Andy and Steve both mapped out TPC Toronto on their shows to analyze the distribution of 2nd shot yardages. Both of them predicted that roughly 39% of approach shots will be from 200+ yards out. Just to give a comparison, the PGA Tour average is 25%.

With TPC Toronto asking players to hit a ton of long irons, this is one of the most important statistics to monitor when figuring out your outright card and DFS player pools.

On the Rabbit Hole, you can easily filter for the best players from 200+ yards. However, I found a filter that you can find the best players who have gained the most strokes on approach on long courses in general.

Over the last 50 rounds, here are the top 12 players in the field in this category:

Taylor Pendrith pretty much checks every box I am looking for this week. Canadian. Former winner at TPC Craig Ranch. Can gain a significant advantage off the tee at this golf course with his length. Well above average long iron player. Tons of prior success on long golf courses. In phenomenal recent form, coming off a top-15 at Memorial where he finished second in the field in tee-to-green play on a thick rough, driver-heavy, long-iron-intensive golf course. Pendrith makes the most sense on paper, which probably means he won’t win, but it would be a disservice to the process if I didn’t bet him.

If we are handicapping TPC Toronto to be a long iron test, one of the names I immediately dove into deeper was Bobby Mac. Rightfully so, Bobby Mac is the defending champion of the RBC Canadian Open, which was played at Hamilton Golf and Country Club, not TPC Toronto.

With emphasis on long iron play, Bobby Mac ranks 15th in the field from 200+ yard approach shots. He recently gained 0.75 strokes per round on approach at the Memorial and 1.18 strokes per round on approach at the Charles Schwab Challenge.

Additionally, Bobby Mac has shown the ability to pop on these types of courses, as he ranks 10th in the field in strokes gained off-the-tee on long courses with thick rough.

With some anticipated easier scoring conditions this week, players will need to be able to breakout with their flatstick. Bobby Mac has gained positive strokes with the putter in his last three tournaments.

It’s officially Bobby Mac season with some venues that fit his skillset perfectly coming up on the schedule. It starts this week back in Canada. Can he go back to back?

On July 8th, 2024, the PGA of America delivered a surprising announcement that Keegan Bradley would be the 2025 Team USA Ryder Cup captain. Team USA is coming off an embarrassing outing two years ago in Italy where they lost to the Europeans 16.5-11.5. Zach Johnson was the captain of the team and spearheaded many debatable roster decisions. Many even questioned his preparation going into the event. 

The PGA of America decided to shake things up and name Keegan Bradley the youngest USA Ryder Cup captain since Arnold Palmer back in 1963. In the 2024 season, Keegan would go on to win the BMW Championship and earn himself a captain’s pick on the 2024 Presidents Cup team. 

In Keegan’s opening press conference as Ryder Cup captain, he famously stated:

As we stand today, the players ranked 6 through 12 on the Team USA Ryder Cup rankings look very bleak with not a lot of experience. Here are the current top 12 of the standings (show picture):

As you can see, the back half of the standings contains a plethora of question marks. This begs the question, currently ranked 16th on the rankings, should Keegan Bradley select himself? 

I have gone back and forth on if Keegan should use a captain’s pick on himself, however, I firmly believe right now he needs to be on this team and his play deserves it. 

Here are Keegan’s performances at the signature events and majors so far this year:

• Sentry: T15

• Pebble Beach: T65

• Genesis: T34

• API: T5

• Players: T20

• Masters: CUT

• RBC Heritage: T18 

• Truist Championship: T20

• PGA Championship: T8

• Memorial: T7

On Data Golf and on the OWGR, Keegan ranks as the 17th player in the world. Among the Americans, he ranks 8th in the world.

If you handed Keegan's resume blind to me, there would be no debate that he would be on my Ryder Cup team.

Keegan has stated numerous times that he loves Bethpage Black, including sharing stories about sneaking onto the course during his time at St. John’s.

In January of this year, Keegan selected Jim Furyk as one of his four vice captains. Furyk was the captain of the 2018 Ryder Cup team in France, and has been a vice captain on multiple other Ryder Cup teams. 

Prior to the Furyk selection, Keegan used his first three vice captaincy selections Kevin Kisner, Brandt Snedeker, and Webb Simpson. All three have not held a captaincy or vice captaincy position in the Ryder Cup. 

Did Keegan pick Furyk in case he decided to be a playing captain and wanted his last vice captain pick to have prior experience as captain? I believe so. 

I also believe that the top players like Scheffer, DeChambeau, Thomas, Schauffele, and Morikawa, who are all seemingly locks to make the team, would encourage Keegan to play, given how in form the New England native has looked. 

Keegan was on the 2012 and 2014 USA Ryder Cup team and has a 4-3 record. He is famously known for his electric and energetic pairing with Phil Mickelson. 

With Keegan’s recent form, the decision if he should be a playing captain will continue to spark discourse in the media. If Keegan is a team guy and wants to do what is best for the team, he needs to be playing.

With the U.S. Open at Oakmont less than a week away, the rough videos have already began to percolate.

The United States Open is our oldest championship, and throughout its 129 year history, it has done a worthwhile job of maintaining its distinctive identity as the hardest test in golf. The U.S. Open first began keeping score to par in 1930, when Bobby Jones won at -1 over MacDonald Smith at the Interlachan Club in Minnesota. This kicked off a long history of even par being the general North Star in terms of scoring for the US Open. Yet as is the case with many great traditions and institutions in the modern era, we have began to lose touch with the carnage that once proudly identified our country’s best golfer, and the psychological examination that previously yielded temper tantrums, ejections, and meltdowns has taken a backseat to more tame setups coddling the modern professional golfer. Let’s go decade by and decade and count the winning score: 

• 1930s: +26 

• 1940s: -2 

• 1950s: +29

• 1960s: -6 

• 1970s: -4 

• 1980s: -41 

• 1990s: -37

• 2000s: -26 

• 2010s: -60

• 2020s: -28 

As one can see, we really lost the identity of this championship in the 80s, non-coincidentally, at the exact same time we saw tremendous innovation in the golf ball and equipment. I can already hear the mouth breathers suggesting, “par is just a number. It’s completely irrelevant.” To a certain extent, I understand this argument. We could just make every golf course a par 68, and suddenly the score would be over par. Or, instead of changing the character of the golf course, we could play the game at its intended scale via addressing the driver head technology and the golf ball. 

Hopefully a roll back is the first step in restoring the US Open to its primary character, the hardest test in golf. A test that is so mentally taxing and traumatizing that we see the best golfers in the world reduced to little children, struggling to cope with a shred of adversity, an entirely foreign concept to them on the PGA Tour. I will repeat this for those in the back: Watching professional golfers struggle and navigate adversity is more engaging television than a birdie-fest. And watching them struggle a lot, while not necessary every week, is tremendous theatre. 

A true U.S. Open should nudge its way as close as possible to the line of what is fair vs. unfair. It should flirt with unfair, have a cup of coffee with unfair, and not be afraid to dart in between those lines. Just once a year. Give us a tournament that not only tests these players’ ability to execute, but also their mental fortitude. They are… athletes after all? 

I would argue that professional golfers are the most coddled and overpaid athletes in modern sports right now. The fact that we have strayed so far away from par as a reasonable winning score for a golf tournament displays that the game is being played at a different scale than its original intention. And while I know this may all sound a bit, “Get Off My Lawn,” I do not believe that requesting just one tournament a year maintain its historical identity is a giant ask. I am not a boomer denouncing any form of change. Some change is both necessary and worthwhile, and there are many areas in which the game has evolved in engaging ways due to innovations in technology and the optimization of skill amongst professional golfers.

With that being said, just one week a year, par should matter. And realistically speaking, par does matters to golfers on a psychological level. It may take playing competition to truly understand this, but there have been studies that show that players navigate holes differently based on what the par is. That’s right, if we were to make more reachable par fives long par fours, it would actually change the way that they played the hole. So yes, relation to par does matter, and our National Open once prided itself on its ability to generate winners at the noble earmark of even par, if not north of that. 

I’m tremendously hopeful that Oakmont reinstates the U.S. Open as the toughest test in professional golf, and yes, that will be measured in the winner’s score in relation to par. Would it detract from my viewing pleasure this week if this tournament was won at 5-under par or 5-over par. Not entirely, but I’m certainly cheering for the latter. The early signs at Oakmont are promising.

This is a proud membership that seems to fully understand that the tradition of the U.S. Open is steeped in the host venue’s difficulty, and historically, Oakmont has been the most challenging U.S. Open venue on average of all time. It was of course designed in 1903 to be the hardest golf course on planet earth. “Difficulty” is as ingrained in Oakmont’s culture as Taylor Pendrith futures are at ISN. If there is ever a host venue to reinstate the ethos of the U.S. Open, it’s Oakmont—the oldest, and hardest golf course in America. 

One of the most underrated aspects of any Dynasty league is roster manipulation year in and year out. Understanding Buy Low and Sell high opportunities will keep you competitive year in and year out. One of my favorite strategies is the one-year rental. Most teams are looking for the young core building blocks but will often overlook older players with big upside, this leaves us tremendous opportunity.

Buy for ‘25

D’Andre Swift - As stated in my previous article I’m very bullish on the Ben Johnson Led Bears. I was particularly excited about how they beefed up the offensive line which is a key factor I look for in breakout RB candidates. I was also elated to see the Bears not draft a RB early besides 7^th rd dart throw Kyle Monangai. Johnson, who has spent time with Swift in Detroit not going out and making a move at RB, screams buy low. I’m not convinced that Roschon Johnosn is a threat besides maybe some goal line TDs. Swift is the perfect buy low one-year rental player that you can sell for a profit mid-year or immediately after the season. Swift is currently ranked around 25-30 in dynasty RB rankings.

Davante Adams - Currently ranked around 40 in dynasty rankings with an Age of 32 years old this is a perfect buy candidate. He may not be on your roster for long after him and Stafford click! This is the best team Adams has been on in a couple years and shows no signs of age-related decline. Worst case I believe Adams can give you 3 really solid years of WR 2 potential while carrying WR 1 upside. Adams will be the perfect mid-year trade chip, or the perfect compliment to help you win your league title!

Sell now

Brian Thomas Jr.- The excitement around BTJ is unreal and I believe it has swung to far. Looking at what teams do in FA and the NFL Draft tells a story that we too often overlook. Trading up to draft Travis Hunter is going to eat into BTJ volume. Now I’m not saying he is a bust, but what I’m saying is his sell price right now could be the highest its ever going to get. I would be throwing out some feelers to see if I could pull in a king’s ransom for him.

Chase Brown - After a great year on a high potent offense Brown is my Sell high candidate. I love Brown and I am a fan but right now, especially with the RB market the way it is I think this is a perfect sell spot. Burrow is going to chuck the ball, and the defense is going to allow a ton of points. My favorite trade option would be a ‘26 First and Davante Adams. Reach out and see what the trade block is you may just find a bite

Honorable Mentions

Buys

Jaylen Waddle

Kyren Williams

Derrick Henry

Marvin Harrison Jr

Sells

Ashton Jeanty

Bucky Irving

Puka Nacua

Drake London