💰 Wannamaker Some Money?

📢 Fore, Please…

I want to give a shoutout to something cool that is happening this week. The PGA of America has partnered with Splash Sports to host their official PGA Championship Fantasy Game. This is cool for a variety of reasons because it means that Splash is getting the nod from a major golf organization and further cementing their space in the golf ecosystem.

It’s also cool because they’ve put together a stellar prize package that includes:

• Trip for two to 2027 PGA Championship, travel expenses paid.

• Tickets to PGA Championship for Saturday and Sunday

• Round of golf on Fields Ranch East the Monday after the championship.

There are actually more prizes but there’s really no need to read further. This is free to play and open to everyone in the United States.

Join: https://app.splashsports.com/contest/894e

Rick

🏆 Last Weeks Optimal Lineup

$6,900: Kristoffer Reitan (124.0)
$7,800: Nicolai Hojgaard (107.5)
$9,000: Rickie Fowler (105.0)
$6,300: Sungjae Im (101.0)
$6,800: Alex Fitzpatrick (98.0)
$9,800: Tommy Fleetwood (95.0)
$46,600: 630.5 Pts

📈 New Tool In Town

In case you missed it, I launched a new Course Key Stats model on RickRunGood.com which is now on a shot-by-shot level for the 25,000,000+ shots that have been hit on the PGA TOUR since 2004.

The model still breaks down each facet of the game but expands into statistical comparable courses and a much more transparent course fit calculation.

This is technically data for Aronimink, but it’s seven years old. This course hosted the 2018 BMW Championship that was won by Keegan Bradley.

The three closest courses to Aronimink on a statistical perspective are East Lake, Caves Valley and Quail Hollow. There’s a lot of small samples coming into play here but East Lake and Quail Hollow certainly make sense. They are both major championship caliber venues.

I wasn’t at all surprised to see Rory on top of the list, but I was surprised to see Justin Thomas on the podium. He’s played better at East Lake than I remembered.

👊 Major Men

Since the start of the 2022 season, there have been 17 Major Championships contested. Scottie Scheffler has won 23% of them.

That’s amazing but it’s even more amazing that he has a top-10 in 76.5% of the majors during that span. That includes a top-10 in eight of his last nine.

It’s hard to fathom a player with a high floor AND a high ceiling. For comparison’s sake, there are only four golfers who have a 50%+ top-10 rate in that period — Scheffler, McIlroy, Schauffele, DeChambeau.

Tommy Fleetwood, Viktor Hovland, Cameron Young, and Collin Morikawa all have the highest top-5 rate (23.5%) without a victory during that stretch.

There are nine golfers who have gained at least +1.5 strokes per round (min 5 starts) which includes:

Scheffler, McIlroy, Schauffele, Morikawa, Rahm, Fleetwood, Hovland, Aberg, DeChambeau.

✋ Brooksie Szn

There is only one man in this field who has lifted the Wanamaker Trophy three times — and his name is Brooks Koepka. There is no one in the Tiger Era who has gained better than +2.22 strokes per round, which is Koepka’s rate at PGA Championships.

And in true Brooks fashion, he has given us just enough solid play to get the juices flowing once again.

He fired a 64 on Saturday at the Myrtle Beach Classic and would eventually finish T11. But I’m more impressed with how he finished T11.

He gained +3.9 strokes off-the-tee (2nd) and another +5.2 (5th) on approach. The putter is still a problem as it has been all season but his ball-striking is rounding into form as he heads to his favorite championship.

 🪖 Speaking of Myrtle

Here are the golfers who played in Myrtle Beach last week that will be teeing it up at the PGA Championship.

A few things jump out to me:

• Aaron Rai finding his ball-striking right before he goes to a course that, on paper, should magnify his ball-striking.

• Christiaan Bezuidenhout has flashed this elite approach play before and he’s one of the best putters in the world — deadly combo.

• Casey Jarvis has won twice on the DPWT this year, flushed it at Myrtle, and will now make the third major start of his career.

 🔨 Breakout Candidates

If you’ve ever seen my “Trends” tool, you’ll know that my favorite section is the Breakout Candidates section. It looks at the golfer’s recent ball-striking and compares it to their historic putting to find golfers that are ready to “breakout”.

The theory is that putting is more volatile and will return to the mean faster. The calculations before assume the golfer is going to get back to their own putting baseline not the TOUR average or anything like that.

I’ve zoomed into the upper right portion of the chart which is the “optimal” section, where you would want your golfer to be.

Alert, alert — JJ Spaun! As if I couldn’t be more excited about JJ’s chances this week, he’s in the ideal position on the quadrant. He’s a historically great putter who has struggled with the flatstick in 2026 but he gained two strokes last week.

Nick Taylor, Andrew Putnam, and Andrew Novak are all in the money spot. Cameron Young still having some juice to squeeze is terrifying for the rest of the field.

 🥷 Big Boys In Big Boys

Some men are just made for the moment.

Xander Schauffele and Rory McIlroy are both ~one stroke better per round in Majors than non-Majors.

Chris Gotterup has a very small sample size, but he’s at the same improvement (+0.86 per round) as Scottie Scheffler. Obviously Scheffler’s baseline is already significantly higher than Gotterups.

The best players who get worse in Majors includes Justin Thomas who is 0.75 strokes worse in Majors than non-Majors. This data is from 2022+ so only one of his Major Wins gets counted. He’s been pretty dismal the last few years.

Sungjae Im is a half shot worse.
Akshay Bhatia is 0.38 strokes worse.

🤦 The Big Q With X

It’s been incredibly frustrating to watch Xander Schauffele play golf and I mean that as a compliment. I find him to be one of the most talented players on planet Earth but he’s simply not getting enough out of these starts.

I was trying to figure out what the problem has been and I stumbled onto his putting numbers for the last few years.

In 2024, when he won two majors, he was making 61.1% of his putts from 7-9’. That’s mostly a 50/50 range on TOUR so he’s crushing his playing competitors.

The same could be said for basically every putting range inside 15’ — Xander was significantly better than average. But those numbers have fallen off a cliff.

Instead of making 61.1% of his coin flips, he’s making 53.8% in 2026.
Instead of making 72.5% of putts from 5-7’, he’s making 67.3% in 2026.
Instead of making 38.4% of his putts from 10-15’, he’s making 30.4%

Across the board, he’s worse than he was two years ago. And truth be told, he’s still “good” at putting but this is him leaving multiple strokes on the table every round compared to himself from a few years ago.

So if it feels like Xander isn’t getting everything out of these rounds, you’d be correct.

🐋 Tiers of a Clown

Our friends at Splash Sports continue to do us right. We are headlining the site with the biggest guaranteed golf contest this week — a whopping $150,000.

Rules are simple — pick one golfer from each of eight tiers. Their money is your points.
$100 entry, $15,000 to first, min payout is $300.

Join: https://bit.ly/SplashRRG

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