The Next 5 Weeks: Paul Ginn

A close friend of mine, former roommate at SMU, and former fellow member of the SMU golf team, Paul Ginn, is going to post picks against me for the next 5 weeks (British Open through the US PGA Championship). He is skeptical of the Golf CLi, so I suggested he make picks to see if picking from the top 15 players in the CLi ranking can better his picks from the entire field of each tournament.

Paul is going to be able to pick 5 players from the entire tournament field. I will pick 5 players from the top 15 players in the CLi rankings. This is similar to what I did for two years when comparing picks with the Tour Insider: Dave Shedloski.

So, for the next 5 weeks, I will post both Paul's picks and my picks. The 5 weeks will consist of 7 tournaments, as there are 2 tournaments being played consecutively on 2 of the 5 weeks. The 7 tournaments are:

• British Open (July 16 - 19)
• U.S. Bank Championship in Milwaukee (July 16 - 19)
• RBC Canadian Open (July 23 - 26)
• Buick Open (July 30 - Aug 2)
• Legends Reno-Tahoe Open (Aug 6 - 9)
• Bridgestone Invitational (Aug 6 - 9)
• US PGA Championship

As reminder to everyone, the Golf CLi is suppose to be used to help narrow down your picks and see who has the best chance of playing well. This is explained on the Golf CLi web site in the FAQ section. The Golf CLi calculation results are not to pick the ultimate winner as the first spot in the CLi calculation rankings. The logic behind using the CLi is that it is easier to pick 5 players from a list of a select number of players (i.e. 15 players) as opposed to the entire tournament field (i.e. 156 players).

To say that a person can pick the winner of a golf tournament on a regular basis is just hubris. I don't claim to say that the CLi can pick the winner of tournaments on a regular basis, nor can I do that....nor do I want to be able to do that. I want golf to continue to have an uncertainty element in it. I feel that the uncertainty element in golf is what keeps the game of golf enjoyable. A player strives to handle the uncertainty element. However, a player can never completely remove the uncertainty element from the game.

It will be interesting to see if the CLi and I can better Paul. Paul thinks he can do better. Let's see what happens over the next 5 weeks. :-)