Fantasy Golf Preview: The AT&T Pebble Beach

We'll get to the Super Bowl after I've had time to go back and re-watch it without the sensation that I've just been dropped out of a helicopter into the top of a tornado after drinking for five hours (five and a half if you include the blackout). It's a unique form of torture watching your favorite team get outscored 25-6 over the last 29+ minutes of the Super Bowl and still win. The closest experience I can compare it to is crossing the line at the end of a marathon. A brief moment of elation followed by a barely audible request for an IV and a gurney.*

I kept expecting to hear the
theme song from CHiPs.

Prior to that joyful** Super Bowl experience, I was treated to Phil Mickelson justifying my use of a first round pick*** on him by cruising to the Waste Management Phoenix Open title. In the process, Phil proved that he's still the man when it comes to somehow bringing a course to its knees and wasting shots all over the place at the same time. First there was the putt left short on his 17th hole during the epic first round and then there was the cruel horseshoe on his 18th. On Friday, he put the PGA Tour 36 hole record into play before hitting into the water on 18 and making double. All the while he maintained a comfortable lead while repeatedly giving the crowd a thumbs-up like we were back in 1982 or whenever the hell we all actually used to do that.

Phil's near record setting performance came after he clunked it around Torrey Pines (never breaking 70 and finishing tied for 51st) which of course led me to leave him out of my overall top five so my rocky start continues. To break out of this funk, I am going total chalk this week with Dustin Johnson who, other than a shaky final round at the 2010 U.S. Open,**** absolutely owns Pebble Beach. If my recent slump makes you want to employ the Costanza Method and do the opposite of Dustin Johnson, then go with Joe Ogilvie who is kind of a little guy, went to Duke and probably wouldn't have a shot at Paulina Gretzky unless he won the Masters (and even then, the odds might be longer than him winning the Masters in the first place).

The Overall Top Five

I don't see any reason not to pick D.J. this
week. He's healthy, playing well and there
are no distractions that I'm aware of. Right?

1. Dustin Johnson
2. Brandt Snedeker
3. Nick Watney
4. Phil Mickelson
5. Hunter Mahan

The One and Done Top Five

1. Dustin Johnson
2. Nick Watney
3. Hunter Mahan
4. Jason Day
5. Ryan Palmer

Last Week's Report Card: C-

1. Rickie Fowler - M/C
2. Nick Watney - T43rd
3. Bubba Watson - 15th
4. Bo Van Pelt - T16th
5. Ben Crane - T11th

It's still not time to panic but a deck chair did just slowly slide by and the ship seems to be riding a little low in the stern. My one and done team has now gone three weeks without a pick making it to the weekend as Rickie Fowler continued a recent trend that has gone - cut, w/d, cut so, if the pattern continues, look for Dustin Johnson to withdraw due to another jet skiing incident that doesn't actually involve him riding a jet ski. When you pick D.J. at Pebble Beach, one of two things is going to happen: (a) he shows-up and gets your season back on track or (b) he bombs at a tournament where he has always delivered in the past leaving you to dry your eyes and say, "maybe next year." (Please tell me I wasn't the only one mesmerized by the So God Made a Farmer commercial). 

Endnotes

We're going to party
like Avon Barksdale
after an early parole.

* I've completed two marathons and in neither one did I come close to beating my pre-race target time. That means that the prospect of running a third one hangs over me like a vulture perched above my bed but after finishing the second one I spent about two minutes hugging a lamppost repeating "there ain't gonna be no rematch . . . there ain't gonna be no rematch . . ."

** Is it "joyful" or "joyous?" Where's Dean Wormer's wife when you need her?

*** Now that the Ravens season has finally ended with them hoisting the Lombardi Trophy, I'm going to have time to write the fantasy golf draft recap which has been on hold during the Ravens' magical run which ended on Sunday at the Super Bowl . . . which, in case you didn't hear, the Ravens won.

**** He shot an 82 so "shaky" might not do it justice. How about "capricious?" "Volatile?" "Brain dead?"