BlogWho will win at Riviera on Sunday?

Things you need to know for Sunday’s final round at Riviera:

Who is William McGirt and does he have a chance of winning?

• He is a 34 year-old from Boiling Springs, South Carolina.  His name of fame is finishing 2nd in not one, but two RBS Canadian Open’s in 96 starts on the PGA Tour.  He got his Tour card in December of 2010 when he finished 2nd in Q-School and is in his fourth year.  Coming into this week he has just under $2.8 million in earnings but a third of that, $838,588, is in his three starts in Canada.  Other than that he has been in the top-ten just three other times. McGirt has never led or co-led in any round in his career and if you look at the times he has been in contention going into the final round.  Oh one other thing he has missed the cut in his other two Northern Trust starts so you can see that on Sunday he will be ratified air.

So how did McGirt become the leader?

• With no rough and the ground being firm letting players hit it a long way, Riviera has been pretty defenseless this week.  Through three rounds the scoring average is 71.22 and if you look at the leaderbaord 54 players are under par.  If you look at the top-12 on the leaderboard, there have only been three rounds which are over par, the highest being a 73 by Jason Allred in the first round.  Just look at McGirt’s career, in his 96 starts he has only bettered his Riviera 54 hole score of 201 twice.  That tells the whole story on how easy Riviera is playing when he is lower than his 54 hole rounds scores in much easier events, like those in the desert.
• In looking at McGirt’s stats for the week, there is one key that pops up, he leads the strokes Gained putting stat and is 2nd in total putts made with 314 feet of putts.  Another key is that on Riviera’s three par 5s he is seven under.

So who is close to him?

• McGirt is at 12 under par two shots better than George McNeill and Charlie Beljan.  In fourth place at nine under is Jason Allred and Brian Harman while four shots back at 8 under is Jimmy Walker, Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson and Cameron Tringale.  So of your top-five players McNeill and Beljan are the only ones that have won on the PGA Tour.

Who made the biggest moves on Saturday?

• Only three scores of 65 and under, Bubba Watson shot 64 while James Hahn, who is T24th at 5 under also shot 65.  Then you have McGirt’s 65 to round out the top-scores of the day.
• Now we have seen a lot of unusual winners in 2013/14 between Jimmy Walker, Chris Kirk, Harris English, Patrick Reed, Scott Stallings and Kevin Stadler who were in great positions after a good third round and were able to back it up.  Example includes Walker in his Frys.com win, shot a third round 62 and came back with 66.  Patrick Reed at the Humana shot 63 in his first three rounds and shot 71 to win.  Kevin Stadler shot 67 in the third round in Phoenix and backed it up with 68.  Just last week at Pebble, Walker shot 67 and was able to hold on to win.  So we can’t discount McGirt holding on.

Anybody to really watch for on Sunday?

• He may be four back but honestly with such an inexperience top-five I can see anyone as far back as 4 under having a chance.  If they can shot 63 or a 64 and the top don’t perform, it brings a lot of folks into contention.  If I was to look at one person, I would look at Charl Schwartzel, who is at 8 under, four back with rounds of 69-68-68.  Also look for Bubba Watson because both of them are Masters winners and those that won the Masters seem to do well at Riviera.  But I really like Schwartzel because of the fact that he came over on Monday from South Africa and has had to endure lot’s of jet-lag.  On Thursday and Saturday he played his last seven holes in three over and for the week has played the first 11 holes in 12 under and played the last seven holes in four over.  I can see him improve on that on Sunday.  I also think that Bubba Watson could be very dangerous because this is in his wheelhouse, he won’t be sleeping on the lead like he did in Phoenix and will be able to free-wheel it on Sunday being four shots back.
• Also look for Jimmy Walker, Dustin Johnson and Jordan Spieth being dangerous and frankly I see the winner being one of these five.

So how far back is too far back?

• I can’t see anyone worst than 4 under having much of a chance.  That’s because there are 32 players at 4 under and better, that’s a lot of players to step over in the final round.

Below is a list of the top-32 players on the leader board going to 4 under showing how they have done of late to see who has played the best: