They have surveyed the green, examined the breaks and calculated the grain, speed and dimensions. Here's how CBSSports.com staffers Steve Elling, Ross Devonport and Dan Lubin are handicapping this week's BMW Championship.
| No-Brainer: Who's head of the class, king of the hill, top of the heap? | ||
| Steve Elling CBSSports.com Senior Writer | Ross Devonport CBSSports.com Fantasy Writer | Dan Lubin CBSSports.com Golf Producer |
 Vijay Singh Here we go again. For the third time in roughly a month, the PGA Tour is playing a tournament venue for the first time, or at least for the first time in several years. After visiting new sites in Greensboro and The Barclays, this week's BMW Championship rotates to Bellerive Country Club in St. Louis, making the predictions that much flightier. How do you track horses for courses when the ponies have never been out of the Bellerive barn? Take the safe approach and pick the Fijian freight-train, Vijay Singh. Three wins in five starts, with two missed cuts in between, means it might be an all-or-nothing bet with the Fijian, but I like the former. The dude can smell that $10 million bonus. | Vijay Singh After my pick of Robert Allenby last week that ruined a stellar week of selections featuring Mike Weir (second) and Camilo Villegas (T3), I’m just going with Elling here and staying well inside the box. Singh is just playing superb golf right now and now he basically has the $10 million in the bank he can relax and take home a third straight title. |  Sergio Garcia Vijay has this whole FedEx Cup locked down, unless someone high in the points standings bags the last two playoff events. Garcia can get away with it if he takes the points-rich Tour Championship next week and Singh falls on his face. Singh is on a roll, but can anyone imagine three straight victories? The odds are against it. Complacency is just too tempting during the late season grind. So I'm going with the young whelp. Sergio is playing [sports cliche alert] with a big chip on his shoulder. |
| Late for his Tee Time: Who's playing well and ready for a breakthrough? | ||
| Steve Elling CBSSports.com Senior Writer | Ross Devonport CBSSports.com Fantasy Writer | Dan Lubin CBSSports.com Golf Producer |
 Mike Weir There are two players with any slim chance of catching Vijay Singh in the points race, Mike Weir and Sergio Garcia. While Garcia is the hottest player in the game at the moment outside of Singh, Weir rates a look, too. He's third in FedEx points and seems to be building up to a breakthrough week after contending in the first two playoff series events. Weir is a decent driver of the ball and that's a good asset at a parkland course like Bellerive, as far as we can tell at this point. |  Ernie Els The Big Easy picked up a solid T3 last week in Boston and will be encouraged by that result as he looks for his first victory on tour since the Honda Classic back in March. He struggled in a missed cut at the Barclays, but has made six of his last eight cuts with four top-15s in there. As we know, Ernie struggles to hit the fairways sometimes, but like Vijay, when he’s on the short grass and has the opportunity to take dead aim at pins, he can be dangerous. |  Camilo Villegas The talented Colombian is on his third full season on the PGA Tour and well on his way to his best one to date. As a rookie sensation in 2006, he sparked an enormous amount of interest. I suppose the flak he gets now for his winless record is blowback from all the hype of 2006. But if you impartially examine Villegas' game, especially this season, you have to respect the quality of the entire package. In 2008, he ranks 15th in scoring average and earned two top-10s at the majors. Victory will come soon enough, but for the time being, he deserves his due. He looked awfully impressive in Boston last week. |
| One in a 100: Who could surprise us with a great performance? | ||
| Steve Elling CBSSports.com Senior Writer | Ross Devonport CBSSports.com Fantasy Writer | Dan Lubin CBSSports.com Golf Producer |
 Martin Laird Rookie Martin Laird has been the nice story of the FedEx Cup run. After playing his way in from the outside of the top 144 in Greensboro, Laird has managed to make it to this week's third stop in the four-week series. If he can finish well enough this week to crack the top 30 in points, he advances to the Tour Championship and earns berths in the 2009 Masters and U.S. Open (unless those automatic berths are rescinded, which is possible). |  Jay Williamson I failed to take Carl Pettersson a few weeks ago when he won the Wyndham, a tournament he is on the board of. This week, I’m not going to make the same mistake. Jay Williamson is a St. Louis native and a member at this week’s host course, Bellerive Country Club. While he will know this course better than anyone else in the field, Williamson isn’t exactly playing well right now and I think he would be more like 1,000-1 with the bookies than 100-1. |  Ken Duke Like many Nationwide Tour Player of the Year winners, Duke has really established himself as a solid competitor on the PGA Tour. In his rookie year in 2007, he finished 37th on the money list. This season, he rallied from a slow start to have an equally productive campaign. Since June, he has collected seven top-25 finishes. And in the playoffs, he has gone T12 and T10 in the first two events. Standing 18th in FedEx Cup points, his prospects look good for a first trip to the Tour Championship. |
