PLAYERS Championship

This week the US PGA Tour is in the city of the tour's headquarters, Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, to play the tour's flagship event, the PLAYERS Championship.

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the PLAYERS Championship.

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	5.35
2	Luke Donald	17.40
3	Matt Kuchar	17.45
4	Ben Crane	18.15
5	Sergio Garcia	18.95
6	Brandt Snedeker	19.55
7	Jim Furyk	23.85
8	Tim Clark	26.45
9	Greg Chalmers	29.45
10	Tiger Woods	30.55
11	K.J. Choi	30.85
12	Jason Dufner	32.70
13	J.B. Holmes	33.50
14	Pat Perez	33.70
15	Jonathan Byrd	35.50

I am going to go with the first 4 players in the CLi rankings: Mickelson, Donald, Kuchar, and Crane.

Mickelson (analysis) seems like a clear favorite based upon his CLi figure compared to the next players in the list. His CLi figure is below 10 and is almost 12 points ahead of the next player's CLi figure.

Donald (analysis), Kuchar (analysis), and Crane (analysis) are playing well leading up to the tournament and have played well in this tournament in the past couple of years.

As for my fifth pick, I am skipping over Garcia and Snedeker to pick Furyk.

In the 10 times he has played in the tournament, Furyk (analysis) has only missed the cut once in this tournament since 2000 and has placed in the top ten 3 times (best finish is 3rd in 2006). After a slow start in the first couple of tournaments this year, his worst finish has been 49th place (at Doral). In his last 8 tournaments, his average finish has been 26th, with one top 10 (in the Arnold Palmer Invitational).

Garcia has similar results as Furyk. Garcia (analysis) has won here in the past (in 2008), has only missed the cut twice in this tournament since 2000 (has played the tournament 11 times), and has been playing solid golf the past 4 weeks or so. So it was a difficult choice between Garcia and Furyk. However, the difference is that this tournament is basically a "home game" for Furyk since he lives in Ponte Vedra Beach. In addition, it is his birthday this week...he turns 41 on Thursday (May 12th). Hopefully the birthday celebration will be a catalyst to a good finish and not a distration. :-)

As for Snedeker (analysis), he has played well 3 of the past 4 tournaments he has played in, including a win at The Heritage. However, he missed the cut in his last tournament, the Zurich Classic.

Below are my 5 picks for the PLAYERS Championship :

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	5.35
2	Luke Donald	17.40
3	Matt Kuchar	17.45
4	Ben Crane	18.15
5	Jim Furyk	23.85

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

1. Luke Donald
2. Hunter Mahan
3. Ben Crane
4. Phil Mickelson
5. Bill Haas

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: PLAYERS Championship

We have 3 players in common this week: Donald, Crane, and Mickelson.

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the PLAYERS Championship:

Number of Past Tournaments Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA1)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA1)
5	25%	25%
Number of Days Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA2)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA2)
30	5%	5%
Number of Tournaments Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA3)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA3)
4	20%	20%

If you don't like the configuration of my CLi calculation, feel free to run your own CLi calculation with your own desired settings by going to golfcli.com.