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 World Wide Technology Championship at Mayakoba, according to the models, as well as their Golf odds win odds.
| Golfer | FanDuel Salary | Win% | Top- 10% | Made Cut% | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Abraham Ancer | $11,400 | 7.2% | 36.3% | 82.9% | +1500 |
| Viktor Hovland | $11,800 | 5.3% | 29.8% | 80.0% | +1900 |
| Justin Thomas | $12,000 | 3.0% | 22.2% | 75.1% | +1600 |
| Russell Henley | $9,600 | 2.9% | 21.6% | 74.4% | +4200 |
| Matt Fitzpatrick | $10,800 | 2.5% | 19.7% | 73.4% | +3700 |
| Brendon Todd | $9,000 | 2.4% | 18.1% | 72.0% | +8000 |
| Scottie Scheffler | $11,500 | 2.3% | 17.5% | 71.3% | +3200 |
| Billy Horschel | $10,400 | 2.3% | 19.3% | 72.2% | +3500 |
| Kevin Streelman | $8,700 | 2.2% | 17.5% | 71.3% | +6000 |
| Ian Poulter | $9,000 | 2.1% | 16.7% | 70.3% | +8000 |
| Brian Harman | $9,200 | 2.0% | 17.0% | 71.1% | +7000 |
| Tony Finau | $11,600 | 2.0% | 16.4% | 70.2% | +3000 |
| Christiaan Bezuidenhout | $9,900 | 2.0% | 14.7% | 68.2% | +7000 |
| Tyrrell Hatton | $11,100 | 2.0% | 15.4% | 69.1% | +3500 |
| Cameron Tringale | $10,500 | 1.9% | 15.5% | 69.0% | +4500 |
| Keegan Bradley | $9,600 | 1.8% | 15.4% | 69.1% | +6500 |
| Talor Gooch | $10,300 | 1.8% | 14.2% | 67.5% | +4500 |
| Patrick Reed | $11,300 | 1.7% | 14.2% | 67.8% | +3700 |
| Sergio Garcia | $10,000 | 1.6% | 15.4% | 69.0% | +4900 |
| Shane Lowry | $10,700 | 1.6% | 13.4% | 66.3% | +3600 |
| Chris Kirk | $8,000 | 1.6% | 13.0% | 66.7% | +10000 |
| Chez Reavie | $7,600 | 1.6% | 15.5% | 68.8% | +8000 |
| Aaron Wise | $10,600 | 1.5% | 14.9% | 68.1% | +3400 |
| Alex Noren | $10,200 | 1.4% | 12.3% | 65.4% | +7000 |
| Emiliano Grillo | $9,100 | 1.3% | 13.3% | 66.3% | +6000 |
| Brian Stuard | $7,800 | 1.3% | 12.7% | 66.0% | +16000 |
| Ryan Moore | $7,800 | 1.2% | 11.2% | 63.9% | +17000 |
| Guillermo Mito Pereira | $9,800 | 1.2% | 11.6% | 64.9% | +4900 |
| Justin Rose | $9,900 | 1.1% | 10.6% | 62.4% | +8000 |
| Brooks Koepka | $11,700 | 1.1% | 12.2% | 64.9% | +3500 |
| Kyle Stanley | $7,300 | 1.0% | 10.9% | 63.7% | +16000 |
| Maverick McNealy | $9,700 | 1.0% | 11.3% | 63.4% | +4800 |
| Will Zalatoris | $10,900 | 1.0% | 10.4% | 62.5% | +3800 |
| Russell Knox | $8,900 | 1.0% | 11.7% | 64.6% | +6500 |
| Joel Dahmen | $8,300 | 1.0% | 12.0% | 64.1% | +8000 |
| Joaquin Niemann | $9,800 | 1.0% | 10.6% | 63.3% | +4100 |
| Doug Ghim | $8,000 | 0.9% | 9.7% | 62.3% | +19000 |
| Seamus Power | $9,700 | 0.9% | 10.0% | 62.1% | +7500 |
| Harold Varner III | $8,800 | 0.9% | 11.4% | 63.9% | +6000 |
| Charley Hoffman | $9,200 | 0.9% | 9.2% | 60.6% | +9500 |
| Adam Hadwin | $8,600 | 0.9% | 10.1% | 61.9% | +8000 |
| Brice Garnett | $8,100 | 0.8% | 10.6% | 62.8% | +16000 |
| Pat Perez | $8,500 | 0.8% | 10.5% | 63.2% | +10000 |
| Tom Hoge | $8,200 | 0.8% | 9.4% | 61.3% | +14000 |
| Troy Merritt | $7,800 | 0.8% | 8.8% | 60.8% | +19000 |
| Henrik Norlander | $8,500 | 0.8% | 9.1% | 60.0% | +14000 |
| Michael Thompson | $7,000 | 0.7% | 8.7% | 60.5% | +31000 |
| Matt Kuchar | $9,400 | 0.7% | 8.4% | 59.9% | +11000 |
| Brendan Steele | $9,400 | 0.7% | 8.6% | 59.3% | +11000 |
| Carlos Ortiz | $8,900 | 0.7% | 9.2% | 60.8% | +6500 |
| Rickie Fowler | $10,000 | 0.6% | 8.5% | 59.0% | +4800 |
| Ryan Palmer | $8,500 | 0.6% | 6.8% | 56.4% | +12000 |
| Zach Johnson | $8,000 | 0.6% | 7.2% | 57.4% | +19000 |
| Martin Laird | $7,400 | 0.6% | 8.6% | 60.2% | +19000 |
| Jhonattan Vegas | $9,000 | 0.6% | 7.9% | 59.0% | +8000 |
| C.T. Pan | $8,700 | 0.6% | 7.8% | 58.4% | +9000 |
| Aaron Rai | $8,100 | 0.6% | 8.2% | 59.0% | +19000 |
| Stephan Jaeger | $8,200 | 0.6% | 7.7% | 57.7% | +16000 |
| Brandt Snedeker | $7,700 | 0.5% | 6.1% | 54.0% | +25000 |
| Gary Woodland | $9,500 | 0.5% | 7.3% | 56.9% | +7500 |
| Adam Svensson | $7,400 | 0.5% | 7.0% | 57.2% | +25000 |
| Patton Kizzire | $8,300 | 0.5% | 6.0% | 54.0% | +16000 |
| Adam Long | $8,600 | 0.5% | 6.2% | 54.9% | +10000 |
| Charles Howell III | $8,300 | 0.5% | 8.0% | 58.3% | +13000 |
| James Hahn | $7,500 | 0.5% | 6.4% | 55.6% | +25000 |
| Kramer Hickok | $7,200 | 0.5% | 6.0% | 54.9% | +25000 |
It's weird to see that it isn't Justin Thomas (+1400) as the model's favorite (and actually to see Thomas at just 3.0%), but this course requires (or at least rewards) accuracy off the tee rather than driving distance.
That alters Thomas' baseline projection here and bumps up Abraham Ancer (+2000) as the model's favorite.
Ancer already shortened from +2700 to the +2000 mark, drawing near Viktor Hovland's (+1700) odds as the defending champion.
So, based on course fit, Ancer and Hovland make more sense than Thomas, and Ancer is a pretty sizable betting value in the simulations. It helps that the model views Thomas as overvalued. Hovland is an even value.
With Thomas, Tony Finau (+2500) and most of the 30s being overvalued, we do have plenty of plays who rate out as positive expected value bets: Russell Henley (+5000), Brendon Todd (+7500), Kevin Streelman (+7000), Ian Poulter (+8000), Brian Harman (+7000), and Christiaan Bezuidenhout (+4900).
Ancer at 20/1 will start the card, and I'll be skipping over most of the 30/1 range for some longer-shots -- given that accuracy-friendly courses keep a larger portion of the field in play.
Updates: We've seen massive shifts to the betting odds at the top. Ancer is now the favorite at 15/1 but still rates as a positive betting value because of the course fit. Hovland is now a slight value, but Thomas remains overvalued.