🚀 To The Moon

📢 Fore, Please…

There are only two events left before the playoffs begin. It feels abrupt considering we just wrapped up The Open but there’s no time to sit on our hands. Let’s get after it.

Enjoy!
Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

$9,200: Jackson Koivun (155.0)
$6,700: Chandler Phillips (132.5)
$9,700: Hideki Matsuyama (126.5)
$7,400: Brian Harman (121.0)
$7,100: Denny McCarthy (121.0)
$7,300: Emiliano Grillo (118.5)
$47,400: 774.5 Pts

🌍 Well I Guess, Hello World

The Jackson Koivun hype-train is hyping! He turned pro just a few weeks ago and there were already a ton of expectations on the shoulders of the young man.

He was the #1 ranked amateur in the world. When he did play in PGA TOUR events, as an amateur, he played well. He had three straight top-10s in 2025 and then finished T23 at this year’s U.S. Open. So when he turned pro, three starts ago, it’s safe to say that people were expecting a lot.

And now, ten rounds later — we are expecting … even more? He missed the cut at the John Deere then rattled off a T10 at the ISCO and held off a charging Scottie Scheffler to win the 3M Open. Woah momma.

There are lots of reasons to be excited about Koivun, but it’s his putting that does it for me. Let’s face it, all the young guys can mash it. Gordon Sargeant can mash it. Luke Clanton can mash it. Blades Brown can mash it.

The true benchmark in evolution tends to be in their short-games. Koivun is already steps ahead of his peers on the greens, gaining +0.89 per round in his limited sample. And it’s not really a fluke. He’s played 11 PGA TOUR events over the last two years and has gained strokes putting in all of them.

It’s nice to watch him bomb it or knock the paint off flagsticks, but it’s his putting that could allow him to become a star very quickly.

🏅 Percentage of Podiums

The horse is dead and beaten in regards to Scottie Scheffler’s “lack of wins” this year. However, I would like to cover it in a different way.

Mr. Scheffler has eight podium finishes (first, second or third) this year which is the most on TOUR. Of those eight podiums, only one is a win. Below is a graph of how that compares to all other players on TOUR who have at least three podium finishes.

The way to read this — Matt Fitzpatrick has six podiums, half of them are wins. Look at Chris Gotterup go! He’s only earned three total podiums and has won them all! Si Woo Kim has the most podiums without a win, at four.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, I just thought it was interesting and you might find it interesting too.

👴 The Restoration

There was $16,000,000 spent to renovate Detroit Golf Club since last year, but I’m not sure how much of a difference it’ll make for one of the easiest courses on the schedule.

The winning score will definitely be worse since they converted the 7th and 17th holes from par-5s to par-4s making the overall par a 70 — down from 72. Though, they could have done that part for free and kept the $16M.

There has been an increase in bunkering both in magnitude and in depth, which could provide a few spots of nuisance.

There will be more fescue and native area, however my gut says this is more aesthetic than impactful to scoring.

There’s just so little danger out there to contend with, I find it hard to believe they could turn this into Muirfield Village in one year with $16M. Expect a few less eagles from the generous par-5s but there should be little resistance to players this week.

Above are the best players in the field, their last 50 rounds on easy courses. Note: that Mazzoli result is one event — his win in Puntacana.

🤩 The Sticky Shuffle

The interesting thing about Detroit GC is that the performances have been quite sticky. The players who have success here, tend to do it year-over-year — and vice versa.

In terms of “stickiness correlation”, it ranks as the 5th strongest out of 43 eligible courses meaning that we should probably put a heavier emphasis on course history this week. You can decide how much you want to knock off based on the course changes, but I think history will still be rather correlated.

🥵 Filling It Up!

Our britches are getting quite big. Another week and another (very) early fill of our listener league. You can no longer wait around until Thursday morning to get into these contests. As I write this, on Tuesday, there are less than 500 spots to go. That’s abnormal but very good!

Cheers to y’all for taking good care of us.

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