Farmers Insurance Open

The US PGA Tour stays in California this week to play to play the Farmers Insurance Open.

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the Farmers Insurance Open.

#	Player	CLi
1	Ben Crane	4.40
2	Charles Howell III	8.35
3	Brandt Snedeker	8.35
4	D.A. Points	11.70
5	Nick Watney	13.10
6	Justin Leonard	13.80
7	Phil Mickelson	14.70
8	Keegan Bradley	18.65
9	Matthew Every	19.25
10	John Rollins	23.00
11	Camilo Villegas	23.50
12	Anthony Kim	25.30
13	Chris Kirk	31.10
14	Bubba Watson	32.00
15	Vijay Singh	32.85

Nice to see the CLi figures lower than last week.  Last week for the Humana Challenge, none of the CLi figures were below 10 -- which is not a good sign for the accuracy of the CLi.   However, the CLi actually was predicting well last week until the 3rd round winds come up.  This week there are 3 players with a CLi figure less than 10.  That usually indicates a better prediction value for the CLi.

I am not going to skip over Crane (analysis) like I did last week.  The CLi had him at 2nd last week and he ended up playing well -- he was was leading after the 2nd round.  This week Crane has the lowest CLi figure.  So there is no way I am going to not pick him.  So Crane is my first pick.

For the remaining 4 picks, I am going to stick with the CLi as they all look like good picks this week: Howell III (analysis), Snedeker (analysis), Points (analysis), and Watney (analysis).

Howell III has not missed the cut in the 9 times he has played this event, and has placed in the top 15 six of those times with two 2nd place finishes.  He has a 2nd place finish two weeks ago in the Sony Open in Hawaii.

Snedeker has placed in the top 10 three of the five times he has played in this tournament, with a 2nd and 3rd place finish in 2010 and 2007 respectively.  Plus, he finished 8th last week at the Humana Challenge.

Points has placed 5th and 9th the last two years in this event and has finished 6th and 12th in the first two events of the year (the Hyundai Tournament of Champions and the Sony Open in Hawaii).

Watney has placed 6th, 9th, and 1st the last three years in this event, and placed 9th in 2007 -- that is four top tens within five years.  The only tournament he has played this year and within the past 4 weeks is the Hyundai Tournament of Champions where he finished 12th.

Below are my 5 picks for the Farmers Insurance Open:

#	Player	CLi
1	Ben Crane	4.40
2	Charles Howell III	8.35
3	Brandt Snedeker	8.35
4	D.A. Points	11.70
5	Nick Watney	13.10

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

1. Nick Watney
2. Phil Mickelson
3. Brandt Snedeker
4. Camilo Villegas
5. Ben Crane

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: Farmers Insurance Open

We have 3 players in common this week: Watney, Snedeker, and Crane.

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Farmers Insurance Open:

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.