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 Travelers Championship, according to the models.
| Golfer | Simulated Win% | Simulated Top-10% | Simulated Made Cut% | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dustin Johnson | 5.8% | 29.1% | 77.1% | +1200 |
| Patrick Cantlay | 4.5% | 29.1% | 77.0% | +1700 |
| Patrick Reed | 4.0% | 27.3% | 75.7% | +2300 |
| Paul Casey | 3.7% | 26.3% | 75.7% | +1600 |
| Abraham Ancer | 3.7% | 25.0% | 74.6% | +3200 |
| Scottie Scheffler | 3.6% | 24.5% | 74.2% | +2300 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | 3.4% | 25.4% | 74.8% | +1100 |
| Brian Harman | 3.0% | 24.3% | 74.2% | +3100 |
| Tony Finau | 2.7% | 20.8% | 71.1% | +2900 |
| Brooks Koepka | 2.6% | 19.8% | 70.3% | +1500 |
| Harris English | 2.4% | 18.5% | 69.2% | +3800 |
| Kevin Streelman | 2.4% | 20.6% | 70.7% | +3200 |
| Joaquin Niemann | 2.0% | 17.5% | 68.3% | +4400 |
| Cameron Smith | 2.0% | 16.6% | 66.9% | +6000 |
| Russell Henley | 1.9% | 16.5% | 67.3% | +5000 |
| Si Woo Kim | 1.7% | 15.8% | 66.0% | +6500 |
| Brendon Todd | 1.7% | 15.3% | 66.2% | +9500 |
| Charley Hoffman | 1.6% | 15.9% | 66.4% | +4400 |
| Cameron Tringale | 1.5% | 12.7% | 63.8% | +8000 |
| Keegan Bradley | 1.4% | 16.2% | 67.3% | +6500 |
| Emiliano Grillo | 1.3% | 12.9% | 63.0% | +9500 |
| Jason Day | 1.3% | 12.6% | 62.3% | +7500 |
| Sam Burns | 1.1% | 12.0% | 61.3% | +7000 |
| Kevin Kisner | 1.1% | 9.2% | 56.9% | +14000 |
| Ian Poulter | 1.1% | 10.3% | 59.5% | +8500 |
| Talor Gooch | 1.0% | 10.0% | 59.7% | +17000 |
| Justin Rose | 0.9% | 9.8% | 58.7% | +7000 |
| Steve Stricker | 0.9% | 9.8% | 58.1% | +31000 |
| Lanto Griffin | 0.9% | 9.6% | 58.7% | +12000 |
| Kevin Na | 0.9% | 9.2% | 57.7% | +8500 |
| Max Homa | 0.9% | 10.2% | 59.6% | +7500 |
| Carlos Ortiz | 0.9% | 10.4% | 58.7% | +10000 |
| Chris Kirk | 0.9% | 9.8% | 59.2% | +12000 |
| Bubba Watson | 0.9% | 11.1% | 59.7% | +3700 |
| Francesco Molinari | 0.9% | 8.9% | 56.2% | +8000 |
| Doug Ghim | 0.8% | 9.6% | 57.8% | +25000 |
| Aaron Wise | 0.8% | 9.2% | 57.6% | +8500 |
| Adam Scott | 0.8% | 9.1% | 57.2% | +7000 |
| Harold Varner III | 0.8% | 8.8% | 56.6% | +12000 |
| Stewart Cink | 0.8% | 8.4% | 55.7% | +8500 |
| Doc Redman | 0.7% | 7.1% | 53.2% | +7500 |
| Zach Johnson | 0.7% | 7.6% | 54.6% | +19000 |
| Tom Hoge | 0.7% | 6.8% | 53.3% | +31000 |
| Mackenzie Hughes | 0.6% | 6.7% | 52.7% | +12000 |
| Brendan Steele | 0.6% | 8.2% | 55.4% | +17000 |
| Patton Kizzire | 0.6% | 6.6% | 52.9% | +17000 |
| Matthew Wolff | 0.6% | 6.7% | 51.9% | +3500 |
| Adam Hadwin | 0.6% | 7.1% | 54.5% | +17000 |
| Rickie Fowler | 0.6% | 8.0% | 55.5% | +7500 |
| Michael Thompson | 0.6% | 6.1% | 52.2% | +25000 |
| Sebastian Munoz | 0.5% | 7.1% | 53.7% | +19000 |
| Chez Reavie | 0.5% | 7.1% | 53.7% | +17000 |
| Kyle Stanley | 0.5% | 8.5% | 55.5% | +17000 |
| Matt Jones | 0.5% | 7.4% | 55.0% | +17000 |
| Russell Knox | 0.5% | 7.2% | 54.3% | +17000 |
| Ryan Moore | 0.5% | 7.6% | 53.5% | +19000 |
| Adam Long | 0.5% | 5.9% | 51.0% | +21000 |
| Pat Perez | 0.5% | 5.7% | 51.2% | +17000 |
| Erik van Rooyen | 0.5% | 5.3% | 50.2% | +14000 |
| Ryan Armour | 0.5% | 5.9% | 50.8% | +25000 |
The model is giving Dustin Johnson top odds to win this week but not at a high enough clip to want to bet him at +1200 on FanDuel Sportsbook.
I like Patrick Cantlay at +1700 despite his underperformance in the model. The model shows only marginally negative value on Patrick Reed (+2300) and views Abraham Ancer (+3200) as a plus value.
Some other options rating out well include Harris English (+3800), Cameron Smith (+6000), Russell Henley (+5000), Si Woo Kim (+6500), Brendon Todd (+9500), Cameron Tringale (+8000), and Emiliano Grillo (+9500).
I'm honing in on Cantlay, Ancer, Smith, and Grillo primarily.