Wow, I am just a once-a-year golfer who happened to check this thread today. REALLY wish I would have found it a few days earlier and been able to follow Will's awesome run. My father-in-law lives in Bent Tree and it sure looks like a nice course. Looks like I have a new favorite young golfer to follow for the next 30 years.

Congrats Will and Ship.

Ship amazing run and really looking forward to the update. Is this kid going to try to go pro or go to college first? edit: read article see that he isgoing to wake....are you and your wife friends with his parents ? It seems as though he might need backers....we could start a 2+2 sponsored group investment!

ship one other thing...that was 119 with SW when he holed out. It seemed like a really soft swing for that ball to go 119. were there any factors that would make that shot play short?

In the recap he says I had 119 so thats just a SW taking a little off. Haha what a beast.

Love his swing...arms in front of body and wide and just back and through.

Looked slightly uphill if anything.

It's hot in Houston but it's sea level and humid, ball doesn't go very far.

Is 119 yard sw a big deal for a pro?

I believe he said 56*, not everybody on tour can do this, but many can.

But let's not forget we're talking about a 17-year old here, I'd say a 119 56* is a big deal for a 17-year old.

BO

Ship

Hope you can comment on the Game mgmt, strategy discussed in the article - Hogan said "there is golf and then championship golf" - I believe that the mental side was what he was referring to. Not some fade , draw, low or high shot technical detail

Congrats again.

Davis was a great kid. Really rooting for him down the road. He played very well in the final match, he simply got unlucky to run into a kid who was really in the groove….with a caddie who could point it in the right direction.
Nah, I have a ton to get caught up on.
I am good friends with his parents. No clue what to think of his future with regards to professional timing. He really wants to get a good degree and both his parents are very successful in business so it is important to all. That said, if he were to continue lighting it up and get a $5M offer like Speith it is hard to turn down. LONG way until that happens though. This has been a great month for sure, but he still has a ton to prove before endorsement money is a thought.
His stock 56* is 123. We were slightly downwind and trying to land that shot 115 to skip to 119 and 10’ right. He had hit a couple good 80% shots on #9 in the stroke play and we kept referring back to those all week for a feel for him when he needed to take a little of a wedge shot.

That is certainly longer than standard I’d say. Will was the longest in the field for sure. There were a couple of other players we saw in matchplay that were close, but Will hits his irons an absolute mile.

This.

I will get to this in the trip report. Going to take a few days though, I’m still smoked and trying to catch up on work.

Edit: Hell yeah I'm going to Atlanta.

Awesome can't upset the mojo.

once again, i think ship's 'strokes gained looping' value is at least 1-1.5 holes per round in match play.

looking forward to the trip report.

oh, and ship....i'm aware that you are quite successful at your current position, but what would you estimate the potential earnings are if you looped for your horse for the rest of his career assuming what i understand is an average arrangement of a weekly standard of $1,500/week + %5 < top 10, %7 > top 10, and %10 when winning?

Glad to hear you'll be back in action! This is good stuff.

ill be playing in atlanta as well that week shipp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!











at a local muni while drinking some beers...*

Good for you!

Although deep down I knew the lure of meeting NXT was too good to pass up.

BO

I first remember reading the OP a few weeks back seeing as ship was the OP (I will always read anything from him, such great insight), but I completely forgot about the thread until I checked the golf forum for the first time in a couple days to see that the thread was over 200 posts. I certainly missed out on the sweat, but congrats on win! A kid with that much length being only 155 lbs... My lord.... look out when he molds into his frame.

I remember hitting it out around 300 regularly a few years ago (I'm 21 now), but this is coming from a guy who is 6'1" 220 lbs who also played hockey during his youth... A little more weight being driven into the ball, than what is being done here by your horse. Amazing.

Sorry to hijack, but reading this type of stuff really gets me excited for my senior year golf season (Glory's Last Shot), albeit at a lowly D3 college in WI.

I'm excited to follow along with the U.S. Am only a few weeks away.

Good Luck!

so awesome. this is literally right up there as one of the best things i've ever seen happen on this site over the yrs.

I do think there are some intangibles that I bring to Will via my experience that are immeasurable. Will is getting a firm grasp of the strategy I’ve been working on for him, but the intangible of keeping him cool and in the moment is something that he (all 17 year olds on the big stage for the first time) really needs. I’ve been hammering on him to never let his thoughts sway toward the winning experience until the event is over.

In the semifinals he was 3 up with 5 to play and had to win 18 to win the match. That is exactly what I told him when we were on the 32nd hole in the Finals. He was again 3 up with 5 to play and I told him this isn’t even close to over. It helps to then hole the shot to go dormie, but even after that I let him enjoy it for about a minute. I was then right back on him to get in the moment, regain his presence of mind and situation, and finish the match ASAP before pressure mounted and momentum swings if Davis were to win a hole or two.

Tiger used to say “finish the race”. That is literally what I said to him on the walk to 15 tee.

USGA issued bulletproof vest? I’ve said it before, and mean it, I’m not a hold a grudge guy. I’d love to meet NXT in person and once you put a face to a name it’s much harder to be a dick for no real reason.

Thanks, it was a ton of fun! I’m not sure how much farther he will hit it with more mass. I’d think he has about 20 yards he will gain and if anything he should lose (or try to lose) some of the distance he hits his irons. Since I’m not an instructor I simply don’t understand what’s going on in order to hit his irons like he does. I always pounded the driver, but was basically average length with my irons. He hits it a club longer than I ever remember hitting my irons.
Should be fun, but we are now at the highest level against kids that literally will turn pro the day this event is done and step onto the Tour or web.com and be competitive. Will certainly can win if he plays like he did last week, but he will have to run very good.

That said, with the way he drives it I simply can't see him ever not being at least competitive.

How long did Carlton woods play and what do you expect the length of AAC to play for the Am?

Carlton was about 7200-7300 everyday. I'd expect similar or slightly longer for AAC. The rough will be slightly longer and the fairways slightly narrower. The pins for the Junior were way tougher than I expected and I assume they will be a tad harder for The Am as well.

What a busy couple of weeks after deciding to go to the US Am to caddie. Between work, family, and getting all this data together I’m a wreck. It literally took me almost a week to recover from the 10 rounds in 7 days in Houston heat. I could hardly concentrate on anything for more than half an hour.

As I looked back on the US Junior I truly felt like Will was by far the dominate player and deserved to win. I tried to not let my bias dominate my thought process as I tried to deconstruct what I witnessed and find any scraps to further hone his strategy for Atlanta. I’m not sure what sort of recap anyone is hoping for, but I’ll give his Strokes Gained statistics vs. the PGA Tour stats as well as a couple other nuggets that I found amazing.

First of all, here are his strokes gained for each match, score, and totals:


Picking up 3.31 shots per round vs a PGA Tour field in ball striking is amazing. Last week in Rory’s WGC win he led Strokes Gained Driving with 2.2 and was 17th in Strokes Gained Approach at .8, for a total of 3.0 strokes gained via ball striking per round. Will hit the ball better over the course of 9 rounds than Rory did, that’s amazing.

As I told Will before the event, if he hits it the way he is capable he is literally almost unbeatable because he just doesn’t give you any room to breathe. With the strategy designed he simply rarely gives you a hole, you will have to go out and beat him. Clearly that works at the Junior level, but I’m expecting him to run into many other stallions next week. However, if he plays as well as he has been and keeps the putter under control he is certainly capable of competing.

Losing .3 Strokes Putting is clearly not ideal, but I 100% think he can win with that kind of performance. Between his ball striking, my course management, and a putter that is neither a positive or a negative I like our chances.

Now the random fun stuff. I truly felt like even though he was taken to 18 twice he was by far the dominant player in the field. I looked at the 8 quarterfinalist scores throughout the event. Obviously this isn’t perfect because I don’t know how many putts and strokes were conceded, but I think it is a safe assumption they all probably just about cancelled each other out over 150ish holes. I’d bet concessions helped will 5-7 shots over the 150 holes he played.


The scores are what the player was in relation to par at the end of their matches and the row below their name is how many holes they played in each match. Will was almost 2 shots better per round than the next best player. That’s a mile, obviously. Another thing I told Will before we started was that I truly didn’t see how it was possible for him to shoot over par on that golf course. It was a perfect track for him and to literally shoot 2 or 3 under every round and have two strong rounds of -6 and -5 is simply great.

In his matches he only trailed on the back nine one time and squared that match on 10 after being 3 down through 4. Several matches he never trailed and got the lead for good early on #4 and #3.

Overall the course was much different than the State Am. He didn’t have a single approach to a par 4 under 112 yards. His approach proximity from the fairway for all shots was 4.8%.

More to come, just thought I’d throw this out there.

WTFFFFF

I know, I couldn't believe it either until reviewing later. Here is the overall look at the par 4's

1 411 Hit hybrid off the tee leaving 150ish usually
2 466 Driver to 120-150
3
4
5 442 Fanned driver right due to water left most days, this was the one really hard hole for him visually
6 377 4 iron off tee due to really challenging green
7
8
9 449 Driver to 120-130
10 429 Hybrid off tee
11 457 Driver to 120-140
12
13
14 440 3 wood to 120-140
15 432 3 wood to 130-160
16 416 Hard hole with left to right dogleg but fairway sloped from right to left. Really hard line for him
17
18

Interesting. No approaches under 112 but it doesn't look like he was hitting more than a 8 or 9 iron into the greens either.