Mercedes Championship

[Stanley]

Round 4 plays (1pt unless stated)

Jim Furyk to beat Stephen Ames -149 @ Pinnacle [1.5pts]
Furyk's record when within 5 shots of the lead entering the final round is phenomenal: in 14/19 occasions in the last two years, he has shot at least one shot better than the average score of all players within 5 shots of the lead that day; in only 2/19 occasions did he shoot worse than the average of all those in contention. Quite a different story for Ames

Jim Furyk to beat Vijay Singh -120 @ Five Dimes [1.5pts]
Vijay is very hit and miss in these 'within 5 shots of the lead' situations, so I'll take my chances with the more player in contention

Brandt Snedeker +0.5 to beat Vijay Singh +109 @ Five Dimes
Snedeker also has a very good record in these situations, but I'll take the safety option of earning the win even if Snedeker and Singh tie

Nick Watney to beat Mike Weir +118 @ Pinnacle
Weir has held the lead heading into the final round only once in the last three years - 2006 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am - and he shot 78 that day. That was a poor performance and just once in three years is not a lot of practice in these situations. He'll face pressure from a lot of players in contention and the impressive Watney should be able to take advantage

Justin Leonard to beat Mike Weir +100 @ Five Dimes
Similar story here, backing the Leonard at worse odds than Watney, but he does have more experience in these situations

Jonathan Byrd to beat Daniel Chopra +120 @ Unibet [0.5pts]
A small play on Byrd against the inconsistent Chopra and which is available at very attractive odds ... Pinnacle make Byrd a strong -113 favourite in this pairing

 

[abc]

4th Round Matchups (@Pinnacle):

CHARLES HOWELL III (-112) over MARK CALCAVECCHIA --> I have been putting a lot of my eggs in Howell's basket this week, but I didn't like the way Calc was hobbling around near the end of Saturday night's round.

DANIEL CHOPRA (+103) over JONATHAN BYRD --> Both guys playing pretty well, but have to go with Chopra's confidence right now.

Good Luck Guys.

Did you find any quotes after the round from calc?

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

adding....

I still like Ames at this price too..so i'll go with SS

Ames to win 12-1

4th Round Play
Ames over Verplank -110 (5Dimes) :SIB
Ames over Wier +100 (Carib)
Badds over ZJohnson -115 (Carib)


I just noticed I copied both of SS's plays. Added the Ames/Weir & Badds plays.

 

[lostinamerica]

:mj09: My fingers are crossed on Jonathan Byrd moving in the right direction on the leaderboard today . . .

From Tim Rosaforte on Sprint Post Game (Golf Channel) on Saturday:

"I caught up with him afterward, today, too. He's kind of been watching the telecasts, and saying how come I'm not on that much. He kind of likes being under radar. But you know, he's the American player with 3 wins, the only American player in his twenties with three wins, one more than Charlie Howell, and his birthday is coming up in a couple weeks (January 27), Craig, he's going to turn 30, he said I kind of like the ring of 4, he really wants to get that 4th win before its over. Interesting how he never had the pressure on him that Howell had in his career, even though coming out of Clemson, good start as a rookie on the PGA Tour, won the Rookie of the Year honors. What he did in the off season to kind of get ready for this week and this stretch of the season and getting that 4th win was to meet with his team at (?) Island, very similar to what Zach Johnson did last year, with Morris Pickens his sports psychologist, Randy Meyers his strength coach, Curt Lucas his instructor, and Mike Hicks his caddy, and he went over a game plan, they broke it down, rather than just beating balls all winter, they decided to be specific in what he had to work on, they focused on that, and over the top of all of this, what he was dealing with, Craig, was his dad had a Stage 4 brain tumor, that was extracted six weeks ago, he's been through six weeks of chemo and radiation, his father Jim Byrd (his father introduced him and his brother to golf when they were 3 years old), 64 years old, doing well right now, in recovery, and so you know how much he would love to deliver a win for his dad and also for himself."


Also, asapsports.com transcripts:

January 3 (Thursday):

Q: Just a couple opening comments on how you're feeling and obviously it's reflective of some good play.
JONATHAN BYRD: First of all, I'm just happy to be here. It's a great way to start the season, like most guys would say. I'm just happy I'm starting to feel well. My son has been sick a lot of this off-season, and I've gotten everything he's gotten. You can probably hear it in my voice. I really just started feeling better two days ago or a day ago. But I put in some hard work this off-season, I feel like I'm pretty prepared for this week, this year to start, and my game was pretty good today . . .

Q. There were lots of birdies and bogeys. Did you feel like you left some out there?
JONATHAN BYRD: You always feel like you left some out there. I was displeased with a couple of the bogeys. I made a couple good saves, as well, but I bogeyed some of the easy holes. I bogeyed I think it's -- was it 6?
Q: Yes.
JONATHAN BYRD: The shortest hole I hit a bad tee shot, hit it in a bunker and kind of made a sloppy bogey. Then I made a pretty good bogey on 13, hit it in the hay and got up-and-down from about 40 yards for bogey there after a terrible tee shot. Then bogeyed the par 5, 15th hole, from the middle of the fairway, 65 yards, just an easy wedge shot.
But it's the first tournament of the year. You're going to make some mistakes. I was fortunate enough that my game was sharp enough that I made enough birdies to kind of make up for the mistakes I did make . . .

Q. What were some of the things you wanted to work on during the off-season?
JONATHAN BYRD: Well, I got with my team and we went over the stats and talked about the season. I was very high -- I think I was No. 2 in putting this year -- last year, but I wasn't as high up in short putting, inside 10 feet. I worked hard on that. I worked hard on a lot of uneven-lie shots. Other than that, mainly my wedge game. Those were three areas where I felt like I really needed to get better.
But I worked on my golf swing some. I have a new driver, a Mizuno driver I just started playing with about a month ago that I'm very pleased with. It's performing well for me. You know, other than that, just trying to get a little bit -- in my golf swing, get a little sharper and try and make things more easy on myself, a little more athletic in my golf swing . . .

Q:You had mentioned some of the guys, Singh and Appleby, some of the veterans out here, and how they grasp onto that to perform well, but you look and you've got two first-timers . . . But anyway, this is the first time they've ever played here, so is this the kind of course that lends itself to some of those types of players, as well?
JONATHAN BYRD: It's a great course to start the season if you do have rust, because the fairways are big, the greens are big, and you can get away with a lot of bad shots. I've always said that when I've come here. It's a perfect course to start the season.
Good ball-strikers, guys who hit the ball solid are going to do well on this golf course, I think, and a longer hitter is going to play well. We saw Furyk and Joe Ogilvie playing in front of us on 18, and the hole looked hard from where they were hitting their second shots from (after the wind switched). So a long hitter is going to help, and hitting it solid into this wind, control your trajectory with your iron shots. All those things will help somebody play well this week.


January 4 (Friday):

Q. Is there a particular game plan that you've had this week?
JONATHAN BYRD: Just birdies. I wanted to give myself a lot of chances. We've got big greens out here. Try and give myself birdie opportunities. As good as I roll it, the more opportunities the better.

Q. Just a general recap of the round, good, bad, ugly, plans for tomorrow?
JONATHAN BYRD: Nothing much different. I always think I can play a little bit tidier tidier here and there. Today, patience was the key today. I stayed patient throughout my round and I actually putted well today other than two short putts. I just hit poor putts. My head came up and I missed them. I hit a lot of putts on-line, and I did not do that yesterday. I keep doing that, I'm going to make a few more.

 

[Chorizos]

Taking Stanley's advice, but modifying it just a bit:

N. Watney over M. Weir - +1/2 -108
Laying 1.08 units to win 1 unit.

Good luck!

 

[abc]

Sort of why I took him yesterday and also in the 72 holer. Excellent putter, hardly ever 3 putts and great on par 5's. :shade:

 

[abc]

Anyone got an opinion on Mcneil over Funk?
Mcneil seems to be a bomber with a decent short game. He played well at the Sony last year. Funk has been miserable his last few trips out here.The only thing holding me back from this is Mcneils ball striking

Should have added this one :shrug: The juice went up 20 cents.. I really liked it too, oh well.

 

[abc]

Rory :00hour
Play by Play for the Par 4, 407 yards 13th Hole
X
Shot 1 236 yds to left rough, 142 yds to hole
Shot 2 156 yds to green, 22 yds to hole
Shot 3 in the hole


Looks like Choi and Weekly found their games a little to late. What a round by Mahan :scared

 

[Andre]

Zach Johnson

Scoring average* all rounds since 2004: 69.78
Scoring average* all rounds since 2004 when daily average wind speed is >15mph: 70.64

K.J. Choi

Scoring average* all rounds since 2004: 69.81
Scoring average* all rounds since 2004 when daily average wind speed is >15mph: 69.53

*these are my 'adjusted' scoring averages, i.e. they are the actual scores corrected for the average score that day (to compensate for differing weather conditions from day-to-day) and for the field quality (to compensate for differing fields each week).

I still disagree with your point, calling him a poor wind player. Even that site (which who knows how reliable it is) you posted describes Johnson as an excellant wind player, something I know anyway.

 

[Andre]

Zach Johnson isn't a poor wind player at all.
I'm playing one...

Furyk -106 to beat Singh (72 holer)

Forgot to say all plays are for 10 units unless stated otherwise.

YTD : 1-0 +10

 

[abc]

Sabbotini -110 over Stenson
Chopra -130 over Flesch
Choi -110 over Badds
Byrd +100 over Weekly
Leonard -130 over Boo (Second Round)
Byrd -120 over Calc (Thid Round)
Sabbotini -121 over Verplank (Fourth Round)




Good first week

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

Kelly Tilghman makes watching golf painful.

 

[abc]

Kelly Tilghman makes watching golf painful.

I've been watching mostly American Gladiators ( switchin back and forth) I cant believe Chopra continues to miss these putts.

Kelly is really bad, its a shame she is pretty hot,but her jokes are awful. It doesn't really matter the golf channel will never have good ratings unless Tiger is in the field

 

[Trampled Underfoot]

I agree. If she just didn't say anything I wouldn't mind her.

Congrats Whalers!

 

[Andre]

I still disagree with your point, calling him a poor wind player. Even that site (which who knows how reliable it is) you posted describes Johnson as an excellant wind player, something I know anyway.

Ok my bad after looking at more players it says excellant wind player under them all. The number is what matters.

Just a question Stanley how sure are u that site is accurate?

Cheers
Andre

 

[Stanley]

Ok my bad after looking at more players it says excellant wind player under them all. The number is what matters.

Just a question Stanley how sure are u that site is accurate?

Cheers
Andre

Yes, there should be question mark after each heading as it is the numbers that matter.

I'm pretty confident that Tour-Tips is accurate

However do look at post #72 in this thread for a discussion on the qualifications re: the weather data ... e.g. weather snapshots during the day (a discrete data series) can lead to discrepancies with the weather conditions that the players experience during the whole of their round (a continuous data series).

 

[lostinamerica]

Chopra 50-1 Stan James 1 unit e.w.

Jackpot! Great Start!

GL

 

[abc]

Chopra -130 over Flesch


Daniel Chopra gave me a lift down the first hole after his practice round with Vijay and told me: "This course is right up my ally.'

He is one man I fancy will go well this week as he is fit, in good form, loves Bermuda Greens, having grown up in Asia, and is a good wind player he ticks all the boxes, but I'll leave it to the Wise One to make the big decisions.

:clap: Guy was dead on. I might need to take a peak at his picks more often