This week the US PGA Tour moves to the big state of Texas to play the Shell Houston Open.
Let's look at the Golf CLi and see who the top 15 players are for the tournament ranked by the CLi figure.
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I am going to go with Adam Scott, then will skip over Geoff Ogilvy as I think he is focused more on the Masters than this tournament. Then will go with the Houston area transplant from South Korea, K.J. Choi --- as he likes playing in front of his adopted home town.
I will go with the next two players after that, which are Mickelson and Harrington. Mickelson historically plays well in the tournament before The Masters. In the past the tournament before The Masters was the Bellsouth Classic in Atlanta. So hoping to see him do well in Houston for the same reason. Harrington is playgin steadily at the moment and look to see him place well this week.
I will skip over Mahan to pick Stricker as my last pick. After missing the cut in New Orleans last week, I think Stricker will show some fire this week to play well before heading off to The Masters.
So the Tour Outsider picks for the Shell Houston Open are:
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The Tour Insider's (Dave Shedloski) picks are:
- 1 Stuart Appleby
- 2 Geoff Ogilvy
- 3 K.J. Choi
- 4 Anthony Kim
- 5 Adam Scott
We have 2 players in common in this tournament: Choi and Scott.
Love this site, have used it throughout my golf pool this year and I am presently in first. I was going to take Appleby this week, due to his past successes at the Houston open but am now suspect because of his middle of the road cli score. Any thoughts?
ReplyDeleteAs for the reason I did not include Appleby in my top 5 picks for the Shell, it is because I think the ones that I picked have a better chance of playing better than Appleby and the rest of the field. It is not to say that Appleby has a bad chance of playing well this week.
ReplyDeleteScott is on a upward swing at the moment, especially at the Shell. Choi likes the course and Houston, as it is his adopted home town. Mickelson usually plays well the tournament before the Masters. Harrington is solid all round and should be a guarantee to make the cut (I don't like having players miss the cut; would much rather have all of my players make the cut and finish lower in the field than have a winner). And for Stricker, I think he is burning fire that he missed the cut last week in New Orleans and will have a top 10 because of that this week. So that left Appleby out. If I had 6 players to pick, he would have been the next one.
That said, Appleby could easily be a good pick for you this week. For one, in the last 3 instances of the tournament has won the tournament and placed 2nd twice. However, it also could be argued that since he has played well at the Shell in the past, it will be hard for him to keep up the good form and snag a top 10.
Then if you are looking at the CLi rankings and actual CLi figures, the CLi figures between the 3rd and 8th rankings are not very different. With Choi ranked 3rd in the CLi figures and Appleby ranked 8th with a CLi figure of 16.70, there is just 3 CLi points between them. This means the CLi figures are basically saying that Choi and Appleby have a very similar chance of playing well this week at the Shell Houston Open.
Also remember, that I am just looking at the top 15 players in the CLi rankings here. So the players listed here from the golfcli.com site are already expected to play better than the rest of the 123 players in the field.
As well, Shedloski (the Tour Insider) likes Appleby.
Hope that helps explain my thought process in my picks this week.
Thanks for the compliment and reading the Tour Outsider blog. It is enjoyable to hear from readers.