By Brett Avery Wow, that was easy. After months of sweating out statistics and him-or-him? selections for League Championship Fantasy, that season is complete and we’re back where we started with Salary Cap Cup. For you that means five players with a total salary of $1 million or less. Period. For The Fantasy Insider it’s double the work: 10 players across two teams, plucked from the salary list’s range of $300,000 at the top to $75,000 at the bottom. But double the work is still cake compared to the first eight months of the season. TFI's pleased as punch with his showings this year. He took second in the rotisserie Expert League, won the final by a point in his head-to-head Pacific Tour League and stands 294th overall in Salary Cap Cup's third segment. Hey, he might be learning how to play these games! The Deutsche Bank Championship marks Segment Three’s conclusion and the introduction of the PGA TOUR’s Fall Finish. From here it’s two months of fun and frivolity in Salary Cap Cup until the season winds up at THE TOUR Championship. Because we haven’t gone through the ground rules in a while, here’s how TFI will approach his column the rest of the season. Each week he’ll select two lineups: A main one and a "Hey, buddy" backup of the next-best players who fit into another $1 million-or-less roster. Following a dictate from HQ many moons ago, when he began writing the column in the winter of 2004, TFI's taking players from all portions of the salary range to help you fill any gaps in your lineup. And whenever possible his 10 picks will include his tournament winner of the week and his sleeper pick that will be posted with the other expert selections each week at PGATOUR.com. Short of that? Time to have some fun with Salary Cap Cup and see if we can pick several more winners the rest of the year. Pick One: Tiger Woods ($300,000). TFI’s tournament pick. There’s the fatigue factor of playing a few weeks in a row and that little jaunt to The K Club to begin the week for Tom Lehman’s Ryder Cup team chemistry thing. But the way he’s playing it’s dangerous to go against him under any circumstances. Balance: $700,000. Pick Two: Adam Scott ($293,500). The 2003 champ finished three behind Vijay Singh the following year (tied with Woods) before skipping last year. Woods overshadows him again: One of the hottest players on the planet since the Wachovia Championship in early May with seven top 10s in his last nine U.S. starts. Balance: $406,500. Pick Three: Charles Howell III ($202,500). This one will get the message board bubbling. He’s missed the cut or WD’d in his last five starts and hasn’t had a top 25 since narrowly losing in New Orleans in April. Without that check he’s barely made $260,000. Silver lining: This guy’s tied for fourth and ninth at the TPC of Boston. Balance: $204,000.
Balance: $102,250. Pick Five: Marco Dawson ($75,000). The personification of a struggling season, his tie for 18th at Reno-Tahoe was only his 10th official check this year against eight missed cuts. Standing 172nd on the money list ($233,301) isn’t a good feeling and he’ll have to capitalize on a week like last year here (tied 10th). Balance: $27,250. Hey, buddy, can you spare $944,250? Loved them, but ran out of slots or into the salary cap: • Vijay Singh ($296,750). A] Top 10 in half of his 20 starts. B] Won this thing in 2004 after fourth place in the 2003 inaugural. C] Sixth in all-around stat. Why is he on the backup lineup? Missed two cuts in his last four starts, including the PGA Championship. • Vaughn Taylor ($264,250). He’s made a career-best four paychecks in the six-digit range and it wouldn’t surprise TFI to see him grab another here, especially on the basis of his recent play (69.8 scoring average last three rounds) and record in Boston (third last year). • John Rollins ($183,000). A month since that B.C. Open victory came out of the blue so he’s had enough time to put his head back in order. Tied for 15th at the TPC of Boston last year and shared fourth the year before -- both despite weekend 75s. • Jeff Brehaut ($111,500). Spent much of the year missing cuts left and right (12 of 24 starts) but pulled it together to tie for sixth at The INTERNATIONAL and fifth at Reno-Tahoe. Last year he tied for fourth in Boston and locked up his 2006 card. • Tim Petrovic ($88,750). TFI’s sleeper pick. He’s 136th in earnings ($438,161) so he needs a big paycheck just to avoid Q-school, a dismal situation for a guy who late last year was threatening to make THE TOUR Championship’s top 30. He’s had two weeks off to think about his plight and his past performance chart here (tied 15th, tied 22nd, tied 19th) is one of the few bright spots the rest of the year. Now or never? Rotisserie results for Expert League at World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational and Reno-Tahoe Open: 50.0 points (tied fourth). One-putts 117 (sixth), birdies 54 (fourth), bouncebacks 10 (third), 300+ drives 24 (first), fairways 146 (tied first), greens 182 (fifth), money $266,066 (seventh), scoring 70.7 (tied fourth), scrambles 73 (fifth), eagles 2 (tied second). Not a pretty week but it accomplished the mission: Protect second place for the season. Season results:
68.5 Pro Vitti-1x (Mike Vitti, pgatour.com) Just so you can compare to your leagues, here are the top three in all 10 stat categories:
One-putts: Dr. A’s Ho Train 4,293; Pro Vitti-1x 4,253; TFI 4,175. H2H results for Pacific Tour League at Bridgestone Invitational and Reno-Tahoe Open: TFI 244, Polynesian Pride 243. Driving: Robert Allenby 38, Angel Cabrera 49. Short game: David Howell 19, Ian Poulter 47. Putting: Shaun Micheel 41, Paul Casey 50. TFI finds this result hard to believe because the few times he was in front of a computer during the weekend Polynesian Pride was leading. And he was ahead by seven or eight points Monday morning, too. Close? What you’d expect from teams who went 2-2 during the regular season. Salary Cap Cup results for Bridgestone Invitational and Reno-Tahoe Open: The main lineup of Tiger Woods ($1,400,000, won!; includes $100,000 round leader bonus), Geoff Ogilvy ($50,500, tied 36th), Paul McGinley ($34,250, tied 66th), K.J. Choi ($68,000, tied 22nd) and Chris Riley ($13,825, tied 36th) earned $1,566,575 and placed 12,230th. Through Week 34 the team totals $11,909,261 and ranks 294th. TFI gambled on Ogilvy contending again, McGinley dedicating fine play in the memory of Heather Clarke and Riley busting loose at Reno-Tahoe. So he went 0-3 and probably cost himself any shot at the top 100. The “Hey, buddy” backup lineup of Jim Furyk ($450,000, third), Luke Donald ($152,500, tied eighth), Stewart Cink ($950,000, second; includes $200,000 round leader bonus), Dean Wilson ($44,500, tied 45th) and Corey Pavin ($43,250, tied 48th) totaled $1,640,250 and placed 8,898th. Through Week 34 the team totals $5,355,278 and ranks 17,945th. And to think TFI had both Cink and Donald in that top lineup to start … Week 34 winner: budltplease $3,141,250 (one of 13 at that amount!). Segment Three leader: Golf Geek $15,096,038. Have a question or comment for TFI? Send it to him at brettavery@aol.com. Please remember to include your team and league names and whether you’re playing a rotisserie or H2H league. |
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