Travelers Championship

After an exciting week on the west Coast playing the U.S. Open, the US PGA Tour moves to the northeast to play the Travelers Championship in Cornwell, Connecticut.

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

#	Player	CLi
1	John Merrick	15.60
2	Zach Johnson	16.35
3	Ryan Moore	17.05
4	Chad Campbell	17.15
5	Kenny Perry	17.35
6	Nick O'Hern	18.95
7	Bubba Watson	19.65
8	Bo Van Pelt	22.20
9	Padraig Harrington	23.45
10	J.J. Henry	23.80
11	Fredrik Jacobson	24.05
12	Webb Simpson	25.55
13	Vijay Singh	28.40
14	Michael Thompson	28.90
15	Ken Duke	29.10

The CLi figures are high this week, with the lowest CLi figure being 15.60.  This suggests that there is no clear favorites this week, making it difficult to pick players that will finish well.

Even if that is the case, I am still going to go with the top 4 players in the CLi rankings: Merrick (analysis), Johnson (analysis), Moore (analysis), and Campbell (analysis).

Merrick has finished 9th, 34th, and 11th the last three years in this event.  In his last outing, he finished 2nd (at the FedEx St. Jude Classic).

Johnson has only missed the cut once in this event (in 2007), and has finished as low as 3rd (in 2004).  Taking out the missed cut in 2007, his average rank is 21.6 (in 5 instances of the tournament).  He finished 41st last week in the U.S. Open and missed the cut the previous week in the FedEx St. Jude Classic.  However, he won the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial and finished 2nd in the PLAYERS Championship the prior two weeks.

Moore likes this tournament.  He has finished 2nd twice and 4th another time in the 6 times he has played the event.  He has missed only three cuts in the 14 events he has played this year, and has an average ranking of 46.6 in those 14 events.  Better yet, in the last 5 events he has played in, he has two top ten finishes.

Campbell missed the cut last year in this event.  However, in the previous year (2010), he finished 10th.  With a 3rd place finish in his last outing (FedEx St. Jude Classic), he is playing well.

I am going to pass on Kentucky native, Kenny Perry (analysis).  Even though Perry won this event in 2009, the main the reason he is placed well in the CLi rankings is because of his Champion Tour finishes (13th, 7th, and 9th).  The Champion Tour events have a lower level of competition and are played on course setups that are a little easier than the US PGA Tour events.

For my final pick, I am going to select O'Hern (analysis).  He missed the cut in the event last year.  But prior to last year, he had not finished worse than 31st.  His best finish in the event is 3rd (in 2007).  In the most recent event he has played in, he also finished 3rd (in the FedEx St. Jude Classic two weeks ago).

Note: I have picked three players that finished 3rd or better in the FedEx St. Jude Classic (Merrick, Campbell, and O'Hern).  It will be interesting to see if a good finish in the FedEx St. Jude Classic is a good predictor for playing well in the Travelers Championship.

Below are my 5 picks for the Travelers Championship:

#	Player	CLi
1	John Merrick	15.60
2	Zach Johnson	16.35
3	Ryan Moore	17.05
4	Chad Campbell	17.15
5	Nick O'Hern	18.95

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

1. Matt Kuchar
2. Ryan Moore
3. Padraig Harrington
4. Bo Van Pelt
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: Travelers Championship

We have 1 player in common this tournament: Moore

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Travelers 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.