Shell Houston Open

The US PGA Tour moves to Texas this week to play the Shell Houston Open.

Below is the list of the top 15 players in the CLi rankings for the Shell Houston Open.

#	Player	CLi
1	Steve Stricker	7.50
2	Keegan Bradley	9.20
3	Chris Kirk	10.45
4	Hunter Mahan	15.05
5	Graham Delaet	16.80
6	Henrik Stenson	17.50
7	Phil Mickelson	22.45
8	Boo Weekley	23.45
9	Geoff Ogilvy	29.00
10	Bryce Molder	29.40
11	Cameron Tringale	30.80
12	Greg Chalmers	31.25
13	Lee Westwood	35.35
14	Shawn Stefani	39.10
15	Michael Thompson	41.00

I am going to go with the top 4 in the CLi rankings: Stricker (analysis), Bradley (analysis), Kirk (analysis), and Mahan (analysis).  For my fifth pick, I am going to skip over Delaet (analysis) and Stenson (analysis) to pick Mickelson (analysis).

Stricker, who is on a limited schedule this year, has finished 2nd, 5th, and 2nd in the three tournaments he has played in since the first of the year.  As for this event, his best finishes have been 4th (2011), 9th (2007), and 3rd (2006).

Bradley finished 4th in this event last year, and has finished 3rd (Arnold Palmer Invitational), 7th (Cadillac Championship), and 4th (Honda Classic) in the last three events he has played in.

Kirk finished 2nd in this event two years ago -- the only time he has played in the event.  He finished 16th last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and has a 2nd place finish earlier in the year (AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am).

Mahan won this event last year, which goes along with a 8th place finish (2011), a 6th place finish (2009), and a 5th place finish (2007) in previous years.  In his last 4 outings, he has finished 21st (Arnold Palmer Invitational, 25th (Cadillac Championship), 2nd (Accenture World Match Play), and 8th (Northern Trust Open).

Mickelson won this event two years ago, and finished 4th last year.  He didn't play well last week at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, missing the cut.  But he finished 3rd in the tournament before that -- the Cadillac Championship.

Below are my 5 picks for the Shell Houston Open:

#	Player	CLi
1	Steve Stricker	7.50
2	Keegan Bradley	9.20
3	Chris Kirk	10.45
4	Hunter Mahan	15.05
5	Phil Mickelson	22.45

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

1. Keegan Bradley
2. Steve Stricker
3. Hunter Mahan
4. Phil Mickelson
5. Rory McIlroy

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: Shell Houston Open

We have 4 players in common this week: Bradley, Stricker, Mahan, and Mickelson.

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the Shell Houston 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.