Volatility is the name of the game in golf, and picking winners isn't easy. With fields of 150-plus golfers sometimes being separated by how a putt or two falls each week, predicting golf can be absurdly tough.
We'll never be able to capture everything that goes into a golfer's expectations for a week, but we can try to account for that by simulating out the weekend and seeing what happens.
The Process
Over the years, I have made plenty of tweaks to my original golf model, which use a combination of the OWGR's field strength numbers and datagolf's field strength numbers to adjust each golfer's score relative to the field (on the PGA Tour, the European Tour, and the Korn Ferry Tour). The ultimate goal is to place a score from the Waste Management Open, the BMW International Open, and the Knoxville Open on level playing fields. This adjusted strokes metric lets me see how golfers are performing across all tours. From there, a golfer's adjusted stroke data is combined with their round-to-round variance to see how the field is likely to perform when playing out the event thousands of times.
In addition to that long-term adjusted form, I factor in course-level adjustments for course fit. I let the data do the talking and don't make many tweaks. Golfers with a small sample get regressed to a low-end PGA Tour player.
This week at Torrey Pines (South and North), we need distance. That is reflected in the simulation results.
Here are the most likely winners for the Farmers Insurance Open, according to the model.
| Golfer | Simulated Win% | Simulated Top-10% | Simulated Made Cut% | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Rahm | 12.5% | 52.2% | 91.1% | +700 |
| Rory McIlroy | 9.1% | 43.7% | 87.5% | +750 |
| Xander Schauffele | 7.4% | 40.1% | 85.5% | +1300 |
| Harris English | 5.1% | 32.3% | 81.8% | +2300 |
| Tony Finau | 3.2% | 24.7% | 76.6% | +2100 |
| Adam Scott | 3.0% | 22.4% | 72.8% | +4500 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | 2.8% | 23.2% | 74.8% | +2900 |
| Patrick Reed | 2.6% | 20.6% | 71.6% | +2900 |
| Scottie Scheffler | 2.4% | 20.8% | 73.2% | +2900 |
| Brooks Koepka | 2.3% | 19.1% | 71.2% | +3100 |
| Viktor Hovland | 1.8% | 17.8% | 70.3% | +2300 |
| Bubba Watson | 1.8% | 17.5% | 69.8% | +4500 |
| Jason Day | 1.7% | 16.5% | 68.8% | +3700 |
| Corey Conners | 1.6% | 15.6% | 67.0% | +7500 |
| Sungjae Im | 1.5% | 15.5% | 67.7% | +2900 |
| Gary Woodland | 1.5% | 15.2% | 66.6% | +6500 |
| Louis Oosthuizen | 1.3% | 13.7% | 64.9% | +6500 |
| Matthew Wolff | 1.3% | 14.2% | 65.1% | +3200 |
| Billy Horschel | 1.2% | 13.9% | 65.7% | +4600 |
| Jason Kokrak | 1.2% | 13.8% | 65.0% | +6500 |
| Harold Varner III | 1.2% | 12.5% | 63.3% | +16000 |
| Will Zalatoris | 1.0% | 9.2% | 49.9% | +4800 |
| Ryan Palmer | 1.0% | 12.1% | 63.3% | +6500 |
| Adam Hadwin | 1.0% | 11.1% | 60.1% | +15000 |
| Ryan Moore | 1.0% | 10.8% | 55.3% | +19000 |
| Rickie Fowler | 0.9% | 11.0% | 61.6% | +7500 |
| Kevin Streelman | 0.9% | 12.6% | 63.5% | +19000 |
| Joel Dahmen | 0.9% | 10.2% | 60.5% | +16000 |
| Cameron Tringale | 0.8% | 10.0% | 60.1% | +14000 |
| Erik van Rooyen | 0.8% | 10.8% | 60.9% | +15000 |
| Carlos Ortiz | 0.8% | 10.9% | 60.7% | +9000 |
| Lanto Griffin | 0.8% | 9.8% | 59.5% | +15000 |
| Talor Gooch | 0.8% | 11.0% | 61.8% | +10000 |
| Sam Burns | 0.8% | 9.7% | 58.7% | +8000 |
| Cameron Champ | 0.7% | 9.8% | 59.3% | +7000 |
| Mackenzie Hughes | 0.7% | 8.9% | 56.6% | +16000 |
| Doc Redman | 0.7% | 8.9% | 56.7% | +16000 |
| Cameron Davis | 0.7% | 8.8% | 56.6% | +6500 |
It's very toit at the top with Jon Rahm, Rory McIlroy, and Xander Schauffele in the mix. After some adjustments, they comprised 29.0% of the wins out of the 10,000 simulations this week. Rahm and McIlroy in particular are Torrey Pines gurus. Rahm enters with elite form as usual, but the odds are too steep for me on those two. Rahm is valued appropriately but is coming off an injury.
Schauffele has the length to contend here and always rates out as a strong win pick because of his adjusted data. Schauffele is priced exactly where he should be, so while there's no actual value, he's the best bet among the favorites.
There's value on Harris English at +2300 and Adam Scott at +4500. Will Zalatoris gets a boost because of the distance angle and is +4800.
The mid-range (golfers between +2100 and +6500) should command most of our attention. Look at the past winners here -- Marc Leishman, Justin Rose, Jason Day, Rahm, and Brandt Snedeker -- and see that they are all big names. The stats show that we need to target golfers who are good in all three tee-to-green facets and putting.
I've bet Bubba Watson at +4500 so far and have since added Adam Scott (+4500) and Gary Woodland (+6500).