🥥🐫 Coconuts & Camels

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🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Jake Knapp: $8,700 | 131.5 PTS
Sami Valimaki: $6,700 | 126.5 PTS
Stephan Jaeger $9,800 | 110.5 PTS
CT Pan: $5,700 | 109.5 PTS
Robert MacIntyre: $7,000 | 104.0 PTS
Erik van Rooyen: $9,500 | 102.0 PTS
TOTAL: $47,400 | 684.0 PTS

🏃‍♂️ Knapp Crosses The Finish Line

It wasn’t a sprint to the finish line for Jake Knapp. Maybe it was a stagger, maybe it was a stumble, perhaps it was a crawl. No matter how you want to describe it, he crossed the line before anyone else — which is really all that matters.

His gains over the first three rounds allowed him the cushion to falter on Sunday and still got the job done. Knapp lost 0.85 strokes to the field in the final round, making him the 12th golfer since the start of 2020 to lose strokes in the final round and still capture victory.

💧There’s Something In The Water

Thursday was a nightmare for me, considering I planted my flag on Joseph Bramlett over Cameron Champ. The latter got off to a scorching start, playing his first nine holes at 6-under and contending for the first round lead.

He would end up finishing T24 so it wasn’t disaster but I still can’t help but go back and look at what Champ has done at Vidanta Vallarta. Last week he gained 5.28 strokes putting. Last year he gained 2.08 and in 2022, he gained 6.75 strokes. That’s 14.06 strokes putting in just 12 rounds at that course.

There are only three courses where Champ has gained strokes putting in at least 12 rounds in his career. Vidanta Vallarta is the runaway leader. He’s gained 1.17 strokes per round beating his performances at the Country Club of Jackson (+0.74) and the Seaside Course at Sea Island (+0.42).

🚧 The National Has Evolved

A few quick notes on PGA National this week —

• This is no longer a par-70, but instead will play as a par-71. The 10th hole has been converted from a 508 yard par-4 to a 530 yard par-5.

• Fairways have been widened and “in total, one acre of fairway grass has been added since last year”.

Last year was the easiest that PGA National had played in the past half-decade, still ranking as the 14th most difficult TOUR stop in 2023. With these changes, it seems like it is trending easier this time around.

💣 Rory Makes His Return

Rory McIlroy will make his return to this event for the first time since 2018 after playing it annually from 2009 to 2016. He was the winner in 2012 and a runner-up in 2014 but it hasn’t been all sprinkles and unicorns for McIlroy at PGA National.

Of all the courses McIlroy has played 16+ rounds at in his career, this has been his second worst course. Now — “worst” is pretty relative when it comes to McIlroy. He’s still gaining 0.93 strokes per round at this event which is a testament to his greatness — but still — not good!

🧑‍🤝‍🧑The Other Hojgaard

There has been plenty of oxygen spent on Nicolai Hojgaard recently — and for good reason. He’s the 33rd ranked player in the work with a win and (2) runner-up finishes in his last eight starts worldwide.

But don’t forget about his twin bother, Rasmus. Who enters the week with the best 36 round Strokes Gained number of anyone in the field — +2.08/round.

Does he benefit from playing on the DP World Tour? Sure. But the results are no joke:

T6
T8
2
T11
T11
T6
T16
T26
26
4

His last ten starts have been a clinic of consistency and knocking at the door. He has gained at least five strokes to the field in every single one of those starts. He has gained strokes in 32 of those 40 rounds and he never lost strokes in back-to-back rounds.

Nicolai has already asserted himself on the PGA TOUR, now it’s Rasmus’ turn.

🌴Rollers Rise Up!

After weeks of poa annua and paspalum there are plenty of pros ready to rip their hair out on the putting greens. So this week will certainly be a treat as we get back to that sweet, sweet bermudagrass. Below are the golfers who will be the happiest to arrive on the putting surfaces at PGA National:

These would be “Bermuda Specialists” quantified by their strokes gained on Bermuda surfaces, compared to their actual SG Putting baselines.

Eric Cole and Taylor Montgomery are the first golfers who 1) are positive putters in general and 2) see an improvement on bermudagrass surfaces.

🎯 Close Your Eyes, Throw a Dart

The only mistake you can make in O&D this week is playing Rory McIlroy — which certainly assures a victory coming. Even if McIlroy wins this, you’d be much better off saving him for a 1) bigger event and 2) a better course.

That leaves Eric Cole, who is likely to be the most popular golfer of the week and … EVERYONE ELSE!

Above is a screenshot from the PoolGenius tool that I consulted on. This is based on the variety of factors like future value and who I have already used.

For this week, I have (20) golfers with a pick grade above 80. I have never seen that before. It speaks to two things — 1) You can’t use Rory and 2) I’ve already used Eric Cole.

That leaves my possible selections wide open. I’m leaning Shane Lowry but Cameron Young has my full attention as well.

🤠 AK Back In The Saddle

Oh there will be takes. Anthony Kim will make his return to professional golf for the first time in 12 years when he tees it up at LIV Jeddah this week. I have no idea what to expect, no one does. 12 days is a long time in golf. 12 weeks might as well be an eternity. I cannot even fathom taking 12 years out of the competitive scene and what that might look like in a return.

Since his last appearance (Wells Fargo 2012)…

• There have been 192 different winners on the PGA TOUR.

• The entirety of Justin Thomas’ career has taken place.

• Tiger Woods has won 10 times.

If you need to brush up on your Anthony Kim history, I don’t blame you. But I’ll leave that to Joel Beall and Shane Ryan.

🥑 The Avocado Is Ripe

LIV Golf is back on this week, playing in Jeddah for the third straight year — meaning we have more course history this week than most weeks (more on that in a second). And it couldn’t come at a better time for Joaquinn Niemann.

Over the last 36 rounds, no one on LIV has been better than Niemann and it’s not particularly close.

He’s lapping the field, gaining 2.25 strokes per round — more than a half stroke better than his next closest peer (David Puig).

He’s fresh off his victory in Mayakoba, finished third last week in Oman and earned a special invite to the Masters last week. Not a bad run!

On top of all that, he’s finished 3rd and T9 in his two trips to Royal Greens G&CC.

🏙️ History In The Middle East

Here are the best players at Royal Greens G&CC including LIV, European Tour, Asian Tour or anywhere else this course might have appeared. There is a minimum of 7 rounds required to make this list.

😴 It’s About That Time

We are 14 DAYS (!!!) away from THE PLAYERS Championship and just 42 days away from The Masters. I know a lot of you play in “Major Pools” or something like it.

For the first time ever, I’ve partnered with Splash Sports to create a “3 & Done” for THE PLAYERS and the Majors.

• Pick 3 golfers for each event, can only use them once.

• Payouts for full length and for each tournament.

• Fully legal in 40+ states

 🏅 Ranking The Major Players (and some minor ones)

Speaking of Majors — I just released my Major Championship Rankings & Qualifications on RickRunGood.com.

These will be useful in your Major Pools & in the Underdog Major Best Ball Drafts.

This was a lot harder than I anticipated. The biggest issue is that we don’t really know who is going to be playing in each Major and the rankings are constantly changing. I’ve used a three icon system to help easily show the differences:

✅ - Golfer has already qualified (end of year rank, past champion, etc)

🟡 - If qualification ended today, the golfer would be in - but this could change.

❌ - Golfer is not already qualified nor currently qualified.

I also included current metrics and Major Championship Strokes Gained. I’ll do my best to keep the qualifications updated as much as possible.

📺 You can watch my video on Major Championship Strategy which dives into all of this!

🐝 I’ve Been Busy!

As if all that wasn’t enough, I also recorded a new One & Done strategy video that dives into the in-play strategy that gets overlooked the most.

It’s all fun and games until the season starts with seven straight longshot winners. So now what? How do you leverage future value? How do you decide when to pivot? When to press the gas? When to draft off your opponents?

📺 Watch: https://youtu.be/wvTMB2XGjbo

I did my best to answer all of that and show you the best tool out there for making informed, data-driven decisions.

⭐ In Case You Missed IT

• The Live Leaderboard on RickRunGood.com has gotten an update this week. In addition to being a live shot-by-shot tracker during the event, now it allows you to see course history, recent form, tee times and season stats before the start of the event.