Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Arnold Palmer Invitational

The US PGA Tour stays in Florida this week to play Arnie's tournament in Orlando: the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

# Player CLi 
1  Tiger Woods 1.35
2  Sergio Garcia 10.55
3  Justin Rose 13.40
4  Hunter Mahan 17.15
5  Phil Mickelson 17.70
6  Graeme McDowell 17.95
7  Bubba Watson 21.70
8  Lee Westwood 23.75
9  Jim Furyk 24.20
10  Lucas Glover 27.65
11  Geoff Ogilvy 28.75
12  Kevin Streelman 29.75
13  Ian Poulter 31.40
14  Brian Harman 32.50
15  Webb Simpson 32.50

I am going to go with the top 5 in the CLi rankings: Woods (analysis), Garcia (analysis), Rose (analysis), Mahan (analysis), and Mickelson (analysis).

Woods is a clear favorite per the low CLi (1.35) and the next player (Garcia) being over 10 points higher in terms of the CLi figures.  Woods won the event last year, and has won this event 7 times since 2000.  He won in his last outing, which was at the Cadillac Championship two weeks ago.  So he has played well in this tournament and on this course in the past, and is playing well coming into this tournament.

Garcia has placed in the top 10 in this event 4 of the last 6 years.  He has a 7th and 3rd place finish in his last two outings.  He hasn't finished worse than 17th place in the 6 tournaments he has played in this year.

Rose has finished 8th and 4th in his last two outings, and like Garcia, hasn't finished worse than 17th place (in the 5 tournaments he has played in this year).  At Bay Hill, the course that this event is played on, he has finished 15th and 3rd the last two years.

Mahan has made the cut the last 5 years in this event, with this best finish being 6th (in 2008).  Excluding the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, he hasn't finished outside of 16th this season (he has played 7 tournaments so far this year).  His best finish was 2nd in the Accenture Match Play event a month ago.

Mickelson has won this year (Waste Management Phoenix Open) and finished 3rd in his last outing (Cadillac Championship).  He has only played in Arnie's tournament 5 times since 2000, and has made the cut ever time.  He has finished between 21st and 36th, so he hasn't played spectacular in this event, but he has played solidly.

Below are my 5 picks for the Arnold Palmer Invitational:

# Player CLi 
1  Tiger Woods 1.35
2  Sergio Garcia 10.55
3  Justin Rose 13.40
4  Hunter Mahan 17.15
5  Phil Mickelson 17.70

Below are the top 5 players in the Power Rankings from Rob Bolton:
  1. Tiger Woods
  2. Sergio Garcia
  3. Graeme McDowell
  4. Justin Rose
  5. Jim Furyk
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: Arnold Palmer Invitational

We have 3 players in common this week: Woods, Garcia, and Rose

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Arnold Palmer Invitational:

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.

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