🌴Finally On Hawaiian Time

📢 Fore, Please…

You might celebrate the New Year on January 1st, or February 17th, or March 20th — but I celebrate it on the first day of the new golfing calendar. So it’s with great pleasure that I get to wish you all a happy freakin’ new year!

Enjoy,
Rick

🚨 ONE AND DONE

This is it — officially LAST CALL!

The 2026 One & Done closes on Thursday and you can be a part of history. The $1.25M guaranteed purse is the largest in the history of the internet. And if it doesn’t fill, Splash is still paying out the whole damn thing!

🏆 The Contest
✔️ $1.25M Guaranteed
✔️ $100,000 to First
✔️ $250 per entry ($8/week)
✔️ Available in over 40 states and most of Canada
✔️ Payouts to the Top 10% + Segment Winners
🔗 Join: https://bit.ly/4974Aqz

🤑 But Wait, There’s More!

If you submit 2+ entries you’re in a draw to win a trip for two to THE PLAYERS Championship with a travel stipend and hospitality tickets next to me. Seats are located in the “Intracoastal Club” which is situated between the 12th and 13th holes.

🚨 Don’t Empty The Clip

I know it’s enticing to try and go all-out, win the first week of OAD and see your name on top of the leaderboard. The only problem is that there’s still another 30 events to go after this one. Okay, that’s not the only problem … here’s a few more.

• The start of the season is historically volatile. Guys with rust, new equipment, and players from multiple worldwide tours are all converging into one spot.

• The Sony Open has a $9.1M purse which will be the third lowest of the year, behind only the 3M Open and Wyndham Championship.

• The course itself has very big margins and has proven that nearly the entire field is alive for victory.

You really don’t need to do anything crazy this week, especially if you think you’ll use Henley, Griffin, or Morikawa at another spot later this year.

👋 Strength of Field

I have to admit, I did a double-take when this field was released last Friday. It’s shockingly good! The 120 players in the field for this week accounted for 42 worldwide wins in 2025 and we are seeing some big names teeing it up.

Collin Morikawa is making his Sony Open return for the first time since 2021 and Jordan Spieth is playing this event for the first time since 2023 and only the second time since 2019.

The convergence of players is global this week with the new TOUR members from the KFT and DP World Tour nearly all cashing in on their first playing opportunity. This is a great week to rely on Weighted Strokes Gained which allows for easier comparison across global tours.

Above is a comparison between raw strokes gained (left) and weighted strokes gained (right). Each chart is the Top 12 players based on the last 50 rounds.

No offense to Kazuki Higa, Kristoffer Reitan, and others but their success on lower tours is simply not the same as playing at the highest level in the world on a regular basis.

Reitan drops to 18th in the weighted rankings (still very good!) while Higa drops to 63rd.

 🩳 Short But… Big?

Waialae CC definitely skews onto the “unique” side of things when it comes to TOUR venues. It’s short but boasts large greens. In fact, it’s one of only three courses on TOUR that is shorter than 7,100 yards with greens bigger than 7,000 square feet.

This creates a really interesting dynamic. The rate of finding the fairway (58.2%) is nearly identical to the TOUR average but the reward for hitting the fairway is 0.36 strokes per hole. Most approaches are short irons or wedges so being able to control spin and attack pins is worth a lot on the scoresheet.

Since the approaches are regularly coming from 150 yards and closer AND the greens are so big, his GIR rate (64%) is significantly higher than TOUR average.

The ways to separate are 1) hit it closer than your peers and 2) make more putts. Those are both backed up by the Course Key Stats regression model that have both highly correlated to success over the past 12 years.

🏃‍➡️ Keep The Momentum Rolling

When it comes to “rust” or getting the “competitive juices” flowing, it’s a mixed bag.

We haven’t seen Russell Henley play since the Ryder Cup.
We haven’t seen Maverick McNealy since the Utah Championship.
We haven’t seen Taylor Pendrith since the BMW Championship!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are guys who just haven’t stopped playing. Whether that was the Fall PGA TOUR schedule, the DP World Tour, the Asian Tour, whatever it takes.

Above is the chart of the best players (by strokes gained) since mid-September with at least four starts worldwide.

Rico Hoey was probably the fall MVP with (4) Top 10 finishes. He’s still tinkering with his putting, which would be the key to unlocking a massive jump in his career.

McGreevy’s success was much quieter but he finished his fall with a runner-up in Sea Island and a T3 in Bermuda.

Higa’s play was entirely in Asia (but that includes the Baycurrent) and he’s played more than anyone in this field. His last nine include two wins, a runner-up and a 7th. He’s failed to find success on the PGA TOUR but he’s playing the best golf of his life right now.

🐣 Newcomers To Watch

The new KFT Graduates are ready to rock n’ roll in their first starts as full-time PGA TOUR members. I wanted to point out a few notables who I think are worth tracking this season.

• Neal Shipley: This should probably be a familiar name for you as he burst onto the scene winning the low amateur at both the 2024 Masters and U.S. Open. He won twice on the KFT last season and has (12) PGA TOUR starts under his belt.

• Johnny Keefer: The buzz is buzzin’ on this kid. Everyone you talk to thinks his talent is elite and that’s hard to argue. He’s found immediate success at every level, including two wins on the KFT last year and a T7 in his most recent PGA TOUR start (RSM Classic).

• Adrian Dumont De Chassart: After contending regularly on the KFT last season, he finally broke through and won the Compliance Solutions Championship — the penultimate start of his season. He has firepower beyond belief and led the KFT in birdie average last season. It’ll be exciting to see how that translates to the big circuit.

🧑‍💼 Somehow I Manage

I’m likely to have ~15 different OAD entries across a few contests this year. The best way for me to manage them is via the PoolGenius OAD tool. It’s a tool that’s close to my heart since I’ve been consulting on it for a few years and it really helps my entire process. Even if you only have one entry in one contest, it’ll help you make better decisions that are unique to you.

The tool will take into account a variety of factors like recent form, future value, your position in the pool and give you a short-list of players to consider each week. It also makes sure that you’re using your best plays in the best spots AND that you’re actually using the best players. NOTE: It’s incredible how many emails I get at the BMW Championship saying something like “I have Rory, Scottie, Tommy, and Viktor left — who should I use?”.

“Uhhh, you’ve done something wrong!”

I have a great relationship with the PoolGenius team so they offer our community the best discount available — up to 50% off.

🎬 If You Need More Action

If a $1.25M OAD isn’t enough, we are going to have weekly RunGood Leagues on Splash again this year. It’s a different format (tiers), where you pick one golfer from each of six tiers — lowest score to par wins.

Join now: https://bit.ly/3IbnqS3

This one has a $25/entry with $25,000 guaranteed — top 100 finishers get paid.

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.