Fantasy Golf: Quicken Loans National

This week marks the long awaited return of Tiger Woods to the tour, in what I think is only his fourth event. I'm sure a lot of people will be tempted to put him straight into their teams, but I'm going to hold off and see if he just makes the cut. Very slim pickings from Group A in Yahoo this week though, so perhaps some people could put Woods in as their second player and see how he goes on Thursday.
As per usual, Yahoo divides the golfers into three groups where you pick 8 (and 4 play each day), whereas Official PGA lets you pick any 4 and you only score points on their finishing positions.
As I mentioned two weeks ago, I finished second in the Official PGA weekly table for the US Open, then this week I got an email from them saying I was entitled to the prize! Great News! But no, unfortunately not. Like the winner (I presume) I don't live in the United States and they don't ship the prize ( a set of golf balls!) outside the US. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.
Good luck this week everybody.

Group A
Brandt Snedeker
Gary Woodland
Patrick Reed

Group B
Billy Horschel
Bill Haas
Jordan Spieth
Jason Day
Robert Garrigus
Webb Simpson
Martin Flores
Justin Rose
Angel Cabrera
Stewart Cink
Hunter Mahan

Group C
Nick Watney
Carl Pettersson
Kevin Chappell
Noh Seung-Yul
Brendon Todd
J.B. Holmes
Ben Curtis

Fantasy Golf: Travelers Championship

Great week last week for the US Open , as my team Manister Golf Club just missed out on top spot (and a prize of some Bridgestone Golf balls!) by only 8 points. But 2nd and 1002pts is by far the best result so far this season in PGA Fantasy.
So how do you top that? Well, I really don't know! But I'll try and pick a team this week that can be there or there abouts come Sunday night. The PGA Tour heads to TPC River Highlands for the Travelers Championship and it looks like a pretty open field as regards picking a winner. As always, Yahoo Fantasy Golf divides the golfers up into 3 groups, while Official PGA Fantasy lets you pick any four players.
So here goes this weeks picks. Good Luck.

Group A
Marc Leishman
Jonas Blixt
Bubba Watson
Patrick Reed

Group B
Brian Harman
Brendon De Jonge
Bo Van Pelt
J.J. Henry
Graham DeLaet
Jason Day

Group C
Carl Petterson
Aaron Baddeley
Erik Compton
Brooks Koepka
Luke Guthrie
Kevin Chappell
John Peterson
Charley Hoffman
Chesson Hadley
Andrew Svoboda
Harris English
Billy Hurley III



Fantasy Golf: U.S. Open Championship

It's Major time again, so all the big names will be giving it their best in order to be in contention for the big prize. But who will come out on top at Pinehurst this week? Picking your Fantasy Team for a Major must be one of the hardest things to do during a season. Yet, as always, we'll try to do our best.
I'm going for a mix of past Major winners, guys just hitting form, and some young guns who may surprise a few people over the weekend. As per usual, Yahoo Fantasy Golf splits the golfers into three groups, where you select 8 but only 4 score points for you in any one round. PGA Official Fantasy lets you pick any four players and you only score points on their finishing positions.

Group A
Bubba Watson
Jonas Blixt
Phil Mickelson
Matt Kuchar
Rickie Fowler
Adam Scott
Luke Donald

Group B
Webb Simpson
Hideki Matsuyama
Rory McIlroy
Jordan Spieth
Jason Day
Jim Furyk
Martin Kaymer
Steve Stricker
Keegan Bradley
Bill Haas
Matt Every

Group C
Sergio Garcia
Justin Thomas
Aaron Baddeley
Charl Schwatzel
Jimmy Walker



Fantasy Golf: FedEx St. Jude Classic

This week we head to the TPC Southwind in Memphis for the FedEx St. Jude Classic. A traditional warm-up for the forthcoming US Open. So there are a lot of big names from across the globe in Tennessee this week, but to pick a winner is going to be tough.
Last week Hideki Matsuyama won the Memorial Tournament which was a boon to both my fantasy teams. This weekend is looking to be much harder to pick a winner. Especially in the Yahoo Fantasy Golf, where I fancy a number of players from Group C, but not too many from A or B. And since you can only pick 2 players from Group C, while only one of them scores points on any day, I really must think long and hard over who I choose. But here goes....

Group A
Lee Westwood
Phil Mickelson

Group B
Robert Garrigus
Billy Horschel
Michael Thompson
Martin Flores

Group C
Paul Casey
Luke Guthrie
David Toms
John Senden
Ryan Palmer
Graeme McDowell
Scott Stallings
Kevin Kisner
Jeff Overton
Chad Campbell
Justin Leonard
Robert Streb
Hudson Swafford
George McNeill



Fantasy Golf: the Memorial Tournament

Not a bad week last time out, 166 points, unfortunately David Toms fell back on the last day and finished in 5th. This week the tour is in Muirfield Village Golf Club in Dublin, Ohio for the Memorial Tournament. And this week I have to say it has been really tough to pick a strong favourite to win the tournament (but i'll try anyway!). As usual, Yahoo Fantasy Golf let's you pick 8 players from 3 different groups, 4 of which score for you everyday, while Official PGA Fantasy Golf allows you to pick any 4 players, but you only get points on their finishing positions.

Group A
Matt Kuchar
Russell Henley
Gary Woodland
Adam Scott

Group B
Justin Rose
Michael Thompson
Rory McIlroy
Hideki Matsuyama
David Lingmerth
Bill Haas
Dustin Johnson
Bo Van Pelt
Jason Dufner
Jordan Spieth
Fredrik Jacobson
Steve Stricker

Group C
Kevin Chappell
Scott Stallings
Mike Weir
Charl Schartzel



Fantasy Golf: Crowne Plaza Invitational

This week the PGA Tour heads to Texas and the Colonial Country Club for the Crowne Plaza Invitational. The purse is  $6.4m and 124 golfers will start out with hopes of winning. Boo Weekley won here last time out. Can he do it again? (hopefully not, as I didn't put him in my team!)
Last week I had two finish inside the top ten and it was a pretty solid score of 152, unfortunately the C team let me down! Hauling in a paltry 10 points as neither player made it to Sunday. Hopefully this week we can build on that and start moving up the table. As always, Yahoo Fantasy Golf is split into three groups and you pick 8 players. 4 of which score points for you each day. Official PGA Fantasy lets you pick any 4 players, but you are stuck with them for the duration of the tournament.
So have a look at this weeks picks. Again, underlined players are in my team. C was probably the toughest group to pick from this week.

Group A
Marc Leishman
Matt Kuchar
Adam Scott

Group B
Chris Kirk
Zach Johnson
Jim Furyk
Jordan Spieth
Brendon de Jong
Graham DeLaet

Group C
John Huh
David Toms
Scott Stallings
Paul Casey
Jason Bohn
Scott Brown
John Senden
Boo Weekley
Ryan Palmer



Fantasy Football: Premier League season fantasy game recaps

The Premiership season is over and Man City have come away as champs, having overtaken a stumbling Liverpool at the line. This also means that the Fantasy Football season is over! How did you get on this year?
Me? Not so well! I paid for not jumping on the Saurez bandwagon, I put in Yaya Toure far too late, plus I stuck with DeGea in goals when United clearly weren't at the races anymore. But you live and learn. I did a short synopsis of which games I was playing this year and what I thought of them earlier in the season, so now I will give a brief rundown of where I placed in each competition.

First lets have a look at the two predictor games that ran over the season.
In Sky Sports Super6 I ended up with 311 points, that's 93 correct results and 25 correct scores. That all leaves me in 39,848th, which isn't that bad (I did forget to input predictions for one week!), there must be nearly one and a half million players? I also scored better than all the Sky Sports pundits, that's always a plus!
In the Talksport Predictor game I ended up with a score of 1945 and in 17,210th place. I was as high as 3,431st about two thirds of the way through, but again I'm pretty sure I missed a number of games and screwed myself over. Of the 18 Talksport presenters, I beat all bar three. Mickey Quinn was best with 2070pts. I believe there was over 120,000 playing the game in total.

The two main Fantasy Football games I concentrated on were Official Premier League Fantasy Football and Yahoo Fantasy Football. But as the season went on, Yahoo kept being dogged by problems and in the last week I don't even think I changed my team. Some weeks I didn't change my team, but that was because Yahoo wouldn't let me! It really has taken a nose dive this season, but anyway......
In Yahoo I ended up with 3610pts and in 29,715th place. I don't know how many players played in total (I'm guessing the drop off rate was huge), and I have no desire to try and find out. Yahoo has gone from probably the best Fantasy Football games to perhaps the worst. Let's move on.
Nothing demonstrates the mistakes I made this season than my performance in the Official Premier League Fantasy Football. I ended up with 1,832 pts and in a woeful 1,629,716th place. To give you a taste of how bad it was all season, just think on the fact that I had Altidoe and Anelka as two of my forwards in week 1! I try and aim for at least a top half finish in every game I play, but here I was 20,261 places from the halfway mark. Not a huge amount in a game of over 3.2m players. Still, next season is a must do better.

The other Fantasy Football games I played, I'll be honest, didn't get as much attention, so I was kind of dipping in and out of them as time allowed. In ESPN Premier Fantasy my points came to 2,060 and I was in 15,734th place. I think the ESPN game had over 110,000 players, but I stand to be corrected on that.
In Metro Fantasy Football I finished up in 27,142nd place with 17,814 pts. I didn't really keep an eye on this team over the season. The game looks nice, it just wasn't my cup of tea. Metro Fantasy had nearly 75,000 players.
Telegraph Fantasy Football was another game I dipped in and out of. it wasn't a bad game, and is maybe one I will put more effort into in the future. I think I will see how the Telegraphs fantasy World Cup pans out. But as for last season I ended up with 1,539 pts and in 95,807th position.
The Sun Dream Team didn't get much play time from me. One, because I don't read the Sun, and Two, because of the rather awkward way it implements transfers. But still, I ended up with 1197 pts and in 809,582nd place. There will be a Sun World Cup Dream Team too, so hopefully that will be better.

The last two games I played, I did put some effort into (but not too much!). The first was Australian website Sportal Premier League Dream Team. This game is different in that you play against another fantasy team every week and accumulate points every time you beat your opponent. Win, lose or draw is the order of the day here. I played in two public leagues, coming 3rd in one (29 wins, 9 losses) and 9th in the other (21 wins, 1 draw, 16 losses). Overall I ended up with 4,256 pts and in 3,622nd place out of 13,809 players. It is a fun way of doing a league and I would recommend giving it a go next season.
In Sky Sports Fantasy Football I also had two teams running. But none were very good! The best I managed was a total of 1,934 pts and in 68,278th position. I just don't like the system the game is run to, captain changes mid-gameweek etc.

So that's it for this year. I will do a preview of a number of Fantasy World Cup games by the end of the month, and hopefully I can put a squad together to challenge the top of the table. It would give great confidence going into Fantasy Football 2014/15. If you have any Fantasy game recommendations, then please tell me in the comments below.