Fantasy Golf: Hot Topics

August 26, 2008 8:42am CDT

- To stay or go… The top stories of this early week, coming off one of the more exciting finishes we’ve seen since Tiger and Bart Bryant did battle on the 18th hole of the Arnold Palmer, have been centered on players either making or attempt to make significant career decisions.

First, Ian Poulter has decided to ditch his original plans of putting full emphasis on the effort to earn a spot as an automatic qualifier on the European Team for the Ryder cup. Instead, he’s remained in the states to attend at TPC Boston where he will jump into the fray for the FedEx Cup at the Deutsche Bank Championship. It’s significant in that Poulter does not have the points needed to make that grade and is leaving it up to captain Nick Faldo to either pick him or not. He’s motivated to work out of his recent funk (T31 at the PGA Championship, missed cut at The Barclays) and feels the fight for that spot on the Ryder roster is likely lost due to those finishes regardless.

The second big story of this early week has been the interview with Tiger Woods in which he revealed (a) he has targeted the turn of the year as his attempt to start swinging golf clubs again, (b) he feels that will allow him to attend the Dubai Desert Classic (one of his favorite international commitments, and it also happens to take place in a city where he has a new $1.1 billion course under construction with his design and name attached to it), and (c) he doesn’t know if any of that will truly come to fruition because he “doesn’t know how his knee will heal.” Medical experts believe he should be fully recovered by then, thus we tend to believe he will be reaching those goals. That’s good news for Tiger, for fans of the game, and for fantasy owners.

The final story hasn’t been much of a story at all, but we noticed Lee Westwood’s name was once again missing from this week’s field at the Deutsche Bank Championship. There was reason to believe he would get into the mix following a late-week announcement before The Barclays that the top international star would be returning from vacation early and plans to hit the links in Europe at the Johnnie Walker. With that, there was fair support for pondering if he would return to the US and play with the big boys, but alas he has not, at least honoring part of his original plans as stated before the FedEx Cup playoffs arrived.

Westwood is one of few that has challenged the PGA’s elite this season, regardless of venue or course. These courses for his four-tourney playoff would have fit his game well, and while there are plenty of candidates worthy of your fantasy consideration this week and moving forward, having Westwood in the mix could have provided just a touch more.


~ Hot Hands ~
- Mike Weir

You will have to overlook a couple of slips, and understand he’s not as consistent as we might like, but Weir has been surprisingly effective for fantasy owners that take the gamble in recent weeks.

He opened the season nicely with a 4th-place finish at the Mercedes-Benz, but an adjoining stretch of disappointments had pushed fantasy owners away. Over his next dozen starts, he logged just two top-10 finishes with three missed cuts and one withdrawal. The quality starts were few and far between and they failed to bring the level of success you would expect from a member of the World’s top 50.

Since then, he’s been warming up. There has been one more missed cut (the AT&T National), but there has also been five top-20 finishes, three coming in the top 10. He was in the mix to add another top 10 to that list at the U.S. Open but suffered a minor fall to T18. His other slips were at the majors, finishing T39 at the Open Championship and T42 at the PGA. Nearly every other tourney in between has brought returns fantasy owners can appreciate, and we expect he could be on the mark again as he continues his competition in the FedEx Cup Playoffs.


~ Cold Feet ~
- Trevor Immelman
Since finding his first career major win at The Masters earlier this season, Immelman has struggled to compete. His putter has been failing, he can’t seem to rediscover the magic irons he worked at Augusta National, and he’s giving every indication that an early exit from the FedEx Cup playoffs is all too likely.

Since the big win in Georgia, Immelman has played in 10 PGA events, a rather selective schedule but one he felt he could afford with the winnings from Augusta. Over those 10 starts, Immelman has offered just one quality finish for fantasy owners: T2 at the Stanford St. Jude Championship.

However, there has been no shortage of disappointment, carding four missed cuts along the way. Four of those finishes with weekend action attached have resulted in a finish at T30 or worse, including last week’s finish in 70th at The Barclays. Coming into this week’s Deutsche Bank Championship, he has that amazing fall coupled with a missed cut at the PGA Championship and a T36 at the WGC Bridgestone Invitational.

His hands are about as cold as you can get.


- FedEx Cup Standings with Points Awarded to Start Playoffs
RANK PLAYER POINTS
1 Vijay Singh 109,500
2 Sergio Garcia 104,375
3 Kevin Sutherland 101,950
4 Phil Mickelson 101,856
5 Justin Leonard 101,830
6 Anthony Kim 101,671
7 Kenny Perry 101,624
8 Ben Curtis 100,917
9 Stewart Cink 100,815
10 Jim Furyk 100,671


- PGA Money Leaders
PLAYER EVENTS EARNINGS
Tiger Woods 6 $5,775,000
Vijay Singh 20 $5,192,531
Phil Mickelson 17 $4,661,075
Kenny Perry 23 $4,509,700
Padraig Harrington 13 $4,297,731
Anthony Kim 19 $3,792,115
Stewart Cink 19 $3,791,871
Sergio Garcia 16 $3,748,724
Justin Leonard 21 $3,341,335
Geoff Ogilvy 18 $2,818,779


- Official World Golf Rankings
PLAYER EVENTS AVG PTS
Tiger Woods 40 17.65
Phil Mickelson 44 9.91
Padraig Harrington 54 7.80
Sergio Garcia 51 6.78
Vijay Singh 60 4.65
Henrik Stenson 50 5.47
Stewart Cink 49 5.12
Ernie Els 56 5.12
Geoff Ogilvy 46 5.06
Steve Stricker 46 4.99


- World Money List
PLAYER EVENTS EARNINGS
Tiger Woods 7 $6,196,717
Vijay Singh 21 $5,217,565
Phil Mickelson 19 $4,699,056
Kenny Perry 23 $4,509,700
Padraig Harrington 18 $4,452,970
Sergio Garcia 19 $4,363,567
Anthony Kim 20 $3,902,447
Stewart Cink 19 $3,798,220
Justin Leonard 21 $3,340,571
Henrik Stenson 17 $2,869,681