Friends in fore,

It was all set up for us. Going into Sunday, Shane Lowry was tied for the lead with two dudes named Skinns and Eckroat.

Lowry, a Major champion with GREAT course history, had 91 YEYPO picks - our fifth highest total. SkinnsRoat had 0 between them.

If you've been following along this year, you know what happened next.

Eckroat wins (our THIRD week with nobody picking the winner), Lowry finishes a quiet T4, we cry whatever tears we have left, and we get back on the horse for this week's picking.

Relatedly, I feel like Shane Lowry has been a pro golfer for 30 years.

Right? You can't tell me that, when I came into golf consciousness 30 years ago, the grainy ass CBS broadcast wasn't like "And there's the man who always sneaks his way into contention every few months. He's not flashy. But he gets the job done. Shane Lowry."

Wikipedia says Lowry is 36 years old but sometimes Wikipedia LIES.

It's the Arnie Palmer Invite this week - another BIG money event. Pick boldly. Pick wisely. You might just turn your Golf SZN around this week.

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS

What happened, in one paragraph

The big names (Rory, Matty FitzTestTube, Tom Kim, SEPPY, Chris Kirk) never threatened, in what's now the broken record theme for this Golf SZN. Going into Sunday, Lowry, Eckroat, and Skinns were tied for the lead, many shots clear of the field. But a potential thrilling finish between those 3 never materialized as Eckroat went low in the early holes while the other two faltered. Eckroat won by 3 for his first PGA Tour victory. 

One-and-Done ("YEYPO")

• Avg earnings: $110,224 (1.22% of purse). Our top pick, Eric Cole, was dead last after one round. Our second pick, Russell Henley, barely made the cut. Nobody picked the winner. So... yeah. 
• Winner picks: 0 In two prior Golf SZNs, we only failed to pick the winner once. It's happened three times in the last seven weeks.
• Overall leader: @mrmelty at $4,800,634. The melty man's lead is down to just $7K over second place @HINRICPT. Reminder that this week's champ gets $4M - nearly the amount of our overall leader at this point. 
• Interval 2 leader: 20 tied at $801,000. These 20 all had either Van Rooyen or Min Woo Lee, who finished T2. (Interval 2 is weeks 7-12.) 
• Best Squad: Musket Masters at $7.41M. SungJer Im OAD, STAG 2, and Roseville Post 7555 are all north of $7M, too. 

Survivor #1

• Damage done: 119 down. Cole took down 62 by himself (15% of the remaining survivors) in one of the year's most damaging picks. 
• Survivors: 300 are on to Week 8. 
• Best Squad: 11 Squads left with at least 3 survivors. 

Top 10s

• Avg points earned: 1.18. Lowry was a 3-pointer and one of our most successful picks of the year (21% took him). Cam Young (19%, 2 points) was also a great pick. 
• Top 10s actually picked: 8 of 15. We missed Eckroat (1st), K.H. Lee (T4), Skinns (T4), and a host of T9 guys (Noren, Kevin Yu, Laird, Malnati).
• Best weekly score: 6 (five people). Lowry (picked by 4 of them) and Keith Mitchell (3) were the keys here.
• Overall leader: @Dpac1556, @yjcc, @ballwasher11 (20 points). Our longtime leader Dpac whiffed, allowing @ballwasher (5 points) and @yjcc (2 points) to pull into a tie for the throne. 
• Best Squad: Unofficial 401k and Nigel Honoring TigersGreatness (43 pts). Unofficial 401k had been climbing for weeks, and is now tied with the longtime leader Nigel HTG. 

"All 30" One-and-Done

This pool is only active in "big money" weeks. Last week was a bye. See pool page >>

100 Tier One-and-Done

• Avg earnings: $105,745 (1.17% of purse). Henley and Cole were also our top two picks here. (And again nobody picked Eckroat.) 
• Winner picks: 0. But the one person picking Van Rooyen made up serious ground.
• Overall leader: @mrmelty at $4,800,634. Just like in YEYPO, the pack is creeping up. No Golf SZN lead is ever safe. 
• Interval 1 leader: @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