Tournament Preview: The Humana Challenge (Jan 17 – 20, 2013)

La Quinta Country Club

Look for 2012 FedEx Cup champ Brandt Snedeker (arguably the PGA TOUR’s best putter) to show up strong this week in California.  La Quinta Country Club has been known to produce some excellent scores, including David Duval’s 59 here in 1999.  The 3-course rotating tournament contains three Par 72 tracks which offer some of the easiest holes the players will experience on TOUR this year.   With that said, there is no doubt that we’ll see an overabundance of birdies and eagles as the longest track plays only 7,060 yards.

Snedeker took a much needed week off after the 5 day wind tunnel at Kapalua.  He has two top 10s in his last three appearances at the Humana, and don’t forget, this guy can putt.  He went T8 here last year, but his game and his confidence have improved dramatically since last January.

Phil Mickelson, two time Humana winner (2002 and 2004), will make his 2013 TOUR debut this Thursday.  Mickelson knows La Quinta well and ended 2012 off on a hot streak; falling just short of winning the FedEx Cup, so look out for him to make some waves this weekend as well.

We like what we saw out of Tim Clark last week at the Sony Open.  Clark’s elbow certainly doesn’t seem to be bothering him much, as evidenced by him closing with 4 straight birdies to finish with a final round of 63.  We see him making the cut here and pushing his way up the leaderboard over the weekend.

Lastly, one of our favorites, Bo Van Pelt, is another to look out for this week at La Quinta.  With the ability to sneak up a leaderboard and drain birdie after birdie, Van Pelt earned some nice money last year, but had no wins.  He’s certainly due for a victory on TOUR and definitely has what it takes to win one of these “easier” tournaments.

Current forecasts are expecting beautiful weather all week, with temperatures reaching the mid-70s and very little wind.

Golficity’s Pick:  Brandt Snedeker

(Cover Photo Credit)