Category Archives: Fantasy Golf

Fantasy Golf — Humana Challenge

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This is week three — is three times the charm for me?  Will my fantasy golf picks do well?  Who knows but here are my picks for the Humana Challenge.

(1) Phil Mickelson — what can I say he is my favorite golfer so this is a loyalty pick.  Let’s hope “Lefty” gets off to a strong start for 2012.

(2) Charles Howell III — His nick name is “Chucky Three Sticks” which is funny because he does not look like a “Chucky.”  Anyway, he was tied for 2nd last week at the Sony Open and he was 13th last year at the Humana Challenge so I’m hoping he does well this week.

(3) Kyle Stanley — He is my “What the heck” pick this week and the only reason I picked him is because Gary Williams, Golf Channel, Morning Drive host picked him. I like the Morning Drive show and so I thought I’d go with one of the host’s picks.

(4) Erik Compton — This is a long shot but Compton’s personal story is so amazing and  inspiring.  Compton is a double heart transplant.  Can you imagine having had one heart transplant let alone two; and on top of it being a good enough golfer to make the PGA tour.

Results of Fantasy Golf Sony Open Picks

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My picks for the Sony Open did not fair well.  The results are:

(1) Jeff Maggart -Tied for 13 at 8 under par. Maggart was a long shot but he had my hopes up on Sunday because he entered the 4th round tied for first place with a score of 12 under par.  It was only a few holes into the final round, when he bogeyed the 4th and 5th holes, that I knew it was going to be a bad day for Maggart.

(2) Web Simpson – Tied for 38 at 4 under par. Do you believe that if people talk about something too much it can be jinxed?  I do. All the golf commentators kept talking about how Simpson had 13 straight rounds in the 60’s coming into the Sony Open.  What happened — his streak ended with rounds of 72 (round 2)  and 70 (round 3) in the tournament. The final day he shot a 68 but that was too little, too late.

(3) Roy Sabbitini – Tied for 29 at 5 under par.  Sabbitini had a 7 (triple bogey) on the third hole (par 4) of his final round and even with 5 birdies later in the round he could not recover.  He also had drama in his final round when Vijay Singh swore at Sabbitini’s caddy.  Singh believed the caddy moved when Singh was hitting his putt. When Sabbitini defended his caddy, Singh swore at Sabbitini. According to an article in the New York Times there were a number of witnesses to this bad behavior.

(4) Heath Slocum – Missed the cut and did not play the weekend. Slocum was my “what the heck” pick this week so I can’t really be upset that he did the worst of all my picks; but this represents the second lesson learned in two weeks competing in the Golf Fantasy game.  You have to also think about whether or not your pick could actually miss the cut. It never entered my mind that any of my picks would miss the cut.  Go figure.

Fantasy Golf – Sony Picks

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My rank on the Golf Channel fantasy golf leader board is miserable against the full field of participants.  Ok, full disclosure, my rank is 5550 (yes, I have a long way to go).  However, comparing myself to the “Expert Leader board” for the Golf Channel (GC) Experts, I’m tied with Annika Sorenstam ranked at 14. Annika may not like her rank against her peers but I’ll take it as a positive sign that I am in the mix and not lower than any of the GC Experts.

Now for my Sony picks:

(1) Web Simpson — He is one of my favorite younger players and he tied for third last week at the Hyundai. I think he will win this year and I’m hoping for an early start with picking him for Sony.

(2) Rory Sabbatini — My gut is that he is going to be really motivated after what happened to him at the Hyundai.  What happened?  He was 20 seconds (yes, seconds) late for his tee time and he was hit with a two-stroke penalty.  This is a significant penalty if you think about the fact that Steve Stricker won by one stroke over Martin Laird.  The fact that Rory recovered (by that I mean got his composure back to shoot a 73 even par round that day) and that he finished with a 68,68 on the final two days makes me think he is capable of winning this week.  Motivation and capability makes me pick him from group two.

(3) Heath Slocum — no one inspired me in group three.  So this is my “what the heck” pick this week. He is a middle of the pack player but at least he has played before (versus trying to pick one of the 25 or so rookies playing their first time on tour.)  But I do have my eye on two rookies to pick later in the season.  I’ll blog about them later.

(4) Jeff Maggert — So I am going “old school” on this one and it is a risk but to be honest I picked him because he has been on tour since 1986 and has won in the past. However, 2011 was not a stellar year so I’m hoping he has a decent start to 2012. But, it is a risk because he could also miss the cut.

Being new to this fantasy golf game, I think I will learn something new each week.  Lesson from week one — the group format is tough. I thought I’d be able to pick any 4 players each week which would be easy to pick my favorites.  But now it is clear that the groups are based on performance (with top performers in group one and moving down the ranks to fill-in the other groups) and picking in Group 3 and 4 when you are “deep in the field” with average or low ranking players is a big challenge for me.  I might have to start actually looking at statistics like driving accuracy, GIR (greens in regulation), and putting averages. But that seems like too much work so let’s not go there yet.

Fantasy Golf Results – Hyundai Tournament

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My first week of fantasy golf and I did not fair well.  My picks finished miserably out of a field of 28 they placed: 12th (Kevin Na 12 under par), 16th (Keegan Bradley with 11 under par, 18th (Bubba Watson at 8 under par) and 25th (Brendan Steele over par by three strokes).

The winner was Steve Stricker with a score of 23 under par — he had a great tournament. I like Stricker very much but he had been dealing with a neck issue at the end of 2011 and so I did not think he would be healthy for the Hyundai.  Turns out he had a cortisone shot during the holidays and he feels great.  Would I have picked him to win knowing he had the shot? Who knows but I do know all the press on his bad neck made me ignore him as a pick. Can you really recover that quickly?  Maybe but some of the golf chatter online is wondering how bad he was hurt.  All I know is that when I had a cortisone shot in my elbow it was amazing how much better it felt weeks later.  Give him the benefit of the doubt that he was really hurt and all the therapy and cortisone did the trick.

As for my performance, not to worry I have many more weeks to improve my results.

Fantasy Golf 2012 Starts Today

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This year, for the first time, I have entered a Fantasy Golf League online.  It seems appropriate that this be my first post.  Why?  Well, because it is winter in New England and so I don’t have any “on course” antics to share.  So, I am going to share my golf expectations for how well I will do in the Fantasy Golf League.

My expectation is optimistic – if you are a numbers person, a 7 out of 10 that I will do reasonably well (or will be in the top 10 in the leader board and will win one week sometime this season). Now, I have never participated in a fantasy league. I’m sure those that I am competing against for the weekly, sectional,and year-end grand prize have all kinds of statistics and knowledge they use to pick their predictions; but I will start with just my gut (basically players I know and like to watch or maybe throw in a golfer just because I feel like it)

The first tournament is the Hyundai Tournament of Champions and my guys are:

(1)  Bubba Watson – because he is a lefty, and Phil is not playing. Plus he just had a round of 58 on his home course so I take that as a good sign that he will play well this week.

(2)  Keegan Bradley – because he is from New England and his aunt is Pat Bradley, one of the LPGA’s finest (in her day, won 31 tournaments and is in the Golf Hall of Fame).

(3)  Kevin Na – because he won Justin Timberlake’s tournament last year and I actually like the fact that Justin supports golf as a sport.  Timberlake is the owner of  Mirimichi, an eco-friendly golf course and Callaway Golf just named Timberlake as creative director (and I’m a Callaway fan.) I guess Callaway is hoping he will “bring sexy back” to golf and young fans to Callaway.

(4)  Brendan Steele — to be honest I don’t really know anything about Brendan but I had to pick someone from the list in “group 4” and I recall seeing him play. This is my “what the heck” pick.

Now, you may look at my picks and think to yourself that my optimism is crazy but this is only the first tournament and the field is only 28 players (so many of my favorite players are not in the running because this tournament is for golfers that won a tournament in 2011.)

I have many, many tournaments to improve my predictions.  Check out the next post to find out the results.