Aberg
227
563
Aberg was the Most Popular pick by a comfortable margin, selected to just over 40 percent of 563 rosters. He finished t21.
We experienced 6 percent growth, up to 563 entrants from 530.
259 entrants used their entire allotment of 300 points. All but 6 used at least 290, with PleminG using the least at 265.
Emmy has the Most Popular roster, with the 2 golfers selected the most and 5 of the 10 golfers picked >100x. Jack meehan is the Class Nerd, with none of the golfers picked >100x and only Rahm above 25x. He has 3 golfers picked <10x.
Jack meehan also has the Least Balanced roster, starting with Scheffler and finishing with Olazabal and an amateur. 3 others also paired Scheffler with a 0-point amatuer. Jerri P has the Most Balanced with just 7 points separating his Column One golfer (Henley at 52) and his Column Six golfer Kim SW at 45).
96 entrants paired golfers from England, including 7 with a trio. 37 entrants paired Australian golfers, including 3 who have a trio. Sweden had 5 pairings, Denmark 3 and Korea and Spain with one each.
American golfers - 45 of 91 in the field - account for 1,538 total selections ~46%. Voskuhl and TBirdD are the only two entrants with All-American squads, while the 8 entrants listed to the right have NO Americans.
The 34 entrants listed to the left have golfers from 6 different countries.
10 golfers were picked >100x. 90 of 91 golfers in the field were selected to at least one roster. Mid-Am champ Holtz was the only SNUB and he MC'd and finished near the bottom. Fox was by far the Most Popular among golfers under 30 points. He MC'd
123 of 563 entrants advanced a full roster to the weekend, including the top 13 finishers and 35 of 42 entrants on the Leaderboard. No one with more than one MC finished in the top 134. Everyone advanced at least 2 golfers and all but 10 advanced at least half their roster.
FINAL
MCs followed a predictable pattern with the final 3 columns almost doubling the first 3.
All things considered, DeChambeau and Bhatia were the Biggest Busts, although Lee MW, Berger and MacIntyre had worse scores and were picked by plenty.
There weren't any Steals that stood out, but Stevens, Brennan and Campbell offered good value for the few entrants who picked them..
Both winning teams had balanced rosters that started with Fitzpatrick and both also had Morikawa. BLaValle added Reed, Hatton, English, Homa; Hayden Golf Pros added Rose, Woodland, Burns, Day. Neither team had an MC and neither team had the winner (McIlroy), so the tie could not be broken.
BLaValle (left) was brought into the pool by my nephew Zeke (t237, t316), who runs the LIVE Scoring for us. He previously won the 2018 British with his father and brother, but they have now split into three separate teams, so it's his first solo win but we'll still count him as a multiple Major winner. Hayden Golf Pros (right) was introduced by Zeke's father, my brother Phil (t177). His previous best finish was a 3rd in the 2023 PGA.
Strangely, balanced rosters worked best in this pool, despite the golfers with the top two point values finishing 1-2. Only 3 of the 22 entrants who selected McIlroy finished on the Leaderboard, led by Andy Brady 1 in 4th, and none of the 29 entrants who picked Scheffler were on the Leaderboard. Best finish was t43 and only four were Top 100. Only one entrant (Jack meehan) picked both and he was unable to make it work, finishing 447th.
12 of the top 16 entrants, including the top 3, were among the 96 entrants who paired golfers from England on their roster - including Gcartin (t9) who had a trio. But correlation may not be causation, as only Ccarroll7942 had Rose and Hatton (both t3) and golfers from England didn't really dominate the scoreboard.
Balancing Act
Tie at top between entrants
who resisted the Big Guns
The Best Possible graph below confirms just how hard it was to go top-heavy in this pool. It's not always the case, but for this week anyway it was almost impossible to find a formula that worked with the heavy hitters. No golfer under 30 points finished Top 20, only 4 golfers in the teens made the cut (and one blew up over the weekend) and no one under 10 made the cut. Also, very few entrants even tried. Among Scheffler, McIlroy, Rahm, DeChambeau, no pairing occured more than 5x. One entrant went with 3 of them and finished 447th as noted above.
