This week the US PGA Tour is in North Carolina to play the Quail Hollow Championship (formerly called the Wachovia Championship).
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No explanation provided this week...as I am behind in my activities.....
Below are my 5 picks for the Quail Hollow Championship:
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This week the US PGA Tour moves to the Louisiana bayou to play the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
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As with last week, I am going to go with the top 5 in the CLi rankings. Watney, Howell, Merrick, Stricker, and Glover all look like good candidates to play well this week.
Below are my 5 picks for the Zurich Classic of New Orleans:
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This week the US PGA Tour slows down a bit after experiencing a high energy level of last week's Masters. This week's event is the Verizon Heritage in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.
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I am going to go with the top 5 in the CLi rankings. My only question was Els, as he missed the cut last week at the Masters. He plays well at Hilton Head, however, he missed the cut last week at the Masters. In looking at the tournaments leading up to his solid finishes at Hilton Head in the past, he played poorly as well. So am going to include him in my picks based upon the fact that he plays well on this course. The other 4 players either are playing solidly leading up to this week or play well on this course. It is a tight course with small greens. So it favors players that are accurate and have a strong short game.
Below are my 5 picks for the Verizon Heritage:
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This week the US PGA Tour heads down Magnolia Lane in Augusta, Georgia to embrace the year's first major, The Masters. It should be a good one with many of the prominent players hitting on all cylinders.
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As usual, the CLi rankings for a major look good. However, there are two favorites going into the week: Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Both of their CLis for the tournament are less than 3. That is a good indicator that they both will play well. As such, it would be foolish of me to pass up either one of them. So I start my picks by getting the two big guns out of the way. I pick Woods and Mickelson
I am going to pass up Watney, even though he has been playing well. His experience in the Masters is limited.
Then I am going to pick Casey and Goosen. Both players have won in the past several weeks. Casey won last week at the Shell Houston Open, and Goosen won 3 weeks ago at the Transitions Championship in Florida.
I would pick Donald. However, his wrist injury draws up a big question mark in terms of how he will play this week.
However, in sticking with a European for my 5th pick, I am going to go with Harrington. He is the current reigning British Open champion and the current reigning PGA champion. So if he does win this week, he will have won 3 majors in a row.
Below are my 5 picks for The Masters:
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This week the US PGA Tour takes a jump from the east coast to the southwest (Texas) to play the Shell Houston Open. It is the last tournament before the Masters, and any player not already in the Masters' field will earn an invitation to the tournament. So there is some urgency in the air in Houston for those players seeking to get into the first major of the year.
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* - denotes players that are not in the Masters field at this time (before the start of the Shell Houston Open).
Only one player has a CLi figure below 10. So this means that it will be another tough tournament to pick which players will play well as there is no clear support in the data which players will play well this week.
I opened this blog saying there was some urgency for players not already in the Masters to play well this week. Almost half of the players in the top 15 in the CLi rankings (7 players) are not in the Masters field. So in picking players this week I will take that into consideration.
The top 5 players in the CLi rankings all look good. I was going to drop one of them if all 5 were in the Masters field. However, Hoffman is in the top 5 in the CLi rankings and is not in the Masters field. So that means I can go with the top 5 and have 4 players that are in the Masters field and 1 that is not. Maybe Hoffman will pull out a victory to earn an invitation to the Masters next week.
Note: Urgency can be a negative, as it makes some players push too much. So the urgency arguement could be turned around and used as a deterrent to playing well down the stretch. When watching this tournament let's see which players use urgency to their advantage, and which ones "over use" it in a fashion that it hurts their chances of playing well
Below are my 5 picks for the Shell Houston Open:
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Next week is the Masters, the first major of the year. Since the field for the Masters is already in place except for one player (the winner of the Shell Houston Open), the field has already been entered into the GolfInvestors system. So you can take a look at the current field analysis at this time to get a head start on analyzing the Masters' field.
