🌧️ A Proper Open

📢 Fore, Please…

269 days. That’s how long it is until next year’s Masters. The Major Season goes so fast and then we are left waiting nine months for the next crack at glory. Enjoy this one — it’s going to be special.

Programming note: I moved up the Wednesday Live Chat to 2:00PM ET this week so that we had extra time. I hope to see you there!

Rick

🏅 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Chris Gotterup: $7,100 | 118.5 PTS
Rory McIlroy: $11,400 | 108.5 PTS
Matt Fitzpatrick: $8,800 | 108.5 PTS
Marco Penge: $7,000 | 106.0 PTS
Nicolai Hojgaard: $7,500 | 101.5 PTS
Justin Rose: $7,300 | 90.5 PTS
TOTAL: $49,100 | 633.5 PTS 

👁️ It Fits The Eye

Tying the course record isn’t easy.
Sleeping on the lead isn’t easy.
Playing in the final group isn’t easy.
Beating Rory McIlroy isn’t easy.

But Chris Gotterup made all those things look easy in Scotland last week, capturing his second PGA TOUR title and punching his ticket to Portrush.

There’s a trend that I’ve noticed recently about guys who are trying to close it out on Sunday. If they have a “go-to” shot shape, it seems like they are more successful at getting across the finish line.

I first noticed this with J.J. Spaun when he won the U.S. Open. He stepped up to the the teebox all week long and pounded the fairway with a consistent fade.

Then Aldrich Potgieter who won in Detroit with impressive fades even when the heat was on.

And finally, Gotterup who looked completely composed hitting nothing but low fades off-the-tee.

It’s not the fade that I care about, it’s the “doing the same thing every time” thing that I care about.

All three of those golfers are in the Top 20 of “One Way Hitters” — with 75% of their shots moving in the same direction. There must be so many things going through your head in those moments, it’s nice to have something that you can rely on time and time again.

🥶 The Putter Went Cold

When Rory McIlroy made birdie on no. 8 during the final round, he was on pace to have one of the best putting weeks of his career — already over +8.5 strokes to the field with 10 holes to go.

Then, he missed everything. It was nearly a throwback to St. Andrews as Rory two-putted nine out of his next ten holes and made zero birdies the rest of the way. Those ten greens cost him 1.25 strokes putting and he finished two shots behind Gotterup.

When the dust settled, McIlroy had gained 7.08 strokes putting for the week, which was still the 5th best putting week of his career. He’s also gained 14.06 strokes putting in his last eight rounds.

Lost in the conversation about Rory’s driver or motivation has been the emergence of his flat-stick. It’s an added dimension to his game which could truly unlock domination.

⛈️ A Proper Open

I’m no meteorologist, but it doesn’t take one to read the forecast for Portrush this week. There is rain predicted every single day of the week with winds coming off the sea between 8-16 MPH. Obviously this can (and will change) over the course of the next few days. But it’s setting up to be a proper Open.

I’ve spent years railing against Wind Data. It’s been a soapbox issue of mine because I never believed it was being calculated properly to account for the impact that wind has in the game of golf. I promised that I wouldn’t ever include wind data on RickRunGood.com until it was done properly. Well — welcome to a new era.

This will be going live on RRG over the course of the next few weeks but I wanted to share the best wind players in the field this week when wind is measured at 10+ MPH.

The names that stand out the most for me are probably Sepp Straka, Russell Henley and Ryan Fox. Straka and Henley are two of the straightest drivers on TOUR and I don’t mean accuracy. They literally curve the golf ball very little compared to their peers.

Straka hit 27% of his drives “straight” and has an average curve of just 33.7 ft — the second straightest in this field. Henley ranks 13th in curve at 40.99 ft on average.

The overlap between Henley and Fox comes from Apex. Both of them hit it lower than 97’ on average which is in the lowest 18 players in this field. Hit it low and hit it flush — apparently a very good combination in the wind.

These are not averages or historical forecasts for the region. These are radar measured wind speeds at the time of the shot being hit. There are still flaws like gusts, wind direction, shot shapes, and more — but this is now good enough for me to put my name on it.

Stay tuned for more updates on this in the very near future. 👀👀

 🔢 Not All Scores Are The Same

One of the common refrains you’ll hear about 2019 will be that Shane Lowry broke The Open scoring record through 54 holes (197). This implies that Royal Portrush was “easy” or scorable. However, that one data point doesn’t tell the entire story.

There were only 29 golfers under par that week and there was a massive range of scores with plenty of guys suffering the “carnage” side of the spectrum.

The strokes gained standard distribution was 3.26, which I understand doesn’t mean much by itself or without context. That means that the 2019 Open had the 9th widest range of scores of all Opens since 1997.

Jordan Spieth, who finished T20, shot a 283 and finished 14 shots behind Lowry.

Scoring will almost certainly be impacted mostly by Mother Nature but the margins are incredibly small at Portrush, which will create a big delta between the week’s best and worst players.

 🤑 60,000 Reasons To Play

The RickRunGood Listener League got another bump this week, up to a fully guaranteed $60,000! 

The game is very simple — pick eight golfers (one from each tier) and your best seven scores will count to your total. If you have the best total, you win — $15,000 for first.

As long as you finish inside the Top 100, you’ll win money this week. Feel free to share this with your friends (and enemies).

🔗 Click Here To Join: www.SplashSports.com/RickRunGood

♾️ Infinite Lines

Options! That’s the word of the week. Links golf always gives you options. Committing to a single option can be just as difficult mentally as it is physically. You’ll see these options around-the-greens and off-the-tee as evidenced by a variety of perfect doglegs.

This is most notable around the turn (9,10,11) with gentle doglegs that dangle a carrot to players of all ball speeds. There are truly an unlimited number of lines and carry distances to consider.

The landing area above provides reasonable options from 264 yards to 330 yards depending on the wind and player ability. The more that a golfer chooses to cut-off, seeking reward, presents more trouble like pot bunkers and fescue. Precision driving will be of utmost importance.

🚨📈ICYMI: New Data Points!

Last week, I launched a massive update to my website (RickRunGood.com) with a variety of new “Radar” tools and data points. You can read more about that here.

It appears like we are going to get a “Proper Open” with cool temperatures, rain, and impactful wind in the forecast every single day of the week.

The art of flighting a shot will be critical with a bonus on those who can keep it low off-the-tee and still hit it farther than their peers.

There are only two golfers in this field who are carrying it at least 290 yards off-the-tee with an apex below 100 feet. They are Ryan Fox and Adam Scott — with an honorable mention to Jhonny Vegas who finishes just outside my arbitrary criteria.

On the par-4s, (4) will dogleg to the right with (6) moving to the left. The course routes in a variety of directions which will create endless wind/shot shape combinations.

I’m a firm believer that you’ll need to work the ball out of all nine windows and very few do that as well as Xander Schauffele. He has 10%+ of his drives in six different windows covering all three trajectories. He has the 14th best ball speed (183.37 MPH) on TOUR this year and is gaining 2.12 strokes per round in his Open Championship career. I cannot quit this man.