Friends in fore,
It's a WEDNESDAY morning pick deadline this week. It's one of only two such tourneys.
NOW, did you know Jon Rahm wears Sunday pink?
That's the most Spaniard thing ever. It's like "Tiger red, but softer and more fun, and I'm still going to destroy you."
98 of us picked up a Week 1 win with Rahm's dominant performance in the desert.
WEEK 2 PICKS (Farmer's Insurance Open)
- Go to your competitions page >>
- Purse: $8,700,000
- First place: $1,566,000
- Pick deadline: 1/25 ~7am PT
If you had a blah start or missed the cut, REMEMBER THIS:
- Last year's YEYPO champ missed SIX cuts.
- Last year's 3rd place finisher didn't even make a cut till Week 4.
- Everyone will miss cuts. It's no big deal!
- What matters most is wins and top 5 finishes.
For Rahm pickers, we stared the "should you burn one of the best guys so early?" question in the face and pulled the lever anyway.
And that's always the question in these early events, which generally have lower purses than many of the events to come - do you "burn" a top guy, even if he's playing GREAT?
You'll get different answers from different people. Commish took Rahm, so you know where I stand.
He bagged $1.44M for the win, which is far less than the $2.5-3M champs will bag in other more prestigious events. But even in those events, 3rd place is gonna be less than $1.44M.
Don't get me wrong - you definitely want to save guys for the premier events. But if you bypass them when they win a smaller one, you need them to actually win (or get 2nd in) the bigger one for that decision to pay off.
STRATEGY. MOXIE. 350-YD BOMBS. BUD LIGHT LIME 30-RACKS. On to Week 2 we go.
WEEK 1 RECAP
YEYPO
Golfer Performance | Weekly Performance | Overall Standings | Golden Spreadsheet
Our top guy (Brian Harman) missed the cut, but 16 of our next 17 picks made the cut. We averaged $166,505 per pick (2.08% of the purse). That 2.08% purse-adjusted figure would have been our 14th best performance last year.
For Rahm pickers, it was spectacular. He was the huge betting favorite and from the first round it felt almost inevitable he would win despite a strong leaderboard behind him. But Rahm was just our 6th most picked golfer, and none of our top 5 bested $134K in earnings. 76% of us made SOME money, but for a majority of us it was a blah start. 29 events to go, and a lot of opportunities to bag a big finish.
Skin? Nope. We had just 17 full skin opportunities (1 pick) and 6 half skin oppos (2 picks). None of those included tourney runner-up Davis Thompson. The best performance was T11 (Patton Kizzire and Christiaan Bezuidenhout).
Biggest shank: When your top pick by a MILE (16% in both YEYPO and Survivor) misses the cut... there is no other choice. Harman didn't necessarily play poorly - he was 8-under through three rounds - but he was never above the cut line. In a tourney that demanded birdies, he turned on the jets far too late (6-under in his final 9 holes).
Big John
Golfer Performance | Weekly Performance | Alive Players | Golden Spreadsheet
Harman went down (259 picks) but our next 10 guys (924 picks among them) all survived the cut. In total, 1,215 of us are on to Week 2.
Team SZN Performance
Commish continued the most en fuego streak of his SZN life by picking Rahm. Both Stat Czar and GM went down with the Brian Harman ship in Survivor.
Reminder: Team SZN plays along for fun and bragging rights but can't win any money.
Yours in metal stick swinging,
The Commish