🤼 Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

📢 Quick Announcements:

• You may have seen that I launched memberships to my YouTube Channel. The plan is to create “behind-the-scenes” content when I travel to events. My trip to the Masters has been documented and added for your viewing pleasure!

• Congrats to Chuck of Lincoln, Nebraska, Matthew of Cincinnati, OH and TJ of Virginia Beach, VA who all won Masters Gift Boxes from me. Thanks for the support, more giveaways to come!

Rick

🏆 Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

Scottie Scheffler: $13,300 | 132.0 PTS
Wyndham Clark: $9,200 | 115.5 PTS
Patrick Rodgers: $6,200 | 104.5 PTS
Sepp Straka: $7,200 |103.5 PTS
JT Poston: $7,600 | 102.0 PTS
Seamus Power: $6,100 | 87.5 PTS
TOTAL: $49,600 | 645.0 PTS

🧥 Might Need A Bigger Closet

We are witnessing greatness, people — soak it all in. Scottie Scheffler has been gaining so many strokes versus his peers and wins are rolling in at a prolific rate.

He’s elevated himself to a completely different level and we are already 28 months into this. Can he do it for another six months? Another 28 months? Another 280 months? We’ll find out.

🤫 Sahith’s Silent Second

With the Monday Finish also being a victory lap for Scottie Scheffler, many might not have realized that Sahith Theegala finished solo second. This dude has found his game and is improving constantly.

Since the start of 2024, he’s gained 1.21 strokes/round which is the 7th best mark of anyone on the PGA TOUR (min 30 rounds).

That includes impressive finishes at the RBC Heritage (2nd), PLAYERS (T9), Arnold Palmer (T6), Phoenix (5th), and the Tournament of Champions (2nd). The table above doesn’t even include his victory at the Fortinet in September. If we go back to Napa and re-run these numbers, Theegala becomes the 4th best player on TOUR behind just Scheffler, Aberg and Schauffele.

I’m no mathematician, but that’s a pretty good trend.

🤼 Tag Team Championship

The Zurich Classic offers a team event this week which adds a bunch of different layers of chaos that we need to try to handicap.

• Thursday & Saturday: Best Ball

• Friday & Sunday: Alternate Shot

At the most basic level, having two good players is ideal (duh!). There’s a lot of luck involved in “ham and egging”, plus alternate shot is an animal that very few guys in this field have competitive experience with. So let’s start with what we know — the best teams:

Above are the 12 best teams in the field, when you combine their Strokes Gained metrics over the last 36 rounds. This includes rounds globally, not just the PGA TOUR. Let’s dive into a few of them.

🤿 Synchronized Diving

Tom Hoge & Maverick McNealy — surprised to see them rank third? You shouldn’t be! Hoge has been a true dartist, gaining multiple strokes on approach in seven of his last eight starts. A fully healthy Maverick McNealy has driven it beautifully with gains off-the-tee in six straight and he’s always been able to roll the rock. Bonus: Tom Hoge won the QBE Shootout with Sahith Theegala.

Alex Fitzpatrick & Matt Fitzpatrick — Matt extended the invite to brother Alex for this event last year even though the pedigree didn’t quite warrant it (they finished T19). Before last year’s event, Alex had played sparingly, making only one start in 2023 before the Zurich. This year, it’s a completely different story. Not only has Alex played, he’s played well. He’s played seven times on the DP World Tour (4 Top 25s) and played in Corales last week, finishing T23. He should be much more comfortable this go-around and I find this team to be rather dangerous.

Mac Meissner & Austin Smotherman — this is team “Small Sample Size”. Meissner has only played on TOUR nine times this year but has notched (3) Top 26 finishes including a T10 at the Texas Open just a few weeks ago. Smotherman has bounced around between the PGA TOUR and Korn Ferry Tour only playing six times combined, but he’s made five cuts including last week in Corales. He has (2) Top 10s on the KFT.

😰 Rory Is On The Run

Rory McIlroy is playing a lot of golf. Like … a lot. He’s already notched 39 rounds in 2024 which is the most he’s ever played in the first four months of a calendar year, by a wide margin.

This obviously doesn’t even include the rounds he will play with Shane Lowry this week, which will burst him through the 40 round mark.

I don’t know what this means or what to do with the information, but it’s just noteworthy when one of the best players in the world is doing something he’s never done before.

🐨 Koalafied Down Under

LIV is headed to Adelaide this week, which has become their “signature event”. Talor Gooch is the defending champion which was his first of three wins last year.

Here are the Top 12 players in LIV since January 1st, which includes all rounds played globally AND official strokes gained breakdowns. This is generated from the shot-by-shot LIV data.

🦘 Top Mates To Consider

It’s still noteworthy that Louis Oosthuizen (+2000) has been just as good, and a hair better, than Bryson DeChambeau in 2024. Those numbers above don’t even include Louis’ two wins on the DP World Tour in December.

It’s been a long time, but Paul Casey (+2800) appears healthy and flushing it again. He’s gained at least 3.5 strokes on approach in each of his five measured events in 2024 and he’s combined that with two straight starts of measured putting gains. The unmeasured event in the middle was the Singapore Classic where he finished 6th, so it’s likely he putted well that week too.

We were a bit early on Dean Burmester, who won in Miami after having a stat profile that was pointing up and to the right. It’s similar to how I feel about David Puig (+5000) who is destroying the Asian Tour this year. He’s played four times producing a win, a runner-up, a 5th and a 10th. His LIV results have been just okay but he’s definitely trending in the right direction.

❓Where’s Cam’s Upside?

Cameron Smith (+1100) has had a little bit of a bizarre 2024. He’s been very good, but not great. He’s gained at least one stroke to the field in 70.59% of his rounds — the highest mark of any LIV golfer.

But that’s basically as far as it goes. He’s rarely gained 3+ strokes in a round — just 11.7% of the time. And he’s yet to gain 4+ which is something his peers have done between 18-25% of the time.

When you zoom out, Smith has historically gained 4+ strokes to the field in 17% of rounds and 5+ strokes in 11.6% of rounds. That’s since the start of 2022. Those rates would be similar to Patrick Cantlay over the same time period.

Is this cause for concern or is he bubbling just below the surface and ready to erupt?

⭐ Before You Go …

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