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 uses 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 run a second model that uses more granular strokes gained data, which allows me to very easily adjust for course fit. The results are averaged out.
I let the data do the talking and don't make many tweaks -- if any. Golfers with a small sample get regressed to a low-end PGA Tour player to round out their samples. Data points are weighted more heavily toward recent performance.
Here are the most likely winners for the Wells Fargo Championship, according to the models.
| Golfer | Simulated Win% | Simulated Top-10% | Simulated Made Cut% | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Rahm | 8.2% | 42.6% | 85.4% | +1200 |
| Justin Thomas | 6.9% | 38.4% | 83.6% | +1000 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | 6.7% | 36.9% | 82.3% | +1400 |
| Xander Schauffele | 5.3% | 33.9% | 81.4% | +1800 |
| Webb Simpson | 4.2% | 30.1% | 78.9% | +2700 |
| Viktor Hovland | 4.0% | 28.4% | 77.9% | +2000 |
| Tony Finau | 4.0% | 28.3% | 77.7% | +2900 |
| Rory McIlroy | 3.5% | 25.8% | 76.0% | +1600 |
| Patrick Reed | 3.3% | 25.9% | 76.2% | +2900 |
| Patrick Cantlay | 3.2% | 25.3% | 75.6% | +2700 |
| Corey Conners | 2.5% | 22.0% | 73.7% | +2900 |
| Joaquin Niemann | 2.5% | 21.8% | 73.4% | +3400 |
| Will Zalatoris | 2.4% | 20.9% | 72.4% | +2900 |
| Abraham Ancer | 1.8% | 17.4% | 69.7% | +3400 |
| Cameron Tringale | 1.8% | 17.6% | 69.2% | +3400 |
| Brian Harman | 1.7% | 16.9% | 69.4% | +4100 |
| Sungjae Im | 1.4% | 14.0% | 65.7% | +3300 |
| Max Homa | 1.3% | 14.2% | 65.0% | +3400 |
| Harris English | 1.3% | 13.9% | 64.8% | +6500 |
| Jason Day | 1.2% | 13.5% | 64.9% | +4100 |
| Russell Henley | 1.2% | 14.4% | 66.0% | +4500 |
| Tommy Fleetwood | 1.0% | 11.1% | 61.7% | +5000 |
| Bubba Watson | 0.9% | 11.6% | 63.1% | +5500 |
| Stewart Cink | 0.9% | 10.7% | 60.7% | +5500 |
| Shane Lowry | 0.8% | 10.4% | 60.8% | +4500 |
| Keegan Bradley | 0.8% | 10.7% | 61.2% | +5000 |
| Matt Jones | 0.8% | 10.4% | 60.5% | +9000 |
| Carlos Ortiz | 0.8% | 10.6% | 60.7% | +10000 |
| Lanto Griffin | 0.8% | 9.9% | 60.4% | +12000 |
| Emiliano Grillo | 0.8% | 10.7% | 60.5% | +6500 |
| Kevin Streelman | 0.7% | 9.9% | 59.5% | +8000 |
| Lucas Glover | 0.7% | 9.3% | 58.2% | +6500 |
| Cameron Davis | 0.7% | 9.5% | 59.0% | +10000 |
| Brendon Todd | 0.7% | 8.7% | 57.8% | +10000 |
| Harold Varner III | 0.7% | 9.4% | 58.7% | +6500 |
| Talor Gooch | 0.6% | 9.6% | 59.0% | +10000 |
| Matt Wallace | 0.6% | 8.3% | 57.1% | +6500 |
| Sebastian J Munoz | 0.6% | 7.9% | 56.3% | +12000 |
| Brendan Steele | 0.5% | 7.3% | 54.4% | +9000 |
| Gary Woodland | 0.5% | 7.1% | 54.4% | +9000 |
| Rickie Fowler | 0.5% | 6.4% | 52.4% | +6000 |
| Mackenzie Hughes | 0.5% | 7.6% | 55.6% | +15000 |
| Patton Kizzire | 0.5% | 6.0% | 51.5% | +15000 |
| Zach Johnson | 0.5% | 6.7% | 53.9% | +15000 |
| James Hahn | 0.5% | 6.1% | 52.7% | +15000 |
Boy, this is a loaded card at the top, and that'll make it hard to do a few things.
The first is to narrow down who we should expect to win among the favorites, and the second is to get excited about long-shots. Factor in the difficult course and the importance of driving distance, and we should be anticipating the elite to rise to the top.
The model prefers Jon Rahm (+1200) at the top overall and when factoring in odds. He, Xander Schauffele (+1800), and Bryson DeChambeau (+1400) are positive-to-fair values.
There's similar value on both Webb Simpson (+2700) and Tony Finau (+2900) despite the vastly different games. I have the most early-week interest in Finau.
The next tier and the long shots aren't looking particularly valuable. It's really the favorites -- the five mentioned and Patrick Reed (+2900) looking to be the best bets.
I have outrights on DeChambeau, Finau, and Watson and some top-10 action on Joaquin Niemann, Matt Jones, and Harold Varner.