The 2015 golf season is on the cusp of coming to a wild and crazy ending. Over the next 9 weeks, each and every tournament has implications for the FedEx Playoffs and who will be around to compete for the Tour Championship. Along with deciding what the field will look like during The Playoffs, we have a WGC event, the PGA Championship, and the race to the President’s Cup to look forward to. With all of this excitement surrounding golf in 2015 due in large part to the success of Jordan Spieth, we can expect plenty of drama and unexpected faces to grace the leaderboards in upcoming events.
This week the tour heads to the Quicken Loans National and the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Gainesville, Virginia. The PGA Tour returns to the Jones Course for the first time since 2005 when it hosted the President’s Cup. The invitational style event is hosted by Tiger Woods who has seen success at this event every year he was able to play and not hindered by injury – could this event serve as the springboard for Tiger Woods to be relevant again?
Tiger aside, the course plays as a par 71 and stretches roughly 7,300 yards, stats to consider while picking your fantasy line up or winner this week is fairways hit off the tee and the ability to hit greens. The course is pretty wide open off the tee but gets increasingly harder as many of the greens are protected by sizable bunker systems that tend to make the approach shot much more difficult as the target appears much smaller. “Aim small miss small” will be on the minds of many of the players this week.
We sat down and looked over the field to provide you golf fantasy owners with our top five power rankings, our projected winner, and five dark horse or sleeper picks. Let’s see what we came up with this week:
Power Rankings
#1: Justin Rose
The defending champion (at Congressional in 2014), Rose has had a pretty solid 2015 season. With a win at The Zurich Classic, Rose finished T6 at The British Open and is T7 for all-around stats on the PGA Tour this year. Look to Rose to better the field and defend his title.
#2: Jimmy Walker
Walker is a bit of an anomaly, golfing analysts have been calling for Walker to start becoming a driving force in majors and that prediction has yet to be seen. Walker is currently leading the PGA tour in strokes gained and tends to play better in events with “thin” fields. This event fits Walker’s criteria as far as field goes, is it possible the Texan can break his streak of not finishing in the Top 30 in his last three starts?
#3: Rickie Fowler
Players Champion in 2015, missed cut at The US Open, Scottish Open win, and a poor showing at The British Open – Fowler’s season has been a rollercoaster ride. Ranked T27 in all-around stats, Fowler tends to play well in the Southeast (remember Quail Hollow), wouldn’t be surprising to see Fowler’s name on top of the hot and humid Virginian leaderboard
#4: Johnson Wagner
A relatively cheap buy for all you fantasy owners, Wagner has been hot as of late. Three top 20 finishes in his last three starts. A T18 at the RBC Canadian Open, the QLN is right up Wagner’s alley as being ripe for the picking due to the lack of strength in the field.
#5: Shawn Stefani
Enjoying a successful 2015 campaign, currently 33rd in the FedEx Cup and 19th in adjusting scoring, Stefani has a shot to add to three top 10’s and 7 top 25’s with a win at Tiger’s event
Dark Horses
#1: Ricky Barnes
A T3 and T11 in his last two starts and a Top 10 finish in last year’s QLN, Barnes has a tendency to be there on Thursday-Friday and the first nine holes on Saturday. Unable to pull together a solid 72-hole stretch, Barnes will need to remain focused tee to green each day if he wants a chance to pull this one out.
#2: Justin Thomas
Another young and upcoming American golfer, the 22-year-old Louisville native will look to win in front of a somewhat “home crowd”. Currently ranked 44th in the FedEx Cup standings, Thomas will look to improve upon at T5 finish in his last start at the John Deere Classic.
#3: Ollie Schniederjans
Having played well at The US Open, The British Open and the RBC Canadian Open (T42, T12, T22 respectively), it would appear that this Tour Rookie is on his way to the winner’s circle in the near future. Could this week be it? Will we watch Tiger Woods’ pass the proverbial flame of US Golf to the very talented young American golfers?
#4: Tiger Woods
The host of the event, everyone knows Tiger Woods, but does he know himself anymore? Showing signs of “Bizarro Tiger Woods” for the better part of two years, can Tiger finally find himself and his game at his own tournament?
#5: Vijay Singh
The 52-year-old Fijian is seeing a second coming of his PGA career in 2015. Its quite remarkable just how well Singh has been playing this year. Ranked 126 for the FedEx Cup Playoffs and finishing T18 at the John Deere Classic, it would be something else to see him put it all together for four days and beat all these young guys who are anxious to take the torch from the aging legends on Tour.
Projected winner for us is Shawn Stefani who will look to overcome the playoff loss in last year’s event and claim the QLN title for himself. Should be a wild ride into the FedEx Cup Playoffs, enjoy it because before you know it this season will be gone. Cheers!