Friends in fore,
It took 37 tournaments but it finally happened.
Before last week, we were 36-for-36 in having at least one pick on the tournament champion in YEYPO. 30-for-30 last year. And 6-for-6 so far this year.
Then... Kurt Kitayama.
WEEK 8 (The Players Championship)
- Go to your competitions page >>
- Purse: $25,000,000
- First place: $4,500,000
- Pick deadline: 3/16 4am PT Thurs
Before we get into Kitayama's heroics, The PLAYERS Championship is this week, and it's the richest purse of Golf SZN. $4.5M to the winner. Pick accordingly!
Now... it's not like Kitayama was a total no-name.
He was ranked top 50 in the world coming in, and he'd already bagged three runner-up finishes in his relatively short career.
But in an elevated event with essentially every big name on the PGA Tour? None of us gave him a chance.
We gave 66 picks to Jason Day (ranked lower than Kitayama), 7 picks to Gary Woodland (WAY lower), and one each to Aaron Baddeley and Joseph Bramlett (lol).
We simply whiffed.
Our top pick (Rory) finished T2, and our second and third picks (Scheff and Hatton) finished T4 - so we did quite well this week - but our run of perfect champion predictions finally came to an end.
Last year, SEPPY won and we still picked him twice. Hudson Swafford won and we were like "herrrreeee skinny skin". J.J. Spaun won and we were like SPAUN OF GOLFSTRADAMUS ARE WE.
Kurt stands alone.
WEEK 7 RECAP
YEYPO
Golfer Performance | Weekly Performance | Overall Standings | Golden Spreadsheet
We whiffed on Kurt but our top three picks all took home at least $800K. That led to a per-pick average of $613,500, or 3.07% of the purse - VERY impressive in a week where we didn't pick the winner at all. North of 3% is a great week.
Still hauling big duffel bags. Six of our top seven picks bagged at least $325K. Only Willy Z (T53, $47K) went home with less. It continues to be a Golf SZN that - aside from Kitayama's surprise win - is going VERY true to form. The big guns are doing big gun things. Staying chalky has paid dividends, much to Commish's dismay. But we're still only 7 weeks in. 23 to go, which is a LOT of time for things to get funky.
Skin?
Kitayama was there for the taking! Harris English (T2) and Davis Riley (T8) were also not picked. Not the best week for the skinnies.
Biggest shank:
Willy Z was a disappointment to his 113 pickers, and Morikawa (76 picks) was the top guy to miss the cut, but Commish has to go with Jon Rahm here. After seeing just 66 people had picked the world's hottest golfer (5 wins in 9 starts with 9 top 10s), Commish proclaimed it a very surprising bargain. Rahm led the tourney after one round. And then... he fell apart, closing with 76-76-72. The blowup included a stretch of +4 over five holes (Friday) and +6 over seven holes (Saturday). Weird.
YEYPO Standings
@Kester988 extended their lead with a Rory pick and now boasts an astonishing $11M after just seven weeks. The lead is $1.25M over second place @JimmieGimmie, and there was a LOT of movement in the Top 10 owing to who picked Rory and who didn't.
Big John
Golfer Performance | Weekly Performance | Alive Players | Golden Spreadsheet
We went from 392 to 369 after our top 8 picks all made the cut. We hit on 22 of our top 23 picks, missing only Morikawa (13 picks). Very strong week.
Team SZN Performance
Commish backed Willy Z and paid the price, dropping from 9th to 24th. GM took McIlroy, and no longer resides in the Team SZN basement. That (dis)honor belongs to Merf, who threw in the towel circa Week 20 last year and moved to trying to miss as many consecutive cuts as possible. Don't do it again, Merf. (DO IT AGAIN!)
Reminder: Team SZN plays along for fun and bragging rights but can't win any money.
Yours in metal stick swinging,
The Commish