Wednesday, June 15, 2011

U.S. Open

This week the US PGA Tour, and the rest of the men's tours around the world, converge on Washington D.C. 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 Lee Westwood  5.10
2 Steve Stricker  8.00
3 Hunter Mahan  12.80
4 David Toms  15.60
5 Robert Karlsson  16.70
6 Matt Kuchar  19.30
7 Luke Donald  19.90
8 Phil Mickelson  21.20
9 Brandt Jobe  27.20
10 Bo Van Pelt  27.30
11 Peter Hanson  29.50
12 Brandt Snedeker  29.60
13 Bubba Watson  29.90
14 Stewart Cink  30.10
15 Lucas Glover  30.40

Two players have CLi figures under 10: Westwood (analysis) and Stricker (analysis). So those two players are no-brainers to pick.

For my next two picks, I will stick with the next two players in the CLi rankings: Mahan (analysis) and Toms (analysis). Although Mahan missed the cut last year, he has played well in the previous 3 instances of the tournament, placing 6th, 18th, and 13th respectively. And yes, Toms missed the cut last week in Memphis.  However, prior to the tournament in Memphis, he was playing very well. He won at Colonial and lost in a playoff at the PLAYERS Championship. He tends to make the cut in the U.S. Open, having only missed the cut once in the previous 9 Opens (not counting his WD in 2006).  So that gives me a sense of confidence that he will have a solid showing this week.

For my fifth pick, I will skip over Karlsson (analysis) even though he played well last week in Memphis -- losing in a playoff to Frazar. I skipped over Karlsson as my 5th pick last week, and it cost me. Hopefully it will not cost me this week. But the reason I am skipping over Karlsson is because I see a more consistent player in the 6th spot in the CLi rankings, Kuchar (analysis). Kuchar normally does not play well in the U.S. Open, having missed the cut in 4 of his previous 6 outings in this event. However, he did place 6th last year in this event when it was held at Pebble Beach. In addition, he has played well in all of his tournaments this year.  Although he has yet to win this year, he has yet to miss a cut. So, along with his solid play last year, he is riding a confidence wave.  Hopefully this confidence wave will spur him to a solid finish this week.

There are two other players after Kuchar that also look good: Donald (analysis) and Mickelson (analysis). It is tough to not pick them, as Donald is playing well and is the currently the number one player in the world and Mickelson is a fan favorite.  We will have to wait and see if that is a good decision on my part or not.

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

# Player CLi 
1 Lee Westwood  5.10
2 Steve Stricker  8.00
3 Hunter Mahan  12.80
4 David Toms  15.60
5 Matt Kuchar  19.30

Below are the top 5 players in the Power Rankings from Rob Bolton:
  1. Lee Westwood
  2. Phil Mickelson
  3. Dustin Johnson
  4. Luke Donald
  5. Steve Stricker
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: Westwood and Stricker.

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)
5 20% 20%
Number of Days Looking Back
Number Scoring Avg Weight (SA2) Earnings Avg Weight (EA2)
30 10% 10%
Number of Tournaments Looking Back
Number Scoring Avg Weight (SA3) Earnings Avg Weight (EA3)
4 20% 20%

You will notice that I have changed the configuration a little in terms of the weights. I have put less weight on past results in this tournament, as I changed the weight for "past touranments looking back" from 25% to 20% for both scoring avg weight and earnings avg weight. The reason is because the U.S. Open changes venues each year. So the the portion of the weight that I normally attribute to knowing a course is removed. I then put more weight on the results leading up to the tournament.

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.

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