The PLAYERS Championship | Fantasy Golf Preview & Picks, Sleepers, Data - DFS Golf & DraftKings

What's up guys, Rick here with your preview for this week's players championship.

I am very excited about this.

If you're watching on YouTube clearly, I'm not at home.

I'm not the stack A, but I'm in the next best thing.

I'm about a couple of hundred yards away from the 16th green here at TPC Sawgrass.

I can tell you the course looks immaculate.

It looks fantastic.

A lot of energy around this place.

The run from API with a burger, not a burger, come back, a batilla, come back and going

right into this week.

It is a lot to talk about for the first time in a while.

It feels like there are some question marks at the top of the board.

We're going to go through the course, the players, we're going to use stats, logic,

reason, trends, whatever else you want, and we are going to rock this preview.

So without further ado, let's jump into this.

I will say our listener league for this week is live, but also is the players and majors

pick three.

So that is the contest that we run every year on Splash.

This was way more popular than the one in Dunham.

We do last year quite honestly, just in terms of the feedback that I got.

And this is where you pick three golfers for each one of the players and the majors.

You're going to pick 15 golfers in general.

So for this week, it's like you could play Scotty Roy Fleetwood, okay?

And you're going to get their money and you can't pick them for any other major championships.

So that's the way this works.

It's a very fun format.

That is live.

It's already about a quarter of the way full or so.

Link is in the description for everything that you need there.

Let's talk about TPC sawgress.

I think the biggest thing is the driver, okay?

And the stats tend to bear that out a little bit.

So the cost of rough, the penalty for missing the fairway is about four tenths of a stroke,

but it gets ratcheted up quite a bit on a handful of holes.

The fourth hole, the seventh hole, all four of the tenths in there, the 14th, the 16th,

and the 18th are all about half shot penalties if you miss the fairway.

The other thing to consider is there's almost a two tenths of a stroke difference

between a short drive and a long drive.

So the way that I calculate this is basically was this a drive that was longer than average

on that hole.

If so, what was the scoring average?

If it was shorter than average on that hole, what was the scoring average, right?

And then the difference between those two.

So basically, you're talking about hitting the fairway or missing the fairway is worth,

excuse me, hitting the fairway is worth like four tenths of a stroke.

Hitting a long drive is worth like two tenths of a stroke.

So being long and straight is incredibly important.

If you look at the regression model, which looks at the last dozen years of types of players

and the success they've had at this golf course and every other golf course,

there are three putting stats that lead the way.

That's not as unusual in Florida.

It feels like, right, you get the pure beauty grass greens,

like go make some pots, all that fun stuff.

But that's really just compared to other courses.

Then you get driving accuracy as the fourth most correlated stat to success.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Stroke skate approach, which is always a very valuable one,

that gets a ratchet it up here to a very high rate.

And then it approaches from 150 to 175, 50 to 125, proximity to the whole.

Those are all the next stats.

So we're building this profile of golfers that can play out of the fairway,

can take advantage of said short grass shots and hit good approaches,

and then make pots.

Sure, sounds like a complete player.

It is.

I mean, the winners here have been studs, especially since they moved this back to March.

I almost forgot what month we were in.

Ever since they moved this back to March,

the randomness of winners has really gone down, right?

You've got Scotty winning a toys, you've got Rory, you've got Kim Smith,

you've got, I think Justin Thomas is in there as well.

It's just like the overseeded rye this time of year

is easier out of the rough than what we had saw in May,

where you get like that thick, bermuda rough.

So the guys that hit it far and are good approach players,

it does benefit them a little bit more this time of year.

And it's basically been a bunch of stars and a bunch of great players.

So you're going to see me and the model reward Scotty,

chef, the reward victor, hoblin, reward Rory, McElroy,

and Colin Moore, Cala in a pretty significant way.

In fact, the overall adjustment,

so when you take into account off the tee fit, approach fit, putting fit,

put it all together, Rory, McElroy gets the best adjusted fit.

We have to talk about him a lot.

Scotty Sheffler gets the second best adjusted fit.

Michael Brennan gets the third.

He is dynamite off the tee.

Can't do much else.

Well, at least at the moment.

And he has a smaller sample size than the rest of these guys.

Alexander Schofflin, Victor Hoblin,

rounding out the top five there.

But it's an incredibly deep field.

Everybody is here.

Water and play everywhere, lurking.

I'm going to be out there obviously all week long.

If you're out here for Monday, if you're Wednesday,

and you see me say hello, I'm on the PGA tour live call

for this week as well.

So if you tune to that, that'd be great.

I'm going to be bouncing back and forth

as the tournament goes on.

So really excited just to get out there and see it.

I've never been here for the players.

I've been down here a lot, obviously.

I've played Dives Valley, which is the other course they have here.

I have never seen the player's championship.

So I'm very excited to do just that.

The pricing is out.

The price was out early.

There are three golfers over $10,000 on DraftKings.

And we will again, we're rocking everything this week, right?

Wednesday, Wednesday live chat through PM Eastern time.

I've got some other stuff that I'll be doing.

You'll probably see me pop up on.

But this is full throttle week.

I'm stoked for this.

So three golfers over 10K.

Scottie Schofflin, Rory McElroy, Tommy Fleetwood,

and kind of feels like for the first time in a long time,

there are question marks about these players.

Small question marks.

Let me be clear about that.

Taking these guys from 10 out of 10 to 9.7 out of 10

or something like that.

But we have to discuss them.

Because for the first time in a long time,

Scottie Schoffler lost a lot of strokes on approach

last week at API.

He lost 2.7.

If you go back and look at the last time he lost,

that many strokes on approach in a single tournament.

I think we get back into, yeah, I was going to say 2024,

BMW championship here.

So over a year, since the last time,

he was that bad on approach.

You could write that off.

You could.

But he lost strokes on approach at RIV as well.

So now two straight starts.

He was a small positive at Pebble.

And he was a small positive in the two rounds

at the American Express.

So now you're looking at this thinking, wow.

For the last five starts, which is for him,

4, 8, 12, 60, it's like 18 measured rounds.

He's been a tour average approach player.

That's not good.

It is very different than what we've seen in the past.

The rest of his game, pretty fantastic.

And the results have not really stopped, right?

I mean, during this horrible stretch that I'm describing,

he has a win, three top four finishes, four top 12 finishes,

and no finish worse than C24.

So again, the bar is very, very high.

The thing that I've started to notice,

because I've been on the PGA tour live call for RIV

and Bay Hill, like you're seeing every shot

that Scott has got for hits,

he does look out of sync to me.

He always has a very unique swing.

He owns it, he's the shuffle, all that stuff.

He's always a little off balance.

He kind of looks a lot off balance.

Kind of looks like he's getting stuck.

Kind of looks like he's not impacting the ground

in the same way that we saw last year

or at the beginning of this year.

I think that's a real thing.

Will he be able to make adjustments?

He's one of the best at in-game adjustments.

He's one of the best at kind of figuring it out

on the fly and getting back to his baseline.

And of course, the history around the players

is fantastic, the two wins, the 20th last year.

So I'm concerned, but it is relative to Scotty.

Again, he's no longer a 10 out of 10.

He's a 9.7 out of 10.

If you want to pass him up at 14,200,

you're not going to hear much complaints from me on that.

Rory McElroy is 11,700.

Rory McElroy, for the second time in his career,

just withdrew from an event after it started.

And if you missed this, it was,

he said he kind of tweaked something

and it is a pre-round warm up on Saturday,

kind of started some back spasms

and out of just the famous abundance of caution.

He withdrew knowing that the players is next week,

the masters is coming up,

kind of like, I probably could have played through it,

but I didn't want to risk it.

My sense of the matter is from everybody around here

that's chattering about it

and kind of his quotes and everything we've heard

is I think he's going to be just fine.

I think he's going to, you went to home to Jupiter,

got some treatment, I think he's going to be just fine.

He is going to speak obviously in his pre-tournament presser.

I don't have a schedule in front of me,

but it's either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

And I'm certain he will be asked about this first question.

As of right now, I am probably going to bet

Rory McElroy wins.

Go off tournament, I am likely to start a lot of my line

up with him before he withdrew,

he was gaining three strokes off the T at Bay Hill.

He has gained multiple strokes off the T

in six of seven, six of eight worldwide events.

He has this unbelievable floor that gets to shine

at TPC sawgrass.

He didn't hit it well, his approach

else were not great at Bay Hill.

He was losing a stroke per round,

but that is kind of an outlier

because he had gained 12, 13 strokes on approach

prior to that at Pebble and Riv.

The rest of his game is fantastic.

I really am not worried about Rory McElroy.

I'm really not, he has this high floor,

he's hitting shots, we've never really seen him hit

before the putter is good.

I mean, he's playing some of the best golf in his life

in my opinion right now.

So Rory McElroy 11,400 is a full throttle kind of go for me

and we'll obviously know more on Wednesday when we hear

whatever he says in his press conference.

The other thing about that, let me see if I can find this.

So I think it's the last 36 rounds that I plugged in.

If you go to the, this is all my website rickrunggood.com,

giant database and models and visualizations

for fantasy golf and golf betting.

If you go to 36 rounds, which has generally been

the most predictive amount of rounds to use

for moving forward, for the first time in a long time,

Scotty Schuffler is not the number one player in this field.

Rory McElroy isn't number one player in this field.

Rory McElroy is gaining two strokes per round.

Scotty Schuffler is gaining 1.88.

So that was noteworthy to me when that happens.

When somebody not named Scotty flips into that spot,

it's noteworthy.

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but much appreciated if you could take a second to do that.

Tommy Fleetwood is a little bit worrisome.

The four strokes that he lost, ball striking,

basically losing most of the days.

He gained on Friday.

He lost the other three days in both categories.

That's not great.

Didn't put great.

Was miserable in the first round.

Played better on Friday across the board

and then kind of stunk on the weekend.

Combined that with the 1.3 stroke study

lost at API on approach is worrisome.

However, there are some really good,

like if you're like a course history guy,

there are some really good Tommy Fleetwood

sawgrass things that are happening.

First off, he has been since his debut, 2017.

Pretty sure he's the best player at the player's championship.

It's awesome.

It's a bunch of top 25s, a couple of top 10s,

a couple of great finishes in there.

He has really good putting numbers.

He has dominated some holes here.

Right around the turn, 8.910 I think it is.

He has dominated those holes.

So he has got a couple ways to separate himself at this golf course.

I wish that he had shown me a little bit more last week,

but I'm going to look for opportunities to play Tommy

in some game theory type situations.

So DFS would be one of them if he is not very popular.

One in Dung would probably be another one.

Maybe some tears contest where he's going to be in tier one

and you've got Rory and Skydie who are also there

who might have a little bit concerned.

So I'm going to try to play Tommy in higher leverage spots.

I'm probably not going to play Tommy in a top 20

or something like that.

That is not high leverage enough for me.

The 9K range obviously stacked.

It's the player's championship.

You could not convince me that Commonwealth

I was not going to win this golf tournament, right?

He has been laying the foundation of this since Bay Hill.

I've talked ad nauseam about this.

He is the third best approach player on tour this year.

He's getting a stroke per round on approach.

That is behind Austin Smotherman is behind Sebu Kim.

The ball striking number, so you add in off the tee,

puts him ahead of Smotherman

and puts him right behind Sebu Kim.

Also Colin, believe it or not,

is a better putter than both of those two guys,

which is why you see the finishing positions

and the results being a little bit better.

This is vintage Colin Morical.

Plus 9.6 on approach at the Pebble,

another three and a half at Riv, another four at API.

The putting has been a positive for the last three weeks.

And he missed it.

If you watch Shot by Shot on Sunday,

he hit nearly everything between 10 and 20 feet

and made nothing, right?

The only one he made was the Eagle on 16,

where he stuffed it to 11 feet from 200 yards,

rolled that putting, it was too little too late.

He had so many opportunities every,

if you watch Colin putt,

and there were times where this happened earlier in the year,

or earlier in the week even.

You watch him hit putts and you're like that

and never had a chance.

That was so weak, that was lame, whatever.

Sunday, none of that.

Maybe the 80 footer that he had on,

I mean, he threw a jack from 80 feet on 18,

which, what are you gonna do?

But every putty hit looked like it was gonna go in.

Until the very last second, I mean, he burned edges,

he had great pace, he had all of this stuff.

That's a very good sign.

They did not drop for him.

He's now gonna get the TPC sawgrass

where the reward is play out of the fairway,

hit your irons well.

He is basically the best player in the world,

both of those things, and then make some putts.

That's a question.

He's never gained strokes at TPC sawgrass

on the putting surface,

but he's also putting better now.

We've got to weigh that a little bit.

I think Kalamore Kalla is incredibly live

to win this golf tournament.

If you've been paying attention,

I have already bet him to win.

I bet him to win this like two weeks ago.

I bet him to win this.

US Open Masters, I bet him to win last week at Bay Hill.

It didn't come through, but I'm just investing

into Kalamore Kalla at the moment.

If you like Kalamore Kalla,

you have to kind of like Russell Henley.

He's basically Kalamore Kalla light.

He's gonna play out of the fairway.

He's usually gonna be a pretty good iron player,

though he has struggled in his last three.

That has not stopped him though.

The interesting thing about Russell Henley is, yes,

he is not the longest driver in the world.

He's not the most prolific, talented player out there,

but even when he doesn't have his best stuff,

he still gets good results.

I mean, the T6 last week where he lost strokes

on approach is pretty incredible.

And he had a T20 or a T19 at Pebble

where he lost strokes on approach.

And it's like, okay, because he's gonna play out

of the fairway, which is gonna be a huge reward this week.

That's important.

He's a great putter, right?

He's gained five strokes last week.

He's picked up in, what is that?

Six out of his last eight, something like that.

The short game is good enough.

There's a lot to like.

He's not, he's not pigeonholed into just one thing.

So if he does start missing some fairways,

while that would not be great,

it's probably not gonna be the end of the world.

If he doesn't tighten up his approach shots,

yes, that wouldn't be great,

but it's probably not gonna be the end of the world.

I do think that he has a pretty high floor.

The miscut at rib, actually, it wasn't even really the miscut.

It was the first round at rib was by far

one of the worst rounds he's had in a long time.

He turned, he played much, much better on Friday,

but it was still not good enough to miss the cut

or to make the cut.

Outside of that, he is a very, very high floor player.

And he has a handful of ways to get to the top of the board.

I wish his history here was a little bit better,

but this is, I'll say, this is the best he's ever played.

Seawoo is only matters about the putter, right?

This is, I could say this over and over again.

If you look at the power rankings,

which I showed you earlier,

he's the third best player in this field over the last 36 rounds.

If you look at the trends tool,

which takes the, how you're hitting it,

basically compared to yourself,

and gives you a new number.

He's the third hottest player in this field

behind Scotty and Rory.

So that's, there's no doubt about that.

He gets a huge benefit from a lot of the ball striking metrics.

The thing that he's done around the players

is he's popped with the putter.

So just in his last three trips,

minus 2.3 T38, plus five T6,

minus 2.8 T27.

And that's kind of what it feels like.

Floor is like 30th, ceiling is winning.

And the landing spot for that finishing position

will be 100% driven by his putter, right?

So loose three, you're gonna finish T30.

Putt to a zero, he's gonna finish like T12.

And if he gains three strokes, butting, who knows?

Maybe he wins the golf tournament, something like that.

The rest of this range,

I really wanna see what the industry is doing with Hadecki,

with Xander, with Chris Godra.

I, in my heart of hearts, believe all three of these guys

could win this golf tournament.

I think I said last week, if I'm waiting on Hadecki Matsuyama

to fix his ball striking, I'm not gonna be waiting very long.

Race, generational, flusher.

And the driver has been better the last two weeks.

We're not there yet.

There's stuff we need to clean up.

He's not, it's not perfect.

But you get him on a golf course like this,

where, I mean, if you, he's got a bunch of top 10s,

and people always say like, oh, well, remember,

he was winning this in 2020,

when they didn't even finish the first round.

It's like, yeah, he plays well here, that is true.

You know, he doesn't get credit for that win.

And because he shouldn't,

because they didn't even complete the first round.

But you get what I'm saying.

He has a lot of good results around here.

This is, to me, a guy who's always under-owned,

under-appreciated, legitimate, high-end, winning upside.

I don't know if I feel the same way about Zander.

I like Zander being well-rounded.

He just, again, kind of, I test just looks a little bit off.

Not the I test, the actual metrics of it.

He is, his putting, his putting from like five to 15 feet

is just not as good as it was.

I don't know why, but that is the facts.

And that is really what's dragging down

some of these results.

Good finish at Pebble T19.

Good finish at Rip.

Good finish at Bay Hill.

But just not great finishes.

And that's what you want from a two-time major champion

who's gonna be $9,600.

And then Chris Goddard played really well

last week until Sunday.

And then he coughed it up on Sunday

and goes from being in contention

this golf tournament to finishing T18.

I am not particularly worried about that.

So on those three, Hadecki Zander Goddard,

again, probably some game theory situations

where like if the industry is out

and everybody's in on Colin

and everybody's in on Seawoo or whatever

or Victor, which would actually be not bad,

I'll look at his profile here in a second.

I'll make a decision based on that.

The Victor stuff.

You have to, the Victor's like a vibes guy, right?

You've got to like, you got a bob and weave with him.

You have to understand the way things are going here.

You have to read the tea leaves and all that stuff, right?

The good news is the approach place fantastic, right?

I mean, just seven in a row, flushing it, all that stuff.

The driver is having trouble.

I know he's been tinker, he's been going back and forth

between a newer and older model, ping, whatever.

The putter is how you, this is how he wins, right?

The minus four plus four turn around from Riviera to Bay Hill

and then the minus two to plus three and a half

between Pebble and Phoenix.

That is how he wins.

He's going to give us probably a really good approach

performance.

Okay, so like vintage Victor would definitely give us

a very good ball striking performance.

And then if you get your pop week, he wins.

If not, he finishes whatever.

We're definitely going to get a good approach

like this week.

If we get a good driving, he has to match up two other things.

So he's got to match up the driver.

He's got to match up the putter, which is more than usual.

He usually just has to match up the putter.

Two top 10s here, they were in 2022 and 2023.

He was playing better golf then.

So there's, it seems close.

It seems close.

$9,100, probably not going to have a ton of Victor.

I'll do my regular like, oh, Victor, 20 bucks on Victor

to win at whatever he's going to be 40 to one

or something like that, but it does feel rather close.

He's a great, he's a great like showdown one round,

maybe first round leader, because he scorches

for 18 holes at a time.

I think he had the round of the day or something close to it

once or twice last week.

It was, and he's been doing that regular, regularly, routinely.

I guess that is saying the same thing twice.

All right, the AK range, and here are the two,

these are going to be the two most popular players on the slate.

I think that is almost guaranteed.

Ludwig Oberg is $8,700,

Cam Young is $8,100.

They are going to be the two most popular players on the slate.

Ludwig, who has beaten a serve of the head

with inconsistencies this year,

has now put together, I'm going to say,

three, six, yeah, like nine of his last 10 rounds

have been fantastic, okay.

And it looks, so again, the eye test, which I don't love,

but in the way that Scotty looks like he's not getting

through the ball the way that he used to,

Ludwig looks like he is getting through the ball

and through the turf at the best he ever has.

He gained nearly five and a half strokes

on approach last week, gained three off the tee.

He was a complete gain for the second week in a row.

We know that complete gains are very projectible

moving forward.

And he lives down here, right?

He lives in Pontavid, fish eighth year,

two years ago, he missed the cut last year.

He's going to be the, you know, long and straight.

Exactly what he is, that the stats bear that out,

the eye test bears that out.

He's a popular player in general.

He is very cheap.

He is going to be one of the most popular players

on the slate and for good reason.

I will probably have Ludwig as a very strong

one and done consideration.

You know, we'll see, I don't know what people are going

to do a Scotty Aurora anymore.

I think a lot of people were planning on using one of them,

last week, one of them this week or whatever.

They both got basically nothing last week.

I think Ludwig is a very strong one and done option.

Cam Young, for the last six months,

and I'm going to, let me see,

I mean, I'm going to cherry pick this a little bit,

but, you know, it's my show.

I can do that, right?

I'm going to go from June,

of last year to now.

Where is he?

Maybe I should have gone.

Okay, here he is.

Maybe I should have gone.

Oh, I still have 2026 clicked.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Let's try this again.

I was trying to cherry pick and I didn't do a very good job.

Here he is.

17 starts.

He's gaining 1.5 strokes total.

The only players better are Scotty, 2.4,

Tommy, 1.6, Jake nap, 1.6.

We're also handling 1.5, and then Cam Young.

That is basically the time he committed to the draw.

And let me tell you, it is awesome.

He can hit this thing.

High, low, medium.

He can work it both ways, but he prefers that draw.

He was lights out off the tee last week.

He was, and don't quote me on this,

but I believe he was second in driving distance,

first in accuracy.

He gained 7.3 strokes off the tee,

which is a ridiculous number.

Then I'm pretty sure he was like second in green

in regulation, top 10 in putting.

There are very few guys in the world

that can move it off the tee like him

that have the touch on and around the greens that he does.

If you ever get an opportunity to see the warm Cam

for Cam Young, and the way that he puts that line down,

and the way that he gets that putter set behind the line,

and the way that he rolls that end over

and perfectly every single time, it is cinema.

It's erotic.

Okay, it is erotic.

And a golf course that rewards long and straight

should reward Cam Young.

The success here is not very good.

His best finish is a T-51.

He's lost strokes off the tee and three out of four.

None of this matters.

I don't care about any of this.

Also, so I guess it's pretty volatile.

Even Roy McRory, who has two wins here

as a bunch of miscuts, it's not really a place

to see guys year over year dominate.

It's a very tricky kind of random style of golf,

especially when it was back in in May,

but this is just as good as it gets.

So these two are gonna be very popular.

My plan for the most part, we'll see how popular they are.

Well, ownership projections on Wednesday,

but my plan for the most part is probably

one in done exposure, probably outright exposure.

Because they are gonna be so popular,

I'm maybe I'll just match the field in DFS.

I don't know yet, I don't know yet,

but yeah, they're gonna be staples in a lot of things.

I mean, they'd be really good in that three in done, right?

If you were worried about Scottie and Roy,

and you just wanted to like,

I'm just gonna wait on those guys,

and you just played Ludwig, Cam Young,

someone else of your choice, I mean, I might do that.

That's a pretty good way to look at it.

The rest of the CK range is not as exciting.

You've got a bunch of guys who are coming off missed cuts.

Ben Griffin is yet to find that stride

that he found in 2026.

Rose, I think, is kind of interesting

because you know when he plays well,

you're gonna get high-end stuff out of him.

Justin Thomas, as expected,

did not look good last week in his first start back.

That was obvious.

I think the most interesting is,

is maybe Matt Fitzpatrick,

who was very popular last week,

one of the more popular TFS options,

one of the more popular one in done options,

and kind of laid an egg,

you know, made the cut on the number,

played well on Saturday,

and then fell off the face of the earphones Sunday,

and finished T41.

I'm not right.

He has been one of the most well-rounded best golfers

in the world for at least nine months.

I'm not ready to give up on this just yet,

especially if everyone else is going to.

Like, if everyone else is like,

ah, I'm jaded, that guy just burned me.

He's been fantastic on the putting surfaces here.

His results are all over the place,

which is kind of what you see.

Cut, fifth, cut, cut, ninth, or his last five trips.

I mean, it's just, that's kind of normal.

I hope that he checks in because of Ludwig and Cam Young.

I hope he checks in at like seven percent,

and everybody's like, this guy, this guy stinks.

I would, I would be interested in that.

As we get into this seven K range,

let me point this out on the Power Rankin.

So last 36 rounds, a lot of seven K guys at the,

you know, at the top of this, let's first page or two.

Minwoo leaves the fourth best player in the world,

the last 36 rounds.

Adam Scott is the sixth best player in the world,

Jake Naps the eighth, C-Bez,

Chris Chompasset, Nikolai Hoigard, Ryan Drawer,

Ricky Fowler, all inside of the top 15.

So there's a lot of value to be had here.

I actually think there's more value probably

than seven K range than there is in the eight K range.

There's just more guys as well.

Aukshay, well hold on.

I guess how do I, let's, let me not get ahead of myself.

Let's start with those golfers that we named.

Minwoo Lee, I think is a go.

And I'm nervous, and I was nervous last week.

And he finished T6, and I was kind of nervous at rib,

and he finished T12, and I was kind of nervous at Pebble,

and he finished T2.

That's a pretty good range of courses, right?

A less than driver, short, small green course,

he finishes runner up.

A true major championship venue at Riviera,

finishes T12, Poana Greens,

and then he flips around to the first start in Florida,

and finishes T6, fantastic.

The putter, which he's using this,

from what I understand, it's like this Odyssey,

turtle prototype, which looks awesome.

By the way, Odyssey, if you'd like to send me one,

I'd be thrilled.

Looks awesome, and it's working for him.

So he picked up seven half strokes,

putting at Pebble, three at Riviera,

and one stroke on the putting services at Bay Hill.

The driver is always great, moves it,

the rough is not going to be a problem for Minwoo Lee.

His touch and go is the approach play.

Plus four and a half last week, minus six at Riv,

plus five at Pebble, and you got three pretty good results.

At the beginning of his career,

and I wonder if I can pull this up,

I mean, I guess I can pull this up.

So at the beginning of his career,

I felt like he was very good in majors and other stuff.

Let me clear this, let me just clear all this out.

All right, Minwoo Lee, and I want to do tournaments,

I want to do players, it's played here a couple of times.

Masters, US Open, PGA, and the Open Champ.

All right, let me just see if this is true or not.

Okay, this is what I remember.

I remember this.

I remember the, I guess it was like 2022,

I mean, yeah, 2022 into 2023.

So he goes 14th at the Masters,

miscut at the PGA, 27th, 21st, 6th.

That was the 6th of the players,

miscut at the Masters, 18th, that's kind of what I remember.

That run.

Then he had another run of three straight top 26s in 2024,

and he had a T20 to players last year.

His major, okay, this is what I was thinking recently.

So his 2025 major championship season stunk,

49th of the Masters and three miscuts.

Lost strokes, putting in all of those, putting better now.

Lost strokes on approach in all of those,

hitting it better now.

So maybe it's not every event,

but he's got, that's 20 starts between those five events.

Yes, five top 20s, two top 10s.

It's pretty interesting.

I also felt like some of his other better results,

or maybe they were signature events

or playoff events or something like that.

I always felt like, I'm stopping sure of calling him

like a big game hunter, but that was kind of the sense

that I had.

Okay, Ricky Fowler is up next.

The thing that has been so impressive about Ricky

is one, the putters back, he goes as the putter goes.

Two is how few bogeys he has made.

I didn't see the final number.

He made a couple on Sunday,

but I think going into the final round,

he had made one or two bogeys on the week.

It was some of the fewest around Bay Hill.

I did not see the final number, but the bogey avoidance

combined with the putter has been huge.

Not taking unnecessary penalty strokes,

not doing anything stupid,

just golfing your ball around difficult golf courses

is what Ricky has been doing.

I mean, this is a top, a run of,

this is seven straight top 30s,

which is I look this up.

Last time he had more than seven straight top 30s

was like 2015.

No, no, it was 2018.

It was like seven years ago.

His record at Sawgrass is bizarre.

He has the runner up in 2012.

He has the win in 2015 and basically nothing else.

C13 in 2023 and a lot of really bad finishes otherwise.

So I don't, I'm not putting much emphasis on

course history this week.

Jake Nat, we never got a reason

for the withdrawal at Bay Hill.

And he withdrew after the tournament started,

but before his tee time,

which I know really bothered everybody on Twitter,

which by the way, I just don't,

I don't know how they're going to fix it

and you don't need to type in your solutions

because I've heard all the solutions.

You can type in it and I'll actually probably help the algorithm.

But there's pros and cons to everything.

If you just replace him with Hal Tongley,

then you get people who say,

but I wanted to draft Hal Tongley.

And if you move him down,

you know, whatever, if you just say,

hey, I mean, what they should probably do

is it should be like seven for six.

Draft seven, take your six best scores,

which is actually what we do in the tears contest for splash.

So I had Rory in a tears lineup

and he's just my, my odd men out.

We just don't use his score,

because that was my worst score.

But I also don't think Draft case is going to

completely redo their software for this.

I don't know, anyway, we can talk about that later.

We never got a reason why.

And I don't know if anybody will ask him about it this week.

If I see him, I will.

But we still have five straight top 11s.

Still have all the great metrics.

All the reasons that he was very popular last week,

carry over here.

Two starts, two made cuts, T12 last year.

Cory Connors is like my sneaky gonna finish,

like I'm gonna have so much Cory Connors T20 money.

Probably no more or no less.

But Cory Connors is a very solid ball striker.

Show that again at Bay Hill kind of snapped a streak

of three straight starts wearing ball strokes

on approach, which is pretty rare for him.

The history at the players is great.

Three top 15 finishes, T6 last year was his best.

He's gain strokes putting in four out of five.

And that is, and like overall,

he has been a very positive putter in his last five trips

so he's trying to match up all that stuff.

I will have all of the Cory Connors top 20.

Okay, now to Oxey.

I realized he gained 10.6 strokes putting

and another 5.6 around the green.

And it was the best short game week by a winner ever

in a shot link air.

I get that.

But I also don't think this is a fluke, right?

There was a reason why I had an outright ticket

on Oxey last week.

There was a reason why he made the grid

when we made our picks on the second cup podcast,

which is a show I do with Mark Gimelman

and Greg Thresherm.

Because the putter had been so much improved.

Five and a half strokes gained putting in Phoenix,

1.3 at Pebble, 2.3 at Rive,

and he was matching that with really good approach play.

And he did that.

Again, he gained a stroke on approach at Bay Hill.

He was redonculus on the greens obviously.

The driver was wild.

But the good news is he has a shot shape, right?

He is going to hit that right to left shot

and he's gonna take on a lot of flight.

I mean, he had some shots that he probably

should not have tried, but he got away with it.

And he's got the T3 here last year

where he picked up across the board.

So I, I know he's not gonna gain 10 strokes

running again this week.

I know he's probably not gonna gain five

and a half around the grades,

but I think he's gonna play pretty well.

Yes, it was the biggest win of his career last week,

but he's been a professional for a really long time.

He's dealt with this stuff like this.

He's won at every level.

It's this third PGA Tour Rit.

I realized this was bigger, but it's also not like

yes, to travel that far.

It's Florida guys just coming out the road.

I think actually it's gonna have a good week.

I do.

Very, very quietly has put together this run from,

yeah, I mean, I give it back to the pro court right now

that he's, now that he's healthy,

you guys know I have a lot of sawheath like season-long

exposure kind of said like he's probably gonna be

the bounce back player of the year or whatever.

T20 to it, Riv, T6 at API.

And the API profile was probably one of the better

profiles that we've seen from him this year.

He's not gonna gain five strokes around the green again.

I think he chipped in a couple times.

So the 9.4 strokes T-degree is inflated there,

but even if it's only five,

even if it's five strokes from T-degree,

that is still his best T-degree performance since pro court.

So there is a lot to like here.

And then his history at Sawgrass looks a lot like everybody

else's history, which is a really good finish T9

and a couple of bad ones, 50 seconds, 74th and the mist cut.

Here is the 6K range and there's a few,

things to consider.

Davis Thompson played in Puerto Rico last week

and finished for it.

I think he had a day where he made 18 straight parts.

Was that last week, am I remembering that?

Must have been on Thursday.

Played really well the rest of the week.

We don't have the shot link data from Puerto Rico,

but I assume because it's Davis Thompson,

he probably struck it pretty well from T-degree

and putted to like a plus two or something like that.

That's probably the way that he would have done it.

That is a very good sign.

He, you know, when he's at his best,

he's no offense to those guys.

He's way too good for that.

He should not be in that game.

He should not be playing in Puerto Rico

and having to go down there and do that,

you better get out there with it with a fourth place finish.

But he is one, when he's at his best,

he's probably a top 30 T-degree player on the PGA tour

and we're starting to see breadcrumbs of that

dating back to the Wyndham Championship for last year.

He's been horrendous on the putting surfaces,

no surprise there, but he picked up three strokes

puttin' here last year in Roots with T-10.

I do not mind that.

I do not mind Niko Echeveria, who is a maniac,

who went 30, 42, I don't remember what day that was,

but it just, the man is amazing

and can also look like the worst player in the world

at the same time, but tons of upside there.

The guys that I actually probably liked the most

for the value are even farther down.

I think Michael Brennan would be fine.

I also believe he's a Florida guy,

I'm sorry, Leesburg, Virginia, I shouldn't know that.

He's probably gonna pick up like seven strokes

off the tee this week.

There is a path to him keeping his ball dry

and just destroying these guys off the tee.

The rest of his game, T-26 last week in Puerto Rico.

The guys that I actually think I liked the most,

smotherment, okay, hold on, actually,

there maybe there's more than I thought.

Ryan Fox, Austin Smotherment, let me get them lined up here.

And then actually even farther down,

Ricky Castillo would be okay.

Here we go.

Zach Bochue and AJ Yurt.

All right, here we go.

So here's Ryan Fox, another top 25.

So that is four straight top 25s

in all four events that he has played this season.

Remember, he won twice last year?

It's a very good player.

It's long enough off the tee.

He's a very, very sound player.

He's never lost strokes putting at TBC.

So I've already finished T-20 here last year.

He finished T-27 in 2023.

He missed the cut in between.

That's a fantastic profile for a guy who's $6,500.

Who could, I almost said he could win this?

Who could finish this on the top five?

His wins are more impressive than you think though.

I mean, he won in Canada, right?

And he won Mertle?

Yeah, one Mertle, he won the BNWPJ Championship.

He won the offer in Dunhill.

I'll say it, he could win this.

I'll say it, he could win this.

Smotherman, okay, this is weird.

Smotherman has been, you saw it earlier

when I did the Power Rankings.

One of the best approach players in the world this year.

It's him, Seemoo Kim and Kalamorakawa.

He was doing that again last week at Bay Hill

with Drew in the middle of the third round?

Yes, illness.

Well, I imagine he's over that by now

and he's gonna be just fine by the time we get to Thursday

and that's better than injury

and there's nothing stopping him from gaining

another stroke per round ball striking.

I really believe that.

And he's only played here once, it was in T23.

He's got a couple of high finishes.

Yes, the floor is miscut, for sure.

But the ceiling is pretty hot.

T2 with the cognizant, T8 at the American Express,

it's obviously much deeper field.

So the ceiling could be T15, something like that.

I think that's legit.

Ricky Castillo, who played great at the cognizant,

went out and won the Puerto Rico open.

If you missed that, he won it, he's great.

Yes, he pronounces it Castillo.

We don't need that conversation.

Really strong player.

This one, this one's actually pretty tough

because opposite of Oxe, this kind of does feel like

one of those, I don't wanna say life-changing wins,

but one of those life-changing wins

where it's like, oh man, how's he gonna handle this?

I'm gonna be optimistic because he was playing well

before that, played well last week,

and he lives in Jacksonville.

And this is a home game.

So I am going to be optimistic,

but cautiously optimistic.

Zach Boshu, I will probably have a lot of

Zach Boshu top 20, top 30 as well.

He's gonna be one of the longest eyes in the field.

Has got two top 25s in a row,

has gained strokes on approach in four out of five.

We gotta keep the ball and play off the tee.

The putter is very good.

Yeah, Zach Boshu, and then AJ, I believe, oh gosh.

I believe he pronounces it.

You are.

Has now beaten the field in five straight.

Remember, he won, okay.

It's not the same thing, I understand.

But he won shoe school here at the end of last year.

Now that was at the Dyes Valley course,

which is over there.

But it's on the property.

There's two courses here.

A lot of people don't know that.

A lot of people don't know that, I don't know that.

And then has played some pretty darn good golf since then.

Phoenix T28, Cog, T13, T26 in Puerto Rico.

Okay, okay, we're feeling ourselves here.

He's the min price, he's 6,000.

Let's see what the custom model has to say.

Custom model, rickrungood.com.

All right, Rick, what do we want to do here, buddy?

Let's do, I kind of want to do last 20 rounds.

We are going to do 10 on strokes gain total for my baseline.

We are going to do long and straight off the tee.

But we're going to do it this way.

We're going to do club speed for 10 and carry for 10.

Because I also want to consider the rough.

We're then also going to do driving accuracy for 15.

Yeah, actually, I probably should have cut that down.

So let's do club speed for five, carry for five.

So that distance is 10.

Accuracy is 15.

Approach play.

I'm going to follow the model for a second and do,

I think it was 150 to 175.

And I think it was 50 to 125.

So we'll do like four, four, four.

And then we're just going to do a little bit more

on strokes gain approach.

Last 36 for 10.

We're going to do, we do need to avoid bogeys.

So we're going to say 10 on bogey avoidance.

We're going to put 10 on permutea putting and five

on fast screens.

And then we're going to put our final eight, which

is probably the fewest we've put on course history.

All right, my number one golfer is Scotty Shuffle.

No surprise, it's actually a pretty small gap though.

Wow, look at this.

So Scotty Shuffle is a 79.

Three golfer are basically tied for a second.

Rory, Adam Scott, Russell Henley.

We got to look at Chris Shombra's in.

He's now popped up on the, it was like power rankings,

trends, and now he's in the model.

Bridgeman 6, NAP 7, Collin 8, 59, Rose 10.

Oh, Chris Shombra played Puerto Rico T8.

Yeah, he's definitely getting benefit from these two

starts all in South Africa at the end of the year.

And he's been OK here in the States.

Fowler's 12th.

That's pretty interesting.

Akshay's 16th.

Menu's 18.

Wow, OK, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to save this.

What is today's day?

Oh, nine players Monday.

I'll save this and we'll revisit on Wednesday.

All right, Wednesday live chat.

I will see you then, 3 p.m. Eastern time.

We're going out to the golf course right now.

Just give us your what's going on.

Just so stoked about that.

Otherwise, I say, links for everything you need

are in the description, splash contest.

Let's fill them up.

The three and done is fantastic.

Best of luck.

Let's have them go in.

See you.