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 | $12,000 | 9.5% | 43.7% | 87.1% | +1100 |
| Xander Schauffele | $11,600 | 4.4% | 27.1% | 79.2% | +2200 |
| Jordan Spieth | $11,900 | 4.2% | 28.1% | 79.5% | +1800 |
| Viktor Hovland | $10,500 | 3.6% | 24.2% | 77.3% | +3100 |
| Dustin Johnson | $11,700 | 3.4% | 23.9% | 76.8% | +1700 |
| Collin Morikawa | $11,800 | 3.2% | 24.8% | 77.3% | +1700 |
| Patrick Cantlay | $10,900 | 2.9% | 22.8% | 76.2% | +3300 |
| Brooks Koepka | $11,500 | 2.9% | 20.2% | 74.5% | +2100 |
| Justin Thomas | $11,100 | 2.4% | 21.4% | 75.2% | +2700 |
| Daniel Berger | $10,800 | 2.4% | 21.2% | 75.4% | +3100 |
| Scottie Scheffler | $10,700 | 2.4% | 20.4% | 73.8% | +3300 |
| Paul Casey | $10,200 | 2.4% | 20.6% | 74.7% | +3800 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | $11,200 | 2.4% | 21.2% | 74.9% | +2900 |
| Webb Simpson | $10,300 | 2.3% | 19.1% | 73.8% | +3600 |
| Tyrrell Hatton | $9,500 | 2.2% | 17.1% | 71.8% | +6000 |
| Tony Finau | $9,700 | 2.1% | 16.7% | 71.5% | +6000 |
| Patrick Reed | $9,900 | 2.0% | 15.9% | 71.0% | +3500 |
| Cameron Smith | $10,000 | 1.9% | 16.9% | 71.1% | +3600 |
| Rory McIlroy | $11,400 | 1.8% | 18.1% | 72.5% | +2000 |
| Joaquin Niemann | $9,400 | 1.6% | 15.2% | 70.3% | +7500 |
| Abraham Ancer | $10,600 | 1.6% | 15.8% | 70.9% | +3100 |
| Corey Conners | $9,300 | 1.6% | 14.3% | 69.4% | +6000 |
| Harris English | $9,800 | 1.5% | 15.2% | 69.6% | +4100 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | $10,100 | 1.5% | 16.5% | 70.9% | +3600 |
| Jason Kokrak | $9,100 | 1.4% | 13.3% | 67.3% | +7500 |
| Matt Fitzpatrick | $9,500 | 1.4% | 14.2% | 69.1% | +6500 |
| Cameron Tringale | $8,700 | 1.3% | 11.6% | 65.7% | +15000 |
| Brian Harman | $9,200 | 1.1% | 11.9% | 66.9% | +7500 |
| Charley Hoffman | $8,300 | 0.9% | 9.8% | 62.4% | +15000 |
| Sergio Garcia | $8,900 | 0.9% | 11.1% | 65.0% | +9000 |
| Sungjae Im | $9,300 | 0.8% | 10.3% | 63.1% | +7500 |
| Russell Henley | $9,000 | 0.8% | 10.0% | 63.1% | +7500 |
| Sam Burns | $9,400 | 0.8% | 9.5% | 62.1% | +6000 |
| Adam Scott | $9,600 | 0.8% | 9.8% | 62.7% | +4300 |
| Talor Gooch | $7,800 | 0.8% | 8.8% | 61.1% | +24000 |
| Ryan Palmer | $8,000 | 0.8% | 8.1% | 59.4% | +18000 |
| Shane Lowry | $9,100 | 0.7% | 9.8% | 63.7% | +7500 |
| Emiliano Grillo | $8,400 | 0.7% | 8.1% | 59.6% | +15000 |
| Kevin Streelman | $8,600 | 0.7% | 9.5% | 62.4% | +12000 |
| Max Homa | $8,200 | 0.7% | 8.2% | 60.3% | +15000 |
| Keegan Bradley | $8,500 | 0.7% | 9.2% | 61.8% | +14000 |
| Bubba Watson | $8,800 | 0.6% | 7.2% | 57.9% | +15000 |
| Ian Poulter | $8,800 | 0.5% | 8.4% | 60.9% | +7500 |
| Jason Day | $8,600 | 0.5% | 8.2% | 60.0% | +12000 |
| Stewart Cink | $8,000 | 0.5% | 6.6% | 56.4% | +15000 |
| Lanto Griffin | $7,300 | 0.5% | 6.3% | 56.6% | +42000 |
| Branden Grace | $8,700 | 0.5% | 6.5% | 56.6% | +9000 |
| Matt Wallace | $7,800 | 0.5% | 6.9% | 58.0% | +24000 |
| Si Woo Kim | $9,000 | 0.5% | 6.7% | 57.3% | +9000 |
| Kevin Na | $8,900 | 0.4% | 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).