One week after hitting Scottie Scheffler as a winner, the Loon Golf boys almost hit another last week with a near miss on Tommy Fleetwood +2200. We’re knocking on the door, LoonBeast is doing some serious lab work and the test results are coming in extremely hot. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’re prepared to pick winners at The Dell Match Play.
The Format:
We have a field of 64 players this week. We start with your classic pool play, 16 groups with 4 players per. They will play round robin style matches Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. If any matches end in a tie after 18 holes, they will not be extended, instead a 1/2 point will be awarded to each player. It’s simple, win your pool and move on to the weekend. The round of 16 is Saturday morning, followed by the quarterfinals Saturday afternoon. The semis will be played Sunday morning with the championship match to follow (and the third place match, who cares).
We’ve got a strong field this week, led by reining champ Scottie Scheffler. Also in the filed are Jon Rahm, Max Homa, Rory McIllroy, Patrick Cantlay and a bunch of other great golfers. These guys get to play for another twenty million dollar purse (yup you read that right), so they are sure to come out firing. Us as viewers are essentially guaranteed some entertaining golf this week, assuming the coverage can properly follow the matches we actually want to see.
We’ve got to look for dogs out here, some absolute mangy mutts. One name that comes to mind right away is the match play GOAT, Kevin Kisner. Everyone knows he’s a great match play golfer and I would once again look out for him this week. It will be a great tournament to watch with the boys going head to head, it’s always invigorating for the fans who play like that every day at the local muni.
One other VERY important fun fact is that our villain Keegan Bradley is 1-12-6 and has not won a match since 2012. I cannot explain how happy that statistic makes me and I strongly encourage everyone to fade Keegan this week. What a horrible record.
The Course:
This week the pros tee it up at Austin Country Club in Austin, Texas and we’ve got some rain in the forecast for the first few days of action. The Dell Technologies Match Play is another rare event on tour where we actually get competitive golf starting Wednesday. We’re not complaining, who doesn’t want more golf coverage? This is a shorter course where match play experience is sure to be a huge factor. Typically the course plays fast. Another huge factor this week is going to be putting. You need a hot putter to win basically any tournament on the PGA tour, but in match play a hot putter can truly demoralize an opponent.
The Brackets:
Magz:
Winner: Max Homa +2000
Max Homa rocks this year. It’s ridiculous. He ranks third on tour in strokes gained total. The man does not seemed to be fazed at all by the extra pressure of being a star player, he is going to keep being right there for the win. This week I think he gets it done. Even better that you can get him at better odds than the other superstars.
Beast:
Winner: Jon Rahm +1100
I sound like a broken record at this point every time I talk about Rahm, but he really is the most dominant player (not named Scottie) on the planet right now. As long as Rahm doesn’t get a tummy ache like he did at The Players a few weeks back, I have full confidence in him not only making it out of his group, but making a run at the title. He’s played this event 5 times, finishing inside the top 10 in 3 of those with a runner up finish in 2017.
My whole bracket is pretty chalky, but golf is a typically a little more predictable than the NCAA tournament. I’ve still got a few upsets of course, with a few dogs like Taylor Montgomery winning their pool and Jason Day and Tom Hoge both making the quarter finals. Nonetheless, it takes a lot of really good, consistent golf to come out of Austin with the trophy so I’m going to stick with the big guns.
If this bracket is anything like my March Madness bracket, I recommend fading each and every one of my picks.
Records YTD:
Magz: Broke Even last week, -3.3 units YTD.
Beast: Lost 4 units last week, -5.6 units YTD.
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