🏦 The Chuck Classic

📢 Fore, Please:

• Thanks so much for your support last week, it’s always special to be in attendance at a Major. I’m back home now, so catching up on a variety of projects. I haven’t gotten word about Pinehurst yet, but I’m hoping to be there as well — #FingersCrossed

• Congratulations to Murray A., Kit R., Mark B., and Damon B. for winning the PGA Championship gift boxes. I love being able to do little things like that and further show my support to you guys.

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Xander Schauffele: $10,900 | 133.0 PTS
Bryson DeChambeau: $9,600 | 126.5 PTS
Viktor Hovland: $9,200 | 120.0 PTS
Thomas Detry: $6,200 | 108.0 PTS
Justin Rose: $6,900 | 104.0 PTS
Taylor Moore: $6,200 | 93.5 PTS
TOTAL: $49,000 | 685.0 PTS

👍Leave No Doubt

Just a few days ago, Xander Schauffele was questioned as a closer — someone who couldn’t get it done in a big spot. I doubt we’ll be hearing those concerns again anytime soon.

Standing on the 72nd tee of a Major Championship, Schauffele’s objective was simple — birdie to win. He did that, capturing his first Major and gaining 18.165 strokes in the process.

That SG mark would have been good enough to win 46 of the last 65 Major Championships. Schauffele has only breached 19 SG once in his career, a win at the 2018 WGC HSBC Champions.

🤬 Bryson On The Brink

The man who was pushing Schauffele to the brink of a playoff, was Bryson DeChambeau. He played his final 19 holes at 9-under including making birdie on the 72nd hole to post (at the time) the lowest score to par in Major Championship history.

The final Strokes Gained tally was 17.17 strokes to the positive, which is the third most for any second-place finisher in the last 16 years of majors. The only others who gained more and didn’t win were Phil Mickelson (2016 Open Championship) and Jordan Spieth (2015 PGA).

🥃 The Shot of the Week!

The 13th hole at Valhalla GC is a short par-4 with an island (peninsula) green. There are a lot of opinions about this hole. Some will call it the signature hole at Valhalla, others will denigrate how “manufactured” it is and I’ve even heard it referred to as the “Disneyland Hole” — aka suited for Mickey Mouse.

Well, no matter what you think of the hole, something really fun (and rare) happened there on Sunday. Well out of contention, Alejandro Tosti opted to pull driver on the 349 yard hole and he let the big dog eat.

Not only did he drive the green, but he stuck it 6’ 11” and made the eagle putt — bravo! The next shortest 2nd shot on that hole was 65 yards, basically 28x longer than Tosti’s second shot.

That swing alone gained Tosti 1.41 strokes to the field. It’s hard to explain how difficult it is to gain 1) that many strokes on a shot that didn’t go in the hole and 2) gain that many strokes on a tee shot.

For reference, Bryson DeChambeau gained 5.89 strokes off-the-tee at the PGA Championship but didn’t gain more than 0.40 on any single tee shot. Tosti’s drive on 13 was worth more than 3x Bryson’s best drive of the week.

The gold standard of tee shots comes from Dustin Johnson in 2018 at the Sentry Tournament of Champions. He hit a drive on the 420-yard 12th hole that ended up just a few inches away from the cup. That swing was worth 1.88 strokes and I’ve yet to see a single drive worth more than that.

🩳 Shorty Scottie Scheffler

Scottie Scheffler makes history again this week as he is currently +280 to win the Charles Schwab Challenge. That makes him the shortest non-TOUR Championship odds since I’ve been tracking.

The next shortest (+360) was also Scottie who finished T2 at the Houston Open in March. The +280 odds imply that Scottie will win this event 26.3% of the time. That’s certainly aggressive, considering Tiger Woods’ winning percentage for the bulk of his career hovered around 22%.

🏆 Speaking of Greatness..

Nelly Korda has been on a tear of her own, with six wins in her last seven starts. This is my favorite Nelly stat that I read:

👀 New Look Colonial

Colonial Country Club is going to look very different this year than you might remember. It’s undergone a significant renovation in the last year, led by Gil Hanse.

It’s true that the vast majority of the work was done underground to the irrigation systems to help with the overall functionality of the course. But on the surface, the entire course was re-sodded — to the tune of 118 acres of new grass.

The aesthetic was inspired by the 1941 U.S. Open at Colonial CC and will be less tidy and much more rugged. The green on no. 8 has been moved about 30 yards left, closer to a creek and hopefully providing a more risk-reward decision on the tee box.

I found this to be a really helpful primer and it’s only six minutes long:

1️⃣ The 1+ Club

There are five golfers in this field who have gained 1+ stroke per round over their last 36 rounds. Can you name them?

Scottie Scheffler is the easy one, gaining 3.13 per round — LOL!

Collin Morikawa? No. Jordan Spieth? Nope. Max Homa? Nay.

The others are Billy Horschel, Maverick McNealy, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Doug Ghim.

Of those four, Bezuidenhout was the only one who missed the cut at the PGA Championship with the other three finishing inside the Top 35.

⭐ Before You Go …

• If you know someone who would like this weekly email delivered straight to their inbox, please feel free to share it with fellow sickos. It goes a long way to help me as well!