Model Update: RBC Heritage
The cut is in
24/34 names with the Ryan Fox WD and he was likely heading towards a MC anyway. 71% is the clip for RBC. It’s solid, but it’s also highly annoying, as it could have been better.
Top of the model was absolutely outstanding. It helps when you have a lot of thoroughbreds in there, but still. getting 14/17 through in the top half, many of them in strong contention is what we’re looking for. Hitting on values like Conners, Woodland, Martin, Clark and Kuchar tell me the process was there.
Here’s where it gets annoying. Jaeger went +3 on Friday, Homa struggled mightily (again - his game isn’t where we’re used to seeing it), Kurt missed by two strokes from a late-ish double bogey and Tom Kim missed by one stroke after being 13th from DFL in SG: Putting. If the game isn’t there, that’s fine, but when dude’s miss putts left and right and it costs them the weekend, it irritates me. The absolute most annoying thing about Tommy Train missing the cut is I was convinced that Matt Fitzpatrick was going to be clicked more than Kim. I made my own decision on Kim over Fitzpatrick because of that in my personal lineup. It turned out to not be the case, Kim MC’s and Fitzpatrick is -6 and T18.
Luke List will almost make every single model and will almost always be a MC because he is the worst putter on planet earth. I’m very strongly considering redacting him and letting the next guy in. I try to cut down to 35 names to give us a manageable pool. #36 on this weeks model? Xander. Huge, huge L by me missing that opportunity to have him included.
I’m not sure if you find any value in hindsight analysis, and if you don’t — I take no offense to you skipping over these. But, I do believe accountability is what keeps this thing churning. It also helps me identify if I had any holes in the process and I probably should have considered putting more than I did and I should have continued drilling into accuracy. It’s so vitally important.
I’m incredibly pleased Cam Young made the cut, but he grinded to get there as I just don’t think this course suits all the strengths of his game. I do believe Cam Young is going to win a tournament in the next month.
Ben Martin is sitting at T46 and -3 right now. His last 3 holes of round one and first 2 holes of round two, he went +7. +7 in five holes. Yes, you play every single hole and I appreciate that, but oh boy - hard not to feel a little sting on what could have been.
I was incredibly high on Collin Morikawa and over the course of the past two days, he has the worst SG: Putting of anyone to make the cut. If he finds anything with the flat stick this weekend, he’ll rise up the leader board.