Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Shell Houston Open

The US PGA Tour takes a quick trip to Texas before heading to Augusta next week for the year's first major. The tour is in Houston to play the Shell Houston Open.

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the Shell Houston Open.

# Player CLi 
1 Steve Stricker 6.60
2 Charl Schwartzel 8.10
3 Henrik Stenson 9.15
4 Lee Westwood 12.85
5 Phil Mickelson 13.85
6 Aaron Baddeley 15.70
7 Fred Couples 16.20
8 Johnson Wagner 20.00
9 Robert Allenby 20.40
10 Ernie Els 24.25
11 John Senden 26.25
12 Padraig Harrington 30.30
13 Keegan Bradley 30.85
14 Kevin Stadler 32.60
15 Hunter Mahan 32.80

Three players have a CLi figure below 10: Stricker (analysis), Schwartzel (analysis), and Stenson (analysis). 

The low CLi value for Stricker is understandable.  He placed 4th last year in this event, and has only missed the cut once in the past 7 times he has played the event since 2003.  He has placed in the top 11 four of the 7 times, and has an average rank in these 7 instances of 29.  In the past four events that he has played in (he has only played in 4 tournaments this year), he has placed in the top 10 three of those events, and won one of those events (the Hyundai Tournament of Champions).  He has only played one event in the past 4 weeks (the Cadillac Championship), and has a known issue with his neck that has hindered him from playing many tournaments back-to-back (thus the reason for him not playing as much these days).  However, I am still going to pick Stricker as my first pick due to his past performance, and that he has played well in the tournaments that he has choose to play in this year.

Schwartzel has been playing well lately, having finished in the top 5 in 6 of the last tournaments he has played in. The negative mark against him is that he missed the cut in the last tournament he played in -- the Transition Championships two weeks ago.  However, I am still going to pick him as he has played well in this tournament the 3 times he has played in it -- he has not missed the cut, and finished 3rd in 2010.

For me, the low CLi for Stenson is strange as he has struggled the past couple of years after being highly ranked for several years prior.  But when examining his recent results, and the results for the past instances of this tournament for him, he has shown some positive signs of good play. He has played in this event once (in 2009) and finished 3rd.  The worst finish he has had in the last 4 events is 21st, and he finished 3rd at the Puerto Rico Open two weeks ago.  Those are some strong shows, so I am going to pick him.

And then how can one pass up on Westwood (analysis) and Mickelson (analysis)? They are the next two players in the CLi rankings.  Westwood is number 3 in the world (behind Donald and McIlroy, which are not playing in this event), has never missed a cut in this event in the 5 times he has played, and has 3 top 4 finishes in 3 of the 4 events he has played this year.  Mickelson won this event last year, and has only missed the cut once in the 5 times he has played in the event.  He has a 1st and 2nd finish in the last 4 events he has played in.  As well, both of the players like playing in Houston....when they play.  So they are my final two picks, which means I am sticking with the top 5 players in the CLi rankings for a 4th tournament in 4 weeks.

Below are my 5 picks for the Shell Houston Open:
# Player CLi 
1 Steve Stricker 6.60
2 Charl Schwartzel 8.10
3 Henrik Stenson 9.15
4 Lee Westwood 12.85
5 Phil Mickelson 13.85

Below are the top 5 players in the Power Rankings from Rob Bolton:
  1. Keegan Bradley
  2. Lee Westwood
  3. Steve Stricker
  4. Graeme McDowell
  5. Phil Mickelson
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: Shell Houston Open

We have 3 players in common this tournament: Westwood, Stricker, and Mickelson

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Shell Houston 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.

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