Travelers Championship-Fantasy Golf Picks-PGA Tour
The Tour moves from California to Connecticut as players prepare to head to TPC River Highlands in Cromwell. Not only will the coast be different, expect the scores to be radically lower as well. It’s a relatively short par-70 this week after the grueling difficult Olympic Club made Webb Simpson the latest first-time Major-winner.
Nobody in the FantasyCPR group tabbed Simpson, but Cracker Woods took the week with 174 behind Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia, and Graeme McDowell. He’s also on top of the Summer standings after a week while MT Cup is at the lead of the overall season rankings.
My entry fell to the bottom of the week after a disappointing 104 thanks mostly to my C List players both missing the cut. I’m still in the top 17% in the overal game and I’m looking to bounce back this week back on the East Coast with these picks:
A List
Matt Kuchar-Hard to not go with 20 consecutive cuts made, a t27 last week, and a guy who wears a Red Sox logo at times. (ok, the Red Sox logo probably isn’t relevant to his playing). I still have six Kuchar starts left and with the thinner field this week, I’ll use one here.
Webb Simpson-It may be a week late, but Simpson is a good bet to finish well again in Connecticut. Consecutive wins are rare on tour, but he should be near the top come Sunday and I still have eight Simpson starts. Don’t go crazy with Webb though, he was coming off two missed cuts before the US Open victory.
Other options: Zach Johnson, Y.E. Yang
B List
Hunter Mahan- He won in 2007 and finished runner up in ’08 and ’09. This season he’s made 11 of 12 cuts with a pair of wins and three other top 15’s. Last week he made the cut and finished tied for 38th.
Fredrik Jacobson-I was impressed with the Swede’s play last week at Olympic and he is the defending champ so he knows his way around the course. He has four top 30’s and two missed cuts going back to the Masters.
Ryan Moore-Runner up last year at the Travelers, Moore has three top 10’s this year and is coming off of five made cuts in a row. He has three top 15’s in the last three years at the Travelers.
Michael Thompson-Thompson came within a shot of one of the most surprising US Open victories in recent history, but settled for a t2. He does have five top 20’s in his 16 starts so far this season.
C List
John Huh-C-list has been my downfall a couple weeks this year. This week there’s plenty of options, but few sure things in the field. I’ll go with one of the breakout rookie’s on tour John Huh for my first spot. With four top 10s and eight top 25s so far this season, Huh shows little signs of slowing down with top 20s in his last two tournaments (t5-Colonial; t19-Memorial)
John Merrick- One of the hottest golfers that didn’t play the US Open was John Merrick. He finished solo 2 at St. Jude and t36 at the Byron Nelson. He’s had an up-and-down year but has a nice history at the event with a top ten last year, t34 in 2010, and a t11 in 2009.
Other options: Padraig Harrington, Cameron Tringale