Friends in fore,
We're one round deep and lord do we have storylines.
We shattered all sorts of SZN records with our Majors Roster (Pick 8) picks.
We broke more records with our Survivor #2 loading up on Scheff. And the LIV guys? Yeah, we loaded up on them, too.
STORYLINES, STATS, AND COMMENTS BELOW. If this email doesn't keep you entertained all damn weekend long, Commish isn't doing a good enough job.
THE MASTERS PICKS
- YEYPO
- Big John
- Survivor #2
- Majors Roster Pick 8
- Your group picks (get in a group with friends!)
STORYLINE #1: Our heaviness on the big dogs shattered Majors "Pick 8" records
Scheff is on 93% of our rosters. 93%! We weren't in the same stratosphere with ANYONE last year.
And the trio of Scheff, Rahm, and Rory is on 909 rosters (55%). The previous record was a mere 737 rosters for the trio of JT, Rory, and Scheff at last year's U.S. Open.
Last year's Masters was chalky. This entire Golf SZN has been chalky so far. So while it's unsurprising we ate some chalk this week, Commish wasn't prepared for THIS MUCH chalk.
STORYLINE #2: The Majors Killer, Brooks Koepka, has returned
Before his injury two years ago, it would have been unthinkable for Brooksy to be on just 11% of rosters (our 21st most rostered golfer), and for him to get a mere 33 picks in YEYPO.
Alas, Brooksy, who's added to his AWOLness by joining the LIV tour, claims he's finally healthy, bagged a LIV win last week, and finds himself tied for 1st place after the opening round.
How quickly most of us forget how automatic he was in Majors from 2017 to 2020. Those of us who remembered might be taking home most of the Majors Pick 8 cash for The Masters.
STORYLINE #3: Backup picks might determine our Masters champ
Willy Z has a short but great Majors track record. So we made him our 11th most rostered golfer, on 27% of rosters.
He W/D'd with an injury just before teeing off, which means backup golfers are activated for anyone who chose Willy Z. This is EXACTLY the reason we have the backup feature in place - for last minute W/Ds.
27% is a LOT of rosters. Here's to hoping y'all put thought into who you selected as your backup!
STORYLINE #4: NASTY weather is in the forecast
Scores were low Thursday, but don't expect that to continue.
Brooks, Hovland, and Rahm can bomb it, no doubt. But are they the guys you'd have on your "cold, rainy, and windy" bingo board?
Will Augusta play more like an Open Championship? Will we see a big comeback? Or will we see a chalk continuation from the chalk first round leaders?
PICK STATS
YEYPO One-And-Done
- Reigning champion Scheff was once again our top pick, at 18.4%
- That brings his SZN-leading utilization rate to 60%
- Two ways to look at that: 1/ Wow, he's ALREADY at 60% picked?, and 2/ What the hell have the other 40% been doing?!
- Next up for The Masters: Cam Smith (18%), Rory (17.5%), Rahm (8%), Spieth (5%)
- Commish thought more of us would jump at picking Cam Smith, who tore through last year's Majors and, given he plays on the LIV tour, is only available to us four times in YEYPO
- As for the other LIV big names, 3% are on DJ, 2% are on Brooks, and only 3 people (0.2%) are on Joaquin Niemann
- We had 47 golfers picked, and a whopping 22 of them are skin opportunities
- Full skin opportunities (1 pick): Adrian Meronk, Billy Horschel, Brian Harman, Bryson DeChambeau, Danny Willett, Gary Woodland, Keith Mitchell, Kurt Kitayama, Matt Fitzpatrick, Mito Pereira, Russell Henley, Sergio Garcia, Talor Gooch, Thomas Pieters, Tom Kim, Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrrell Hatton
- Half skin oppos (2 picks): Justin Rose, Louis Oosthuizen, Sahith Theegala, Sepp Straka, Tom Hoge
- Tom Kim as a full skin oppo is insane value. He was 4-under yesterday until a late double bogey dropped him back a bit.
- And my how far Bryson has fallen...
Big John Survivor
- Our big picks: Scheff (22%), Cam Smith (16%), Rory (15%), Rahm (6%), DJ (5%)
- Scheff is up to 70% utilization, behind only JT (71%)
- Commish is even more surprised we didn't load up heavier on LIV guys here, given there are only four opportunities to take any of them
- In YEYPO, we might be like "meh, they're playing on LIV - they don't have the competitive fire to win" but in Survivor, we just need them to make the cut
- Relatedly, not a single person took Brooks in Big John Survivor!
- Shout-out to our lone picker on Min Woo Lee - the only non-LIV guy outside the World Rank top 30 to receive any picks
Survivor #2
- Basically the same distribution as Survivor #1, just a bit heavier on Scheff (29%) given we only started last week
- 29% is a SZN record for highest Survivor pick percentage on a single golfer
- TWO brave and beautiful souls picked Tiger
- One even braver and more bodacious soul picked Bryson (who has been struggling mightily)
- We had 32 golfers picked vs. just 19 in Survivor #1
Majors Roster Pick 8
- We had 1,655 rosters submitted. A whopping 1,392 of them (84%) were unique, meaning only ONE person had that exact set of 8 guys
- This is why Commish loves this Pick 8 format so much. No matter how many rosters, almost all of them will be unique, which ALSO means it's highly likely you end up with a clean, sole champion for each Major
- SEVEN rosters have all three of our day 1 leaders (Hovland, Rahm, Brooks): @GreenBowbPackers, @Faders, @daveg32, @Smoov_Mo, @ladams, @Lappy, and @mosser25
- Behind Scheff (on 93% of rosters), it was Rory (81%), Rahm (70%), Spieth (51%), Cam Smith (48%), JT (47%), Morikawa (41%), Xander (39%), Finau (34%), and Homa (34%)
- Some guys Commish is surprised didn't get picked more: Hovland (17% of rosters), Hideki (14%), Burns (11%), Brooksy (11%), Patrick Reed (3%), and Tom Kim (2%)
- And how about Tiger?
- Sir Eldrick was on 74 rosters (4.5%). While it makes sense logically, Commish did think that number would be higher out of sheer entertainment and rooting interest
- Trios-wise, as stated above, the trio of Scheff, Rory, and Rahm set a new SZN record by being on 909 (55%) of rosters.
- The next most common trios: Rory, Scheff, Spieth (660); Rory, Scheff, Cam Smith (609); and Rory, Scheff, JT (600)
- Do you sense a theme?
- The most common trio to NOT include our top 3 picks was JT, Spieth, and Cam Smith - on 181 rosters together
- 12 people went with the STRAIGHT CHALK roster by picking all 8 of the world's top 8 ranked guys - our most picked roster.
- The next most picked roster (6 rosters) actually swapped THREE of those top guys, tapping in Morikawa, Finau, and Spieth while kicking out Willy Z, Cantlay, and Xander
- Lastly, who picked the roster equivalent of the NFL's "Mr. Irrelevant"? That'd be @sten, whose 8 golfers have a combined world rank of 3,480. He achieved this largely by rostering the ageless wonder, Bernhard Langer (#3168 in the world)
- @Churlbert also rostered Langer, while several people rostered amateur Gordon Sargent.
WEEKLY AWARDS
The 1-iron Moxie Award
Boldest pick. You can't win a SZN competition without a little Moxie!
@huntisms (Joaquin Niemann, YEYPO): "Vamos LIV Golf!"
Commish says: Oh we want to just get SPICY right off the bat? LET ME GO SMASH A BUD LIGHT LIME AND LET'S GET SPICY.
John Daly's Pants Award
Our best weekly comment (or three), because John Daly's pants always win
@Sal_Minella (ROSTER: Cantlay, Brooks, Rory, Morikawa, Rahm, Xander, JT, Willy Z): "I once received a trophy in front of everyone at work, for "Best Golf in an Altered State." Although it was it one of my my proudest moments, I was disappointed to discover it was not in the image of William Hurt. Still, in honor of "Altered States," I made these picks in a similar fashion. I'll try my best to continue this effort throughout the tournament, even though I'm certain this will result in some unusual pizza orders. Hopefully, that will be the least of the carnage, but as a caddy at a small, private, and... intimate club, I was once also caught night-putting. By the police. Which involves no pizza. It did involve at least one waitress, though!"
Commish says: Sal, my man, where do you work that this is a contest with an actual trophy? Does Netflix know about this? WHO WANTS TO MAKE A QUICK BUCK?
"Bryson Approves This Pick" Award
Most convincing comment (There's logic, and then there's Bryson-level logic)
@YikesVikes (Jordan Spieth, YEYPO): "Spieth has won on the past two times the Masters was on Easter and yes, Masters Sunday is on Easter. Putting all my eggs in **Jordan's basket**. Many are playing better, but Spieth is the choice for the green jacket on the day of resurrection."
Commish says: OK BUT WHO DOMINATES ON EARTH DAY? And if Jordan wins, is it... The Threeaster? (Thanks. I'll be here all week.)
Spieth's 89-degree Lob Wedge
The spiciest/wildest take (like Spieth's wild short game)
@hockey3430 (Xander Schauffele, YEYPO): "Hello, Friends - It's time for all of us 9-5er nickel and dimers to ignore our responsibilities at work on Thursday and Friday. As far as my friends/family are concerned on the weekend, I'm coming down with a dilapidating form of Covid on Saturday morning, the lose your smell and taste kind. Please don't tell them, I want it to be a surprise. I don't always lie but when I do, it's for The Masters. Honestly, if anyone even tries to make plans with me this weekend, I'm deleting their number and reporting them to the FBI. Just an insane move. Oh, I'm on Xander."
Commish says: Best wishes to you for a speedy and miraculous recovery, hockey. Your Easter ham needs your smell and taste. But your comment made me think - in this age of "work perks as a recruiting mechanism", why don't more companies offer "holidays" for major sporting events? Like, who doesn't tell friends about a company trying to hire them that has formal company holidays for Super Bowl Monday, Masters Thursday (and Friday), and BLL Chugging Olympics Wednesday (bc of course it's on a Wednesday)? Your people aren't actually working, so why not become a benevolent corporate hero in the process? MAYBE THE FBI CAN BE FIRST.
MORE COMMENTS
@suckitspanos (Jordan Spieth, YEYPO): "Doubtful Rory can break the curse of Bobby Jones (he hated Irish whiskey. And since I already burned Texas Two-Stepping Scottie only for him to lose to the recently shaved Dirty Porn Stache Sam, I'm backing the other Texas phenom on tour, Jordan Spieth for the Green Jacket. Augusta can deliver a hit like bubble bull soccer gives to a cluster of stoned rodeo clowns (reference Tiger shooting 10 on the 12th circa 2020), but being a native Texan, Jordan knows how to take a hit from a bull and steady himself for the win. Jordan will adorn the green jacket and borrow the classic closing line from the Sherman-ator "It was just my time. It was just my time. Best of luck to you boys"...at the next Masters I'll be serving a 3 Meat Combo plate and some sweet tea to wash it down. Also, side bet, any takers on Tiger dropping a few viagra+ pills in JT's water bottle since he learned the hard way femine products used for shaming are shunned?"
Commish says: Spanos, do you have just a list of every somewhat insulting nickname you have for each golfer on tour that you keep around the house and pull out when making your pick comments each week? Or are you just talented enough to give us these off the top of your head like you're BSing with a bunch of stoned rodeo clowns?
@Lambda_derg (ROSTER: Cantlay, Day, Rory, Morikawa, Rahm, Scheffler, Tiger, Cam Young): "Ive known for a while that I’m in over my head in golf szn and that I was probably best off just stealing a pick list off twitter to submit to Brooksies. Here is a list of 7 guys averaging 1.7 Strokes Gained tee to green in the last 3 months (which 9 of the past 11 winners have done). I love how obscure this stat is! And the best part is the last spot goes to Tiger so I don’t feel like a dope when he does well on Thursday like the commish said. "
Commish says: This is a pick comment from someone who seems very NOT in over their head. You got GREAT value on that Cam Young selection (16% rostered), and Cantlay was the least rostered guy among the World Rank top 8. I asked Stat Czar what he thought, and he told me he was afraid you're coming for his job.
@Eannarelli (Patrick Cantlay, YEYPO): "I can't pick Tommy Fleetwood. This pains me. That said, I'll be the third person to embrace him when he comes off the 18th green on Sunday. I'm thinking Caddie, Wife, and then me in that order. A big hug and a couple side to side sways as we life and cry together arm in arm. I've dreamt of this day and it is almost here. "
Commish says: You embracing Tommy Fleet will be our new Golf SZN banner. And then, if you don't get him in the pool within three months, you will be forever banned from The SZN. CAN'T WAIT.
@StatCzar (Will Zalatoris, YEYPO): "This man looks like someone who got so much Botox that their face froze into place into a permanent look of "trust fund nepobaby", who requests that the servants do not make eye contact with him, and you can never really tell if he's making eye contact with you, due to the frozen face, but asks you to leave a fresh squeezed glass of lemonade on his end table as he scrolls through the yet to be released items from the Brooks Brothers summer catalog wondering how many Burberrys his girlfriend will put on his grandfather's black card and if his uncle's hostile takeover was successful. Should fit in perfectly with the old money at Augusta. Let's drain some birdies, I'm psyched! "
Commish says: You have gone next level, Stat Czar. NEVER RETURN TO YOUR PREVIOUS LEVEL.
@HaveYouCheckedYourButthole (Viktor Hovland, YEYPO): "Had to change, originally had Cam Smith, but with these LIV guys playing only 54 holes a week and with Killa Cam not really doing much damage against much weaker fields, I just wonder if his head is in it anymore. I can't really blame him. If someone gave me that kind of cheddar at his age, I probably would have died in Eleven Miami months ago. I'd have died happy though. "
Commish says: Have you considered that, if you win enough Golf SZN pools, perhaps you can go off and party with Killa Cam in Miami? Do you have a new life dream? Will you invite me?
@zachewing (Cameron Smith, YEYPO): "LIV free or die!"
Commish says: Is this the start of a possible heel turn from our BFIG champ?
@ChanningPhilpott (ROSTER: Cantlay, Day, Bryson, Sungjae, Brooks, Rahm, Scheffler, Cam Smith): "Scrolling up and down to find LIV guys, does that make me evil?"
Commish says: Not sure, but it certainly doesn't make you a bastion of morality and goodness
@Golfersue (ROSTER: Finau, Homa, Rory, Scheffler, Spieth, JT, Tiger, Willy Z): "PGA Tour forever! No LIV in sight. It’s our Destiny!"
Commish says: CAN WE ALL BATTLE (kindly)?
@Jevans4 (ROSTER: DJ, Rory, Morikawa, Scheffler, Cam Smith, Spieth, JT, Tiger): "LIV vs PGA. We are in for a treat. Rory vs the Mullet man himself. Rory probably won’t get a green jacket, but the pressure is on even more than ever for him this year. "
Commish says: I would definitely have watched a Rory vs Mullet Man main event at Wrestlemania. (Odds this is actually in our future: Decent?)
@sorny11 (Cameron Smith, YEYPO): "I can't win with PGA Tour players so might as well see if I can win with a LIV player."
Commish says: Is this... is this the way to pick LIV guys and actually receive sympathy points?!
@kbanaian (Rory McIlroy, Survivor #2): "I've probably just jinxed him worse than sleeping on the 54-hole lead at St. Andrews."
Commish says: Can you really jinx Rory at Augusta, when the man fails to break par every damn time in the opening round? He then slowly makes his way back, but dude, eat something different for breakfast on Thursday at The Masters!
@gbrueggs (ROSTER: Conners, Day, Rahm, Rose, Xander, Scheffler, Cam Smith, Cam Young): "An errant tee shot kills Greg Norman who is hiding in the trees"
Commish says: Lurking... like a shark? (Thanks. Will still be here all week.)
@MONSTERXXX (Max Homa, YEYPO): "Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo !!!!! Masters Broooo ! WOOOOOOH ! Im going back HOMA to where it all started just need to remember whete that is ? I know one thing bet there was Amstel's and Crown Royal there ! WOOOOOH ! YESSSSS"
Commish says: The fact MONSTERXXX isn't sure where home is suddenly makes the world make a LOT more sense
@Ebonecapone (Rory McIlroy, Big John Survivor): "I mean, C'MON, it's the Masters and it's Rory. It's not like I'm taking him to win, you know he's gonna make the cut. It's like commish waking up this Sunday and crushing a Bud Light Lime, a guarantee."
Commish says: Sunday is my only guarantee? Do I not wake up and crush a BLL every day that ends in "y"?!
@TigersLovePepper (ROSTER: Ancer, Burns, Homa, Horschel, Rory, Morikawa, Scheffler, Cam Young): "My friend is attending the practice round on Wed… so I asked him for names - proximity bias - and he gave me these. But he didn’t give me a backup name.. I did that one all by myself. Go Sacramento Kings!"
Commish says: THE BEAM has made its way into Golf SZN comments. It's a Sacramento Kings global takeover!!
@mahatma19 (Dustin Johnson, YEYPO): "What do you get when you go streaking in the desert? A Dusty Johnson"
Commish says: I can't believe I featured this comment. You've been placed in 3rd grade detention.
@cmart1220 (Tony Finau, YEYPO): "Attire for Thursday morning - hoodie. Attire for Sunday afternoon - green jacket. It’s that simple"
Commish says: HIRE THIS MAN AS YOUR MASTERS STYLIST
@Mcheavens13 (Scottie Scheffler, YEYPO): "It’s time"
Commish says: Once again, what have the 40% who haven't picked Scheffler yet in YEYPO been doing?!
@Commonlastname (Rory McIlroy, YEYPO): "Way out of contention, but eating chalk and loving it"
Commish says: CAN I INTRODUCE YOU TO CIVIL SOCIETY WHERE WE DON'T DO THIS
@Tijani (ROSTER: Finau, Homa, Rory, Morikawa, Xander, Scheffler, Cam Smith, Cam Young): "Hope these picks are better than my swing "
Commish says: The bar is the floor, Tijani
Yours in metal stick swinging,
The Commish