⚓ Drop Your Anchors!

Wow! What a week! We got a deserving champion in a wildly entertaining event where the golf course stole the show. I was thrilled to be able to soak it all in from the grounds and while I can’t share too much — here’s one of my favorite pics.

📢 Quick Announcements:

• Last week, I launched memberships to my YouTube Channel. The plan is to create “behind-the-scenes” content when I travel to events. My first video is already live.

Plenty more below…

Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Scottie Scheffler: $12,100 | 119.0 PTS
Collin Morikawa: $8,400 | 84.5 PTS
Tommy Fleetwood $7,500 | 80.5 PTS
Nicolai Hojgaard: $6,700 | 79.5 PTS
Bryson Dechambeau: $8,200 | 79.0 PTS
Chris Kirk: $6,900 | 71.5 PTS
TOTAL: $49,800 | 514.0 PTS

🙏 Can I Get An Amen?

It was only fitting that the Masters was decided in Amen Corner. With Max Homa, Collin Morikawa and Ludvig Aberg all making a double at either 11 or 12, Scheffler came through unscathed.

In fact, he played Amen Corner in even par on Sunday. Even more impressively, he played it at 2-under for the week. He gained about 3.5 strokes on the field over those twelve holes alone. That stretch requires commitment, strategy, and execution — all to the highest possible extent. Scheffler is proving to be elite in all those categories and then some.

👮🏼‍♂️ Major Scottie, Reporting For Duty.

Since the start of 2022, Scheffler has been playing a different level of golf than everyone else in the world. The best showcase for that has been the nine Major Championships that have taken place during that run.

Scheffler has won the race to two and he’s nearly doubling the total number of strokes gained as the 7th best player during that run.

Scheffler has piled up 101.43 strokes over the field in those nine events with really only Rory McIlroy in the same stratosphere. Cam Smith is firmly in third, but a full 26 strokes behind Scheffler.

⚠️ Cause For Concern?

There were plenty of notable missed cuts or bad weeks from the top players this week, but some were more concerning than others. Let’s put them on scale with 1 being no concern at all and 10 representing me sounding the alarm, code red!

Jordan Spieth: 8/10 — Spieth hasn’t been very good, and I don’t know why. He doesn’t have a baseline; he doesn’t have something he can rely on. Some weeks he is horrible off-the-tee. The next week, he can’t sniff a putt. The following week, he’s the worst approach player on the course. There are so many facets that he needs to clean up, I don’t know where we go from here. I’ll raise this to a 10/10 if he misses the cut at Harbour Town.

Justin Thomas: 5.5/10 — He’s still a great approach player but he’s lost the putter. That’s not super unusual. There might be a mental thing happening at Majors right now and he might have a relationship problem with both coach and caddy, but he doesn’t seem that far away.

Viktor Hovland: In the short-term, 9/10. In the long-term, 2/10. He seems more frustrated on the course than ever before and he WD from the RBC Heritage. That, to me, indicates that he doesn’t feel his game is good enough to compete. Which stinks. He’s been going through different coaches but he’s rarely been out of form for long. He’ll get it figured out, but that moment does seem further away than we’d like.

👁️ Ludvig Since Turning Pro

The world changed on June 1, 2023. That was the date that Ludvig Aberg turned professional and decided to cause significant pain to the rest of the golfing world.

Since then, he’s the fourth best player in the world — via raw strokes gained. Scheffler is the only golfer who has surpassed 2.00 strokes/rd during that period with Rory McIlroy and Joaquin Niemann right on the verge.

Aberg has driven it better than Rahm & Hovland.
Aberg has struck it better than Xander Schauffele.
Aberg has chipped it as good as McIlroy.
Aberg has putted it better than Oosthuizen.

Scary, scary stuff.

🏇 A Comfortable Place To Trot

Harbour Town is one of the more unique courses on the PGA TOUR schedule considering how short it is and how small the greens are. Throw in the tree-lines fairways and this is definitely a place where experience matters. Here are the best players at Harbour Town with a minimum of 12 rounds played.

Patrick Cantlay has done everything but win here, picking up (5) Top 7 finishes in his six trips. Cameron Davis hasn’t finished worse than T25 with a pair of Top 7s in his last two trips.

 👑 Dye To The Rescue

Harbour Town is one of the many Pete Dye masterpieces that the TOUR travels to every year. Obviously, the courses are different but many of the principals stay the same. There’s also a visual intimidation tactic that Dye tends to deploy.

Many of these names are no surprise — Scheffler, Cantlay, Schauffele and McIlroy would play well on any course from any designer. But the ones that stick out to me.

• Sungjae Im has been mired in a slump, is this a place he can snap out of it?

• Si Woo Kim has always been a bit of a “Dye Specialist” and now he’s playing some excellent golf.

• Adam Hadwin plays significantly over his baseline on Dye courses.

💴 Big Money Up Top

This week is a signature event with a small field and no-cut. If you, like me, have no been reaping the rewards of Scottie Scheffler this year — here’s another chance to at a big payday.

As you can see, I’m pretty thin at top but have some compelling options remaining. The tool grades Patrick Cantlay as my best choice (makes sense) with Morikawa and Fleetwood rounding out my big three.

I’d be fine with any of these guys, but I do lean towards Fleetwood. We will see how the projected ownership stacks up and see if there are any actionable changes. We will cover that Wednesday on the YouTube Live Chat.

Above is a screenshot from the PoolGenius tool that I consulted on and I recommend you check out.

📢 The team at PoolGenius also released a Masters/Majors Pool Tool which they’ve continued to offer a discount to the RickRunGood community. They are top blokes (learned that from F1), so I highly recommend.

⭐ Before You Go …

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