Portland Open

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The final event of the regular season is upon us in the form of the WinCo Foods Portland Open at the Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club in Oregon and I have fond memories after nailing 90/1 shot Carlos Ortiz last year. This is the final chance for players to move inside the top 25 and guarantee their PGA Tour status for next year, the other players who finish in the top 75 will battle it out in the four event Tour final for a chance to earn their PGA card.

Pumpkin Ridge was used for the first time last year and received glowing reviews from many of the pros. It is a Par 71, 7000 odd yard course that has a reputation for being difficult so we can expect the winner to be in the top 25/30 of the money list and ranking highly in the All Round stat. It is a narrow track with tree lined fairways and a number of hazards that help protect both the fairways and greens so Ball Striking (Driving Accuracy and GIR) will also be important.

My picks this week are as follows:

Darron Stiles 0.5pts e/w @ 50/1 - Stiles was one player last year who commented on how good a course Pumpkin was after he finished 14th. He has performed consistently on tour this year with three top fives, the most recent coming as a runner up in the Digital Ally Open in Kansas. He finished 38th last week but was 9th in Driving Accuracy and 14th in GIR so his game was in shape. Over the course of the season he has ranked 4th in Driving Accuracy and 1st in Scrambling which will help him this week.

Brad Fritsch - 0.5pts e/w @ 45/1 - Comes into this tournament on the back of a 2nd place at the News Sentinel in Tennessee which bodes well for him. He has ranked 1st and 2nd in GIR in his last two outings and in the top 15 for Driving Accuracy too. Over the season he is 6th in GIR, 50th in Driving Accuracy and 5th in Ball Striking. The course should set up well for him this week. 

Wes Roach - 0.25pts e/w @ 80/1 - Winner of the El Bosque Mexico Championship, there seems to be a slight correlation between player results there and here at Pumpkin. Last year's winner of both tournaments was Carlos Ortiz and Daniel Berger and Jonathan Randolph featured at the top of the leaderboard in both. It is a slightly hopeful link but one worth chancing as Roach was not only the winner in Mexico but also can lay claim to another two top 5 finishes. He is 6th on the Money List, a respectable 36th in Ball Striking and 16th in the All Around. 

Matt Fast - 0.25pts e/w @ 150/1 - A 4th place finish last week was Fast's best of the year and bodes well for a player who has come out and admitted that Pumpkin was his favourite course on tour. Last year he opened with a 63 before fading away but will hopefully be motivated by last week's performance where he ranked in the top 20 for both Driving Accuracy and GIR. He also performed well in Mexico earlier in the year where he finished 12th so everything seems to be teed up for him this week.

Yoshio Yamamoto - 0.125pts e/w @ 500/1 - Another player who finished 12th in Mexico is Yamamoto, a Mexican who has made the most of his two invites to the Web.com by making both cuts and playing some solid golf. This is very much a wild card pick and in truth if he challenges the leaderboard it would be hard to see him closing the tournament out but he is certainly worth a couple of pennies at 500/1. 

Total Staked - 3.25pts