No Picks for Buick Open - Traveling

I did not get my picks out for the Buick Open this past week as I was traveling. I was not on a computer very much, much less hooked up to the Internet. Therefore, I did not post a blog entry with my picks for the Buick Open. I should be more on my game this coming week for the AT&T National.

Tour Outsider: Travelers Championship Review

[ Again, I am late in posting the review for a tournament. I was traveling all last week and wasn't around a computer very much, much less on the Internet. ]

It is now time to review the picks for the Travelers Championship to see how the results turned out.

Here are the results of the Tour Outsider (my) picks.

Rank Player CLi Rank Earnings Rd4 Rd3 Rd2 Rd1 Actual 1 S Kenny Perry 7.70 6 3 8 12 $194,250 2 S Nick O'Hern 15.05 19 24 54 53 $65,250 3 S Heath Slocum 16.70 4 2 8 28 $288,000 4 S Rod Pampling 17.50 MC MC 99 129 $0 5 S David Toms 21.75 27 15 38 28 $40,800

This week I had 4 top players in the top 30. Just one player missed the cut (Pampling). That was the eye sore in my picks.

Here are the results of the Tour Insider (Dave Shedloski) picks.

• 1 Hunter Mahan 2 | $528,000
• 2 Kenny Perry | 6 | $194,250
• 3 Bo Van Pelt | 83 (MC) | $0
• 4 Chad Campbell | 27 | $40,800
• 5 Carl Pettersson 37 | $25,800

Here is the comparison between the Tour Outsider and Tour Insider picks.

	Tour Outsider	Tour Insider	Winner
Total Earnings	$588,300	$788,840	TI
Avg Rank	31.0	31.0	DRAW
Made Cut	4	4	DRAW
Outcome	--	--	TI

The Total Earnings category was won by the Tour Insider.

The Avg Rank category was a draw.

The Made Cut category was a draw.

This tournament overall was won by the Tour Insider.

The overall results between the Tour Outsider and the Tour Insider year to date is, 14 wins to the Tour Outsider, 8 wins to the Tour Insider, and 5 draws.

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The CLi top 15 looked like this (see below).

Rank Player CLi Rank Earnings Rd4 Rd3 Rd2 Rd1 Actual 1 S Kenny Perry 7.70 6 3 8 12 $194,250 2 S Nick O'Hern 15.05 19 24 54 53 $65,250 3 S Heath Slocum 16.70 4 2 8 28 $288,000 4 S Rod Pampling 17.50 MC MC 99 129 $0 5 S David Toms 21.75 27 15 38 28 $40,800 6 S Briny Baird 28.10 19 31 54 28 $65,250 7 S Corey Pavin 28.10 10 40 12 53 $150,000 8 S Vijay Singh 28.85 5 3 12 12 $240,000 9 S Kevin Sutherland 31.20 27 40 5 28 $40,800 10 S Ryan Moore 31.60 MC MC 132 78 $0 11 S Carl Pettersson 33.30 37 49 27 105 $25,800 12 S Jerry Kelly 34.05 MC MC 83 78 $0 13 S Nathan Green 35.95 MC MC 83 53 $0 14 S Joe Ogilvie 39.30 37 49 54 105 $25,800 15 S Bob Tway 39.65 MC MC 83 78 $0

Traveling

I am traveling this week and will have limited access to a computer. So I will post the review of the Travelers Championship and the picks for the Buick Open when I can get on a computer over the next couple of days.

Tour Outsider: Travelers Championship

This week the US PGA Tour cools off after last week's U.S. Open to head to the north east coast to play the Travelers Championship.

Let's look at the Golf CLi and see who the top 15 players are for the tournament ranked by the CLi figure.

Rank Player CLi 1 S Kenny Perry 7.70 2 S Nick O'Hern 15.05 3 S Heath Slocum 16.70 4 S Rod Pampling 17.50 5 S David Toms 21.75 6 S Briny Baird 28.10 7 S Corey Pavin 28.10 8 S Vijay Singh 28.85 9 S Kevin Sutherland 31.20 10 S Ryan Moore 31.60 11 S Carl Pettersson 33.30 12 S Jerry Kelly 34.05 13 S Nathan Green 35.95 14 S Brad Faxon 37.95 15 S Joe Ogilvie 39.30

This week I am going to keep it simple and am going to go with the top 5 in the CLi rankings. I thought about dropping Toms (as he is still recovering from an injury) and picking Pettersson (who is playing well of late). However, will trust the CLi this week completely and stick with the top 5.

So the Tour Outsider picks for the Travelers Championship are:

Rank Player CLi 1 S Kenny Perry 7.70 2 S Nick O'Hern 15.05 3 S Heath Slocum 16.70 4 S Rod Pampling 17.50 5 S David Toms 21.75

The Tour Insider's (Dave Shedloski) picks are:

• 1 Hunter Mahan
• 2 Kenny Perry
• 3 Bo Van Pelt
• 4 Chad Campbell
• 5 Carl Pettersson

We have 1 player in common in this tournament: Perry.

Tour Outsider: U.S. Open Review

[ I am late in posting the review this week. Things have been hectic the past several days as GolfInvestors has gotten close to 10,000 users visting the site to get the results of the U.S. Open. ]

It is now time to review the picks for the U.S. Open Championship to see how the results turned out. It was a wonderful tournament, for spectators, fans and the press alike. It was very good for the sport of golf worldwide.

Here are the results of the Tour Outsider (my) picks.

Rank Player CLi Rank Earnings Rd4 Rd3 Rd2 Rd1 Actual 1 S Phil Mickelson 7.40 18 47 35 12 $87,230 2 S Vijay Singh 13.70 65 70 65 12 $16,514 3 S Sergio Garcia 17.00 18 11 35 85 $87,230 4 S Stewart Cink 20.90 14 47 22 19 $122,159 5 S Geoff Ogilvy 21.50 9 4 9 3 $160,769

I didn't pick the winner, who was Woods. But the overall results were nice for the picks. I had one top 10 (Ogilivy - 9th), 3 of them were in the top 25 (which is good for a major), and all the players made the cut (this is very good for the difficult U.S. Open).

Here are the results of the Tour Insider (Dave Shedloski) picks.

• 1 Sergio Garcia 18 | $19,800
• 2 Phil Mickelson | 18 | $60,000
• 3 Luke Donald | 156 | $120,667
• 4 Geoff Ogilvy | 9 | $1,080,000
• 5 Tiger Woods 1 | $1,350,000

Shedloski got hurt when Donald withdrew in the final round due to a wrist injury. Donald was in the top 10 starting the final round. WD put Donald back in 156th place.

Here is the comparison between the Tour Outsider and Tour Insider picks.

	Tour Outsider	Tour Insider	Winner
Total Earnings	$473,902	$2,161,131	TI
Avg Rank	24.8	37.8	TO
Made Cut	5	4	TO
Outcome	--	--	TO

The Total Earnings category was won by the Tour Insider.

The Tour Outsider won the Avg Rank category.

The Made Cut category was won Tour Outsider.

This tournament overall was won by the Tour Outsider.

I won the event because Shedloski's Donald pick withdrew in the final round. If Donald just finished the final round, Shedloski would have won all of the categories this week. Instead, I take home the trophy this week.

The overall results between the Tour Outsider and the Tour Insider year to date is, 14 wins to the Tour Outsider, 7 wins to the Tour Insider, and 5 draws.

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The CLi top 15 looked like this (see below).

Rank Player CLi Rank Earnings Rd4 Rd3 Rd2 Rd1 Actual 1 S Phil Mickelson 7.40 18 47 35 12 $87,230 2 S Vijay Singh 13.70 65 70 65 12 $16,514 3 S Anthony Kim 14.90 26 24 65 49 $61,252 4 S Sergio Garcia 17.00 18 11 35 85 $87,230 5 S Justin Leonard 20.20 36 47 42 64 $35,709 6 S Stewart Cink 20.90 14 47 22 19 $122,159 7 S Geoff Ogilvy 21.50 9 4 9 3 $160,769 8 S Stephen Ames 23.50 58 70 49 49 $18,664 9 S Jim Furyk 27.60 36 19 22 49 $35,709 10 S Robert Allenby 28.70 18 6 9 7 $87,230 11 S Ryuji Imada 29.80 18 24 65 49 $87,230 12 S Tim Clark 30.10 48 24 22 31 $23,985 13 S Boo Weekley 31.20 26 24 65 31 $61,252 14 S Mike Weir 31.20 18 11 42 31 $87,230 15 S Tiger Woods 32.00 1 1 2 19 $1,350,000

Tour Outsider: U.S. Open

This week the US PGA Tour is moving to the west coast to play the second major of the year. We will see Torrey Pines host the U.S. Open Championship. Torrey Pines will play different than it has during the regular season event, the Buick Invitational.

Let's look at the Golf CLi and see who the top 15 players are for the tournament ranked by the CLi figure.

Rank Player CLi 1 S Phil Mickelson 7.40 2 S Vijay Singh 13.70 3 S Anthony Kim 14.90 4 S Sergio Garcia 17.00 5 S Justin Leonard 20.20 6 S Stewart Cink 20.90 7 S Geoff Ogilvy 21.50 8 S Stephen Ames 23.50 9 S Jim Furyk 27.60 10 S Robert Allenby 28.70 11 S Ryuji Imada 29.80 12 S Tim Clark 30.10 13 S Boo Weekley 31.20 14 S Mike Weir 31.20 15 S Tiger Woods 32.00

The cream rises to the top. That is the case with the Golf CLi rankings this week with all of the strong veteran players in the top 10. The two exceptions would be Tiger Woods and Anthony Kim. Woods is not in the top 10 (he is 15th) and Kim is not a veteran but is in the top 10. It will be interesting to see how Woods does after his knee surgery and how Kim does being a young buck.

This week I am going to go with the top 2 (Mickelson and Singh), skip over Kim, grab Garcia, skip over Leonard, and pick Cink and Ogilvy.

Mickelson knows Torrey Pines like the back of his hand having grown up in San Diego. He currently lives within 30 minutes of the course. Singh had been nursing an injury, but has seen his play improve as he gets over the injury. Garcia has been very consistent the last couple of months. As well, it helps that he won the Players Championship last month. That will give him some confidence in a major type of tournament. Cink and Ogilvy are very consistent in majors, especially on hard courses.

As for passing over Kim, I just don't feel comfortable in picking him with little experience in the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open is just a different animal than other tournaments. He might play well, but he could be very well shoot a high score in the first round and have no chance making the cut after that. And for passing over Leonard, he did win last week at the Stanford St. Jude Championship and is playing well. However, many players don't play well in the U.S. Open when they have won the week before. Therefore, I passed over him.

Then there is the reasoning for passing over Tiger Woods. It is very hard to not pick Woods in any tournament. But the CLi doesn't project him finishing higher than 32nd. He is 15th in the CLi rankings, but his CLi is 32. He has finished 1st twice and 2nd twice in the past 7 years. However, the knee surgery is a question mark and this pushes his CLi ranking down. He could play well the first couple of days, but the strain on his knee in the U.S. Open environment could tire him out in the 3rd round.

So the Tour Outsider picks for the U.S. Open Championship are:

Rank Player CLi 1 S Phil Mickelson 7.40 2 S Vijay Singh 13.70 4 S Sergio Garcia 17.00 6 S Stewart Cink 20.90 7 S Geoff Ogilvy 21.50

The Tour Insider's (Dave Shedloski) picks are:

• 1 Sergio Garcia
• 2 Phil Mickelson
• 3 Luke Donald
• 4 Geoff Ogilvy
• 5 Tiger Woods

We have 3 players in common in this tournament: Garcia, Mickelson and Ogilvy.