The House That Spieth Built

Colonial Country ClubPar 70 - 7,209 YardsFun Fact: Colonial Country Club has hosted this event since 1946, making it the longest running event (non-major) on the PGA TOUR held at the same location.

It’s Time To Get Right

Jordan Spieth — oh boy. From tee-to-green, Spieth has been awesome. In fact he’s the number one golfer in this field over the last 24 rounds in that category. The problem has been the putter (not a typo). This slump dates back 34 measured rounds to Torrey Pines and has Spieth losing 0.69 strokes per round during that stretch. It’s the worst 34 round putting stretch of his career.

However! If there was ever a place to get right, wouldn’t it be Colonial? Spieth has gained more strokes putting at Colonial than any other course on TOUR (min 10 rounds):

1. Colonial Country Club +0.87 (36 rounds)

2. TPC Southwind +0.83 (12 rounds)

3. East Lake +0.74 (24 rounds)

4. Trump National Doral +0.73 (12 rounds)

5. Plantation Course at Kapalua +0.72 (20 rounds)

Major Hangover

Every time. Every time we have a Major, someone will always invoke the “Major Hangover” impacting those who played last week. I’m guilty of this myself, but wanted to see if there were any statistical trends.

There’s countless ways to slice this, but I pulled all the golfers since 2017 who played the event immediately following a Major Championship. I compared those performances to each golfer’s baseline and found the best performing golfers in the events after a Major (min 8 starts):

Last Year’s Optimal

Exactly what it sounds like. Here’s the best possible lineup you could have made last year. It had (4) golfers in the $7,000 range.

The Horrible Horseshoe

Holes number 3-4-5 make up the “Horrible Horseshoe”, one of the most difficult stretches in golf. Some guys just play it better than others (since 2018, min 2 starts):

1. Gary Woodland +0.398

2. Troy Merritt +0.309

3. Jason Kokrak +0.254

4. J.T. Poston +0.231

5. Chris Kirk +0.226

Treacherous Par-3s

I teased this on my DFS Preview — Colonial has some pretty long par-3s with all (4) checking in over 190 yards. While I’m not a huge fan of the “bucket” system for approach shots or lengths of holes, using the information for Par-3s is intriguing. All golfers have a perfect lie and hit from the same spot, making the data much less noisy. Here are the best golfers on Par-3s over 190 yards:

1. Harold Varner III +0.119

2. Jason Kokrak +0.0997

3. Zach Johnson +0.0911

4. Mark Hubbard +0.0895

5. Daniel Berger +0.0792

Probably worth noting that those (5) golfers account for (4) wins at the Charles Schwab Challenge. If you’re willing to take the HVIII leap with me this week, you’ll want to shop the number. He’s as short as +4000 and as long as +6500.

Line Shopping is just one of the great things about the Juice Reel app. You should download it and take advantage of all the advanced analytics.

Not So Hunky Tony

I hate to say it but … Finau might be having the worst year of his career. NOW! Don’t freak out, he’s still very good! He’s just not… as good?

Gaining “only” 0.56 strokes per round this season is the worst rate since his 2016 campaign. Also, it appears he’s lost some pop with the big stick. He’s averaging 302.6 yards off-the-tee, ranking him 74th on TOUR. That’s 3 yards shorter than any other season of his career. He also ranked inside the Top 15 in six straight years from 2015 to 2020. Last year he was 31st and now 74th this year. See the trend?

I’m not saying it’s over for Finau but these are some concerning trends to keep an eye on for months and years, not necessarily days or weeks. Also, we should re-adjust out expectations if this is the “New Tony”.

My Favorite Props

I’m having a blast battling PrizePicks and trying to find the best props for each round. The (2) that stick out to me for R1:

Jordan Spieth under 67.5 I’m a believer. He’s doing almost everything right and the thing he’s doing wrong he always does the best here (see the first topic).

He’s played 36 rounds at Colonial and gone under 67.5 in 19 of them. He’s even better in R1, going under 67.5 in 7/9 and is currently on a three year streak of going under.

Tommy Fleetwood over 12.0 GIR The field average is 11.02 greens in regulation per round. He’s vibin’ right now gaining 6.78 strokes on approach in his last two starts and has gained in six of his last seven.

If you would like to join me on this endeavor, putting these two together and getting them correct will return you 3x your wager.Secure it: https://bit.ly/3oxONZw

Good LuckRick