🚀 Time To Blastoff!

📢 Fore, Please:

• The Listener League on Splash is already 54% full, with a $5,400 guaranteed prize pool. Act fast if you’d like to secure your spot.

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Scottie Scheffler: $12,500 | 149.5 PTS
Tom Kim: $8,100 | 128.0 PTS
Tom Hoge: $7,000 | 126.5 PTS
Sungjae Im: $7,900 | 122.5 PTS
Akshay Bhatia: $7,200 | 117.5 PTS
Matthieu Pavon: $6,800 | 100.5 PTS
TOTAL: $49,500 | 744.5 PTS

✒️ Signature Scottie

Since the start of 2023, there have been 13 “true” signature events. I’m leaving out Major Championships, Playoff Events (since they require season-long criteria) and the Tournament of Champions (since they require a victory).

During that time, Scottie Scheffler has been nearly twice as good as any other player in those events. He’s won nearly half of them (6/13), and he has won half (6/12) of the Signature Events he’s played.

He has as many wins as the golfer with the Most Top 10s has Top 10s — Jason Day and Patrick Cantlay have six each.

⌚ Worth The Wait

Tom Kim ruffled a few feathers last week with the annoyingly slow pace in which he took to pull the trigger on shots. It seemed to be a much more deliberate version of Kim than we’ve seen in his young career — but it paid off in a big way.

Kim not only forced Scheffler into a playoff but mirrored his strokes gained breakdown in an almost identical fashion.

Both players gained between 3.5 and 4.0 strokes off-the-tee, both were within a stroke of each other on approach, both were within 0.25 strokes around-the-green, and both were within 0.50 strokes putting of one another.

This is a great sign for Kim who has already been trending in the right direction, gaining 15+ strokes on approach in his last four starts and hasn’t missed a cut since the Texas Open. Since the Masters, Kim has played the most golf in the world, 40 rounds, and has gained 38.4 strokes to the field in the process.

🎤 Detroit Rock City

There likely won’t be any surprises coming from Detroit GC this week. It’ll be soft and receptive without much penalty for missing the fairway. It’ll turn into a wedge-fest and putting contest. There — did I hit all the buzzwords?

But seriously, since this event was added to the schedule in 2019, Detroit GC has offered little resistance. Only once has the winning score been worse than 23-under, which was Cameron Davis’ 2021 victory at 18-under. Pars simply won’t cut it this week.

So, I’ve gone ahead and created a “Simply Scoring” model which put 25% of weights on each:

1. Birdies or Better Gained

2. Opportunities Plus Gained

3. Bonus Putting

4. SG: Easy Courses

There’s some firepower on that list (Bhatia and Min Woo) along with a few poppers (Griffin and Ryder). It’s rounded out by one of my favorites — Davis Thompson.

🏇 The Horse Is Stuck In The Gate?

I always love looking at the “Course Horses” page on my website to see where the best player/course combinations are and how they stack up for a given week. The thing that jumped out to me at Detroit Golf Club is that there really isn’t any elite course history.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of good history but is it great? It’s certainly not elite. When using a 12 round minimum, the best player at Detroit Golf Club for this week is Chris Kirk who is picking up 1.73 strokes per round over 16 rounds.

There are 28 player/course combinations better than Kirk/Detroit Golf Club in from players in this field alone! Kirk himself, has two better combos — PGA National and Bay Hill since the start of the 2019 season.

🌕 Props To The Moon!

I love going through the prop board, making some outrageous six-leg entry (like this one below that pays 62x) but then breaking them up into a lot of smaller two & three leg entries. It’s one of my favorite things to do each week. A few words below on each of these:

Tail (or Fade): https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-gj4O9zX5Ha

Davis Thompson: that target score is 4-under and he’s been the fourth best player in this field over the last 36 rounds — gaining 1.06 strokes/round.

Alex Noren: doesn’t make bogies. He has the third lowest bogey rate on TOUR behind Scheffler and Schauffele. He makes ~two per round and this will be one of the easier set-ups he gets.

Taylor Moore: Love this kid but he’s in a sticky pickle right now. Has lost 22+ strokes to the field in his last four starts combined.

Mark Hubbard: consistently involved, especially in fields of this caliber. We are getting an extra multiplier on this one.

Akshay Bhatia: could win this tournament. Has been piling up great finishes and birdie-fests are built for him.

Ben Griffin: pops up in nearly every model I put together. Has been feast of famine this year — let’s hope he feasts.

Tail (or Fade): https://play.underdogfantasy.com/es-gj4O9zX5Ha

3️⃣ Trio At The Top

After a run of massive events, we take a step back in prize money with “only” $9,200,000 up for grabs this week. The three favorites are leading the way in current One & Done selections:

As much as I’d love to bop & weave this week, I don’t think we need to get too crazy. The three at the top — Bhatia, Young and Kim — are all great options. Even if you’re chasing, you’ll have a golfer at sub 20% ownership.

I find Stephan Jaeger to be interesting after a T21 at the U.S. Open and T31 at the Travelers Championship. If you want to get really freaky, Davis Thompson would be my dart throw.

Above is a screenshot from the PoolGenius tool that I consulted on and I recommend you check out. The tool likes Min Woo Lee more than Jaeger thanks to the increased odds in the outright market and the similar selection rate.

⭐ Before You Go …

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