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 BMW Championship, according to the models.
| Golfer | FanDuel Salary | Win% | Top-10% | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Rahm | $12,000 | 11.4% | 52.7% | +600 |
| Patrick Cantlay | $10,700 | 3.8% | 28.8% | +2200 |
| Xander Schauffele | $11,700 | 3.7% | 29.9% | +1800 |
| Jordan Spieth | $11,500 | 3.7% | 26.4% | +2000 |
| Viktor Hovland | $10,300 | 3.4% | 26.9% | +3100 |
| Cameron Smith | $10,900 | 3.3% | 26.9% | +2200 |
| Collin Morikawa | $11,400 | 3.2% | 28.0% | +1800 |
| Paul Casey | $10,100 | 3.1% | 25.9% | +3400 |
| Justin Thomas | $11,600 | 3.1% | 27.0% | +1600 |
| Dustin Johnson | $11,200 | 2.9% | 23.0% | +2000 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | $11,100 | 2.8% | 26.0% | +2000 |
| Daniel Berger | $10,200 | 2.7% | 25.6% | +3300 |
| Tony Finau | $11,000 | 2.7% | 23.7% | +2200 |
| Louis Oosthuizen | $10,600 | 2.7% | 24.4% | +2200 |
| Scottie Scheffler | $10,400 | 2.5% | 24.9% | +3100 |
| Brooks Koepka | $11,300 | 2.4% | 22.2% | +2200 |
| Corey Conners | $9,600 | 2.4% | 21.1% | +3300 |
| Abraham Ancer | $10,000 | 2.3% | 20.6% | +3400 |
| Webb Simpson | $9,900 | 2.1% | 21.2% | +3400 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | $9,800 | 2.0% | 21.5% | +3400 |
| Joaquin Niemann | $9,400 | 1.9% | 18.8% | +5000 |
| Rory McIlroy | $10,800 | 1.9% | 20.9% | +2700 |
| Harris English | $9,700 | 1.7% | 19.3% | +4100 |
| Cameron Tringale | $8,800 | 1.5% | 15.8% | +6500 |
| Sam Burns | $9,300 | 1.3% | 15.1% | +5000 |
| Shane Lowry | $9,500 | 1.2% | 14.7% | +3400 |
| Sungjae Im | $9,200 | 1.2% | 14.7% | +5000 |
| Jason Kokrak | $9,000 | 1.2% | 13.3% | +6500 |
| Keegan Bradley | $8,700 | 1.1% | 14.0% | +7000 |
| Russell Henley | $9,100 | 1.1% | 13.7% | +6500 |
| Brian Harman | $8,300 | 1.1% | 12.7% | +10000 |
| Charley Hoffman | $8,500 | 1.0% | 13.6% | +10000 |
| Ryan Palmer | $7,500 | 0.9% | 10.5% | +12000 |
| Talor Gooch | $7,400 | 0.9% | 11.5% | +15000 |
| Sergio Garcia | $8,600 | 0.9% | 13.3% | +8000 |
| Kevin Na | $8,900 | 0.9% | 12.1% | +6500 |
| Kevin Streelman | $8,200 | 0.9% | 12.3% | +10000 |
| Max Homa | $7,600 | 0.8% | 10.8% | +12000 |
| Emiliano Grillo | $7,600 | 0.8% | 10.9% | +12000 |
| Alex Noren | $8,600 | 0.7% | 10.5% | +7000 |
| Stewart Cink | $7,800 | 0.7% | 9.0% | +12000 |
| Branden Grace | $8,000 | 0.7% | 8.4% | +12000 |
| Jhonattan Vegas | $8,000 | 0.7% | 9.8% | +10000 |
| Billy Horschel | $8,500 | 0.6% | 9.6% | +8000 |
| Maverick McNealy | $8,200 | 0.6% | 10.7% | +10000 |
| Chris Kirk | $7,200 | 0.6% | 9.5% | +21000 |
| Carlos Ortiz | $7,400 | 0.5% | 9.2% | +15000 |
| Patton Kizzire | $7,100 | 0.5% | 8.2% | +21000 |
| Harold Varner III | $8,400 | 0.5% | 7.9% | +8000 |
| Aaron Wise | $7,300 | 0.5% | 8.0% | +15000 |
| Sebastian Munoz | $7,900 | 0.4% | 7.9% | +12000 |
| Mackenzie Hughes | $7,800 | 0.4% | 7.0% | +12000 |
| Erik van Rooyen | $8,300 | 0.4% | 7.9% | +8000 |
| Cameron Davis | $7,700 | 0.4% | 6.9% | +12000 |
| Siwoo Kim | $8,100 | 0.4% | 8.5% | +10000 |
| Marc Leishman | $7,900 | 0.3% | 6.9% | +12000 |
| Matt Jones | $7,000 | 0.3% | 5.7% | +21000 |
| Lucas Glover | $7,000 | 0.3% | 5.6% | +21000 |
| Lee Westwood | $7,700 | 0.3% | 6.7% | +12000 |
| Charl Schwartzel | $7,200 | 0.3% | 5.2% | +15000 |
| Tom Hoge | $7,100 | 0.2% | 4.3% | +15000 |
| Harry Higgs | $7,100 | 0.2% | 4.0% | +21000 |
| Robert Streb | $7,000 | 0.2% | 4.0% | +32000 |
| Kyoung-hoon Lee | $7,000 | 0.2% | 5.3% | +21000 |
| Keith Mitchell | $7,300 | 0.2% | 4.0% | +15000 |
| Kevin Kisner | $8,100 | 0.2% | 4.8% | +10000 |
| Cameron Champ | $8,400 | 0.2% | 4.5% | +6500 |
| Phil Mickelson | $7,500 | 0.1% | 3.0% | +12000 |
| Hudson Swafford | $7,000 | 0.1% | 2.6% | +21000 |
I mean, it's kind of wild now, but Jon Rahm just is that guy. Over the past year, his strokes gained average once adjusting for field strength and recency, has him 2.55 strokes better than the worldwide average male pro golfer. Next best in the field is Xander Schauffele at 1.81. The gap is massive for Rahm, which explains why he's +600 to win outright in this 69-golfer field. He's not a good betting value, but boy, is he a lock for FanDuel cash game lineups.
With Rahm rating out as a poor expected value, we should see some positive value elsewhere.
Patrick Cantlay (+2200) falls just shy, but he's in a clear cluster in that second tier behind Rahm.
Viktor Hovland (+3100) and Paul Casey (+3400) exceeded value in the simulations by a decent margin, and both rank top-10 in my stats model for the week (Hovland is 3rd, and Casey is 8th).
Joaquin Niemann (+5000) and Cameron Tringale (+6500) are even values at their current numbers.
Though the model doesn't like him, I've got strong interest in Dustin Johnson (+2000) after a missed cut. The time off may benefit DJ after most of these golfers played late into Monday evening. Johnson also played here in the 2007 Palmer Cup. It's something, at least, at a course where most of these golfers will be coming in with no knowledge.
Hovland, Cantlay, and Johnson are my main angles this week with top-10 interest in Niemann, Tringale, Jason Kokrak, Sam Burns, and Brian Harman.