Northern Trust Open

The US PGA Tour is at the famed Riviera Country Club this week to play the Northern Trust Open.

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the Northern Trust Open.

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	3.10
2	Fred Couples	8.05
3	Jimmy Walker	9.40
4	Kevin Stadler	10.55
5	Sergio Garcia	13.60
6	Aaron Baddeley	13.70
7	K.J. Choi	14.35
8	Luke Donald	15.90
9	Bill Haas	16.60
10	Matt Kuchar	16.60
11	Bubba Watson	17.95
12	Ryan Moore	18.75
13	Brendon De Jonge	19.20
14	Keegan Bradley	19.75
15	Webb Simpson	21.30

Mickelson (analysis) is showing to be a clear favorite this week, with a CLi figure of 3.10 (which is low) and his nearest competitor being close to 5 points higher (Couples, 8.05).  Thus, my first pick this week is Mickelson.

I am going to skip over Couples (analysis).  He has played well in the past at Riviera.  However, he is getting older and the main reason why he has a low CLi figure this week is because of his solid results on the Champions Tour.  One of the weaknesses of the CLi is that it doesn't let you selet which tours to use for results [ note to self: add that option in the configuration :-) ]

I am then going to select the next four players to round out my five picks for this week.

Walker (analysis) has placed 4th in this event the past two year and placed 3rd last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Championship.  He also placed 4th three weeks ago at the Farmers Insurance Open.  So he he has played well in this event and is playing well leading up to this even this week.

Similarly, Stadler (analysis) has played solidly in this event and is playing well leading up to this event, albeit not as strong of results as Walker.  Stadler has finished in the top 30 in this event the past 4 years, with his best finish being 10th in 2010.  He also place 3rd last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Championship.  And prior to the AT&T event, he finished 11th (Waste Management Phoenix Open) and 27th (Humana Challenge).

Garcia (analysis) has finished in the top 6 in two out of the last three years in this tournament.  Leading up to this tournament he has a 17th place finish in the Omega Dubai Desert Classic and a 2nd place finish in the Commercialbank Qatar Masters.

Baddeley (analysis) has shown some consistent play recently, finishing 12th last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach Championship and 6th at the Farmers Insurance Open.  He won this event in 2011 and finished 11th last year.

Below are my 5 picks for the Northern Trust Open:

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	3.10
2	Jimmy Walker	9.40
3	Kevin Stadler	10.55
4	Sergio Garcia	13.60
5	Aaron Baddeley	13.70

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

1. Ryan Moore
2. Jimmy Walker
3. Charl Schwartzel
4. Bill Haas
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: Northern Trust Open

We have 2 players in common this week: Walker and Mickelson

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Northern Trust 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.