Alright we are 2 weeks away from the first Major of the year at Augusta! Pretty fun time of year, but bummed to see the Florida Swing pass us by. Those really are some of the best tracks we see all year...and I hope I am not being biased and you enjoyed them as much as I did. 

Now we transition to a short Texas swing before heading to The Masters and some staples on the PGA Tour schedule like RBC Heritage, Zurich Classic, and Truist Championship (previously Wells Fargo but now moved to The Philadelphis Cricket Club)!

I don't have too much during this 2 week lull, so let's just try to get ahead and prepare ourselves for The Masters. This is a good time of year to venture into the Qualifier lobby, usually you can find some overlay in the early morning which is worth attacking.

Other than that, let's discuss the week ahead.

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Course Preview

 

First, let's just get an overview of the course.

This course is literally the opposite of what we saw in Florida the last month. The things that stand out first to me, is the low Missed Fairway Penalty, the moderate Driving Distance, Low Distance Penalty, surprisingly low GIR% and the array of Approach shots throughout the course.

What makes this perplexing to me is that there are obviously a lot of Drivers to be hit, as you can see 12 of 13 tee shots, but usually with this many drivers you would see a distance penalty increase. We don't see that at all here. Even when looking across the hole by hole chart, there are only 4 holes that have a DDist Penalty over 0.2, and those holes are the Par 5s and Hole 18.

And you can see that with the SG Radar, where OTT really isn't a differentiator. This is definitely perplexing, but as we go to the next level of analysis, it is evident that Approach play is the difference maker, generally speaking GIR% but I was able to identify one specific bucket that stood out amongst top finishers:

Yep, 150-175. This range had the clearest sign correlation with top finishers. That doesn't mean other buckets should be ignored, but I think when looking at ApproachIQ, 150-175 is relatively more important.

So piecing this together. I think it is a straightforward week, good Driving Stats for 290-310 (I prefer SG:OTT here), and then almost all buckets, but I think the angle is paying more attention to 150-175 leading in here. That really was a difference maker. We only have 4 years of data, so honestly I think course history is good and worthless...really depends on the player. Don't be afraid to play some good course fit who has some poor finishes here

 

Oh and if you want to be crazy and build a DrivingIQ model and mix it with an ApproachIQ model (probably should go ahead and build this tool because it was pretty fun), here is what a balanced SGOTT (290-310) and SG:APP for all buckets weighted for the distributions:

 

And this was weighted with RTP and SG OTT for 290-310:

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Tee Times

Here are the AM/PM tee times:

And here are the PM/AM tee times:

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Weather Outlook

Thursday Weather

 

Friday Weather

 

Windfinder

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CORE PLAYS

Alright, let’s get into my Core Plays. 

Scottie vs Rory...this might be a trend all year (yeah yeah, really going out on a limb there). These guys are the 2 best players in golf right now and unless you're playing 50-100-150 lineups, playing both is not the proper strategy. Especially with their ownership, you should be looking to match the field or go overweight on one, or fade both.

This week I am fading Rory and playing Scottie. Now, I know it is tough to be reading things on X or listen to other content and hear about how great this course is for Rory, and surely every course is good for Rory, especially when he can hit 12 drivers but not this week for me. Scottie is the best play over $10k for several reasons. First off, I don't think Rory cares about the Houston Open. I really don't, he just won the 5th biggest event of the year, now heading to Augusta to cap off his Masters heartbreak over the years with a big win...this week just doesn't feel like an event where he is fully vested. Scottie on the other hand does. I think he is trying to find some mojo of 2024 and this is a great place to do it. He has great history and this should be a nice confidence boost heading into Augusta. But apart from my own "gut feel" against Rory, Scottie has been objectively better. Irons have been better, driving has been good enough, Spectrum gives Scottie some nice respect. This is all to say, my take is fade Rory and play Scottie....and hope for the best.

Now playing Scottie or not, the rest of the 9k range is loaded with leverage this week. With Scottie + Rory getting about 70% of ownership... this means the $9k range will likely be spread out and low owned. Here are my favorites: