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 John Deere Classic, according to the models.
| Golfer | Simulated Win% | Simulated Top-10% | Simulated Made Cut% | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daniel Berger | 7.9% | 37.9% | 82.3% | +950 |
| Brian Harman | 5.3% | 32.0% | 79.2% | +1500 |
| Russell Henley | 4.4% | 25.6% | 74.9% | +1700 |
| Sungjae Im | 3.6% | 24.3% | 73.8% | +1700 |
| Kevin Streelman | 3.5% | 24.3% | 74.1% | +1900 |
| Si Woo Kim | 2.6% | 20.1% | 70.6% | +2800 |
| Steve Stricker | 2.5% | 19.9% | 69.5% | +4300 |
| Zach Johnson | 2.3% | 16.1% | 66.5% | +4300 |
| Doug Ghim | 1.9% | 16.1% | 66.6% | +6000 |
| Alex Noren | 1.9% | 17.3% | 68.1% | +3100 |
| Aaron Wise | 1.8% | 16.9% | 67.1% | +3500 |
| Lucas Glover | 1.8% | 14.8% | 65.4% | +6000 |
| Cameron Davis | 1.6% | 14.7% | 64.6% | +2800 |
| Harold Varner III | 1.6% | 14.2% | 64.7% | +6000 |
| Kevin Na | 1.6% | 13.7% | 63.8% | +4300 |
| Sebastian Munoz | 1.5% | 13.4% | 63.6% | +8000 |
| Patton Kizzire | 1.5% | 12.5% | 62.0% | +4300 |
| Maverick McNealy | 1.4% | 14.1% | 63.6% | +3600 |
| Charles Howell III | 1.4% | 13.8% | 64.3% | +8000 |
| Jhonattan Vegas | 1.2% | 13.6% | 63.3% | +3600 |
| Chez Reavie | 1.1% | 11.4% | 60.5% | +8000 |
| Kyle Stanley | 1.1% | 13.7% | 63.6% | +6500 |
| Denny McCarthy | 1.1% | 9.3% | 57.4% | +14000 |
| Pat Perez | 1.1% | 10.4% | 60.1% | +8000 |
| Doc Redman | 1.1% | 10.5% | 58.8% | +4400 |
| Troy Merritt | 1.1% | 11.8% | 62.2% | +4300 |
| Roger Sloan | 1.0% | 10.1% | 58.4% | +9500 |
| Hank Lebioda | 1.0% | 11.0% | 60.0% | +4300 |
| Sepp Straka | 1.0% | 9.4% | 57.2% | +6500 |
| Seamus Power | 0.9% | 10.5% | 59.0% | +3100 |
| Ryan Armour | 0.9% | 9.4% | 57.8% | +8000 |
| Brice Garnett | 0.9% | 10.3% | 59.7% | +9500 |
| Ryan Moore | 0.9% | 11.2% | 60.0% | +4300 |
| Michael Thompson | 0.9% | 10.1% | 59.1% | +14000 |
| Scott Stallings | 0.9% | 9.8% | 58.2% | +6500 |
| Richy Werenski | 0.9% | 9.8% | 59.1% | +8000 |
| Mark Hubbard | 0.8% | 8.6% | 56.4% | +16000 |
| C.T. Pan | 0.8% | 9.8% | 58.3% | +11000 |
| Bo Hoag | 0.8% | 9.0% | 57.0% | +14000 |
| Matthew NeSmith | 0.8% | 9.0% | 56.9% | +16000 |
| Luke List | 0.8% | 9.7% | 57.8% | +8000 |
| Dylan Frittelli | 0.8% | 10.0% | 59.0% | +8000 |
| Adam Long | 0.8% | 8.4% | 55.0% | +19000 |
| Kramer Hickok | 0.8% | 9.2% | 56.6% | +8000 |
| Nick Taylor | 0.8% | 9.4% | 58.1% | +14000 |
| J.T. Poston | 0.8% | 8.2% | 55.4% | +8000 |
| Henrik Norlander | 0.7% | 8.9% | 57.0% | +14000 |
| Martin Laird | 0.7% | 9.9% | 58.0% | +16000 |
| Scott Piercy | 0.7% | 8.2% | 55.0% | +8000 |
| Mito Pereira | 0.6% | 7.6% | 54.0% | +11000 |
| Adam Schenk | 0.6% | 7.3% | 54.2% | +19000 |
The model likes Daniel Berger to win this thing around 8.0% of the time, which is solid but not necessarily enough to want to bet him at +950 on FanDuel Sportsbook.
The same overvalued tag applies to some of the other favorites -- Brian Harman (+1500), Russell Henley (+1700), and Sungjae Im (+1700) with Henley being the closest to a proper play.
It isn't until we get to a pair of short-hitting former winners at TPC Deere Run that we see positive expected value with Steve Stricker (+4300) and Zach Johnson (+4300).
Where we see the value really is with a tier of long shots overall, and some names who outperformed their FanDuel Sportsbook odds include Denny McCarthy (+14000), Doug Ghim (+6000), Sebastian Munoz (+8000), Matthew NeSmith (+16000), Michael Thompson (+14000), and Lucas Glover (+6000).
I've got the most interest in Henley and Si Woo Kim among the favorites but will also be peppering the middle tier with options such as Stricker, Johnson, Ghim, and Munoz.