08-03-16

A new spot on the calendar doesn’t change the fact that the Travelers still follows a major championship. It also doesn’t change the fact that the average winning score is 15-under par so birdies and scoring will factor this week.

Time to load up on guys who go low and make birdies!

For those of you who don’t know, Ned has been a MAYJAH PLAYAH in the world of Yahoo! and was a contributing writer at Rotoworld before, during and after my tenure there.

Give him a follow on the Twitter: @Esoxgolf 

Let’s see how we match up this week!

Ned Brown

 

Points: PGA Championship: 146

 

Points: SEASON: 4,465

Rank: SEASON: 3,614

 

Group A

 

Bubba Watson (6)– It’s hard to believe that three out of the four golfers for the Rio Olympics are  this week’s field, but Bubba is the defending champ here. He loves this course with five top 10s in nine starts with another championship in ’10.

 

Ryan Moore (9)– I think this is a tough call between Kevin Streelman and Ryan Moore. Moore’s record is a little stronger here, but Streelman won here in ’14. Streelman has missed his last two cuts on the Tour and that was enough to tip the pick to Moore.

 

Alternates

Kevin Streelman, Gary Woodland, Brian Harman

 

Group B

 

Brooks Koepka (4)— Congratulations if you used Koepka last week because he was a bit of an unknown coming out of an injury. This week he will be heavily used coming off his T4 at the PGA Championship.

 

Webb Simpson (9)— Finally Simpson is starting rounding back into form. He has dropped some weight and his last two finishes on the Tour are a T6 at the Canadian Open and a T13 at the PGA Championship.

 

Zach Johnson (8)— Johnson has played well in this year’s Majors with a T8 at the US Open, a T12 in the British Open and a T33 at the PGA Championship. He has two top10s here in 10 career starts, including a solo sixth place last year.

 

J.B. Holmes (5)— I think this is a tough call between Patrick Reed and J.B. Holmes. Holmes looked great at the British Open in a T3 finish, but he then missed the cut at the PGA. Reed is playing well with a T12 at the British Open and T13 last week at the PGA. However, Reed has missed the cut in his last two starts here and that’s enough for me to go with Holmes.

 

Alternates

Patrick Reed, Francesco Molinari, Jim Furyk, Kevin Chappell

 

Group C

 

Matt Kuchar (1)– Ended up not using him last week and it was a good thing because he missed the cut. It was only his second missed cut of the season and I’m going to ignore it because he has been a top 10 machine this year.

 

Brandon Grace (7)— It tempting to go with Jon Rahm after his second place at the Canadian Open, but I’m going with the safer pick of Brandon Grace. Grace has been on quite a run with fifth place at the US Open, a 10th at the WGC-BI and T4 at the PGA.

 

Alternates

Jon Rahm, Paul Casey, Louis Oosthuizen

 

@MikeGlasscott

 

Points: PGA Championship: 178

Points: SUMMER Segment: 809

Rank: SUMMER Segment: 1,987

 

Points: SEASON: 4,625

Rank: SEASON: 511

 

Last week

 

Without having a player on the podium, I still managed to move up 1,000 points in the segment and over 120 on the season. I was lucky I started Mickelson over DJ in Group A. DJ made it easy for gamers this week because 77 didn’t even tempt us to burn a start on him for Friday, plus he was on the “wrong side” of the draw. Threw away eight points in Group C by sitting Grace in favor of Kuchar in round one, my final start on him, but rode him out the final three. My worst round the final three days was 70 (two times) so my luck in picking who played was better than yours!

 

This week:

Birdies.

Low 60’s.

More Birdies.

Yahoo! is a scoring game and my lineup will try and reflect that! Don’t forget, guys have to make it to the weekend as well!

 

Group A

season starts remaining in (  )

 

Bubba Watson (8)

Ryan Moore (9)

 

Easy choices really based on past results and just enough current form. I usually don’t like pairing horses-for-courses but there is no clear-cut “next” to take Moore’s place.

 

Group B:

 

Brooks Koepka (6)

Zach Johnson (7)

Webb Simpson (6)

Charley Hoffman (4)

 

Plenty of choices here would include Reed, Holmes and Knox if the above don’t float the boat.

 

Group C:

 

Jon Rahm (10)

Branden Grace (6)

 

I’m out of starts on Kuchar so that answers that! The safer play instead of Rahm/Grace is Casey/Steele or you can chuck Oosthuizen in here as well. Plenty of GIR machines loitering around for a play!

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out through Twitter or email me mikeglasscott@gmail.com.