe in regulation. The idea is that they are giving themselves a chance to get on/near the green in regulation no matter where they put it off-the-tee.
Hayden Buckley
Aaron Rai
Ryan Armour
Sam Stevens
Ben Martin
Notables: Conners (16th), Si Woo Kim (24th), Hatton (53rd)
Distance From Edge of Fairway - How far a golfer misses the fairway by, when they miss it. The idea is that some golfers miss fairways by a little and some miss it by a lot. We want the former.
Chez Reavie: 18’ 10”
Corey Conners: 19’ 7”
Si Woo Kim: 20’ 4”
Brendon Todd: 20’ 10”
Francesco Molinari: 20’ 11”
Notables: Spaun (6th), Kuchar (7th), Hatton (13th), Matsuyama (25th), Fowler (61st)
📈 Big Custom Model Updates
I’m always looking to improve RickRunGood.com and I’ve been testing some large updates to the Custom Model. I’m happy to announce that those updates are now live!
There’s a bunch of new things but I’ll break it down into four main categories:
Multi-Slate Support — I can now load multiple slates/tournaments at the same time with no limits. This means showdown, Korn Ferry, LIV, Future Events, etc. All of those will have stat support and lineup building capabilities.
More Stats — I’ve added two dozen more stats bringing the total to 143 different options. The notable additions include Strokes Gained Rates (0+, 1+, 2+, etc), Opportunities and Opportunities+, SG by Green Speed, SG by Course Length and more.
Projected Ownership Tracking — You’ll be able to see the projected ownership, as always, but also how it has changed since the last run. Identify golfers moving in different directions.
Import/Export Functionality — If you’re a “hands on” kind of person, you can now download you models and update anything you want (stats, value, max ownership, etc) and import it back into the model to generate lineups.
There’s a lot more to come, but my goal was to get these live before the Masters so — mission accomplished.
❓ Trivia!
The 2019 Champion got into the field via a Monday Qualifier and became the first player in nine years to win on the PGA TOUR after qualifying on a Monday.
Name Him.
(Answer at bottom of the email)
🩴 Si Woo Putting That Ass
Si Woo Kim has generally been hampered by a poor putter in his career, but we are seeing a perfect storm of variables for him this week.
His putting has improved, gaining strokes with the flatstick in five of his last eight starts. Since switching to the broomstick putter, Kim has gained a total of 5.85 strokes over 41 measured rounds. That’s not lighting the world on fire, but definitely an improvement over his long-term baseline.
The real x-factor here is TPC San Antonio where Kim has enjoyed great putting success. There are 11 courses on the schedule where he’s played at least 20 rounds. He’s only gained strokes putting at four of those venues with TPC San Antonio ranking as his third best putting course on TOUR.
🧠 Would You Go Streaking For $1,000?
Now you can — and you don’t even have to take your clothes off.
The team at Jock MKT has entered the props pick ‘em game and are offering a big incentive if you can RunGood for five straight days.
The first user to cash (5) straight two-pick entries wins $1,000.
They’ve been really good at offering props that have better odds for the user and this promo is pretty cool as well. They have a $100 deposit bonus if you use the code “RICK” and you’ll want to opt-in to make sure you are in the challenge.
3️⃣ The Big 3 In Texas
There are three golfers currently trending towards 25%+ ownership this week. They are Tyrrell Hatton, Rickie Fowler and Si Woo Kim.
The next closest golfer in projected ownership is Ben Griffin at ~18%.
If you need to break a tie, here’s how the three compare over the last 36 rounds.
⚠️ In Case You Missed It
🐟 Mike Trout is opening a golf course — He’s partnered with TIGER WOODS and TGR Design to create “Trout National”. Inject it.
Trivia Answer:
Corey Conners and it is still his only PGA TOUR win.