Player Pool: The Memorial
Scottie is not NOT #1.
With Memorial Day this past weekend and a house full of children, I didn’t get a chance to give you the review from Charles Schwab. 26/37 (70.3%). A decent hit rate and return to form from the PGA. The variance monster got us a bit with 5 of those 11 golfers that MC’d doing so by one stroke. While it still counts against us, it shows me the process was correct in identifying who we wanted and sometimes (ok, all the time) golf is incredibly fickle.
Muirfield is another sticky course on tour and somewhere you can rely on course history to break ties if necessary. It’s critical to put the ball on the fairway, but the course does offer much wider fairways than a lot of Tour courses. The rough is absolutely penalizing anywhere you land it and rumor has it the greens are going to be much firmer than in years past. Scoring isn’t going to be at an absolute premium and surviving the rest of the course.
Sam Bennett’s numbers are from the Masters, so take it with a grain of salt, but he is one of the top amateur players in the world and $300 off bare minimum price.
Spieth is included just because his numbers dictate he is, but Spieth is my absolute biggest regret last week. I assumed he was healthy enough by making the PGA cut and everyone struggled there (besides Brooks). It’s clear he’s hurt and that wrist injury is absolutely affecting his game. He had the second number of clicks behind Scottie last week at a course he dominates and he MC’d by one. I’m fine being late to the party until we know for sure that wrist is back to full health.
I’m wary of Bramlett as he’s being propped up by massive distance numbers. Bombers definitely have an advantage at Muirfield, but I’m not sure Bramlett has the game to take advantage.
I’ll get deeper into this section in Toph’s Thoughts, but holy cow - I’m begging Alex Smalley, Hideki & Tom Kim to bring a putter.