🌶️ Hotter Than Texas in March

If you want to receive this in your inbox every week, hit the button below!

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Peter Malnati: $5,600 | 114.0 PTS
Cameron Young: $9,600 | 107.0 PTS
Mackenzie Hughes: $6,700 | 97.0 PTS
Xander Schauffele: $11,200 | 95.5 PTS
Chandler Phillips: $5,500 | 95.0 PTS
Carl Yuan: $5,500 | 93.0 PTS
TOTAL: $44,100 | 601.5 PTS

🪣 Drop In The Bucket(hat).

Peter Malnati closed out the Valspar Championship and won for the first time in nine years. To say that this outcome was unexpected … would be generous.

His pre-tournament odds were anywhere from +30000 to +40000 and he became the 5th golfer to win with a sub-1% DraftKings Ownership (since I’ve been tracking).

Malnati was only 0.4% owned in the largest contest on DraftKings and he now puts himself in the record books as one of the least popular winners in the fantasy golf era. To put it into perspective, Phil Mickelson’s very unlikely PGA Championship win in 2021 was nearly 4x as popular on DraftKings as Malnati’s win.

Shoutout to Nate Lashley who technically owns the unbreakable record here. When he won the 2019 Rocket Mortgage Classic, he was 0.0000% owned because he wasn’t even available to be selected! He got into the event late on Wednesday night and was not in the DraftKings player pool.

👓 Misery Loves Company

My tweet about Justin Thomas’ sour putting round last week got a lot of engagement. There was definitely plenty of dunking on JT (and Zach Johnson) while others relished in the fact that a 2x Major Champion had a putting round that looked much like their own.

I won’t sugarcoat it — it was bad. But how bad was it?

I have over 240,000 measured PGA TOUR rounds in my database (dating back to 2008) and Thomas’ loss of 7.03 strokes was the 30th worst round during that span.

🦜 Unchartered Territory

Back-to-back wins for Scottie Scheffler has everyone scrambling, including oddsmakers and fantasy sites. We are seeing the price for Scheffler enter some very unfamiliar areas.

Let’s start with his odds to win — +260 on DraftKings Sportsbook. That implies Scheffler will win the Houston Open 27.7% of the time.

That’s the shortest number in my odds database, which goes back to the start of 2019. There are only four other instances of a golfer’s closing odds being shorter than 5-1:

+380: Jon Rahm — 2023 Mexico Open (2nd)
+430: Jon Rahm — 2021 Fortinet Championship (CUT)
+450: Jon Rahm — 2022 Mexico Open (WIN)
+460: Scottie Scheffler — 2023 AT&T Byron Nelson (T5)

If Scottie wins this week, he’ll be even money next week!

Additionally, his DraftKings price is $13,000 which is the most expensive non-TOUR Championship price in my database.

We’ve been talking about Scottie being the best since Tiger Woods, which might be true. But he’s definitely the most expensive since Tiger.

🐕‍🦺 Bark In The Park

The Houston Open has been around since 1946 and we have seen Memorial Park play host before — but it’s longest run was from 1951 through 1963. Only in 2020 did the Houston Open return to Memorial Park, meaning that we have three years of “modern history”.

Above are the best players at Memorial Park, with at least five rounds played. Tony Finau’s +2.37/round in 10 rounds is the 10th best player/course combination of any golfer with as many rounds since 2020. Of the nine golfer/course combinations better, four of them are Scottie Scheffler and one is Finau himself — +2.62 at TPC Twin Cities.

🤠 Deep In The Heart of Texas

It should be no surprise that Scottie Scheffler has gained the most strokes per round (+1.38) in Texas. That’s home for him and also — he’s the best player in the world.

Some honorary Texans are Jason Day, Bud Cauley and Tony Finau who are the other three players in this field to gain at least 1+ stroke per round in the Longhorn State since 2008.

🌤️ The Ceiling Is The Floor

I find it fascinating that there are 1,000 different ways to get it done on the PGA TOUR. One of the most impressive skills to me, is consistency.

Below are the golfers who have gained strokes to the field most frequently in the last 36 rounds. You’ll notice names like Thorbjorn Olesen, Aaron Baddeley and Beau Hossler are right behind Scottie Scheffler. So why aren’t these guys winning? Or even contending more often?

Because their high floor is basically the same as their low ceiling. I’ll throw out Olesen for this discussion because he has shown a higher ceiling — especially in DP World Tour events.

But look at the grinders of Baddeley and Hossler who are beating the field average 72% of the time! That’s a staggering rate.

However, they fall off a cliff in frequency of gaining 2+, 3+, 4+ and 5+ strokes in a given round. They live in the sweet spot of gaining somewhere between 0 and 2 strokes nearly every time they tee it up.

It’s going to be tough to win on the PGA TOUR with ceilings this low, but they are going to pile up made cuts, Top 20s and a beat their playing opponents more than some of the more volatile golfers.

☎️ You Make The Call

Below are the first five rounds of a Majors Only Best Ball draft I did on Underdog recently. I’ve been getting a lot of no. 2 and no. 4 picks which have put me in quite a few pickles. I wanted to open this one up to you guys and see where you stand on my 4th round pick.

I had the 23rd selection and was torn between Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau. In hindsight, maybe Cameron Young would have been better but I completed this draft before the Valspar.

I could make the case for both of these guys. Bryson is probably better suited for the U.S. Open and PGA Championship while DJ is definitely better suited for Augusta and coming off some decent form on LIV.

If these types of decisions excite you, you can draft teams on Underdog right now. There’s a $10 contest that pays $50,000 for first. Using code “RICK” will get you a $100 deposit match.

🦗 Getting Deep In The Rough

I’m convinced that Sahith Theegala will finish second this week (Scottie winning, obviously) for a variety of reasons.

The Houston resident has been on a tear, earning (4) Top 20s in his last five starts with (3) of those being Top 10s. His game is trending in the right direction but he has one flaw — he has no idea where it’s going off-the-tee (welcome to the club).

He misses the fairway more than the vast majority of his peers and he doesn’t much care whether that’s going left or right. So it would make sense that Theegala would thrive in situations where the rough is not a penalty. Does the data back that up?

Of course it does, that’s why this section of the email even exists.

Theegala gains 1.05 strokes per round on courses with 2” or rough or lower. That can obviously be a wonky stat but 98 rounds is a significant sample size and look at the rest of the list.

It’s basically Scottie Scheffler and all the biggest sprayers on TOUR. This passes the sniff test.

💳 Desperate For Some Cash

I’m stuck in the mud this season, unable to really capture any momentum in O&D. It’s frustrating but I keep reminding myself that there is a ton of money still up for grabs. Our run starts now!

Above is a screenshot from the PoolGenius tool that I consulted on and I recommend you check out.

I’ve already burned Scottie Scheffler and Tony Finau which leaves me with two high end players remaining. The tool doesn’t want me using Wyndham Clark and would prefer that I save him for a bigger event. That leaves Will Zalatoris as my best scored golfer, with Jason Day, and Sahith Theegala as my other viable options.

Admittedly, I love Theegala here. It feels like it’s time. He’s been playing excellent golf and this course should really minimize his weaknesses.

How can I use Zalatoris in a non-major/big event? He’s a killer!

That leaves me between Day and Theegala who I think are both really great options. I expect that I’ll play Theegala but could talk myself into Day if the ownerships are drastically different.

⭐ Before You Go …

• Please join me on YouTube for the Houston Open Live Chat on Wednesday at 3PM ET.

• 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!