Humana Challenge

The US PGA Tour heads to the mainland to play in the California desert.  The tournament to be played this week was once called the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, but with sponsor changes the new name of the event is the Humana Challenge.  The Louisville-based company, Humana, has been able to keep the tournament going after Chrysler pulled its sponsorship several years ago when the auto manufacturer ran into financial difficulty.

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the Humana Challenge.

#	Player	CLi
1	Tim Clark	2.65
2	Matt Kuchar	9.55
3	Webb Simpson	11.20
4	Pat Perez	11.80
5	Robert Garrigus	13.75
6	Brandt Snedeker	13.85
7	Harris English	16.85
8	Chris Kirk	16.95
9	Brian Gay	18.75
10	Charles Howell III	19.25
11	D.J. Trahan	21.40
12	David Toms	22.60
13	Matt Jones	22.90
14	Mark Wilson	24.05
15	John Mallinger	25.65

I am going with the first four in the CLi rankings: Clark (analysis), Kuchar (analysis), Simpson (analysis), and Perez (analysis).  Then I am going to skip over Garrigus (analysis) to pick Snedeker (analysis) for my 5th pick.

With a low CLi figure of 2.65, and the next lowest figure being 9.55 (Kuchar), Clark seems to be a clear favorite to play well this week.  He placed 2nd last week in the Sony Open, and placed 2nd in this tournament the last time he played in it (in 2010).  He has played in this tournament 4 times and has finished in the top-5 three times.

Kuchar has finished 22nd, 7th, and 2nd the last three times he has played in this event.  He also comes into this tournament having finished 5th and 9th in the first two tournaments of the season (in Hawaii).

Simpson has played this event three times, and has finished 13th, 33rd, and 5th.  He has played in the first two tournaments like Kuchar, but has not faired as well as Kuchar.  Simpson has finished 20th and 11th in the first two tournaments of the season.

Perez won this tournament back in 2009.  In the three subsequent years since winning the tournament, he has finished 14th, 54th, and 26th in this event.  He placed 9th last week at the Sony Open.

Snedeker finished 3rd in the first event of the season, the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.  He has finished in the top-10 twice (in 2012 and 2010) in the four times he has played in the event.

Below are my 5 picks for the Humana Challenge:

#	Player	CLi
1	Tim Clark	2.65
2	Matt Kuchar	9.55
3	Webb Simpson	11.20
4	Pat Perez	11.80
5	Brandt Snedeker	13.85

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

1. Brandt Snedeker
2. Matt Kuchar
3. Robert Garrigus
4. Bo van Pelt
5. Webb Simpson

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: Humana Challenge

We have 3 players in common this week: Snedeker, Kuchar, and Simpson

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Humana Challenge:

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.