The Wells Fargo Preview

The Jason Dufner victory was bittersweet for me despite putting him at the top of my rankings last week because (a) I had already used him this season, (b) about a dozen guys in my league apparently hadn't, and (c) I decided to go with Graeme McDowell who backed-up a promising opening round 69 with a tournament killing 73 and was never heard from again. 

"It was kind of like watching
Ben Roethlisberger drive off a
cliff in my new Dodge Stratus."

We've got a loaded field heading to Quail Hollow which probably explains why Luke Donald decided to take the week off. At this point, it's getting harder to make the call on which guys to play and which ones to stash for the upcoming Players and U.S. Open. Jim Furyk is a prime example. He's been on a roll lately and plays really well in Charlotte but he also looks like a perfect fit for Olympic Club as a richer man's version of Scott Simpson who won there in 1987. Furyk also knows that (a) he needs a second major to solidify his legacy and (b) Olympic might be one of his last real shots at it. What to do? At this point I have him as my No. 1 guy for the week but I still may hold him back for the Open. I need to figure out what my true instinct is here so I can pull a Costanza and do the opposite.

If you're desperate to make something happen (which I am having just dropped from 23rd to 33rd thanks to the Dufner/McDowell fiasco), then Phil Mickelson is the no brainer. He's finished in the top five of this event four of the last five years including a second in 2010 but he's also going to be the favorite at the U.S. Open so let your conscience be your guide. (If you hadn't noticed by now, I'm struggling with my pick for the week). As I hit the publish button on this sucker, here is how I would play it.

Talk to me Phil. Is this
the year? Oh hi Amy.

The Wells Fargo Top 5

1. Jim Furyk
2. Kevin Na
3. Webb Simpson
4. Zach Johnson
5. Bo Van Pelt


The Updated Majors Reserved List

Sergio talked himself right off the list when he said of not being able to win a major, "in 13 years I've come to the conclusion that I need to play for second or third place." What in the hell does that even mean? Finishing second or third in a major is really hard and he's talking about it like he's letting a an 8 year old beat him in a game of H-O-R-S-E. "I'm just going to get to H-O-R-S and then start bricking shots." I'm not taking Sergio off the list because I don't think he can win a major. I'm taking him off because I think he's losing his freakin' mind. That makes room for Hunter Mahan who I am starting to envision as a solid pick for Kiawah in August. Here is the updated version including the players I have already used/wasted:

And we all know what a
Mahan reference means.

Tiger Woods (dead to me)
Rory McIlroy (see Tiger Woods)
Lee Westwood
Phil Mickelson
Matt Kuchar
Luke Donald 
Keegan Bradley
Hunter Mahan


Last Week's Report Card: A-

In the 2000 Mercedes Championship, Tiger Woods and Ernie Els had an epic battle down the stretch where they traded great shots like body blows before Tiger finally won it with a 40 foot birdie putt on the first playoff hole. Last weekend's finish was just like that but exactly the opposite. God love Ernie for all of the good he does* but he's handed more trophies to other players this year than Jim Nantz. Meanwhile, Dufner carries himself like the 17 year old kid who hates golf but whose dad makes him him get dressed-up and play the father-son tournament at the club every year.** When he pulled his ball out of the hole after the winning putt I could swear he muttered, "can I just go home now?"

I finally relented when researching my picks last week and took a look at some of those old tests that my roommate stole from the backseat of the professor's car but it was worth it because, just like there are no pictures on a scorecard, there are no pictures on a report card. It could have been an "A" if my 2-4 picks had shown-up for the weekend but after the rut I've been in, I'm not complaining.

1. Jason Dufner: 1st

"Leopards? This is so boring.
I thought you said there were
going to be cheetahs?"

2. Graeme McDowell: T57th
3. Charles Howell, III: T39th
4. Kevin Streelman: 71st
5. Cameron Tringale: T7th


Random Crap***

1. Say what you want about Roger Goodell but that guy works a draft stage better than any commissioner in the history of sports. I'm a sucker for the bear hugs especially when you compare him to David Stearn who looks like he's whispering, "stay away from my daughter or I will kill you" in the ear of every NBA pick.

2. Speaking of the NBA, Andrew Bynum tied the playoff record for blocks with 10 in a win over the Nuggets last weekend. When asked after the game what that record meant to him, he responded (and I am not making this up), "So maybe, you know . . . note to self: the more I play D, the better we'll be." That is the best use of "note to self" since Norm MacDonald was doing Weekend Update.**** Unfortunately for the Lakers, Norm MacDonald is a comedian while Andrew Bynum is their starting center. I only wish I had been in the room when Kobe Bryant heard that quote and then been in the room with him an hour later when he smashed his head against a table.

3. I had the pleasure of playing three rounds at Kinloch Golf Club outside of Richmond last week. It is a vintage golf experience and, if an invitation comes your way, the only two permissible responses are (1) unfortunately I am already playing [insert Pine Valley, Pebble Beach, Augusta or another entry from Golf Digest's Top 10] that day, or (2) yes.


Endnotes

* Check-out the unbelievable venues for Els for Autism this year including Baltusrol, Hazeltine and Caves Valley -  Els for Autism.

** For me it wasn't golf, it was sailing. Yes I said sailing. It was probably a telling sign that my favorite part was jumping off the boat into the water.

*** A tribute to the titles of my college mixed tapes.

**** "Good news for Hawaii! Next year, the state will receive twenty million dollars in federal funds to help teach poor children how to read. Note to self: Swindle poor Hawaiians out of twenty million dollars by pretending to be a guy who teaches reading. [pockets recorder then pulls out recorder and continues] Note to self: Before I start, also learn to read. ... That will help give the scam what we like to call 'credibility'... That's a big word."

The Zurich Classic Preview

Editors Note: We would like to welcome all of our Amber Watney fans to the Fantasy Golf Report. The post you have stumbled onto in search of the picture below is one of the many previews we do on a regular basis of weekly PGA Tour events, however, to be completely honest, it is not one of our best. So once your work here is done, we would encourage you to take a tour of some of our other work represented in the "Popular Posts" section to your right. We are quite confident that you will be entertained and, if artwork like that which appears below is your thing, you will not be disappointed. Thank you.

The Zurich Classic Preview 

We're going with another brief preview this week because (a) I'm still suffering a mild case of the post-Masters blues, (b) there were at least four sporting events on Sunday afternoon that were more watchable than Ben Curtis bumping it around a tricked-up TPC course, and (c) my schedule is a little jammed-up with four rounds on the agenda including three at #46 on Golf Digests' current Top 100 list.* I'm also brewing-up something a little different for Thursday.

This may be Amber Watney
but I'm not sure. Anyone?

The Zurich Classic sports a pretty strong field but is one of those tournaments where "C" list players win more often than the "A" listers (a fairly common phenomena on TPC courses). In the last seven years Bubba Watson and Nick Watney have won this thing but so have Jason Bohn, Jerry Kelly, Andres Romero, Tim Petrovic and Chris Couch. All swell fellows but probably not the names CBS wants to see at the top of the leaderboard come Sunday, especially after last week's thriller.

I'm going to continue to leave Luke Donald, Keegan Bradley and Nick Watney on the sideline. I would also avoid Bubba because I've got to believe the only reason he's playing this week is that he's the defending champ (and maybe because there is one local morning talk show left in New Orleans that he hasn't appeared on since winning the Masters). I wouldn't be surprised if he misses the cut. The FGR picks this week are comprised of three guys who are playing really well and are all due for a win, one guy who fits the mold of random Zurich Classic winners of the past and a young gun who everyone keeps saying is ready to break through, including me.

To the extent you were wondering whether
P90X works on Irish guys, here's your answer.

The Zurich Classic Top Five

1. Jason Dufner
2. Graeme McDowell
3. Charles Howell, III
4. Kevin Streelman
5. Cameron Tringale

Last Week's Report Card: C-

1. Harris English
2. K.J. Choi
3. Bud Cauley
4. Johnson Wagner
5. Cameron Tringale

Despite the fact that Ben Curtis won,** I should have gone with my gut and stuck with the freshmen and sophomores because if I had, I may have come up with John Huh (T2nd) and Brendan Steele (T4th) instead of K.J. Choi who looks like he's headed for one of those out of nowhere slump seasons that good players start having when they get past 40 (he hasn't finished higher than 24th in a full field event). I figured Johnson Wagner was a pretty safe pick considering he was the second best player in the field (behind Matt Kuchar) and he's from freakin' Texas but that idea went up in flames when he bogeyed half the holes on Friday only to be outdone by my top pick, Harris English, who pulled a Jose Canseco with a 40/40 on Saturday.*** This is a tough handicapping stretch with four out of five tournaments being played on TPC courses. Trying to pick golfers on these tracks is like trying to pick horses racing across a mine field ("and it looks like it's going to be Curlin by a . . . BOOM! . . . well that's a bad break.")

Endnotes

* Unfortunately, my 4th round of the week was a Monday morning fundraiser played in British Open conditions which would have been ok except that when I finished the round I walked into a cheesy clubhouse bar called The Three Putt instead of a Scottish pub. On the bright side, I won $65 worth of pro shop credit which I swapped for a Pink Floyd box set that some guy won as a door prize. (Anyone want to buy a Pink Floyd box set?)

** Ben Curtis' mom didn't even have him in her Top 10.

*** Jose Canseco was the first major league baseball player with 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a season. The next two players to do it were Barry Bonds and Alex Rodriguez. Barry Bonds would later become the first 73/13/10 player (home runs/stolen bases/hat size).

Email the FGR

The FGR Rankings

What? You expected a picture of
Travis Bickle or Jake LaMatta here?

Dan Marino is currently second all-time in career touchdown passes and yardage, arguably the two most often cited individual statistics when comparing quarterbacks. Despite those lofty accomplishments, Marino is an afterthought when the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL are discussed. To the extent that you can even have a Russell v. Chamberlain debate, it ends the moment the guy on the Russell side drops the 11 titles to 2 hammer. (This is a much more legitimate debate than the one about Jordan v. LeBron that Jason Segel has with the kid in Bad Teacher. Jordan v. LeBron? The fact that they used that scene in the trailer should have been the first clue that Bad Teacher = Bad Movie).

I could go on about Ted Williams, Marcel Dionne, Henri Leconte and then maybe try to stretch it to Martin Scorses' Oscar drought that finally ended in 2006 when he won for The Departed (despite the fact that it's probably somewhere between his 6th and 9th best movie)* but I think you get the point.

It's time to put the World Golf Rankings (WGR) out of our misery.  Since May of last year, with a couple of brief interludes, we have been told that Luke Donald is the best player in the world according to a formula that no one can understand.  (You know it's bad when Stephen Hawking studies your calculations for five minutes and says, "you're over thinking it"). This past week, Donald lost the top spot in the rankings to Rory McIlroy despite the fact that McIlroy didn't even play. Donald dropped in the rankings because he finished 37th in a relatively weak field at the RBC Heritage. That performance earned him a .13 point deduction on his WGR score dropping it from a 9.61 to a 9.48. Apparently finishing 37th in a mid-level PGA event is the equivalent of coming out of your triple axle a bit too early.

Golf is a simple game. You add up the number of times you hit the ball and the guy with the lowest number wins. In that same spirit, golf also has the simplest formula in sports to determine its greatest player of all-time. It's A plus B divided by shut up and tell me how many majors you won. Here is the list of the twelve greatest golfers ever:

"What can I say?  I feel terrible
for Tiger.  Really I do."

Jack Nicklaus - 18
Tiger Woods - 14
Walter Hagan - 11
Gary Player - 9
Ben Hogan - 9
Tom Watson - 8
Arnold Palmer - 7
Sam Snead - 7
Gene Sarazen - 7
Bobby Jones - 7
Harry Vardon - 7

Anyone have any significant issues with that list? No. OK, let's move on. The other great thing about golf is that you have to beat so many feakin' players just to win one major that it somewhat negates the "how good was your competition?" argument that mucks-up using the same formula for tennis players. Jack Nicklaus had to beat an average of over 100 players for every major he won. That's 1,800 players for 18 majors. Even if half of those guys were drunker than Roger Maltbie at an open bar wedding, that's still impressive.

So clearly majors are what define a great golfer. The problem we have today, however, is that no one is winning them in bunches. The last sixteen have been won by sixteen different players so it's harder figure out who the best really is but, at the same time, when it's this wide open it's easier to figure out who the best really isn't. I don't want to hear about the winner at some Buick sponsored event where only three of the top twenty players in the world competed. That win should have no bearing on ranking the top players. No one knows who has the most career victories without winning a major despite the fact that he's higher on the total win list than legends like Lee Trevino, Johnny Miller, Gary Player and Raymond Floyd.**

"Talk to me when you make the
cut at Augusta at the age of 62."

The other reason we don't want to count the lower tier events is that the truly great players don't get that up for them. Sure they want to win every time they tee it up but Phil Mickelson did not swing by Orlando in January to play a few practice rounds at Bay Hill in preparation for the Arnold Palmer Invitational like he will at Olympic Club for the U.S. Open. Also, players like Luke Donald and Matt Kuchar who had high expectations for the Masters were due for a letdown the following week at the RBC Heritage. As previously noted, Donald's tie for 37th cost him the top spot in the World Golf Rankings which is ridiculous. I actually give him credit for grinding out a couple of 71's on the weekend after a bad start when other players were throwing-up 77's and 78's like a bunch of five handicaps.

(Please tell me this is going somewhere).

All of this has been a very long-winded and convoluted way of saying we need a new ranking system that (a) focuses exclusively on the tournaments that matter and (b) is easier to understand than Euclid's Algorithm. For the FGR Rankings, we are therefore only going to consider the results from majors, WGC events and The Players Championship because those are the only tournaments where all of the best players in the world compete against each other. (I originally didn't have The Players in the mix because I can't take a tournament seriously where Craig Perks, Stephen Ames and Fred Funk have the same number of wins (one) as Tiger and Phil.  In the end, I decided to count it but at a significant discount . . . and then I almost ditched it again when I realized that Tim Clark won it in 2010.  Tim Clark?!?). Using those nine events over a rolling two year period, we are going to implement the following point system (this is what happens when you try to come up with writing ideas while watching Moneyball):

          Majors                        WGC Events                 The Players

1st     40 points                         20 points                         10 points
2nd    20 points                        10 points                           6 points
3rd    18 points                           9 points                           5 points
4th    16 points                           8 points                           4 points
5th    14 points                           7 points                           3 points
6th    12 points                           6 points                           2 points
7th    10 points                           5 points                           1 point
8th      8 points                           4 points                           1 point
9th      6 points                           3 points                           1 point
10th    4 points                           2 points                           1 point

A few more wrinkles. Because we want to reward champions and sports is a "what have you done for me lately" business, we are going to add a winner's bonus that declines in value depending on how many tournaments have been played since the win.  For example, Bubba gets 10 bonus points for winning the most recent major, Keegan Bradley gets 8 points for winning the previous one, Darren Clarke gets 6 points for his British Open win, McIlroy gets 4 points and Schwartzel gets 2.  The WGC events work the same way with half the points so Justin Rose gets 5 points for his win at Doral, Hunter Mahan gets 4 points for the Match Play and so on. And one more thing, you need at least two top 10's in the qualifying events to be ranked (the "Darren Clarke" rule).*** We're not going to recognize one hit wonders.

Applying our new formula, here is the FGR top 20 side by side with the WGR top 20:

       FGR Top 20                WGR Top 20

1.	McIlroy	125	McIlroy	9.59
2.	Kaymer	94	Donald	9.48
3.	Westwood	89	Westwood	8.27
4.	Watson, B.	88	Watson, B.	6.47
5.	Donald	80	Mahan	5.82
6.	Oosthuizen	74	Kaymer	5.58
7.	Scott, A.	69	Stricker	5.53
8.	Schwartzel	64	Woods	5.48
9.	Kuchar	60	Mickelson	5.32
10.	Mahan	57	Rose	5.2
11.	Johnson, D.	55	Scott	5.13
12.	Day, J.	54	Oosthuizen	5.12
13.	Mickelson	54	Schwartzel	5.11
14.	Hanson, P.	53	Simpson, W.	4.95
15.	Bradley, K.	52	Kuchar	4.86
16.	McDowell	52	Johnson, D.	4.84
17.	Watney	41	Day, J.	4.79
18.	Woods	40	McDowell	4.79
19.	Rose	38	Haas, B.	4.46
20.	Dufner	36	Bradley, K.	4.29

It turns out that I may owe Luke Donald an apology because his track record in big events is better than I thought (unfortunately for Luke, I used up all of my 2012 apologies on Eli Manning). Instead of a referendum on Donald's big game performance, the FGR rankings turned out to be a referendum on Steve Stricker and Bill Haas. Stricker is ranked 6th in the WGR and 55th in the FGR. Haas is ranked 19th in the WGR and does not even register on the FGR because he doesn't have a top 10 in any of the 18 qualifying events. (Figures it has to be two of the nicest guys in the world. Why couldn't it have been Sergio or Tiger?)

Think about that. The last 18 times the best players convened at the same golf course and the 19th ranked player in the world did not finish in the top 10 once. Stricker is not much better. His only top 10's are a 6th at the Cadillac, a 9th at the Match Play and a 9th at the 2010 Bridgestone. He hasn't had a top 10 in a major since he finished 6th at the 2009 Masters yet he's five spots ahead of Louis Oosthuizen who won the 2010 British Open and just came within about an inch of winning the Masters with his putt on the first playoff hole. Stricker is also seventeen spots ahead of Peter Hanson who just finished 3rd at the Masters, 7th at last year's U.S. Open, 4th at the Cadillac and 5th at the Match Play.

"The plaque for the John Deere
Classic is down in the ladies' room."

How does this happen? First, Stricker dominates the John Deere Classic which he has won the past three years. That's great except for the fact that the John Deere is played in July in Sylvis, Illinois when most of the best players in the world are about 4,000 miles away getting ready for a little something the Brits like to call The Open Championship. Stricker also racks-up one other win every year and in 2012 it happened to be the Hyundai Tournament of Champions which sounds impressive until you consider that only 27 players competed in it and none of them were named Phil, Tiger, Luke, Lee or Rory. In short, Steve Stricker is Joey Knish from Rounders. His skills are undeniable but he's a grinder who hasn't finished in the top 5 of a major since 1999. The 7th best player in the world? I don't think so.

Bill Haas' case is even weaker. Sure we all remember the great shot from the water to win the Tour Championship**** last year and the miracle putt on the first playoff hole at Riveria but the fact is that Haas' best finish in a major ever is a tie for 12th at last year's PGA Championship and that is his only top 20. If you're ranking the best players in the world, you can't have him one spot ahead of the guy who actually won the PGA Championship, Keegan Bradley, even if the only other highlight on Bradley's resume is a tie for 8th at this year's Cadillac. I can hear the argument now, "but Haas beat Bradley AND Mickelson in the playoff to win the Northern Trust Open." Yeah yeah. That's the equivalent of Josh Freeman outplaying Drew Brees when the Bucs beat the Saints in Week 6. Did anyone remember that by the time Brees was breaking Marino's single season yardage record and the Saints were locking-up the division at the end of the season? Nope.

Kelly Brook at No. 60?
She must have totally
botched the verbal. 

I don't know many places that engrave your name on the wall of the clubhouse for winning the Nine and Dine, the Turkey Shootout and the Tuesday Night Twilight. Not to belittle the rest of the PGA schedule because God knows I need it to get me from February to September, but factoring in the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open***** to decide the best player in the world would be like Maxim counting SAT scores when determining it's Hot 100 list. What it really comes down to is this. Whether you're ranking golfing greatness or female hotness, only the truly relevant measurables should be considered.                  

Endnotes

* For me it's (1) Goodfellas, (2) Raging Bull, (3) Taxi Driver, (4) Mean Streets, (5) Cape Fear, (6) The King of Comedy, (7) The Departed, (8) Casino, (9) The Last Waltz, (10) Bringing Out the Dead . . . with an honorable mention for The Color of Money . . . "On the snap Vincent!"

** It's Harry Cooper who is tied for 16th with 31 career wins. If you got that, you're either Harry Cooper's son or Ken Jennings.

"I will take Utterly Useless
Golf Trivia for $1,000."

*** I should probably discount the British Open in light of Clarke's win and the recent close calls by Tom Watson and Greg Norman but I can't bring myself to downgrade the Mad Men major (The FGR British Open Update).

**** The Tour Championship is borderline worthy of being part of the FGR Rankings but it's really just a 30 man version of The Players Championship.

*****  I did not make-up the name of that tournament. I also just set a personal record for endnotes.

If you would like to email me your comments on this or any other column or you would like to see the stats behind the rankings, you can find me here fantasygolfreport@earthlink.net.

The RBC Heritage Update

"Augustus, that trophy is not made
of chocolate . . . don't eat it!" 

Carl Pettersson won the RBC Heritage in a snoozer and, along with three of the other top five finishers (Colt Knost, Kevin Stadler and Billy Mayfair)* set the "golfers are athletes" argument back about 20 years. Turns out that, while vertical stripes are slimming, when you combine them with horizontal stripes in a tartan plaid, not so much.  

This week in San Antonio we have one of the least intriguing fields I've ever seen for a tournament not being played at the same time as the British Open and it's not going to get much better next week in New Orleans as the top players gear-up for the Wells Fargo and The Players in three weeks. You know it's bad when your field features six major champions but they're Ben Curtis, Justin Leonard, David Duval, Rich Beem, Shaun Micheel and Lee Janzen (oh, those six) and the highlight package that CBS has lined-up devotes more time to the 16 that Kevin Na made on the 9th hole last year than to any shots hit by the winner (it was Brendan Steele in case you forgot).**  

"The suspense is terrible
. . . I hope it'll last."

Some would see this as a soft spot in the schedule but I see it as an opportunity to finalize the formula and calculations for the unveiling of the inaugural FGR World Golf Rankings. I've been banging on Luke Donald for six months because he is the most unqualified golfer ever to be ranked #1 (and he might be the most unqualified athlete to be ranked #1 in his sport since Rocky Balboa in Rocky III). Luke Donald, however, is not the problem. The system that tells us that he's the best golfer in the world*** is the problem and I'm going to fix it. Consider yourself teased.

* At one point, a microphone caught Zach Johnson asking "OK, who took all of the power bars out of my bag?"  

** This is what a PGA pro making a 16 looks like - The Double Snowman.

*** I know Rory McIlroy reclaimed the #1 spot thanks to Luke Donald's 37th place finish at the Heritage but that just helps prove my point. It's gonna blow your mind. You'll see.