Category: WGC Cadillac Championship
CotW: WGC Cadillac
Card of the Week is back!! Your weekly update to the best (if not perhaps the actual-best) scorecard of last week’s tournaments returns thanks in large part to one Steven Bowditch.
Mr. Bowditch has shown me the light this past week with a series of truly special performances at the WGC Cadillac. Not only shooting in the 80’s all four rounds, but basically calling it in the 2015 book Slaying The Tiger, saying that he liked WGC events because you can shoot in the 80’s all four rounds and still make money. Sure enough, Steven took home a smooth $48,000 for his prodigious efforts. I’ll only talk about his Friday masterpiece, but rest assured his other three rounds were nothing to sniff at.
Just look at this card for a minute. Drink in that sweet nectar, keeping in mind that he started on the back nine. This means that Bowditch was only +1 through 12 holes (with a 10 on the card!), parred four of his last six, and still shot 80. Every time I look at it, something new gets me. Four birdies in a row! No bogeys or doubles and five birdies! Only three holes worse than par! For the love of God, what the hell is going on. I don’t even know where to begin with this so I guess I’ll just end it here. Good thing he has a sense of humor about it.
2016 WGC Cadillac Championship — GOTM is a PFZ
Throughout this whole election season, I’ve been pretty good at ignoring the candidates and the 24/7/366 (happy leap day!) news cycle. Unfortunately, as I sat down to write this preview, I realized I couldn’t ignore it any longer. Because this week, the WGC Cadillac Championship is being played at … Trump National Doral. Yup that Trump. Luckily for everyone out there, I decided to not put a picture of the man in this article, and this is the only time I’m going to mention him specifically. I for one, believe GOTM should be a PFZ — politics free zone. This is something increasingly rare in modern culture, so enjoy it.
Now time for the music. Last year I used the standard Billy Joel Cadillac-ac-ac-ac song, so I figure I’ll just go with one of the more catchy songs I’ve been listening to recently. Also since they don’t have a music video out yet, I’ll use the soundcloud stream.
Here’s what to watch for.
All the top guys
Invites to the Cadillac Championship are given as follows.
- Top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings
- Top 30 from 2015 FedEx Cup
- Top 10 from this year’s FedEx Cup from after the Honda
- Top 20 from 2015 Euro Order of Merit
- Top 10 from this year’s Euro Order of Merit
- Top 2 players from the final 2015 Japan Golf Tour Order of Merit
- Top 2 players from the final 2015 Australasian Tour Order of Merit
- Top 2 players from the final 2015 Sunshine Tour Order of Merit
- Top 2 players from the final 2015 Asian Tour Order of Merit
What this means is viewers are treated to one of the best fields outside of a major. 48 of the top 50 in the world will be in Miami, only Jim Furyk (wrist injury) and Thongchai Jaidee (sickness) won’t be making the trip.
Guess that’s what happens when you drop money on money at the players, with the winner getting a stout $1,612,432.
Random players making bank, even if they suck
With no cut, everybody makes money!
WGC Cadillac Championship — Draft Kings Picks
Last week turns out was pretty damn good for me. 5 out of 6 making the cut, and first place in my 20 player 50/50. Granted first place doesn’t matter since the top 10 get paid. But being first meant that I didn’t have to worry on Sunday (or the Monday finish) about whether or not I was going to cash. Now onto the next challenge, the smaller field WGC Cadillac Championship.
Like I mention in the preview (found here), this tournament doesn’t have a cut! That means that all your players are going to be racking up points all the way until Sunday. So make sure you have guys that you know can go off on a random round.
Note that these picks may change up to the start of the first round, but I won’t get rid of players without writing about why they got dropped off my team.
Patrick Reed ($10,700) — Despite a bump in salary of $1,600 from last week, Reed is absolutely a must pick. His great play at the Honda (minus the double-bogey-bogey-par finish) was stellar, and he’s the defending champion here at Doral. And he’s still about $4,000 cheaper than the highest salaried player (Rory, who missed the cut at the Honda). Everyone is going to pick him, and for damn good reason.
WGC Cadillac Championship — Because Everyone Needs More Donald…
From that exciting Monday finish at the Honda, the Tour moves south to Miami to take on the Blue Monster a.k.a The Donald’s Boardroom (or at least one of his boardrooms because he apparently put his name on 17 different courses. Good grief).
About the Sponsor
First, if you’re so inclined, check out this clip from Billy Joel song around!
Makes good background music for about one chorus, and then gets kind of annoying. Now you might be wondering why I told you to listen to this song. If you read the title of this article and aren’t too dumb in general, you’d know that it’s because Cadillac-ac-ac-ac is the title sponsor! You ought to know that by now. (Don’t feel bad if you stop reading after that joke, it was pretty terrible but I had to do it). Anyway, Cadillac is a part of GM which means that it’s struggling. It doesn’t help that it considers itself a luxury car even though I can’t believe anyone younger than 30 thinks of it that way.
Patrick Reed, top 5 player in the world. Or something like that.
I loved Patrick Reed’s post round interview. No beating around the bush with platitudes about how “lucky he was to have won with such a great field” and about he “ground out a win on a tough course” (this point is actually true though, but he didn’t emphasize it). The 23 year old went on national tv after winning the WGC Cadillac Championship and talked about how he’s won at every level and winning on tour is expected for him. Hearing that is almost more refreshing than a Spotted Cow on a Friday night. Nobody wants to listen to a standard winner’s speech. We want confidence, and dammit if Patrick Reed isn’t delivering.
Really at no point in the round did it not look like Reed was going to win. He was two under after the first four holes (3 birdies and 1 bogey) and maintained at least a two shot cushion throughout the day. The only hiccup being a missed 3 footer for birdie on 14. His bunker play was fantastic, his short game was solid, and he absolutely looked like he knew what he was doing. I mentioned this in the round 4 preview that he looked like he was at least 28, and Dan Hicks semi confirmed those thoughts by saying Reed looked at least 33 out there. Without a doubt, he backed up his quote that he is a top 5 player in the world.
Other storylines included a great round by Jamie Donaldson, a 38 year old Welshman who is just starting to break onto the scene. Despite a bogey on the final hole, Donaldson closed on the back nine with three birdies, a solid indicator of a player with the right mindset. Bubba kind of snuck into the picture early by putting up a really solid round bogey free round of 68. Donaldson and Watson ended up 1 back of Reed at -2.
Oh yeah, Tiger pulled what I want to put forward as “The Tiger.” Having one really good round and convincing everyone that he’s going to comeback and win only to bogey himself out of contention in the final round. This has happened way too many times to not have a name associated with it.
Golf On The Mind 