My Fantasy Golf Season: Winning the Guessing Game

Vijay

Written by: Chris Counts, Editor

If you’ve ever joined a fantasy golf league, and I’m assuming that’s not many of you, you wouldn’t ever know how difficult it actually is.  That’s why I’ve decided to keep you updated on my fantasy golf league and just how tough it is for someone who proclaims to know so much about the PGA TOUR, can display so little knowledge when it comes to picking who will do well.

I worked in professional golf for nearly 10 years, and the members of this fantasy league, though all will remain nameless, are all working in the professional golf media industry…32 so-called experts.   The Inside Challenge is currently in its 8th season, and yours truly has yet to win.  That will all change this year.

Here’s how my league works.  Pick just one player each week.  Each player can be used only once during the season.  Standings run off of a money list that is compiled based on how much money each of your picks earns in their respective tournament.  Below are my first five picks of the season and their result. 

Steve Marino, a local product, gave me a great start.

As you can see I’ve scored big weeks out of lesser-known players.  Hometown favorite Stephen Marino has given me my best week of the year with a 7^th place finish at the Sony Open in Hawaii, and I took a flier and scored big with the young and talented Jason Day at Pebble Beach.  That worked out fairly well. However bigger names like Vijay Singh and J.B. Holmes have been a disappointment, and both at tournaments that they’ve won before. 

That’s where the strategy in this format works in.  See, there are a handful of “so-called” best players in the world. There are also only a few big money events on the Tour that would coincide with needing a good finish to really bank.  So the art of matching those up is a harder one to Master than it seems.

Here are the biggest money events on the schedule and my early prediction for who I will pick:

Tournament:                                                Winners Share                                    Prediction

WGC-Match Play (February)                        $1,350,000                                    Geoff Ogilvy
*Ogilvy has won this tournament once and finshed runner up another, guaranteed cash.

WGC-CA Championship (March)            $1,350,000                                    Camilo Villegas
*Camilo winning in Miami just seems right. Doral is a great fit for his game.

Masters Tournament (April)                        $1,350,000                                    Padraig Harrington
*Sorry Tiger, the Padraig Slam continues as he wins his third major in a row.

PLAYERS Championship (May)             $1,710,000                                    Phil Mickelson
*Phil has won at Sawgrass before and usually sucks up one big paycheck per year. This is the biggest on TOUR.

U.S. Open (June)                                    $1,350,000                                    Tiger Woods
*Tiger wins the Open, one-year removed from his last major.  Nobody is going to beat him on Bethpage Black, a course that he has already won this trophy.

British Open (July)                                    $1,498,875                                    Ian Poulter
* It’s about time that we see this brash Brit holding a major championship trophy.

WGC-Bridgestone (August)                        $1,350,000                                    Jim Furyk
*I’ve already used Tiger, so he would be my pick here. Furyk can win anywhere, but a track like Firestone fits his bill.

PGA Championship (August)                        $1,350,000                                    Sergio Garcia
*Mark it down, Garcia gets in the major column this year. I’m guessing it will be at Hazeltine.

But it’s not always about winning tournaments. You can’t expect that to happen more than a couple times per year. Consistent Top 10 paychecks is how you get it done. It’s much easier to predict that a guy will simply do good as opposed to win the whole thing, with the exception of Tiger. The key is guessing him correctly. He’s got the best winning percentage ever, so that’s not too hard to do.

This week at Riviera I’m rolling with Robert Allenby. This is the Aussie’s first tournament of the year on tour, but here’s guessing that I don’t go home empty handed with him.  He won at the course in 2001 and also has finished in the top 15, 4 out of the last 5 years there.  He’s also made 27 straight cuts. I may not win, but here’s hoping a decent check out of a player that I might not ever use, otherwise.

I need some help in the standings though. I’m currently 17^th out of 32.  So I’ll let you, the readers help me out.  If you have a particular favorite for an event, comment and let me know.  Help me to a championship here. I’ll send you another update soon. 

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