GOLF

Gdula's Golf Simulations and Betting Picks: THE NORTHERN TRUST

Who has the right fit and form to pick up the first win in the FedEx Cup Playoffs?

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 NORTHERN TRUST, according to the models.

Golfer FanDuel
Salary
Win% Top-10% Made
Cut%
FanDuel
Sportsbook
Win Odds
Jon Rahm$12,0009.5%43.7%87.1%+1100
Xander Schauffele$11,6004.4%27.1%79.2%+2200
Jordan Spieth$11,9004.2%28.1%79.5%+1800
Viktor Hovland$10,5003.6%24.2%77.3%+3100
Dustin Johnson$11,7003.4%23.9%76.8%+1700
Collin Morikawa$11,8003.2%24.8%77.3%+1700
Patrick Cantlay$10,9002.9%22.8%76.2%+3300
Brooks Koepka$11,5002.9%20.2%74.5%+2100
Justin Thomas$11,1002.4%21.4%75.2%+2700
Daniel Berger$10,8002.4%21.2%75.4%+3100
Scottie Scheffler$10,7002.4%20.4%73.8%+3300
Paul Casey$10,2002.4%20.6%74.7%+3800
Bryson DeChambeau$11,2002.4%21.2%74.9%+2900
Webb Simpson$10,3002.3%19.1%73.8%+3600
Tyrrell Hatton$9,5002.2%17.1%71.8%+6000
Tony Finau$9,7002.1%16.7%71.5%+6000
Patrick Reed$9,9002.0%15.9%71.0%+3500
Cameron Smith$10,0001.9%16.9%71.1%+3600
Rory McIlroy$11,4001.8%18.1%72.5%+2000
Joaquin Niemann$9,4001.6%15.2%70.3%+7500
Abraham Ancer$10,6001.6%15.8%70.9%+3100
Corey Conners$9,3001.6%14.3%69.4%+6000
Harris English$9,8001.5%15.2%69.6%+4100
Hideki Matsuyama$10,1001.5%16.5%70.9%+3600
Jason Kokrak$9,1001.4%13.3%67.3%+7500
Matt Fitzpatrick$9,5001.4%14.2%69.1%+6500
Cameron Tringale$8,7001.3%11.6%65.7%+15000
Brian Harman$9,2001.1%11.9%66.9%+7500
Charley Hoffman$8,3000.9%9.8%62.4%+15000
Sergio Garcia$8,9000.9%11.1%65.0%+9000
Sungjae Im$9,3000.8%10.3%63.1%+7500
Russell Henley$9,0000.8%10.0%63.1%+7500
Sam Burns$9,4000.8%9.5%62.1%+6000
Adam Scott$9,6000.8%9.8%62.7%+4300
Talor Gooch$7,8000.8%8.8%61.1%+24000
Ryan Palmer$8,0000.8%8.1%59.4%+18000
Shane Lowry$9,1000.7%9.8%63.7%+7500
Emiliano Grillo$8,4000.7%8.1%59.6%+15000
Kevin Streelman$8,6000.7%9.5%62.4%+12000
Max Homa$8,2000.7%8.2%60.3%+15000
Keegan Bradley$8,5000.7%9.2%61.8%+14000
Bubba Watson$8,8000.6%7.2%57.9%+15000
Ian Poulter$8,8000.5%8.4%60.9%+7500
Jason Day$8,6000.5%8.2%60.0%+12000
Stewart Cink$8,0000.5%6.6%56.4%+15000
Lanto Griffin$7,3000.5%6.3%56.6%+42000
Branden Grace$8,7000.5%6.5%56.6%+9000
Matt Wallace$7,8000.5%6.9%58.0%+24000
Si Woo Kim$9,0000.5%6.7%57.3%+9000
Kevin Na$8,9000.4%6.8%57.1%+9000


The model is actually sort of liking Jon Rahm at his listed odds (+1100 on FanDuel Sportsbook), which is rare to see for a betting favorite. Rahm just has easily been the world's best golfer over the past year with field strength and recency adjustments made, and datagolf's course fit tool sees him as a positive fit at Liberty National. I probably won't bet him myself because I'm a donkey, but again, it's a super rare week where the model suggests the favorite is undervalued.

Thought the model doesn't like him, I like Jordan Spieth (+1800) enough to consider him regardless. Spieth has played the course well (19th in 2013 and 7th in 2019). It's also a course that doesn't demand any one specific skill-set.

There's slight value on Xander Schauffele (+2200), as well, but I'll be skipping past my main man for one of my other main men: Viktor Hovland (+3100). Hovland's short game will be tested, but the past winners here haven't exactly lit it up with the putter. That bodes well for Hovland.

Patrick Cantlay (+3300) is a totally fair value, and he finished 12th here in 2019, doing it mostly with the short game. That's the appeal of well-rounded golfers such as Cantlay and Schauffele.

As for longer shots, we get some reprieve because of the top-heavy field, leading to long numbers on great players. Tyrrell Hatton (+6000), Tony Finau (+6000), Joaquin Niemann (+7500), and Jason Kokrak (+7500) are all strong values at their given numbers.

Hovland is my primary bet for the week, and then from there, I'll be likely living in the Hatton, Finau, Niemann, Kokrak range for other outrights.

As for top-10 and top-20 candidates, those include Cameron Tringale (+15000 outright), Talor Gooch (+24000), and Charley Hoffman (+15000).