Chalk Bomb Week 6

'Love Your Losers' 

I had the honor & privilege early in my trading career to be mentored by a handful of the greatest traders on planet Earth. There is so much that relates from trading/poker/golf/dfs/business/life that many of the valuable lessons you can learn from one are directly applicable to the other. When to lay up or when to go for it, when to raise or when to fold, when to up your leverage or when to leverage down. The greatest advice I ever got was from an old wiley pit trader....this guys life story is book worthy, he didnt even finish high school but is worth several hundred million. He told me, Ben, 'Love your losers...you dont learn a f*&$ing thing from your good trades, but if you really take the time to study & figure out exactly why the trade didnt work, really love your losers, thats where the gold is.' He would also go on to tell me that your theory can be exactly correct, but the trade can go against you, call it luck, negative variance, whatever but its bound to happen. He would constantly remind me, 'Do you want to me 'right' or do you want to make money?' (more on that for a later post).So whatever you did last week, I hope you didnt play Phil Mickelson! Yea so that didnt exactly work out....I had a completely difference lead-in planned for this week, but sometimes you get thrown a curveball & you just have to adjust. So I wanted to go over the process that lead me into making Phil the chalk bomb last week, where I think the process is still correct, and maybe an opportunity to improve upon it.  As always though, we'll continue to be process focused & not results focused, even when the results are terrible! The real key, and I'm sure if you've read the article the past month you'll see the recurring theme, is that I think its highly valuable to see exactly where someone is gaining/losing strokes, and really digging into how that one little number at the end of the round is formed. Generally speaking, the guys that are finishing at the top any given week are gaining the most strokes tee to green. Barring crazy weather or a super tough course, tee to green strokes are generally going to have the highest correlation to the top guys. And this is why I really like separating the tee to green skills from putting. It is literally impossible to win a (72 hole) golf tournament if you lose strokes tee to green, however, it is NOT impossible to win a golf tournament losing strokes putting (while rare, Kyle Stanley did it just last year, & people finish in the top 5 all the time doing it). Phil has no doubt turned himself into one of the best putters in the world, but the exact same argument we made last week is still in tack this week, & to an even higher degree. Phil was 12th in the field last week in strokes gained tee to green, but gained more strokes putting in one tournament this past week (7.4!) then he has in a year & half, & continues to set a pace right along the record putting season Jason Day had two years ago. Strokes gained approach was hands down the most important stat last week, & Phil gained LESS THAN half the strokes he had gained the week before on approach (& half the strokes around the green as well). So I think the process was right, but Phil just had another crazy hot putting week. Now where I think I may be wrong....if we agree that someone is a good putter (Phil def is), perhaps the variability of that is LESSER than for someone who is NOT a good putter and gets on a unsustainable putting hot streak. Jason Day did it for an entire season, & he's an elite putter....back when Spieth was an elite putter, he did it as well, & several others.  I'm going to continue to dig into it even further, & report back what I find! 

We get asked all the time what we use for our research & deep dives, well look no further than fantasy national! They have all kinds of cool tools like rolling recent form stats, player profiles where you can do the critical research of figuring out who exactly is gaining strokes where, putting surface splits, custimizeable model building, the list goes on & on! Just click the Fantasy National logo below & get started on your way to being a smarter player!

Boom Boom

Were back at again, and let me start off by saying that Mr. Jordan Spieth got a long, hard look here. He's hitting it great, he actually led the field in strokes gained tee to green last week of all the guys that played last week playing in the field this week (which is why he's not the bomb). Stop me if you've heard this before, but he lost strokes putting, again, last week....he's now lost strokes putting 5 of the last 7 tournaments hes played in. He's basically turned into what Jason Dufner always dreamed of being....the best ball striker in the world that would win everything if he could just putt. But if your playing Spieth this week, your basically just betting that the trend is gonna reverse in his putting, which is not a bet I feel strongly about, especially when there are guys 1k cheaper than him that I like straight up against him. Remember Spieth pretty much HAS to finish in the top 10 to justify that price, & really more like a top 5 finish, which the books will you give you almost 2 to 1 on your money for. Maybe this is the week that the putter clicks, but if your playing him this week, honestly, what are you leaning on that says this is the week? And oh BTW he's played much worse historically in really windy conditions, and oh BTW he's basically got one of the worst tee time draws for the wind. This weeks bomb is a guy that you would think is a perfect fit for this course, & he has been in the past, as he's literally never missed a cut here which is really impressive. BUT literally everything in his recent form is trending the wrong way. See the image below courtesy of fantasy national for his last 150, 20, 10, & 5 tournaments strokes gained totals:#NotGreatFantastic.....at 20% projected ownership....I need a little better form than this. Matt Kuchar, your the bomb!

10 Facts You Need to Know So You Dont Wake Up Cuddling Next to Someone Like This On Sunday

1. Top 5 guys with sneaky course history relative to skill: 1.Jim Furyk 2. Robert Garrigus 3. Luke Donald 4. Nick Watney 5. Harris English

2. Top 5 guys that gained strokes tee to green their last time out but lost strokes putting (in order of strokes gained): 1. Spieth 2. Hoffman 3. Fatrick 4. Finau 5. Fisher

3. Top 5 guys that gained strokes putting but lost strokes tee to green last week (in order of strokes gained putting): 1. Fitzpatrick 2. Webb Simpson 3. Grace 4. Cantlay 5. Rose

4. Top 5 guys that gained the most strokes putting from last years Valspar (in order of strokes gained): 1. Danny Lee 2. Hadwin 3. Dufner 4. Stenson 5. English

5. Top 5 guys that gained the most strokes tee to green from last years Valspar (in order of strokes gained): 1. Finau 2. Cantlay 3. Campbell 4. Bozzelli 5. Hadwin

6. The ageless Steve Stricker is rating very highly for me this week, & he's coming off a win a on the champions tour

7. This is no doubt an accuracy course, many of the bombers will have to club down off the tee with a LOT of approach shots coming from 175+ even though its a 'short' course

8. Scrambling was another aspect that doesn't really pop often, but this week it does with the longer approaches & smaller greens/windy conditions. The top 5 guys in good 'scrambling form' are: 1. Stenson 2. Stricker 3. Baddeley 4. Cam Smith 5. Spieth

9. There does appear to be a slight tee time advantage for the really early guys tomorrow. The winds are projected to be 8-9 mph early then get up to 15-16 later in the day. Sunday should be a shit show with 90% chance of rain & 20-30 mph winds. 

10. Another higher priced guy with great course history who's form has just gone to shit is Gary Woodland. He's gained strokes off the tee every week, but since his win his approaches have been almost negative ever week since, he's lost strokes around the green 2 out of his last 3 weeks, & ditto for his putting. 

Thats its Boys & Girls

A quick reminder, if your part of the grammer/spelling police, than this hear article aint for yall. Their are many other articles out they're w/ greatfantastic grammer, I'm just hear too supply information & have fun. That is all. May you're screens be green over their.