Standing Guard

Welcome to 2024. The year we were promised the PGA TOUR schedule would be "fixed" and "better than ever." I foolishly believed it, and planned over a year ago to start our season with the very first event, in order to incorporate all the elevated... designated... and now signature tournaments!

Sadly, a new-and-improved schedule never happened. Maybe it will once the multi-billion dollar Saudi/PIF and private equity cash-grab gets sorted out. Perhaps they'll blow up the entire format, and give us 15 tournaments to actually care about each year. The other twenty nine weeks (way too many) can be smaller events that allow churn, where players fight for spots in the big tournaments. Most importantly, those down in the smaller tournaments won't have to wait a full year to be promoted.

Anyway, this week is The Sentry — no longer a tournament of mostly champions. It is the smallest signature event field-wise, so some guys didn't qualify due to previous bad play (ie: Justin Thomas). Rory McIlroy is the only qualified player sitting out, choosing to play in back-to-back Dubai events (which count in our pool).

A photo of the Kapalua Plantation golf course with a sentry guarding it.

---

A few thoughts on the selections:

It was really thin at the bottom this year due to LIV guys leaving the TOUR. Talor Gooch would be a top 3.1 pick... but he's not eligible for any of the Majors. We were left with a bunch of mules and rookies... many of whom you people have on your radar! So what shocked me?

• I'm a huge Rory McIlroy fan. And he's a huge disappointment. But he scores top 3 points every year (2nd in points last year with 113). My selections are also always entry #1, and never change once loaded. It took until entry #38 for someone else to select Rory! And only four people in total picked him! Sure... Scottie is a baller (#1 in points last year) and Viktor "won" the final two events (one was a net victory)... but I expected the spread to be fairly even.

• 60% of the pool selected "rookie" Ludvig Aberg (myself included), over guys who finished 15th & 16th last year, with 4 and 5 events in the points. For those of you who don't know the hype... Ludvig was the first player in Ryder Cup history to make the team without ever playing in a Major... went 2-2 in that contest to help Europe win... then played in four PGA TOUR reach-around events, finishing: 2nd, 13th, 10th, and 1st.

• 78% of the pool took Sahith Theegala (myself included)! And he hasn't been in the points since last April!

• I'm happy with the LIV percentages, as I tried to make you at least think about selecting them. Jordan Spieth might stink — scoring 3 points after last April — so the Jon Rahm people (22%) could cash in. Dustin (17%) and Bryson (24%) were also popular in group 4.1. And if the TOUR and LIV somehow "merge" this year... it could be a huge advantage having those guys.

That's all for now. Good luck this week!