BlogWho will win in San Antonio on Sunday

Who should win on Sunday

With tough scoring conditions brought on my swirling winds, Jimmy Walker shook off consecutive bogeys on holes 3 & 4 to play his final 14 holes in 5-under par on his way to a 3-under-par 69. He’ll begin Sunday’s final round with a four-shot margin over Jordan Spieth, who finished with a 1-under-par 71. Walker’s 54-hole total is 9-under-par 207 and it’s one of the largest 54 hole score in 2015.

Walker began the day with a one shot lead and was two ahead of Jordan Spieth.  For most of the day Walker and Spieth were going mano-a-mano until Spieth ran into trouble on the back with two bogeys and a double bogey on 16.

So is this cut and dry for Walker?  On the surface it should be, There is only two players within six shots of Walker.  We know the conditions have been brutal and anything is possible, Walker could shot 76 or 77 on Sunday.  Just look at what some of the second round leaders did, Kevin Na shot 75, Aaron Baddeley shot 76 and Charley Hoffman shot 79.  So anything is possible and Walker still has to play the final round.

How tough has it been to win of late?  So far this year, the third-round leader/co-leaders has won five of 19 events.  But it’s been nine events going back to the Humana Challenge when the last third round leader won, Bill Haas.  SO you know that this record has to end and this week should be the week as Jimmy Walker should win.

So what does Walker realistically have to shot on Sunday?  I have to think that a 72 would do the job.  That would mean that Spieth would need to shot 68 and Billy Horschel would have to shot 66.  I just don’t think this is possible with the weather forecast in which there will be winds again.  The weather on Sunday will be identical to the way it was on Saturday where the low score was 68 and only six players broke 70.  Now it’s not written in stone that Walker will shot 72, the odds are he will shot 74 or 75, but still someone needs a low score to catch him.

We have seen Walker struggle when having a big lead, could that happen again?  Of course it could, Walker struggled at Kapalua, played his last five holes in one over and lost to Patrick Reed in a playoff.  But the next week Walker had a lead and just increased it by shooting a final round 63.  Best way in looking at it is to look at how Walker has done with the lead, co-lead or within five of the lead.  This shows that Walker has a pretty good record when close to the lead.

What do we expect from Spieth?  Have to think that he will shot somewhere between 70 and 75.  I didn’t like the way he finished on Saturday, that could linger on Sunday.

Anybody else could contend?  You have the best players in the world, no matter what the conditions are you will have someone shot 68 or 67.  If it’s Spieth or Billy Horschel it could spell for an interesting finish.  Last week we saw Zach Johnson go low and shot a final round 66 and shot up 20 spots on the leaderboard.  If Johnson does it again he could win the tournament.

One last question, what is Walker doing right this week?  First he has hit the most greens of anyone else, 37 of 54.  That with a combination of good putting, he is first in total putts made, 300 feet, 7 inches.  He is also first in strokes gained putting so the combination of hitting lot’s of greens, making lot’s of putts is hard to beat.

Below is a list of the top-16 players on the leader board going to even par which is nine shots back of Jimmy Walker