First podcast of the year is up!!! Went over a lot of stuff including some long term things for 2018 I'm going to be playing throughout the year. Here are the picks for this week...not looking to play these for a ton since it's the first tournament in a while, but here we go!!!
Jordan Spieth ov Dustin Johnson
Pretty simple here…Spieth has finished 1st, 2nd, and 3rd here in the three times he’s played here. All three times he’s finished ahead of Dustin, and Dustin has no top 5 finishes in the last 3 tournaments here. It’s been a while since these guys have played, but Dustin blew that big lead at the WGC a while back, and only finished 14th at the Hero World Challenge. Spieth played at that same tournament and was 12 shots better than him.
Jon Rahm ov Hideki Matsuyama
Love The Hammer going into 2018, and I hope he keeps the momentum going. Last 4 tournaments of the 2017 PGA season, which were the big ones Northern Trush, Dell, BMW, Tour Championship…3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th. And after that he went back to the European Tour where he won the World Tour Championship event in Dubai. He hasn’t played here before, but I don’t really care…Rahm is young and motivated, and is the type of guy that wants to show he belongs with the big boys on tour, so I expect to see him really compete. Matsuyama came out of the gate strong last year, and played really good at this tourney last year, but he’s been so inconsistent over the last 6 months, I don’t trust him. Finished the year with 4 straight tournaments outside the top 23, and in the 2018 season he has a 5th at the Hero World Challenge, a 5th at the CIMB Classic, and a 50th at the World Golf Championships.
Adam Hadwin ov Billy Horschel
Billy Horschel just isn’t very good at golf. He played in this tournament last year, and finished 24 shots behind the winner. He doesn’t have a top 25 finish since June 2017, and that was at the CVS Health Charity Classic. Hadwin started 2017 strong, and tailed off at the end, but even when he wasn’t playing great he still finished ahead of Horschel in the last 3 tournaments they played in together, and those were smaller fields, like this one is. Hadwin didn’t play in Hawaii last year, but I like that he started last year strong, I think he’ll do it again…I don’t know how Horschel actually won a tournament.