Fantasy Golf: The Tour Championship Preview

Here's what we know heading into the Tour Championship. If you're in the top five now and you win this week, you take the whole enchilada so top five is key (uh, duh). Now, do you want to see something kind of cool? (And by cool, I mean cool only to me). Here is how I picked the top five FedEx Cup finishers in my Playoff Preview alongside the current standings heading into the final event:

FGR Prediction                       Current Standings

1. Adam Scott		1. Tiger Woods
2. Matt Kuchar		2. Henrik Stenson
3. Tiger Woods		3. Adam Scott
4. Henrik Stenson		4. Zach Johnson
5. Zach Johnson		5. Matt Kuchar

What has two thumbs and occasionally poops in the woods while wearing a funny hat? This guy, that's what. (I think I was supposed to say something about a blind squirrel in there somewhere). Anyway, I'm all in on nailing my pre-playoff predictions so, without doing any advanced math, the following picks are designed to make that happen. As it turns-out, they also make for a pretty solid top ten list but let's face it, there are at least twenty players in the field who could win this thing as I didn't even include Hunter Mahan, Justin Rose, Luke Donald, Keegan Bradley, Jason Dufner or Jim Furyk so let's just kick-back and enjoy the culmination of one of the more entertaining seasons in golf history (and root for Adam Scott).

No inspiration on the picture this week so let's go ahead and
introduce a new player. Welcome to the FGR Ms. WIide.

Tour Championship Picks

1. Adam Scott
2. Matt Kuchar
3. Tiger Woods
4. Henrik Stenson
5. Bill Haas
6. Webb Simpson
7. Zach Johnson
8. Brandt Snedeker
9. Phil Mickelson
10. Jordan Spieth

Last Week's Report Card: D-

Do you know the one thing we've promised the Fantasy Golf Report would have from the start? No, not quality but good guess (and you should clearly read more regularly). It's accountability so, with that in mind, we present last week's picks. It would appear that we* went with a 10-spot Keno theme by shooting for the 4 to 1 payout by missing on all ten. The only way this could have been legitimately worse is if I had added Rory McIlroy (T59th) and Scott Piercy (T69th) in place of Furyk and Stricker. I mean was that supposed to be a list of potential winning golfers or a breakdown of Nick Cage's career since 2003 (BOOM!)?     

Captain Corelli's Mandolin?!? Are you
fucking kidding me? You played Sailor
Ripley for God's sake. What happened?

1. Jason Dufner - T54th
2. Phil Mickelson - T33rd
3. Justin Rose - T33rd
4. Adam Scott - T28th
5. Lee Westwood - T67th
6. Henrik Stenson - T33rd
7. Sergio Garcia - T18th
8. Jim Furyk - 3rd
9. Steve Stricker - T4th
10. Dustin Johnson - T62nd

One parting thought . . . it's been a tough couple of weeks for Steeler Nation with the black and gold opening 0-2 and scoring a total of 19 points. (Steeler fan Jim Furyk commemorated this inauspicious start by becoming only the third player in PGA Tour history to shoot 59 and not win the tournament). Most Ravens fans won't admit it, but we're all pretty confident that our team is not going to win the Super Bowl this year and we're kind of ok with that. The problem with that state of mind is that it doesn't really leave you much to passionately root for unless . . . you're offering us the opportunity to witness the downfall of the Roethlisberger era Steelers. The prospect of that just made us slide a little closer to the edge of our seat and think, "now this is a show that I could look forward to watching all season like 24 in its heyday."

Endnotes

"If we're going to poop on the math
teacher's porch, we must act swiftly
before Silver Spoons** comes on."

* Have you noticed the increased use of the collective "we" as the picks have deteriorated over the past few weeks? It's as if I think my imaginary childhood friend Desmond (he's Australian) is helping me make the picks. Desmond is the best. We used to stay-up for hours telling stories and talking about how one day we were going to open our own arcade and not have any Pac-Man games because they sucked and when people asked, "hey, where's Pac-Man?" we would answer, "if he was up your ass you'd know." Then there were those other nights when Desmond would have some reeeeeaaaalllly weird ideas like . . . . what's that? Sorry, Desmond wants me to stop talking now.

** I never actually watched Silver Spoons but it fit the timeframe and, more importantly, made the words fit nicely in the caption. By the way, here is how IMDB.com describes the show: "Ricky Stratton (played by Rick Schroeder) is a spoiled rich kid who lives the life that many kids dream of, but he still suffers from the problems that many teens do." Who knew that twenty-five years later they'd replace Schroeder with "real" people like the Kardashians and lower our collective IQ by 4 points? Though I would be lying if I said I didn't admire the work of Scott Disick (I think it's time to stop talking again).