British Open

The third major of the year is upon us: The British Open. The game's oldest major, the British Open is being played at Muirfield Golf Links this year.  Muirfield is a classic course. The British Open has previously been held at the course 15 times since 1892.  Over the past 35 years, the winners of the British Open when it was played at Muirfield have been Tom Watson in 1980, Nick Faldo in 1987 and 1992, and Ernie Els in 2002.  At the end of this week, another prime championship shall be crowned.  Enjoy the week of competition!!!

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

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	13.80
2	Ernie Els	14.40
3	Thomas Bjorn	15.80
4	Harris English	21.30
5	Henrik Stenson	21.90
6	Tiger Woods	25.50
7	Zach Johnson	25.90
8	Rickie Fowler	29.30
9	Keegan Bradley	30.50
10	Bill Haas	31.00
11	Webb Simpson	31.90
12	Justin Rose	32.00
13	Nicolas Colsaerts	34.80
14	Boo Weekley	35.40
15	Louis Oosthuizen	35.60

No player has a CLi figure less than 10.  This is an indication that my CLi calculation can't easily determine which players will play well this week -- i.e. it is difficult to pick which players will play well in the British Open.  Thus, my work is cut out for me...and the players this week.

I am going to go with the first two players in the CLi rankings: Mickelson (analysis) and Els (analysis). Mickelson won the Scottish Open last week, need I say more; he has a record of playing well in a major when he wins the week before -- case in point is with his record at the Masters.  Maybe that trend will continue this week at the British Open.

Els won the event last year, and he won the BMW International Open several weeks ago. However, on the down side, he missed the cut last week at the Scottish Open and few players have won back-to-back British Opens.

I am going to skip over Bjorn (analysis) and English (analysis). Bjorn has been playing well this year.  However, he withdrew after the 1st round of the Scottish Open last week.  I am not sure why he withdrew, but if it is for an injury, that would make it tough to pick him this week.  English won his first U.S. PGA Tour event last month in Memphis, and has played solidly in several tournaments after that.  However, he lacks the experience in a major like the British Open, which is important this week -- the conditions can be mentally grueling at the British Open, especially for a youngster.

My next pick is Stenson (analysis).  Although he didn't play in the event last year, he has two 3rd place finishes in the previous four years -- in 2010 and 2008.  He is playing well leading up to this week having finished 3rd last week in the Scottish Open and 10th in the BMW International Open in late June.

For my final two picks, I am going to skip over Woods (analysis) to pick Johnson (analysis) and Fowler (analysis).

Below are my 5 picks for the British Open:

#	Player	CLi
1	Phil Mickelson	13.80
2	Ernie Els	14.40
3	Henrik Stenson	21.90
4	Zach Johnson	25.90
5	Rickie Fowler	29.30

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

1. Phil Mickelson
2. Tiger Woods
3. Justin Rose
4. Ernie Els
5. Graeme McDowell

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: British Open

We have 2 players in common this week: Mickelson and Els.

Below are the settings for the CLi calculation I used for the British Open:

Number of Past Tournaments Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA1)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA1)
7	20%	20%
Number of Days Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA2)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA2)
45	10%	10%
Number of Tournaments Looking Back
Number	Scoring Avg Weight (SA3)	Earnings Avg Weight (EA3)
6	20%	20%

I made some changes from my regular confirmation.  I changed the weights a little by putting less emphasis on the past tournament results.  Then I increased the number of days looking back from 30 to 45, and increased the number of tournaments looking back from 4 to 6.

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.