Wells Fargo Championship

This week the US PGA Tour heads back east to play the Wells Fargo Championship in North Carolina.  There are some big names in the field this week, including Mahan, McIlroy, Mickelson, Westwood, Woods, and more.

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

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	6.70
2	Jim Furyk	8.30
3	Rory McIlroy	9.35
4	Ben Curtis	10.05
5	Tiger Woods	10.70
6	Ken Duke	15.25
7	Hunter Mahan	16.40
8	Kevin Na	17.05
9	Carl Pettersson	21.90
10	Zach Johnson	22.65
11	Bo Van Pelt	23.50
12	Brian Davis	24.90
13	Rickie Fowler	28.40
14	J.B. Holmes	29.80
15	Robert Garrigus	30.10

Mickelson (analysis), Furyk (analysis), and McIlroy (analysis) have CLi figures below 10, which is usually a good indication that the CLi has a higher probability of predicting that these players will play well in this tournament.  In addition, the 4th and 5th players in the list (Curtis and Woods) have CLi figures just above 10.  So the CLi is "feeling" pretty good this week....that is, if it had feelings. :-)

Mickelson has played this event 8 times since 2004 and finished in the top-10 six of those times.   His best finish here since 2004 is a 2nd (in 2010), and his worst finish is 35th (in 2006).  His average finish (rank) is around 10th (without the 35th finish, it around 6th).  He has not played competitively since the Masters, where he placed 3rd.  The week before the Masters he placed 4th in the Shell Houston Open.

Furyk likes this tournament.  He has won it in 2006, placed 2nd in 2005 and finished in the top-11 three of the last four years.  He is coming off an 11th place finish three weeks ago at the RBC Heritage, two 11th place finishes in the Masters and the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and a 2nd prior to that in the Transitions Championship.  Other than the Masters, he hasn't finished higher than 5th in the other 5 tournaments he has played in this year.

McIlroy won this event in 2010, but missed the cut last year.  He hasn't played competitively since the Masters a month ago, where he finished 40th. However, prior to the Masters, he placed 3rd in the Cadillac Championship, won the Honda Classic, and placed 2nd in the Accenture World Golf Championship.

So I am going to go with Mickelson, Furyk, and McIlroy as my first three picks.  As for my final two picks, I am going with the CLi rankings and pick Curtis (analysis) and Woods (analysis).

Curtis is playing well -- he won two weeks ago in Texas and finished 13th in New Orleans last week.  However, he has not played well in this event except in 2008 when he placed 2nd.  He missed the cut the last two years, and was not close to the cut line in either one of those years.  So he has struggled at this course lately, and that makes it difficult to pick him.  However, I am going to go with this play of late and hope he brings back some of that "good feel" from his 2nd place finish in 2008 at this event.

Woods didn't have a strong showing with his swing a month ago at the Masters, where he finished 40th (the same place as McIlroy).  However, he has actually finished well so far this year in events he has played in.  He won the Arnold Palmer in mid-March and finish 2nd at the Honda Classic in early March.  If you take out the Masters and the WD in the Cadillac Classic, he has finished no worse than 17th this year in the other 5 tournaments he has played in .  When you throw in how he plays in this event, it is hard to not pick him.  Yes, he missed the cut in 2010, shooting 79 in the 2nd round during that year.  But he has finished no worse than 11th the other 4 times he has played the event since 2004, including winning the event in 2007.

Below are my 5 picks for the Wells Fargo Championship:

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	6.70
2	Jim Furyk	8.30
3	Rory McIlroy	9.35
4	Ben Curtis	10.05
5	Tiger Woods	10.70

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

1. Phil Mickelson
2. Rory McIlroy
3. Jim Furyk
4. Tiger Woods
5. Hunter Mahan

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: Wells Fargo Championship

We have 4 players in common this tournament: Mickelson, McIlroy, Furyk, and Woods.  Let's go Curtis!!!

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Wells Fargo 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.