This week the US PGA Tour has two tournaments: the Accenture World Match Play in Tuscon, Arizona and the Mayakoba Classic in Cancun, Mexico. This post is for the Accenture World Match Play.
This week is another hard week to pick as the CLi figures are rather high (just like last week), and it is a match play tournament. The CLi figures are all over 10, which again means that the CLi calculation can't figure out a clear favorite. As well, match play tournaments are a lot more difficult to pick as there is less room for error by the players. If a player has a bad round, or just a couple of bad shots, they lose the match and don't move on. Remember, players at the professional level are only separated by less than two strokes when it comes to ranking the first player in the world and the 125th player in the world. Then when you look at the top 64 players in the world, there is even less than two strokes. However, in this case, I see that it is about two strokes as well. Take a look at the following link and focus on the section called "Scoring Average Leaders for the Previous 52 Weeks" (note: you will have to have an account on the Gi site to be able to access the full list of players in the event).
[ Accenture World Play Field Analysis on GolfInvestors ]
In the "Scoring Average Leaders for the Previous 52 Weeks" section, you will see that the top ranked players in the stroke average over the past year is Tiger Woods with a stroke average of 69.31. The second player in the list is Kenny Perry, who is a half stroke higher than Woods with a stroke average of 69.91. Since Tiger is an anomaly, and he has not played a professional event since the last June (over 8 months ago), let's use Perry as the top player in the list. Then you look at the 64th player in the list, Trevor Immelman, and you see his stroke average is 71.63 over the past 12 months. The difference between Perry's stroke average and Immelman's stroke average is 1.72 (71.63 - 69.91). That is less than two strokes.
What I am trying to get at in a long winded explanation, is that 2 shots missed on two separate holes in match play can cause a player not to move on to the next round. It is not like they can make up the 2 shots the next day. They are finished for the tournament and are sitting on the sidelines for the rest of the week. That makes picking winners for a match play event difficult.
For my picks, I am going to pick Ogilvy (he is hard to go against in match play), skip Johnson and Stricker, pick Perry, skip Woods, pick Stenson and Casey, and then will pick Choi for my last pick.
Ogilvy is hard to go against in match play. Perry is playing well and has a strong mind in match play. Plus he is a steady player, and that tends to get players far in this match play event as opposed to being streaky. Stenson is strong in this event and in match play in general. Casey is playing well leading up to this tournament. Choi is playing well leading up to this tournament, having finished 3rd last week in the Northern Trust Open. However, he is a little streaky with the putter. So he is a risky pick; am hoping he gets puts well in the first two rounds to at least get to play on Friday and possibly in a weekend match or two.
Not picking Tiger will probably urk some people. Tiger is great at match play, but it is difficult to pick him since he has been out of competition for so long. his mind could be a little weaker than his usual self. however, hopefully he does well and proves me wrong in this one. I like a good comeback story....not that Tiger needs a comeback as he is always in our minds when it comes to professional golf.
Below are my 5 picks for the Accenture World Match Play:
