PGA Tour Power Rankings: WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play

Jason Day picked up his second PGA Tour victory in as many weeks at last year’s WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, but can he pull off a repeat win against this week’s strong field?

Move over, March Madness — with the PGA Tour’s top golfers in town for the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play, college basketball fans won’t be the only ones with busted brackets this week. Expect Austin Country Club to be filled with enthusiastic fans, along with the nonstop, head-to-head action that comes with the most exciting format in golf.

While the WGC-Match Play has maintained its patented brand of thrills over the years, this week’s event will hardly resemble the version from a few years ago. Gone is the win-or-go-home format that provided us with some of the tournament’s most dramatic moments. Now, three-fourths of the field is eliminated after a first round consisting of round-robin matches, similar to soccer’s World Cup. This change is a double-edged sword — while the early-week matches are now less important and thus less entertaining, we’re now guaranteed to see our favorites play at least a few rounds each year.

The new tournament structure also makes it easier to make projections. After all, anything can happen in one match, but after three, we get a much more reliable result. The knockout format was always fun, but for fantasy scribes like me, pool play certainly makes life easier.

In addition to my weekly power rankings and fantasy picks, the Pro Golf Now team will be providing our predictions as the pools and brackets begin to take shape. Without further ado, here are ten of the best bets for success at the third WGC of the 2016-17 PGA Tour season. Each player’s current spot on the FedEx Cup points list is shown next to his name.