munneypicks

Tournament: This week marks the first time that the PGA Tour will make it’s way to the continental U.S. for the 2016 calendar year when it stops in the Coachella Valley in California. This tournament is a pro-am format where 155 players will tee it up along side amateurs on three distinct courses. This tournament is also unique in the fact that the cut occurs after the third round as opposed to the usual cut after round two. The Career Builder Challenge has been a Tour staple since 1960. The tournament used to be a 5 round tourney held over 4 courses but that was changed in 2012 when it was moved to the conventional 4 day contest.

Field: A bunch of top players will be in Abu Dhabi this week including Spieth, Rory, Fowler, and Kaymer. So this leaves us with a bit of a limited field. It is highlighted by Patrick Reed and Zach Johnson though.

Course: This tournament has been played over three distinct courses for several years now. Two of those courses are not out of the rotation and we’re left with La Quinta as the only holdover. This is a bit frustrating because the replacement of those courses leaves us and the players with a lot of unknowns. We will therefore be taking a light approach to this week as we simply do not know much about the new courses.

What to Look For: Being a resort course, we know birdies will be plentiful. The course is also bermuda grass so we can look for players that play and putt well on those surfaces. Like I mentioned above, this is a bit of a wild card week. And we will tread lightly because of it.

Picks: 

Jason Dufner e/w*: The Duff a world class talent that has been in a bit of a slump since his win at the PGA championship a few years ago. A lot has been made of his weight loss and recent divorce but not a lot made of the resurgence of his game which began in the latter part of last season. Dufner has two T9 finishes sandwiching a win at the Franklin Templeton shootout in December. While he is not a good putter, his tee to green game is so good that all it takes is a decent week on the greens for him to find the winners circle.

Ben Martin e/w*: Martin is a bit of a specialist when it comes to Pete Dye courses. 2 rounds will be played on his design this week. He also teed it up last week which I belive is an advantage.

Jason Dufner 1.5u e/w @ 37/1

Ben Martin 0.5u e/w @165/1