🐢 And We're Off Like A Herd of Turtles

📢 Fore, Please:

Welcome back, sickos! The PGA TOUR gives us a full-field event with a cut (woohoo!) in Napa this week. Some of the world’s best are teeing it up at one of the greatest courses in the world (Royal County Down). And the LIV Tour is putting on their final individual event of the season. No time to waste

Let’s get after it,
Rick

💰 Contests & Content

• Our Listener League is back! It’s fully guaranteed at $4,500 ($20/entry) and it looks like it’s on the verge for a big overlay.

• Nothing changes for me during the fall, so there will still be a Live Chat on Wednesday at 3PM ET — see you there!

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup (TOUR Championship)

Scottie Scheffler: $12,200 | 141.5 PTS
Sahith Theegala: $7,000 | 136.0 PTS
Collin Morikawa: $9,100 | 129.5 PTS
Taylor Pendrith: $6,500 | 107.0 PTS
Sungjae Im: $7,500 | 106.0 PTS
Russell Henley: $7,400 | 106.0 PTS
TOTAL: $49,700 | 726.0 PTS

🥷 Scottie Beats You In Every Way

I’ve been doing a lot of season-end reviews and, as you can imagine, many of the statistical outliers come from either Scottie Scheffler or Xander Schauffele.

In terms of Strokes Gained since January 1st, they are the only two golfers to gain 2+ per round and the only ones to gain 1.4+ per round. Scottie finished his season at +2.61 and Xander at +2.17. Collin Morikawa was a distant third at +1.38.

That’s astonishing in itself. Then I noticed that Scottie gained +1.36/round on approach alone this year. Meaning that if he was a zero off-the-tee, around-the-green and with the putter, he would have still been the third best player in the world.

But in reality, he was second off-the-tee, fifth around-the-green and just squeaked into the positive with the putter.

He’s a crusher.

🤕 The Band Aid Has Been Ripped

Scottie broke through for his first PGA TOUR win in February of 2022. Starting that week, Scheffler has now won 15 (!!) of his 65 starts for a staggering 23% win rate.

Scheffler is more likely to win (23%) than Chez Reavie is to make a 10-foot putt (21%). Sorry Chez!

🥸 Two Different Players

Max Homa is teeing it up in Napa this week looking for something…anything…to change in his game. There’s been a sharp and significant dropoff in his play that happened right after the Masters. These two profiles don’t even look like they could be the same golfer.

Just to be clear, 1.43 strokes per round is a MASSIVE amount. In terms of scoring average, it’s the difference between TOUR Average and dead last. In terms of Strokes Gained, it’s the difference between being Rory McIlroy or being Taylor Moore.

Homa has a problem but does he have a solution? Well, the good news is that he has dominated at Silverado in his career. He’s gaining 1.02 strokes per round in 26 rounds at this course — which is the best of anyone in this field with at least 21 rounds.

🍀 Luck of the Irish

Rory McIlroy headlines the field for the Irish Open this week which returns to Royal County Down for the first time since 2015. That’s a mere 33 miles from where McIlroy grew up in Holywood, UK (home game narrative?).

McIlroy has discussed his need to cut back on golf in 2025 and despite always showing up at the Irish Open, his results are a little lackluster.

He won the event in 2016 but has missed the cut in four of his nine appearances. He only has (2) Top 15 finishes, the win in ‘16 and a 10th place finish all the way back in 2012.

🌈 Pots Of Gold In Sight

Here are a few names to keep an eye on this week:

Thriston Lawrence (+3000) - you might remember his 4th place finish at The Open but he hasn’t really slowed down much since. He just finished runner-up at the British Masters and then earned a T27 at the European Masters which were the last two weeks. He’s only teed it up twice at the Irish Open, earning (2) 3rd place finishes.

Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen (+11000) - RNP just earned his promotion to the DP World Tour thanks to his third win on the Challenge Tour. His latest victory ended a stretch of (4) straight Top 27 finishes. He’s currently ranked #135 in the world and will be a much more familiar name soon.

Frederik Kjettrup (+11000) - similar story for Kjettrup who got his battlefield promotion to the Korn Ferry Tour after three wins on PGA TOUR Americas. The fun part about Kjettrup is the speed in which he’s getting promoted. He just joined the PGA TOUR Americas this summer and won 3x in 8 starts. He comes out of the Florida State golf program and finished inside the Top 10 of the PGA TOUR U rankings last year. The sky is the limit.

🤟 The Last By Their Lonesome

LIV Golf will wrap up its season with its final individual event this week before the team event next week in Dallas.

Jon Rahm (+500) is the favorite and he’s been trending in the right direction. His T7 at The Open led to his first LIV win of the year before he followed that up with a T5 at the Olympics and a runner-up at the Greenbrier. He’s certainly hitting his stride right now.

🫂 Rolling Squad Deep

Rarely do I look at the team odds, but Torque (+650) did stick out to me this week. Those are the 5th shortest odds to win in Chicago.

They have a Mito problem — Pereira has been miserable in 2024 failing to crack the Top 25 in any of his last six LIV starts. The advanced metrics look just as bad, if not worse.

However, the other three members (Niemann, Ortiz, Munoz) all rank inside the Top 11 of SGTOT over the last 20 rounds. They’ve yet to break through for a team win this year but if Mito shows any signs of life, that could change this week.