👑 Crown The Champ

📢 Fore, Please…

Next week, the Presidents Cup teams are going to be selected. The first six spots for each team are auto-qualifiers and the captain will choose the rest. I want to soft-launch my idea for team events.

All picks should be captains picks, no automatic qualifying.

1) This makes the captain’s job matter a lot more.
2) No one is going to leave off the top players, who are currently auto-qualifying.
3) It opens up the entire breadth of the player pool to the captain.

Right now, the captain basically picks six players who are 7th to 17th in the standings. The captain is afraid to go deeper than that because they will be criticized for “reaching” or “passing over qualified players”.

Without a points list, there is no guideline anymore. Young players like Jackson Koivun are much more likely to be selected. That golfer who is ranked 10th because of what he did in the first year of a two-year points period is no longer “obligated” to make the team.

The captain role should be less honorary and more serious.

Tell me if you hate it.
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

$8,700: Wyndham Clark (132.5)
$8,500: Patrick Cantlay (122.0)
$8,600: Collin Morikawa (106.5)
$8,900: Chris Gotterup (103.5)
$6,600: Gary Woodland (97.0)
$8,000: Maverick McNealy (94.5)
$49,300: 656.0 Pts

😕 It’s Not How You Start

The man, Wyndham Clark, rolls on! He’s having an unreal year and would be my pick for the POY if the voting ended right now. It doesn’t, but I want to plant my flag.

Wyndham Clark now joins Scottie Scheffler as the only player on the PGA TOUR with 2+ Majors, 2+ Signature Event wins, 1+ Playoff win since 2023 — when the Signature Event system began.

His year started out as … kind of a disaster. His first eight starts earned him just one top-30 finish which was a T13 at the American Express. His putter was unconsciously bad. Over those eight, he lost 18.13 strokes putting. It was brutal.

Then the Masters. He still lost strokes putting but finished T21. It was the first of three straight top-25s. The flatstick started to cooperate and the high finishes started piling up.

His three wins, three more top-5s, and five more top-25s all came over his last 14 starts. During that more recent stretch, he’s gained +46.06 strokes putting.

Hat tip! Open some grape.

🥵 Shuffling To The Beat

It’s been four years since Patrick Cantlay has gotten his paws on a trophy. But, I am willing to give him some hardware as the “flusher of the year” right now!

Since the Valspar Championship, 13 starts ago, Cantlay has gained +0.85 strokes on approach per round. The only players better (in this field) are Scottie Scheffler and Tom Kim.

In his last 12 rounds, the approach numbers have skyrocketed. He’s now gaining +1.59 strokes per round in that stretch.

The man lost nearly four strokes putting last week and still finished second. I truly have a hard time figuring out if/when Cantlay is going to play well but it’s clear that his game is in proper form. He heads to East Lake where he’s had a mixed bag of results.

☝️ Just One Thing

I’m going to try something. I am just going to throw a handful of names down below and I am only going to write one thing about them. It could be anything. It might be bad. It might be nonsense. It’s just the first thing that pops out of my head. We are going to call this (maybe) recurring section “Just One Thing”.

Scottie Scheffler — the only golfer on TOUR this year to gain strokes off-the-tee in 100% of his starts.

Tommy Fleetwood — no player has ever won back-to-back FedEx Cups, something that Fleetwood will try to do this week.

Hideki Matsuyama — lost 4.79 strokes putting last week in St. Louis, the second worst putting week of his season.

Cameron Young — does not have a finish between 11th and 21st this season.

East Lake — the average stimp reading last year was 13.76 across the entire week.

Robert MacIntyre — has finished exactly T17 in each of his two trips to the TOUR Championship.

🎉 The GRAND FINALE (for two weeks)

The tiers contest this week is funnnn. There are six tiers, each with five golfers. Something about the equal tiers just feels right! Still $35,000 in guaranteed funds.

I’m working on some fall contests for us, stay tuned!

Choose one from each of six tiers, lowest score wins!
Play: bit.ly/4x7BX5L

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