Bermuda Championship RunDown

By RickRunGood

November 14, 2024

Last Week’s Optimal Lineup

That’s All She Eckroat

Austin Eckroat added his name to this short list of multiple time winners on TOUR this year. His year has lacked consistency but he does seem to be on an upward trend.

He only has (3) Top 10 finishes in 2024 over 26 starts. Two of those are wins (obviously) and the other was a 6th place finish at the Wyndham Championship.

Over the course of the entire year he’s gaining +0.37 strokes per round but that jumps to +0.54 per round after the U.S. Open.

If you look at his last 100 rounds, using a running total of his Strokes Gained, you can see how he’s improving at a fairly rapid rate. With his great amateur pedigree, it’ll be interesting to see the leap he could take in 2025.

Four Out Of Six Ain’t Bad

Max Greyserman refuses to be stopped. He was the favorite last week and played like it, finishing 4th. That’s his fourth Top 4 finish in his last six starts. We’ve been monitoring him closely all summer but this is starting to get really crazy.

The best players on TOUR since the U.S. Open:

1) Xander Schauffele
2) Scottie Scheffler
3) Max Greyserman

During that span, he’s 2nd in SG: OTT and 1st in SG: PUTT. Those two skill-sets working in tandem is a very rare combination.

In the Tiger Woods era, Max would be the 20th instance of a golfer gaining at least +0.25 strokes OTT per round and at least +0.60 strokes putting per round for the entire year. This would be the fourth time it’s happened since 2018.

Waring, What Is It Good For?

Paul Waring edged out Tyrrell Hatton, Rory McIlroy and others to win in Abu Dhabi last week. That win very likely locks up his PGA TOUR card for next season, so he’s a name that we are going to need to get more familiar with.

The scouting report is impressive as Waring has picked up strokes on approach in eight of his last ten. Not only have they been gains, but some massive gains along the way. He’s notched at least five strokes on approach on five different occasions during that stretch.

He’s only played four non-major PGA TOUR events in his career with a mixed bag of results — T21, WD, WD, T8 — but those date back to 2019. Expect to see Waring get comfortable rather quickly on the big circuit.

If you find any of this valuable, I suggest checking out RickRunGood.com which is my golf data website designed for fantasy golf & golf betting. It contains nearly endless data and models from the PGA TOUR, DP World Tour, LIV Golf, Korn Ferry Tour & more.

Mack Daddy

Outside of the Presidents Cup, Mackenzie Hughes has only teed it up twice this fall — earning a T4 finish in Napa and T8 in Jackson.

His putting numbers are hard to beat, as he’s picked up 29+ strokes putting over his last nine starts. He struggles in many of the ball-striking categories but he’s decent with a wedge in hand — ranking 48th on TOUR in approaches from 75-100 yards.

On paper, this should be one of the better courses for him.

How Much Lower Can He Go?

The man with the best course history (T20, T8, T17) also finished T2 last week in Cabo. That, of course, is Justin Lower.

He’s hitting over 70% of his Greens in Regulation this year which ranks 25th on the PGA TOUR and he won’t run into any distance problems this week.

Dating back to 2021 across both the PGA TOUR and KFT, Lower has played 12 tournaments on courses that are 7,000 yards or shorter. In those events he has (7) Top 26 finishes which includes (4) Top 10s and a win.

The Big 2

The regression model for this week shows that two stats (Driving Accuracy and SG Putting) are both highly correlated to success at the Bermuda Championship. Accuracy ranks 17th (out of 52) TOUR courses in terms of correlation and SG: Putting is 8th.

It’s rather rare for both of those stats to each be Top 20 stats. It would generally require a short course that surrenders a lot of birdies but also has big greens. Enter Port Royal.

via RickRunGood.com

The image above shows the results of a model that I ran which goes heavy on those two metrics. The distribution is as follows:

20% wSGTOT
40% Driving Accuracy
20% SG PUTT L24
20% SG PUTT Bermudagrass

The Best of the Bottom

The bottom of this field is … interesting. If you need to fill out fantasy lineups or find some relief at the tail end of the board, there aren’t a lot of options to be comfortable with.

In fact, there is only one golfer who has a positive SG number over the last 36 rounds. That is Richy Werenski (+0.698). Now, 13 of his last 14 events have come on the Korn Ferry Tour where he finished with back-to-back Top 25s in their playoffs. He’s played this event each of the last two years and made the cut in both (T23, T69).

Underdog is currently offering up to $1,000 in bonus cash which you’ll receive when using the code “RICK” or following the link above.

All Eyes On Rory

Rory McIlroy is on the verge of winning the season-long Race To Dubai, the DP World Tour’s overall championship. Only Thriston Lawrence is within mathematical striking distance to take that honor away from Rory, even though it’s quite unlikely for him to do so. That sixth Championship would tie Rory with Seve Ballesteros for the second most championships all-time behind Colin Montgomerie (8).

There are plenty of other accolades up for grabs in Dubai this week, like the (10) PGA TOUR cards that will be awarded and the prize money for the individual event.

The image above shows all golfers in this field who have played at least 20 rounds at the Earth Course along with their finishing positions and SG numbers.

The Other Fitzpatrick

There’s only one Fitzpatrick playing in Dubai this week and it’s not Matt — who has won this event twice in his career. No, it’s his brother Alex who has been playing some stellar golf as of late.

After three straight missed cuts this summer, Alex has found his groove — piling up (5) Top 20 finishes in his last nine starts. He knocked the cover off the ball last week in Abu Dhabi, earning +5.299 strokes combined between the two ball-striking categories.