U.S. Open

This week the US PGA Tour, and all of the other major tours around the world, converge on the Monterrey Peninsula in California to play the 2nd major of the year, the U.S. Open.

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the U.S. Open.

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	7.95
2	Ricky Barnes	12.95
3	Lee Westwood	13.90
4	Rory McIlroy	18.00
5	Heath Slocum	18.60
6	Tiger Woods	20.80
7	Retief Goosen	22.05
8	Jim Furyk	23.45
9	Lucas Glover	26.30
10	Francesco Molinari	26.90
11	Luke Donald	29.10
12	Tim Clark	31.55
13	Stewart Cink	32.50
14	Bo Van Pelt	32.75
15	Hunter Mahan	33.65

Mickelson has the best shot at playing well this week at Pebble Beach based upon the configuration of my CLi calculation. He is the only player in the CLi rankings with a CLi less than 10. So he will be my first pick this week. Hopefully that means he also has the confidence to play well this week on a tough course.

As for my next 4 picks, it is interesting that that Barnes as the next best player. He is a California native and does tend to enjoy playing in California. As well, he has been playing well the last couple of months. However, he is sparatic and U.S. Open courses need straight and consistent play. So I am going to pass on Barnes.

I will pick Westwood as he is playing well. He won this past week ni Memphis and he has a strong mental game; am not sure he has a chance of winning, but does have a good chance of placing in the top 15.

My third pick will be the young McIlroy. He has the spirit and the energy to last 4 rounds at Pebble Beach. If he can stay positive through out the tournament and make some putts, he has a good chance of winning this year.

I am going to skip Slocum as I don't think he has the strength to play Pebble Beach with its long rough. He does hit it in the fairway more than a lot of the players. This puts him in company of Furyk. However, at this point in his career, he doesn't necessarily have the short game and fight to push through to see every putt that needs to be made to be made (does that make sense?).

For my 4th and 5th picks, I am going to go with Woods and Goosen. Woods is an unknown with having not played much and his mental side of things hurting his game. But one can never count him out at a major until he falters enough times. Goosen has won this event a couple of times, and is playing well leading up to this tournament. Hopefully he can make some putts and play well 4 days in a row.

This leaves out Furyk in my picks. Furky is a great U.S. Open player, and it was hard to not pick him.

Below are my 5 picks for the U.S. Open:

#	Player	CLI
1	Phil Mickelson	7.95
2	Lee Westwood	13.90
3	Rory McIlroy	18.00
4	Tiger Woods	20.80
5	Retief Goosen	22.05

Below is the top 5 players in the Power Rankings from Rob Bolton:

1. Lee Westwood
2. Jim Furyk
3. Phil Mickelson
4. Luke Donald
5. K.J. Choi

Here is a link to Bolton's Power Rankings so that you can read more about his thoughts on his top players in this week's Power Rankings:

Bolton's Power Rankings: U.S. Open

We have 2 players in common this week: Mickelson and Westwood.

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the U.S. Open:

Number of Past Tournaments Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA1)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA1)
6	25%	25%
Number of Days Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA2)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA2)
60	5%	5%
Number of Tournaments Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA3)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA3)
6	20%	20%