🤖 Iron Byron

📢 Fore, Please…

Last night was the first night I’ve slept in my own bed in 20 days. I love being on the road and doing cool stuff but Dorothy was right — there’s no place like home.

I also need to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. RickRunGood.com is having a great year, on pace to be the best year ever. I’ve worked really hard to continue the improvements as much as possible and am proud with the direction it’s headed in. Thank you all for being a part of it.

Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$6,700: Aaron Rai (117.0)
$6,100 Alex Smalley (96.5)
$10,400: Jon Rahm (87.0)
$9,800: Ludvig Aberg (84.0)
$9,400: Justin Thomas (84.0)
$7,300: Kurt Kitayama (81.5)
$49,700: 550.0 Pts

🔒 Closer Mentality

The PGA Championship was up for grabs for nearly all of the final round. There were countless players who were two birdies away from stealing the Wannamaker but it was Aaron Rai who ran out and grabbed it.

By now, you have probably seen how he closed the final round:
Eagle on 10, then four more birdies coming in, to play his final 10 holes at 6-under.

Considering how difficult the scoring average was, Rai gained +6.07 strokes to the field on the final ten holes alone, which got me thinking:

Was that the best closing stretch to ever win a major? The answer is … almost! We don’t have hole-by-hole data for all majors in history but Rai’s +6.07 was the best 10-hole stretch to close a major, FOR A WINNER, in history.

Gary Player’s 1978 Masters win and Jack Nicklaus’ 1986 Masters win were the only two better than Rai. Helluva list!

🩳 Scottie Short Odds

History is happening this week. Scottie Scheffler is a staggering +150 to win this golf tournament, which is the shortest odds I’ve seen in at least seven years. My suspicion is that these are the shortest odds for any golfer since Prime Tiger was playing in Majors and being priced at -120.

Those odds imply that Scheffler is going to win this full field event 40% of the time. 40%!!

Prior to this week, Scheffler has been shorter than +400 on eight different occasions. He won three of those events and his worst finish was T7. So it’s certainly not crazy!

Scheffler has been the tournament favorite for 46 consecutive starts, with average odds of +453 during that stretch. He has 16 wins.

I do always think it’s funny when someone says “you can’t bet that number!”. And it’s like .. why not? You can bet any number for anything. Just because it’s +150 doesn’t automatically make it a bad bet. If we flipped coins and I offered you +150 odds, you’d take me to the cleaners.

If the odds imply Scheffler is going to win 40% of the time but his true probability is 50%, then this would be a good bet, eh?! The argument should be whether or not Scottie can win the event 40% of the time, not simply dismissing it because the odds are perceived to be too short. I see this happen constantly and it’s growing to be one of my pet peeves!

✋ Weak Field!

All signs point to this being one of the weaker fields of the year. We’ve just run through the siggy-siggy-major stretch. There are only four golfers who are shorter than +3200 to win. Keith Mitchell has the fifth shortest odds (sorry, Keith!).

The field average has lost 0.12 strokes per round this year and they are 551 strokes to the negative in the aggregate. Another way — the field, as a whole, has lost 551 strokes in 2026.

Scottie and Si Woo alone are +168.13, so everyone else is -719.

Here are the best players in below average fields since 2022, min 10 starts:

👉 This Week’s Aaron Rai

Looking through profiles prior to the PGA Championship, Aaron Rai did something that always catches my attention. He had a “complete gain” in his most recent start. That’s when a golfer is positive in all four major SG categories and it is highly correlated to success in their next start.

The player who catches my attention this week is Max Greyserman. His complete gain at the PGA Championship:

OTT: +2.356
APP: +0.255
ARG: +3.631
PUTT: +1.243
Pos: T14

It’s been a miserable year for Max but he’s starting to get back to his roots of being a great driver and putter. It would also be a nice “full circle” moment considering it was Greyserman who held a commanding Sunday lead at the 2024 Wyndham Championship. He coughed it up and allowed the eventual winner to come back and steal it from him … Aaron Rai.

🙋 Don’t Forget About Me!

With the run of massive events, it’s easy for guys to get lost in the shuffle. Maybe they played in alternate fields or haven’t played at all. But now they are coming together again, so I wanted to point out three guys that I think are flying under the radar this week.

• Hayden Springer

  • Hasn’t missed a cut in 10 starts across the KFT and PGAT this year.

  • Has four top-25s including each of his last two.

  • T2 at Zurich with Alex Smalley (transitive property?).

• Zach Bauchou

  • Has three straight Top 28s.

  • Gained +3.8 strokes on approach at Myrtle Beach (T24).

• Karl Vilips

  • Has gained strokes on approach in four of five.

    • The non measured start in there was T13 at Zurich.

  • Three total top-25s in last five starts.

  • Made the cut here last year after a stellar opening round.

🐋 Flip Flopping

I’m usually confident in my decisions, but this one has eaten me alive. The last five months have been a constant battle between using “total strokes” or “total dollars” for our listener league. And trust me, I’ve heard the discourse. I’m not going to make everyone happen but I have had an epiphany.

We are going back to total strokes and that’s the end of it. Total dollars removes the ability to sweat it live (too much calculation) and it’s similar to OAD which we have plenty of. The tribe has spoken.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

Note — this week’s Listener League is still dollars because it was created before I had my Come To Jesus moment. Expect strokes for next week.

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