🌴 Dome Golf In The Desert

It’s starting to feel a lot like golf season! The TOUR has hit the West Coast and we are just 83 days away from the Masters. It’s time to sprint — let’s go!

Rick

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🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Grayson Murray: $6,200 | 128.0 PTS
Ben An: $8,700 | 122.5 PTS
Keegan Bradley: $8,000 | 116.5 PTS
Russell Henley: $9,600 | 113.0 PTS
Carl Yuan: $6,200 | 106.5 PTS
Matthew Pavon: $6,700 | 106.0 PTS
TOTAL: $45,400 | 692.5 PTS

🪂 High Upside Grayson

In his last 17 events (across the PGA TOUR & KFT), Grayson Murray has gained 9+ strokes to the field on six different occasions which has led to three victories.

The downside is also pretty staggering, he has (6) MCs or WDs during that same stretch, but let’s focus on the positive.

To find the last six events where Rickie Fowler has gained 9+ strokes to the field, you have to go all the way back to his T6 at the 2019 Open Championship at Royal Portrush.

For Chris Kirk, you have to go back nearly two years to the 2022 PGA Championship at Southern Hills.

Murray doesn’t always have his best stuff, but he does have his best stuff frequently and his best stuff is capable of winning golf tournaments.

💲Longshot SZN

This week is about as volatile as it gets and it’s one of the most difficult events to handicap correctly. There’s a three course rotation, it’s the start of a new year, there’s an influx of new golfers, etc.

There’s simply a ton of variables that are difficult to account for making this a chaotic event — and the recent winners prove that.

2023: Jon Rahm (8-1) — okay maybe not this one.
2022: Hudson Swafford (250-1)
2021: Si Woo Kim (60-1)
2020: Andrew Landry (200-1)
2019: Adam Long (500-1)

The average winner odds at this event in the last five years in 204-1! I’ve been tracking the odds for every PGA TOUR event since the start of 2019 and this event has the highest average odds for the winner during that span.

3️⃣ Wrap Your Head Around The Rotation

The next three weeks will feature eight (!!) different courses. This week, the host course is the Pete Dye Stadium Course but it will be supplemented by both La Quinta Country Club and the Nicklaus Tournament Course.

Each golfer in the field will play one round at each course, before a 54-hole cut, and return to the Stadium Course for the final round.

Stadium Course: Par 72 | 7,187 Yards – 69.260 Scoring Average Last Year
La Quinta Country Club: Par 72 | 7,060 Yards – 69.584
Nicklaus Tournament Course: Par 72 | 7,147 Yards – 68.724

The order in which they are played will be this carousel:

La Quinta > Nicklaus > Stadium > La Quinta > Nicklaus > Stadium

🧑‍🍳 PGA West is MSG And This Is Minsanity

Prepare for full on Minsanity in 2024 as Min Woo Lee crashed onto the scene with a full-time PGA TOUR card.

He’s lost strokes to the field just once in his last 14 starts while earning (9) Top 15s along the way including a win at the Australian PGA Championship.

His stat profile has made consistent and impressive gains, reminding me of the Max Homa “slow but sure” improvement.

I have SG data on Min Woo data back to 2018 and he’s always been about 0.50 strokes/rd better than his peers. He took a massive leap in 2023 thanks to a significant improvement on the putting surfaces.

It’s a small sample size but he’s also showing gains in the approach category which would combine with his stellar off-the-tee play to make him one of the best ball-strikers on the planet. We are still quite a bit out from replacing his chef’s hat with a crown but the trajectory that he’s on is one to monitor.

⭐ Tracking Has Never Been Easier

In case you missed it, I launched a new Live Leaderboard on RickRunGood.com that has the shot-by-shot tracker, strokes gained metrics and much more. It’s available each week for the PGA TOUR and DP World Tour. Here are a few images showing something that I’m quite proud of:

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Here’s the link to the PGA TOUR Live Leaderboard and here’s the link to the DP World Tour Live Leaderboard.

Both can also be accessed from the RickRunGood.com homepage.

🃏 Embrace The Chaos?

On the surface, this is an event for longshots — which we’ve already discussed. They win more frequently and at longer numbers than basically any other event on the schedule.

HOWEVER!!!

This event has been “dominated” by golfers with short odds. They haven’t won as frequently but they have gained more strokes to the field than all but two events on the schedule since 2019.

The way this reads — Golfers who are 20-1 or shorter have averaged +2.27/round at The American Express since 2019. That’s the third best average of any tournament with at least 14 qualifying players.

(In case you were wondering, the 3M Open has been the worst event for these golfers)

👂Help Me, Help You!

In 2024, you’re going to see more content from me than ever — with an emphasis on this email newsletter. If there is a question you’ve always wondered, a problem you’ve been unable to solve, or a deep-dive into any golf topic you want — let me know! Hit reply and tell me how I can help.

😋 Give Me More Content!

• You can read my American Express statistical profile in my written preview on RickRunGood.com.

• Join me on Wednesday at 3PM ET for AMEX Live Chat — where I’ll answer your questions and cover so much more.

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