🧪 Plane To Blaine

📢 Fore, Please…

We’ve been lucky enough to travel a lot this year but our golden rule has always been that work cannot be compromised if we are going to be away from home. That means the preview shows are still getting done, the live chats will still be (mostly) on time and this newsletter will still go out.

As long as I have my laptop, it’s business as usual and that opens up the world to be our oyster. With that being said, sometimes finding reliable internet can be questionable. I use my phone as a hotspot but sometimes that to step out into public. Here is a look at me, writing this newsletter from an Italian bookstore/library/workspace thing.

Enjoy!
Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$6,300: Ryan Fox (110.5)
$9,000: Cam Young (96.5)
$7,800: Sam Burns (92.0)
$10,500: Tommy Fleetwood (88.0)
$6,200: Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (85.5)
$6,100: Lucas Herbert (81.0)
$45,900: 553.5 Pts

🦊 Sly Like A Fox

On a Sunday where many players were melting down and Cameron Young’s clubhouse lead was getting better by the moment, Ryan Fox showed up and stole the Claret Jug. Obviously, I mean that as a compliment. He was the only player on the back nine, in contention hitting shots — stone cold shots.

That includes three perfect shots to birdie 18, something that had been exceedingly rare all week. That was a finish of pure execution at the highest level. Hats off to Ryan Fox.

Now a three-time PGA TOUR winner but who has seven wins globally. He’s got wins at Wentworth, St. Andrews, and now Royal Birkdale. Foxy is starting to build an incredible resume.

🥹 The End of a Major Season

With another major championship season in the rearview, let’s look back at the four majors together. There were only six players who gained 30+ strokes to the field cumulatively in the majors. Of those six — only one (Rory McIlroy) was a winner. There were only two golfers to eclipse 40+ SG — Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns. Both came up empty handed.

Winning is hard and winning majors is even harder. You can be clearly the best player(s) over four events and walk away wondering what happened. It’s a gift and a curse to be graded only on your output in these four specific events a year.

Scottie Scheffler’s Major Seasons Since 2022:

2026: +40.85
2025: +56.16
2024: +43.04
2023: +44.80
2022: +38.64

You’re reading that right. Scheffler’ 2026 was his worst major championship season in the last four years. It was also the best of any player in the world.

🔊 Speaking of Scottie

The number one player in the world is going to make his 3M Open debut this week and he will certainly be licking his chops when he arrives in Blaine, Minnesota.

With only one win in 2026, this will be Scheffler’s best opportunity to double that number for the rest of the season.

The gap between him and everyone else is shockingly large. Over the last 50 rounds, Scheffler is a +2.14/rd player. The second best player in the field, Casey Jarvis, is a +1.44 and the third best player, Ben Kohles, is a +1.04.

That’s it. There are only three players in this field who are gaining at least one stroke per round and Scheffler is twice as good as that. It should also be noted that this is raw SG so with Scheffler playing almost exclusively in majors/signature events, the real gap is actually much larger than this.

⛳ The Surging Sleepers

There are so many guys playing great golf right now but it’s been disguised behind a weaker schedule or opposite field events. Here are three that I want to highlight that could firmly be in the “without Scheffler” discussion for this week.

Ben Kohles - depending on how you slice it, either the second or third best player in this field over the last 50 rounds. Won a KFT event during that stretch and “should have” won the John Deere Classic. Historically bad putter who has gained +11.887 strokes putting in his last twelve rounds.

Zac Blair - Gaining +0.51 strokes per round this season, making it the best PGA TOUR season of his career. enters off back-to-back top-10 finishes and should be rewarded as the second most accurate driver on TOUR.

Aaron Wise - has only played 22 events over the last three years with nine coming in 2026. After six straight missed cuts, he’s finished T39 - T3 - T15 in his three most recent starts. That includes +11 strokes ball-striking over his last eight rounds.

👈 Left Over Right

TPC Twin Cities uses water to strike fear into the hearts of the players. There are 15 holes with water in play, many of which have it both off-the-tee and on approach. The first priority at TPC Twin Cities is keeping your ball dry. If you can do that, it’s quite an easy course but that’s a big “if”.

From a statistical standpoint, missing left off-the-tee is wayyyy better than missing right. The natural miss for many righties (right) is worth an average of a +0.45 stroke penalty, making it one of the most penal misses on TOUR.

Missing left still isn’t great, but it’s cost is only +0.35 strokes and below average by TOUR standards.

These are the players in the field this week, sorted by right round tendency (whether they have enough rounds to qualify or not). Lucas Glover, Ben Kohles, Zac Blair all stand out to me since I liked them already.

Doug Ghim has been sneakily trending and could benefit from a few extra dry balls this week.

🎶 This Feels Like A Litmus Test

Over the years, Splash has challenged our listener league with higher and higher guarantees. This week feels like another litmus test. Instead of dropping the guarantee down to $25,000 or $20,000 for this week, it remains at $30,000 which is the same as it was for the Scottish Open — hell yeah!

Now, we just have to fill it so we can continue to see these go up. We’ve been in a really good spot since I committed to the strokes format (you guys were right, I was wrong).

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