Leaving Home Without It

Nick Taylor (10% selected) won in a playoff over Nico Echavarria (7%) at the Sony last week. I can't say I watched any of it — with NFL playoffs on TV and my golfers nowhere to be found near the top. Over half the pool received zero points, so it was a bit of a dud week. As expected.

This week we have two tournaments: The American Express out in Palm Desert, and The Dubai Desert Classic on the Euro Tour (one of only two that count this year).

The AmEx has already been hurt with WDs from Scottie Scheffler and Xander Schauffele. Scottie is still dealing with a cut on his right hand... while Xander gave no explanation, leading to another round of LIV rumors. Wyndham Clark and Patrick Cantlay are the only top-15 golfers remaining in the field.

I don't see Xander joining LIV at this point, as more and more guys on that tour have seemingly become bored with their piles of cash. Previous tournament winner Eugenio Chacarra just quit LIV (was fire-balled?) despite being one of the first "young guns" to sign. He now begins a very long road to the PGA — which includes a 1 year ban even though he was never an actual TOUR member!

Jon Rahm (12% selected) is also in the news crying about the lack of OWGR points on LIV. Good news for him, some LIV guys are now allowed to compete on the Euro Tour. So he'll be in Dubai along with Tyrrell Hatton (1 person selected). Rory, Viktor, and Fleetwood are the top-10 ranked players.

Sorry, Jon. We're fresh out of OWGR points.

Between the two events we should have some actual scoring this week.

Good luck!