Friends in fore,

First, we're starting a "Theme of the Week" for comments. You'll see it listed just above the comment box on the picking page.

This week's theme: Your dream golf foursome (so, name the other 3).

Your comments can be short or long, straightforward or zany... just write whatever comes to mind. We'll feature a handful in every PICKS email.

NOW... by any definition, Hideki's final round will be one of the best rounds of golf played all year.

He was three strokes better than anyone else, and EIGHT better than either of the guys in the final group.

The only problem? Once again, almost NONE of us saw it coming.

None of us except @mrmelty, who bagged our first YEYPO skin of the year by being the only person on the former Masters champ.

$4M added to your total AND a skin? Good week for @mrmelty.

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS

What happened, in one paragraph

Tiger lasted 24 holes before sickness and a bad back forced him to withdraw. Patrick Cantlay lasted 54 holes (he led by 2) before someone tricked him into thinking this was a Major, and he promptly transformed into Majors Patrick Cantlay (read: bad). Willy Z showed flashes of his pre-injury self. But the story was Hideki, who hadn't been Hideki in two injury-plagued years. He's seemingly back, and is now the winningest Asian golfer in Tour history. 

One-and-Done ("YEYPO")

• Avg earnings: $368,382 (1.84% of purse). Not bad for only having 1 winner pick. 11 of our top 13 picks made at least $100K. 
• Winner picks: 1 Through five weeks, we have a TOTAL of 9 picks on a winner. Commish cannot understate how rare this is.
• Overall Leader(s): @mrmelty at $4,741,620. They had just $741,620 through four weeks. And then the Hideki pick. Proof positive that your fortunes can change VERY fast in Golf SZN - you just need one or two good picks! 
• Interval 1 Leader(s): @mrmelty. With one week to go in our first Interval (Weeks 1-6), seven people are north of $4M. Who will claim the first Interval title? 
• Best Squad: Musket Masters at $7.03M. SungJer Im OAD and Roseville Post 7555 are close behind. (You can still create/join golf squads - you just need 3+ people in the pool to be eligible for Squad Prizes!) 

Survivor #1

• Damage done: 64 down. JT is picking a bad time to revert to 2023 JT - he was our biggest pick to miss the cut. Jordan Spieth "broke" pro sports' worst rule in signing for the wrong score on one hole and was DQ'd, resulting in perhaps the most brutal missed cut in Golf SZN history. Commish hopes/expects the golf luck will come back to you, Spieth pickers. 
• Survivors: 470 are on to Week 6. 
• Best Squad: 18 Squads left with at least 3 survivors. 

Top 10s

• Avg points earned: 1.79. We ALMOST continued our trend of getting better every week, falling just short of last week's 1.85. We were HUGELY helped by Adam Svensson's bogey on the 72nd hole, which brought Scheff, Burns, and Fleetwood into T10 position. 
• Top 10s actually picked: 11 of 15. We missed Svensson, Cole, Hadwin, and List.
• Best weekly score: 6 (4 people). @yjcc has a perfect 12 points in the last two weeks after going Burns-Day at the Genesis.
• Overall Leader(s): @Dpac1556 (17 points). They've bagged at least 2 points in every week so far, including a 6-pointer on Burns-Day this week. 
• Best Squad: Nigel Honoring TigersGreatness (38 pts). Five Squads have 30+ points. 

"All 30" One-and-Done

• Avg earnings: $729,485 (3.7% of purse). Just 7 Hideki pickers. Our 108 Cantlay pickers wished he didn't bomb down the stretch.
• Winner picks: 7 Again, hard to see this Hideki performance coming!
• Overall Leader(s): @garrettcanderson at $8,417,200. Garrett added just $580K to his haul, but he was SO far in front after an absurd first two weeks that he's still $2M ahead of @YikesVikes in second place. 
• Best Squad: Nigel Honoring TigersGreatness at $18.3M. Several Hideki pickers in this bunch gave them a big boost. 

100 Tier One-and-Done

• Avg earnings: $422,749 (2.1% of purse). Our best week by total money, and our second best week by % of purse (Phoenix Open was at 2.5%).
• Winner picks: 2 Half skin! 100 Tier out here repping even harder for Hideki.
• Overall Leader(s): @mrmelty at $4,741,620. That's right. Our boy Melty took Hideki in both pools and is now staring down the possibility of the Golf SZN Double! 
• Interval 1 Leader(s): @mrmelty. 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

Yours in metal stick swinging,
The Commish