🍷 It's Wine-o-Clock

📢 Fore, Please…

This is the time of year where I get to make progress on all my projects and ideas that I’ve been cooking up. I have a roadmap on my end that includes a combination of data cleanings, updated tools/modeling, community enhancements and more.

But now I want to hear from you. If you have an idea for a tool or a concept of a show or a stat that you want to invent — now’s the time. Hit reply and tell me!

No limits, it doesn’t have to be business related and it doesn’t have to be golf related. I’m accepting all brainstorms! I’m not going to pursue them all and I’m probably going to delete 99% of them. But if there’s something cool out there that I can help with, let’s get it going.

Enjoy,
Rick

👋 Welcome To Napa

Thanks to the US Ryder Cup team getting on the same page, there are 10/12 members teeing it up this week in Napa. That will push the Strength of Field to historic highs. It’ll also mean that Scottie Scheffler makes his tournament debut.

If you don’t count the Olympics, this will only be the third new tournament for Scheffler since the start of 2023. He added the RBC Heritage in 2023 and Pebble Beach Pro-Am in 2024 when both earned Signature Event status.

Scheffler downloads information better than anyone in the world so it’s not surprising to see that the more frequently he plays an event, the better he gets.

Of Scheffler’s 21 wins, only one has come in his tournament debut — but it was the Olympics. Should we count that? If not, Scheffler has never won an event in his first try.

Now, there are a ton of caveats to that statement. He hasn’t played a lot of events for the first time since becoming this good — as evidenced above. He also had that long “drought” without a win early in his career which skews the numbies. Here’s the official win breakdown.

1st Try: 1
2nd: 4
3rd: 3
4th: 6
5th: 4
6th: 3
7th: 0

🎰 Shorty — Not Just A Name For A Hoagie

As far as I can tell, we’ve reached a new milestone in the Scottie Scheffler versus the World competition.

Scheffler is +210 to win the Procore Championship. That’s the shortest odds that he has even been listed at and it’s significantly shorter than he has even been in a full-field event.

+210: Scheffler this week
+340: Scheffler 2025 Charles Schwab Challenge
+360: Scheffler 2024 Houston Open
+360: Scheffler 2024 Charles Schwab Challenge
+380: Rahm 2023 Mexico Open
+380: Scheffler 2025 US Open
+380: Scheffler 2024 US Open
+380: Scheffler 2025 Byron Nelson
+380: Scheffler 2025 Memorial

❤️‍🩹 Stitched Up Sahith

Sahith Theegala’s 2025 season was a total loss. It was the worst season of his career by a considerable margin. The “good news” is that the root of his bad play was seemingly a pair of injuries that lingered all year.

Sahith detailed both neck and back injuries that derailed his season before eventually shutting him down at the end of the campaign. It’s hard to tell where Sahith stands in his process back to form but he boasted “working out and feeling great”. Not sure if that translates to his golf swing but Napa has been a happy hunting grounds for him over the years.

Theegala is gaining 2.17 strokes/rd at Silverado in his 20 career rounds. He and Justin Thomas are head and shoulders above the rest of the field in this category.

🤔 All Eyes On Max

Speaking of success at Silverado, Max Homa’s 2025.5 campaign kicks off in Napa. In five trips to Silverado, Homa has won twice and finished T7 — picking up 1.87 strokes/rd.

Max’s miserable 2025 season did begin to show signs of life in the final month. His last four starts returned a total of +11.828 strokes compared to the field and he picked up strokes on approach in each of his final four measured starts. It’s a low bar to clear, but Homa has definitely played his best golf of the year most recently.

🏡 The Davis Fantasy Family

If you’re reading this email, you’re quite familiar with 2x TOUR winner Cameron Davis. But you might not realize the amount of talent dripping from the rest of the Davis family.

Cam’s three brothers (Jason, Ben, and Austin) have launched a fantasy golf game and I’m happy to help spread the word. The boys are behind “Build-a-Golfer” which is a game that taps into the Strokes Gained model and lets you choose a different player for each facet of the game — Driving, Approach, Wedges, Putting.

It’s basically a Frankenstein Golfer that could allow you to get Cameron Champ’s Driver, Scottie Scheffler’s Irons, Hideki’s Wedges, and Denny’s Putter. That’s an extreme example, because you’ll have to stay under the salary cap, but you get the point.

Then, your new Build-A-Golfer competes on the leaderboard and earns season-long points similar to how the PGA TOUR functions. It’s a fascinating way to experience a tournament.

I’ve been playing in some leagues the last few months and they’ve done a really good job of making a product for a sicko like me. The scorecards fill out as your golfers are looping the course and it’s fascinating to see how four golfers combine into one as opposed to making a lineup with six golfers. Plus, there are season-long considerations as well.

I’ve created a league for the Fall Series, which you can join here — it’s 100% free.

I’m encouraging you to play and share your feedback. This is obviously a new endeavor and I applaud the innovation.

💋 From Your Lips To The Golf God’s Ears

Sometimes when I’m clicking through the field and paging through my site, something stands out. That something at this point of the week is David Lipsky.

I don’t know what got into Lipsky at the John Deere but I’m certainly paying attention now.

+31.368: Lipsky’s SG (Last 5 Starts)
-16.615: Lipsky’s SG (5 Starts Before That)

A literal switch has flipped for him to have a 47 stroke difference over ten starts. It also helps that he finished second here last year.

🪙 Bounty of Riches

These two men have combined for nine wins — three of which were majors. They won national opens, signature events, THE PLAYERS, and have simply dominated golf in 2025. It would be hard to compile better resumes than these two, but guess what?

One of them is going to win the Ryder Cup.

🥊 Stick It To Splash

Our listener league is up and running again, but the homies at Splash must think we take weeks off? They downgraded us from the $25K guarantee that we had all last year to $10K. I’m certainly grateful for any guarantee but that’s not how we roll!

I would love to fill this quickly so I can loudly barge into Splash HQ and demand more money. Help me become a nuisance.

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

Got a question for me? Reply to the email and I’ll get back to you…