BlogWho will win at Riviera on Sunday

Who will win on Sunday?

It’s been an interesting couple of days at Riviera, kind of a stroll down memory lane with guys like Retief Goosen, Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk and Sergio Garcia gracing the top of the leaderboard.  For Singh, who shot 74 on Sunday he will have to wait for another time but for Furyk and Garcia they are close with Retief Goosen leading.  In a way Goosen is lucky to be playing golf.  Just 912 days ago he was on an operating table in London have a titanium disc inserted in his back.  The reason for such a radical surgery was because at 44 Goosen couldn’t swing a club anymore, his back was that bad.  It took him four months before he could even swing a club again and he has worked hard on his game since.  Six months later at the 2013 Volvo Golf Champions he played again, finishing T20th.  A month later he was in contention at Pebble, finishing T9th.  Still it’s been a long road back, after his good finish at Pebble his best finish for the rest of 2013 was T21st.  He did have a couple of top-tens in 2014 but he never contented until last October at the Frys.Com Open finishing T3rd.  Who knows maybe it’s playing at Riviera, Goosen has won on great courses like Southern Hills, East Lake and Shinnecock Hills, it would be right up his alley to win at Riviera considering that 32 of the 52 winners have won a major championship.

Now Goosen didn’t look like a winner on Saturday afternoon with a wild back nine in which he made just two pars, four bogeys and three birdies.  All week the first six holes of the back has given him problems as he is four over in that stretch compared to 12 under on holes 1 through 9 and 16 through 18.

So does that mean Goosen can’t win on Sunday?  I don’t think he will win, yes he has had a great career and won a lot of times in tough circumstances.  But it’s been just about six years since his last victory at the 2009 Transitions Championship and I just wonder if he has what it takes to win.  We can see what happened to Jim Furyk last week at Pebble, I think the same will happen to Goosen on Sunday.

So if not Goosen, who else?  Two shots back is Graham DeLaet and you have to think he is ready to win.  Yes he has been sick the last couple of weeks with the flu and had a neck injury at the end of last year, but still he has been knocking on heavens door of winning and you have to think it’s soon.  Graham is a good putter and tomorrow could be his day.

How about Sang-Moon Bae?  He had a great Saturday shooting a bogey-free 66.  Again I always am worried about players that play lights out on Saturday, most of the time they have nothing left in the tank on Sunday and that could be the case with Bae.

So who else?  How about Sergio Garcia or Dustin Johnson.  Garcia is just three back and has been very consistent all week.  The thing with him is always putting, which is important at Riviera.  I think if he can make some seven, eight footer early he could do some damage tomorrow.  I also like Dustin Johnson, he is four back of Goosen but if the leader stumbles Johnson is close to the lead.  Johnson did shot 67 on Saturday to get back in it so maybe he won’t have anything in the tank on Sunday, still I like his chances.

Anybody else?  J.B. Holmes is just three back of Goosen and you have to think he will make a run on Sunday.  By problem with him, he isn’t that great of a putter from seven to 12 feet, that is something you have to do well at Riviera.  We also can’t count out Jim Furyk, Vijay Singh, Jordan Spieth, Angel Cabrera, Ryan Moore and defending champion Bubba Watson.  They are all at four under which is four back of Goosen but again that could be lower if Goosen stumbles.