Predictions: Northern Trust Open

If anyone has correctly picked the last three winners on the PGA Tour, I’d like to talk to you in March about some basketball. Ryan Palmer, Bill Haas, and Ben Crane were certainly not on my radar, and I suspect most golf fans out there can say the same. So while the Tour moves to L.A. for the Northern Trust Open, and defending champion Phil Mickelson is the heavy favorite to repeat, the winner on Sunday may just as easily be somewhat far off the radar.

As I’m writing my predictions for this week, Great White’s “Once Bitten, Twice Shy” is playing on the radio, and it seems very appropriate given the success of my prognostications, or the glaring lack thereof, so far this year. But as I’m nothing if not stubborn, here are three players on my watch list for this week:

Phil Mickelson. Is there anyone out there who is picking against Phil this week? Cue the crickets...

Alex Prugh. His name rhymes with “Alex Who?”, and that’s what I was saying when he finished 5th at the Bob Hope Classic two weeks ago–and when he finished 5th again at last week’s Farmers Insurance Open. It will be interesting to see how far the momentum will carry him.

Scott McCarron. Seriously. Phil Mickelson’s new BFF finished 10th at the Northern Trust last year. I’d just like to see the two of them playing together, preferably on Sunday; a little 18-hole throwdown might be good for ratings, too.

My Yahoo Fantasy Golf team for this week is:
“Front 4": Phil Mickelson, K.J. Choi, Alex Prugh, Rickie Fowler
“Bench team”: Luke Donald, Fred Couples, Dustin Johnson, Brandt Snedeker

Last week’s picks reached a new low, as two of the three (Dustin Johnson and Bubba Watson) had early exits, and the third (Matt Jones) finished 54th. But top-10 finishes from Nick Watney and Lucas Glover helped my Yahoo Fantasy Golf team to hold nearly steady, 630 points and 71st percentile. Here’s hoping for some better fortune this week!

Best of luck to all!