🧑‍🚀 Mission: Possible

📢 Fore, Please…

Hi y’all — I am reaching out with a few travel updates and requests.

I am planning on making a very quick trip to Augusta for the Masters. I’ll be there Wednesday to Friday, if you’re around please let me know so we can coordinate a meet-up (no phones, remember!). Also, if you get your hands on an extra gnome, I will pay at least 4x retail and barter for anything you want.

Secondly — I am possibly making an Open Championship run this year. Nothing definitive at all BUT I love to get ahead of myself. If there are some courses that you recommend in the Southport area please let me know.

Okay, onto the numbies.
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Matt Fitzpatrick ($9,800): 113.5 pts
Sungjae Im ($7,100): 99.5
David Lipsky ($6,500): 94.5
Jordan Smith ($7,300): 93.0
Marco Penge ($7,300): 91.0
Xander Schauffele ($10,900): 89.0
Total: $48,900: 580.5 pts

🪃 The Comeback Kid

Matt Fitzpatrick finished runner-up as THE PLAYERS Championship after bogeying the 72nd hole at TPC Sawgrass. The kind of gut punch that can linger for weeks.

It lingered for exactly zero days.

Fitz showed up at Innisbrook the following week and drained a 13-foot birdie putt on the final hole to win the Valspar Championship.

The key? Ball-striking. Fitzpatrick finished 5th in strokes gained tee-to-green after a Thursday range session with coach Mark Blackburn that apparently flipped a switch. When his irons are on, he's one of the most precise players in the world — and last week they were very much on.

I’m not exactly sure what Fitzpatrick was feeling because his ball-striking has been elite all year. He’s the fifth best ball-striker in the world right now and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to let up anytime soon.

👶 Daddy Duties

Scottie Scheffler withdrew from the Houston Open on Tuesday morning to prepare for the birth of their second child.

This caused a chasm in the betting board that was already wide open. Scheffler was the massive +300 favorite and priced at $14,800 on DraftKings — nearly $5,000 more than the next most expensive player.

Now, Min Woo Lee is the favorite at +1500 and there are 16 golfers at +3800 or shorter. In the last 300+ events that I’ve tracked, I could only find 11 others that had 16+ golfers of +4000 or shorter AND zero golfers shorter than +1000. In other words — who the hell knows what’s going to happen!

2025: Min Woo Lee (+4100)
2024: Stephan Jaeger (+4500)
2023: Tony Finau (+1700)
2022: Jason Kokrak (+5000)
2021: Carlos Ortiz (+15000)
2020: Lanto Griffin (+7000)

This has been a happy hunting ground for mid to long shot winners and it certainly feels like that’s possible yet again.

🏗️ The Architect Returns

When the Houston Astros Foundation poured $34 million into the Memorial Park redesign, they brought in Tom Doak to do the heavy lifting and Brooks Koepka to consult on the project. Brooks might know this place better than most, but the timing is also perfect.

After a rough start to his PGA TOUR return from LIV, Koepka has strung together three consecutive top-20 finishes. He's gaining +1.35 strokes tee-to-green per round — the best mark in this week's field. Memorial Park plays long with little trouble off-the-tee. Considering Koepka’s issue at Innisbrook was a wayward driver, this could be exactly what the doctor ordered.

It’s been a missed bag for Koepka who has two starts at Memorial Park. He finished T5 here in 2020 and missed the cut in 2021.

🎫 Last Call For Augusta

This is one of only two remaining events before the Masters. The Top 50 in the OWGR will qualify and a win in either of these two events will be an automatic entry. The most notable names currently on the outside looking in:

Rickie Fowler — Sitting just outside the top 50, desperately needs a result. It’s been an excellent year for Rickie, who hasn’t missed a cut in 2026, but he still needs more. He’s gained strokes off-the-tee in 12 straight measured events and the putter has gotten hot. He’s gained over 17 strokes putting in his last 20 rounds. This will only be his second trip to Memorial Park, where he finished T52 in 2025.

Tony Finau — At this point, he almost certainly needs a win to qualify for the Masters. If he fails to get to Augusta, it’ll be the first time he’s missed the event since 2018. If there’s any magic left in Finau, this could be the venue. He has a win and T2 across his last three trips to Memorial Park.

Sahith Theegala — He needs a few big weeks and if his TGL performance this week is any indication, he won’t be playing from the fairway much! I kid, I kid. He’s a sprayer, that’ll be fine at Memorial Park but he’ll need to close a few other holes in his game to find success. He’s never missed the cut in four starts here, but he’s also never earned a top-20.

🏆The Champ Is Here

Min Woo Lee won this tournament last year at a blistering 20-under par with rounds of 66-64-63-67. He edged Scottie Scheffler and Gary Woodland by a single stroke. It was his first PGA TOUR title, and it cemented the skill-set of golfers who find success here.

Speed.

Nearly every metric and model points to ball speed, club speed, and driving distance being more important as Memorial Park than just about anywhere else on the schedule. It stretches over 7,400 yards as a par-70 and there is no trouble in sight off-the-tee. Smack it as hard as you can, go find it, and do it again.

Here are the top-10 golfers in the field in Ball Speed this year and I think if you gave me these ten versus the field, I would probably take them. Chris Gotterup is 12th and if you lumped him in, I would definitely take the top-12.

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