🐯 On The Prowl

📢 Fore, Please…

Hi y’all, I’m back in Ponte Vedra for another PGA TOUR Live BetCast but this time, I’m playing analyst. Which means I’ll be sitting on the couch in the main studio and provide insights throughout the entirety of the four days this week.

I’ve never done it like this before. Usually, I’m in a different studio and I get called in to provide data and context to what is happening on the course. This will be a fun new adventure and your support of tuning in would go a long way.

We are on ESPN+ starting at 11:15AM ET on Thursday.

Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Collin Morikawa ($7,800): 136.5 pts
Sepp Straka ($7,700): 140.0
Min Woo Lee ($7,200): 125.5
Tommy Fleetwood ($10,200): 122.0
Sam Burns ($8,000): 116.5
Akshay Bhatia ($7,300): 116.0
Total: $48,200: 756.5 pts

🪙 The Luck Is Turning

The discourse around Collin Morikawa has been a lot more dramatic than necessary. The sky was never falling, he simply lacked Win Luck.

From a strokes gained perspective, his 2023 and 2024 seasons were much better than his 2020 and 2021 seasons but there were hardly any trophies to show for it.

His Top 10% has been nearly identical every season of his career, the mid 30s.

Collin Morikawa’s 4.52% career win rate is now ranked higher than:

• Jordan Spieth (4.33%)

• Hideki Matsuyama (4.23%)

• Jason Day (3.78%)

🤖 He’s Evolving

You guys are totally screwed. And by “you guys”, I mean every professional golfer in the world because Scottie Scheffler is getting better.

I know it’s early, but let’s play this out for a second. Through three starts, Scheffler is gaining 2.99 strokes per round. There have only been four seasons of 3+ SG and those are all Tiger (1999, 2000, 2006, 2007).

The biggest room for improvement entering 2026 was Scottie’s putting, specifically short putts. He’s currently boasting a career high make percentage in five different putting buckets.

He’s never made more than 88% of his putts from 3-5’ but he’s at 91.2% right now. The only rank where he’s not currently setting a career high is 5-10’ but his 57.9% make rate would be the second best of his career.

🤝 The Gentlest of Handshakes

The opening hole at Riviera is so gentle that you might not even feel it. The 500-yard par-5 played as the 7th easiest hole on TOUR in 2024 out of 900 unique holes. The scoring average is a shocking 4.233 and yielded 172 birdies or better compared to just three bogeys or worse.

It was the easiest opening hole in golf that year and it creates such a juxtaposition to the “opening hole” on the other side of the course — no. 10.

From a statistical standpoint, no. 10 isn’t hard. It played to a 3.8 scoring average in 2024 but it’s going to drive these guys absolutely nuts.

Look at this chart of tee shots above — usually you see the same scores come from the same locations but throw all that out the window.

The fairway bunker? Three birdies, two pars, three bogeys.
The front bunker? Mostly pars, but a few birdies mixed in.
Behind the green? Who the hell knows!

It’s so much about the pin location and the lie that each golfer receives, they will often “lay up” to the front portion of the green on the second shot because trying to attack the pin is almost always a mistake.

✏️ The Written Word

My article for PGATOUR.com this week has some interesting nuggets like the baffling floor/ceiling combination for Rickie Fowler and how Tony Finau could possibly follow up the best putting week of his career.

Read: https://bit.ly/3ONOCt1

🎣Reel Me Back In

There are guys that I simply cannot quit, and Ludvig Aberg is probably on top of that list. What’s not to love? He has a beautiful swing, has a solid resume in the first few years of his young career, and he’s always going to model well.

But, I was ready to call it quits. He was miserable at Torrey Pines and basically dead last after the opening round in Pebble. But then — he brings me back to life!

There’s actually a few interesting names here. Sepp Straka and Harris English finished strong last week and both seem to set-up well for Riviera.

🤞The Long And Short Of It

I’ve been enamored with Jake Knapp for a few reasons — his great performances, his silky swing, his mustache, etc. But the one thing that really gets me is how good of a driver AND putter he is. Those are two things that don’t usually go together, so I had to look it up.

Knapp is gaining 0.87 strokes per round between his off-the-tee and putting game. That’s the fourth best total since the start of 2025. Since he’s great at both, instead of being carried by one, he’s really in a class of only Scheffler, McIlroy, and Cameron Young. Honorable mention to Tommy Fleetwood but Knapp is better than Tommy in both areas.

I tend to think that this gives Knapp a very high floor AND a very high ceiling. He’ll be someone to keep a really close eye on in 2026.

✒️ Your Signature Please

There have been 17 signature events since they were introduced a few years back and we are starting to get some nice data about who performs well in them.

Obviously they are at different courses but they have similar structures (small, often no cut) with basically the same players in all of them. It might be the best way to compare top golfers against one another.

The biggest outlier has to be Patrick Cantlay who has been the fourth best player in these events. He doesn’t have a win, and honestly, I cannot even remember him contending at any of them.

Good signs for Justin Thomas who will be making his return over the next few weeks.

🚣The Riv Awaits

Our contest for Riviera is up and running.
Pick six golfers, best five scores count.
Join now: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

• Use my fantasy and betting tools here!

• Let me know which players and stats you want to hear more about. Reply to this email with suggestions.

• Play big contests & win big money. See my contests now.