Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Waste Management Phoenix Open

The US PGA Tour moves to Arizona to play in the happy and loud atmosphere commonly known as the Phoenix Open (....officially, the tournament is called the Waste Management Phoenix Open).

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the Waste Management Phoenix Open.

# Player CLi 
1  Brian Gay 13.55
2  Brandt Snedeker 13.85
3  Scott Piercy 14.20
4  Nick Watney 16.70
5  Bubba Watson 16.85
6  Phil Mickelson 17.55
7  Charles Howell III 18.00
8  Vijay Singh 19.85
9  Keegan Bradley 20.00
10  Matthew Every 21.25
11  Harris English 22.75
12  Rickie Fowler 23.30
13  Y.E. Yang 23.40
14  Bryce Molder 24.05
15  David Toms 24.05

None of the players have a CLi figure less than 10.  This indicates that the CLi calculation is not as strong as I would like it to be in determining a clear favorites this week.  This also means I will need to do some additional research behind the CLi figures to pick the 5 players that I think will do well this week.  I do this by going to the statistical details of each player either on Golf CLi or on Fanooz.  I usually provide the Fanooz links for the statistical analyses in my posts on this blog.  For example, the analysis for Rory Sabbatini can be found here: Sabbatini (analysis).  So you can see what I am looking at as a "Tour Outsider". :-)

After examining the details of the analysis of the players, I am going to pick Snedeker (analysis), Watney (analysis), Watson (analysis), Mickelson (analysis), and Howell III (analysis) for this tournament.  I skipped over Gay (analysis) and Piercy (analysis).

Snedeker has placed 2nd and 3rd in two of the three tournaments he has played in this season.  So he is playing well leading up the tournament this week.  In addition, he has two top-10 finishes in this tournament -- in 2011 and 2008.

Watney is also playing well coming into this tournament this week.  He has played two tournaments this month, with a 5th place finish last week in the Farmer Insurance Open and a 13th place finish in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.  Last year he finished 5th in this week, which goes along with 24th and 12th place finishes in the previous two years (2011 and 2010).

Watson pulled a WD on me last week when I picked him for the Farmers Insurance Open.  He cited the flu for the reason why he pulled out last week.  Hopefully he is back to being his fun-loving self this week and can capitalize on the excitement of the crowds in Scottsdale.  He plays to the crowd at this event, especially on holes 16 and 17.  This was evident last year when he finished 5th in this event.  As for recent play, he had a good showing in the one tournament he has played in this season, where he finished 4th at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions.  He also had a 2nd place finish in a tournament he played in Thailand in December.  He finished 2nd in the Thailand Golf Championship in December.

Mickelson is back in the desert where he played collegiate golf (at ASU).  He didn't play spectacularly last week in San Diego at the Farmers Insurance Open (finishing 51st), but he has won the Phoenix Open twice (1996 and 2005), and has only missed the cut in this event several times during his career.  Like Watson, Mickelson could thrive off the supportive crowd in Scottsdale this week.

Howell III has had a great start to the 2013 season. He is only missing a win, and the Arizona desert could be where he could break through this season if he gets the flat stick going.  He hasn't played extremely well in this tournament, but he also hasn't played poorly.  He has a 4th place finish in 2010, and sprinkle in several missed cuts, his average rank in the event since 2000 is 37.2.

Below are my 5 picks for the Waste Management Phoenix Open:

# Player CLi 
1  Brandt Snedeker 13.85
2  Nick Watney 16.70
3  Bubba Watson 16.85
4  Phil Mickelson 17.55
5  Charles Howell III 18.00

Below are the top 5 players in the Power Rankings from Rob Bolton:
  1. Jason Dufner
  2. Brandt Snedeker
  3. Nick Watney
  4. Rickie Fowler
  5. Charles Howell III
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: Waste Management Phoenix Open

We have 3 players in common this week: Snedeker, Watney, and Howell III

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Waste Management Phoenix Open:

Number of Past Tournaments Looking Back
NumberScoring Avg Weight (SA1)Earnings Avg Weight (EA1)
525%25%
Number of Days Looking Back
NumberScoring Avg Weight (SA2)Earnings Avg Weight (EA2)
305%5%
Number of Tournaments Looking Back
NumberScoring Avg Weight (SA3)Earnings Avg Weight (EA3)
420%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.

No comments:

Post a Comment