Fantasy Insider: Let the match-play madness begin The Fantasy Insider PGATOUR.COM Contributor Settle down, girls and boys. There's no need to panic when looking at your League Championship roster for this week and seeing 12 red "NOT IN FIELD" messages blaring from the screen. This is a bye week. With the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship outside the regular stroke-play format there are no stats, ergo any way to keep score in the rotisserie format. Ergo, a perfect week for The Fantasy Insider to head for a few days somewhere warm, digging his toes into a stretch of beach sand and slathering on a generous layer of SPF 30. Happy Chinese New Year! Before you click off this column and head for another distraction from your to-do list, TFI has a present for you -- although, alas, not tucked in a red envelope. ![]() The Fantasy Insider believes Johan Edfors will pull off an upset win in the first round. (Action Images/WireImage) The good folks at PGA TOUR HQ and fanball.com have devised a separate game for this week's WGC event, aptly naming it Match Play Madness. Thanks to the tournament's five-day format the entry deadline is 8:50 ET Wednesday morning. And here is TFI's contribution: With one click of the mouse you can fill in those 64 matches with every one of his predictions! Of course, you can erase some or all of his picks and insert your own. Hey, may the better brackets win. The game is laughingly simple. Once you go here to register and establish up to five entry names, another click on any of those names takes you straight to the blank match-play tree. The scoring offers one point for each correct first-round match, two points for the second round, four for the third round, eight for the quarterfinals, 16 for the semifinals and 32 points for the final and consolation. The grand prize is a trip for two with PGA TOUR Experiences: airfare, hotel, transportation and passes to a TOUR event or enrollment in a PGA TOUR Academy golf school. (If you win and you've employed TFI's stellar selections, he'd prefer you offer suitable thanks by taking him to a TOUR event. But we can talk about that later, in the heady afterglow of your victory.) The intrepid among you will dive into the task of selecting all 64 winners (the same way TFI will be diving into the surf this week). If you're interested in studying TFI's predictions, you may want to click on that "Expert Picks" button in the upper left before setting your own choices because TFI's names will write over any you've chosen. If, however, you have boundless confidence in your own selection capabilities, there are a few tools in the site. Rolling over any name brings up an info box with the player's Official World Golf Ranking and a link to his profile. Click on the "Percentages" button on the top navigation bar and up pop calculations on each competitor. Type in 64 names and one tiebreaker and your entry is prepped. All that remains is to sit back and enjoy five days of telecasts from the South Course at The Gallery Golf Club at Dove Mountain, carved out of the desert north of Tucson, Ariz. That's a warm place (not that TFI's looking to pack a multitude of temperature references into this week's column or anything) although the forecast calls for some cooler weekend temperatures. If you can't stand the suspense, here's a clue into how TFI sees the Match Play shaking out. His semifinalists: Tiger Woods vs. Phil Mickelson and Chad Campbell vs. Adam Scott. Wishful thinking? Well, isn't that the definition of a brackets competition? TFI has a few first-round upsets lurking in his selections: Johan Edfors of Sweden giving Scotland's Colin Montgomerie a bop on the nose, Bart Bryant topping a sluggish Ian Poulter of England, Jeev Miklha Singh of India taking out Stewart Cink. But TFI has a feeling that after the preliminary rounds the seeds will play out largely to form -- with the exception of Campbell, a No. 9 seed, bumping off guys like Jim Furyk, David Toms and Vijay Singh. Were the event still at La Costa in Carlsbad, Calif., TFI's bracket would look much different because most of the competitors have a track record at that place. But on an unfamiliar course -- the John Fought design opened at the end of 2003 -- TFI favors the more experienced players. Hey, it won't hurt TFI one whit if you discard each of his 64 selections and strike out on your own trail. While you're noodling out a way for Woods and Mickelson to take a seat in the middle rounds, TFI will be deep into taking a break from his vacation reading to mull the possibilities for that evening's dinner appetizer. Whatever he selects from the menu, it'd better be tasty. Because he has a feeling that if his Match Play picks bomb out, there will be some Match Play Madness entrants who will force him to face a less appetizing dish in next week's column. Crow. Rotisserie results for Expert League at the Nissan Open: 37.0 points (fifth), 25 points behind Greg Vara of rotowire.com. Nothing higher than a third in 300+ drives, scrambling and birdies and fourth in stroke average. Overall: 53.0 (third), 10.5 points behind Vara. TFI will return from vacation and make some serious moves to the roster for the Florida swing. Match-play results for Public League 3359 at Nissan Open: TFI 16.5, jcurtis1969 1.5. Record: 4-2 (tied for first in West Division). TFI has to like the pluck of jcurtis1969, who at 0-5 posted in the league's message board before the Nissan Open's first round that he was ready to start a 29-week winning streak. Here's hoping it's 28-0 to end the year! Salary Cap Cup results for the Nissan Open: The main lineup of Adam Scott (50 FedExCup points, tied 69th), Ernie Els (1,300 points, tied third), K.J. Choi (225 points, tied 22nd), Kevin Sutherland (54 points, tied 62nd) and Nick Watney (0 points, missed cut) earned 1,629 points and placed 17,938th. Through Week 7 it totaled 23,322 points and ranked 2,114th. The "Hey, buddy" backup lineup of Phil Mickelson (2,700 FedExCup points, second) and four guys who missed the cut (Luke Donald, Dean Wilson, Troy Matteson and Billy Mayfair) earned 3,450 points and placed 13,163rd. Through Week 7 it totaled 12,636 points and ranked 13,940. Nice job on missing the cut, guys! Tough to watch those 1,800 points evaporate during Mickelson's playoff loss, but tougher still to not have them in the main lineup. Week 7 winner: surprise five 10,550. Segment One leader: Let The Big Dawg Eat 38,869. Have a question or comment for TFI? Send it to him at brettavery@aol.com. Please be sure to include your name, where youčre from, the name of your team and, if it relates to League Championship, the name of your league and whether youčre competing in the rotisserie or match-play format. |