Lord Byron Week

TPC Craig RanchPar 72 - 7,468 YardsStimp: 11.5

Fun Fact: Byron Nelson's record of 113 consecutive cuts made is second only to Tiger Woods' 142. The PGA Tour defines a "cut" as receiving a paycheck, even if an event has no cut per se. In Nelson's era, only the top 20 in a tournament received a check. In reality, Nelson's "113 consecutive cuts made" are representative of his unequaled 113 consecutive top 20 tournament finishes.

Everything Is Bigger In Texas

Even the putting surfaces. The greens at TPC Craig Ranch check it at 6,778 sq. feet on average. The TOUR average hovers right around 6,000 sq. feet and there only ten other courses on the TOUR schedule this year with larger greens. Here are the best players in the field on “large" greens since 2018 (min 30 rounds):

1. Dustin Johnson +1.99

2. Justin Thomas +1.84

3. Xander Schauffele +1.54

4. Henrik Stenson +1.20

5. Tommy Fleetwood +1.20

6. Scottie Scheffler +1.09

7. Hideki Matsuyama +1.07

8. Matthew NeSmith +1.05

9. Marc Leishman +1.02

10. Adam Scott +0.93

Stronger Than You Think

My friend of colleague Kyle Porter pointed out on Twitter that this week’s Byron Nelson is the 10th strongest field worldwide in 2022. The only thing left for me to do, was filter by those 10 events and find the best players:

Betting Outrights is Hard!

I started using a bet tracking app called Juice Reel which automatically syncs to your sportsbooks. It’s pretty nifty, you should check it out.

Anyway, as I was making the switch, I was just going through my bet tracking spreadsheet. I realized that I’ve made 183 outright bets this season across the PGA TOUR and European Tour. Here are the highlights:

• 5.70% winning percentage (11/183)

• 34.75% ROI

• Longest Drought: 3.5 months

• Shortest Drought: 1 week

• Longest Odds: +20000 (Swafford at The Amex)

• Shortest Odds: +570 (Kokrak/Na at the QBE Shootout, LOL)

The margins are so small. If Swafford doesn’t win the American Express, I’m a loser for the year. Don’t beat yourself up over outrights and don’t expect outrights to be your meal ticket.

Secret Lock Button

I’m in the process of making some large updates to RickRunGood.com including the Custom Model. One of the most popular questions I receive is “can you add a lock button?”. The answer is — yes, of course. But in the meantime, I want to show you a secret hack to accomplish the same goal.

The model uses the “value” column to optimize lineups and you can manually adjust that column. So if you want to “lock” a golfer, simply change their value to something outrageous like ‘999’. That will “trick” the optimizer into thinking they are such a good play that they need to be included in every lineup.

Home Cookin’

On a recent episode of my podcast, ‘300 Yards to Unknown’, I asked for questions from listeners. Tyler P. asked about the theory of “home cooking” and whether pros play better sleeping in their own beds. It’s a tough cookie to crack because you could draw the lines in so many different places. There was one thing that was clear — Jordan Spieth loves Texas.

1. Webb Simpson is +2.205 in North Carolina

2. Tiger Woods is +2.102 in Florida (should this be California?)

3. Jordan Spieth is +1.78 in Texas, +0.91 better than away.

Those are the three best active players, based on Strokes Gained, in their “Currently Plays From” state.

Good LuckRick