Friends in fore,

Commish covers the batshit Week 1 of Golf SZN below, but FIRST...

This week (Farmers Insurance Open) starts WEDNESDAY.
Make picks ASAP. You can change them if need be.

They do this to avoid competing against NFL Championship Sunday. The rare moment of intelligence from the PGA Tour.

WEEK 1 RECAP. WEEK 2 PICKS. LET'S GO.

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS

What happened, in one paragraph

A literal kid won the damn thing. Nick Dunlap became the first amateur since Phil approximately 80 years ago to win a PGA Tour event. Actual pros choked while Dunlap acted like he belongs. No one picked Dunlap (amateurs can't win money). No one picked 2nd place Christiaan Bezuidenhout. Did Week 1 even happen?!

One-and-Done ("YEYPO")

• Avg earnings: $116,292. That works out to just 1.29% of the purse per pick - easily our worst Week 1 ever. Weekly standings >>
• Winner picks: 0 For only the second time in Golf SZN history, nobody picked the winner. Sort of a "duh" when an amateur wins, but, you know... amateurs are NOT SUPPOSED TO WIN! Actual tourney results >>
• Overall Leader(s): 68 at $635,600. Some notable names finished T3 - Xander and JT (who apparently is not dead). 68 of us had one of those guys, and share the early lead. Overall standings >>
• Interval 1 Leader(s): 68 at $635,600. We have FIVE intervals this year, each with their OWN PRIZES. Top 15 get paid and 1st place gets $200 in each. Interval 1 is Weeks 1-6. Interval 1 standings >>
• Best Squad: The aptly named "FORE!" squad grabs our early lead, with their top 3 posting $1,483,300 in Week 1. You just need a Squad with 3+ people in the pool to be eligible for Squad Prizes! Squad standings >>

Survivor #1

• Damage done: 124 down. We did much better here than in the OAD. Our top 7 guys and 17 out of the top 18 made the cut. Only Tom Kim (8th biggest pick) fell by the wayside. Weekly standings >>
• Survivors: 1,147 are on to Week 2. See who's alive >>
• Best Squad: 51 Squads have at least 3 survivors. You just need a Squad with 3+ people in the pool to be eligible for Squad Prizes! Squad standings >>

Top 10s

• Avg points earned: 0.7. I mean, what did you expect?! We'll see how many more weeks we end up with less than 1 point per person, on average. Weekly standings >>
• Top 10s actually picked: 6 of 10. Shout-out to our sole Bezuidenhout picker (3 points). Nobody picked Ben Griffin, Michael Kim, Chun An Yu, or Dunlap. (And for the record, you CAN pick amateurs if you want, since this pool isn't about money - it's just about Top 10 finishes.) Actual tourney results >>
• Best weekly score: 5 (3 people). They all had Hadwin (3 points) and a mix of JT and Xander (2 points). FANTASTIC result given the lackluster overall performance. Actual tourney results >>
  Overall Leader(s): 3 at 5 points. Notably, only 9 people got both picks right. NINE! If you posted a 0 (like Commish), you're still T175. It's really no big deal. Overall standings >>
• Best Squad: "Nigel Honoring TigersGreatness", which I believe is a mashup of two former Squad names that decided to merge, got 10 points from their top 3 performers. "Saturday Hackers" is one back at 9. Squad standings >>

100 Tier One-and-Done

• Avg earnings: $118,287. Barely better than the main OAD but still a nominal amount to start the year. Weekly standings >>
• Winner picks: 0 Ain't nobody out here picking an amateur. And for that matter, no one is gonna pick Christiaan Bezuidenhout in Week 1 of 100 Tier, either. Actual tourney results >>
• Overall Leader(s): 6 at $635,600. The 3 JT pickers have to be very happy. The 6 Xander pickers will take it. Overall standings >>
• Interval 1 Leader(s): 9 at $635,600. We do 3 intervals in 100 Tier: First half (W1-15), Second half (W16-31) and Majors Only. $400, $200, $150 to the top 3 in each interval. Interval 1 standings >>

COMMISH COMMENTARY

Keeping it light this week because it's a tight picking window and I need to get this email out to y'all.

But here are some early impressions after the first week of Golf SZN Year 3:

Top 10s is a VERY fun format. We picked three 2-point guys (top 15 in the field by World Rank) and three 3-point guys (outside the top 15) who finished top 10. This strategy wrinkle - should you pick 2- or 3-point guys? - is gonna be fun to monitor all SZN long.

We have 2 spots left in the 100 Tier OAD. 200 participants. $17K in prizes. Given how Week 1 went down, you didn't really miss anything. Snag one of those 2 spots and juice your SZN fun. 

PGA-LIV figuirng their shit out can't come soon enough. The first amateur win since Phil should be massive sports news and just FUN. Instead, it's seriously clouded by "would he have won had the field been better (AKA including LIV guys)?"

I love Golf SZN. No matter the chaos (amateurs?!) and no matter the external drama (LIV), our Golf pools are unmatched in the "picking effort:entertainment value" ratio. Hope you're loving it so far.

Yours in metal stick swinging,
The Commish