☂️ We Are Travelers

🏅 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

JJ Spaun: $6,700 | 92.5 PTS
Viktor Hovland: $8,500 | 83.5 PTS
Robert MacIntyre: $6,700 | 80.0 PTS
Tyrrell Hatton: $7,600 | 74.0 PTS
Carlos Ortiz: $6,400 | 70.5 PTS
Sam Burns: $7,100 | 67.5 PTS
TOTAL: $43,000 | 468.0 PTS 

🐣 Spauning A New Champion

JJ Spaun entered an exclusive club, winning the 2025 US Open and now becoming a Major Champion. I was impressed with much of his performance last week, but I’ve boiled it down to just a few points.

Playing From The Front
Spaun fired a bogey-free (!!) 66 on Thursday to take the outright lead. He was thrown in the fire from the start of the event and didn’t step out of it until he drained the 64’ putt on the 72nd hole to close it out. This wasn’t a Championship that fell into his lap. This wasn’t a Championship that he simply got hot at the right moment. He was forced to deal with the highest pressure for the entirety of the event and came out as a diamond.

The Bounce Backs
His resilience was on display constantly throughout this event. He had a late tee time on Friday, with the whole world sitting around waiting for him to cough it up. But nearly every time he made a bogey, he bounced back with a birdie. He did it three separate times on Friday en route to a 72 (+2).

Then, of course, Sunday. He starts with five (!!!!!!!) 5s and has one hand on the ripcord. But he didn’t pull it. He just continued with his head down, turned in 40 and shot the best inward nine (32) since Johnny Miller’s 31 in 1973.

The Consistency & Trust
Spaun hit a ton of fairways and greens last week because, in my opinion, he has a go-to shot. When all that pressure ramps up, do you trust your swing? For Spaun, the answer was a resounding yes.

Spaun has hit 78% of his drives this year in a left to right pattern. Rarely does the ball go straight, rarely does it move in a draw. He simply finds the middle window and fades it into position.

There are only 12 golfers on TOUR who work the ball left to right more frequently than Spaun does. So when you stand up on the tee box of the 72nd hole and you need to hit the fairway, you know you’ve got something that eliminates one side of the course — bravo JJ!

🏇 Coming Down The Home Stretch

The Major Championship season is 75% complete with The Open just 30 days away (but who’s counting). Since we are at the final quarter pole, let’s look at which golfers have been the best in the biggest events of the year.

All three winners are inside the Top 12 of total strokes gained in majors thus far. Spaun sneaks into the top dozen thanks to the +16.298 that he gained at Oakhill.

The biggest surprise on this list is Ben Griffin who has gained more strokes than all but six men. Even more surprising, he’s done that in just two starts (PGA, USO) because he didn’t qualify for the Masters!

Rahm’s major championship resurgence has not gone unnoticed, he’s currently the best Major player in 2025 without a victory.

Most stats start and end with Scottie Scheffler and I certainly wouldn’t want this section to be the exception to that rule. Scheffler has gained 12 more strokes than his next closest peer (Rahm) which is the same gap from Rahm (#2) to Collin Morikawa (#20).

📈 Soon To Be A Viktor

You’ve been noticing that Viktor Hovland has contended at more Major Championships recently. Your eyes are not deceiving you.

Viktor has played 23 Majors in his career and has earned (5) Top 10 finishes. However, that doesn’t tell the whole story.

His First 11 Majors: +47.19 SG, 0 Top Tens
His Last 12 Majors: +47.66, 5 Top Tens

He’s starting to figure them out and giving himself more frequent opportunities, even with the “lost year” of 2024.

🧟 The Rest of the Round-Up

The rest of what you missed last week:

• Collin Morikawa lost 8.858 strokes putting last week, the worst event of his career.

• Carlos Ortiz (T4) destroyed his best Major Championship finish ever, which was previously a T52 in nine starts — with seven missed cuts.

• The over 278.5 winning score cashed with Spaun shooting a 279 and being the only player under par for the week.

🤪 Stark Contrasts

From a statistical standpoint, it’ll be a stark contrast going from Oakmont CC to TPC River Highlands. The latter is a short little course that rewards precision over power.

There are only two holes (#4 & #9) where a “long drive” is more valuable than hitting the fairway. That long drive is defined as a drive longer than the average distance on the hole for that day. Every other par-4 and par-5 rewards playing from the fairway.

At only 6,835 yards, you’ll see many tee shots that are based on positioning and strategy over brawn. Here are the best players on “short courses” since 2021, defined as tracks that measure 7,000 yards or fewer.

Note: this doesn’t even include Harbour Town (7,200 yards) so you might want to give an extra boost to Cantlay, Scheffler, and Thomas.

📼 The Lost Vlog

As many of you know, I went to Travelers Championship Media Day a few weeks back and had a blast. It was a Shamble and my group consisted of Joe Musso, Greg DuCharme, and Michael Breed.

I created a very short vlog for that week but never really released it anywhere because I felt like I didn’t have enough footage. I was too busy having fun and should have been filming!

Either way, it’s about 6.5 minutes and available only via this link if you want to watch.

🏃‍♂️‍➡️ Benny “The Jet” Griffin

Ben Griffin deserves his own section. This man is an animal. Just in his last month, he’s finished T8 at the PGA Championship, won the Charles Schwab, finished second at the Memorial and then T10 at the US Open. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.

But it gets better when you look at how he is doing it.

He’s gained strokes in all four categories in each of those four events. This feat, which I’m still trying to name*, has been accomplished 183x this year by all players in all events. Nobody has done it more than Ben Griffin (7) with Michael Kim (6) and JJ Spaun (5) rounding out the podium.

Scottie Scheffler has done it three times and Xander Schauffele has done it once. That means Ben Griffin has as many Grand Slams as Scheffler and Schauffele combined — in his last four starts alone.

My friends, Benny is the real deal.

*Grand Slam is the current front-runner

👣 Splash + JD Winner

I’m traveling to Florida this week for PGA TOUR Live (tune in!) so I’m moving the Live Chat to Tuesday at 3PM ET. We’ll cover all your questions and concerns and also draw the final winner to see who plays a round with John Daly and myself. We are rounding out the foursome! Woohoo!

⏰ 3PM ET, Tuesday
📺 https://youtube.com/live/yIoDkmxZvLQ