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 adjust for course fit easily. 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 Sentry Tournament of Champions, according to the models, as well as their Golf odds win odds.
| Golfer | FanDuel Salary | Win% | Top- 10% | Made Cut% | FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Rahm | $12,000 | 10.0% | 56.2% | 100.0% | +800 |
| Patrick Cantlay | $11,200 | 8.9% | 53.7% | 100.0% | +1400 |
| Bryson DeChambeau | $11,600 | 7.1% | 47.4% | 100.0% | +1100 |
| Justin Thomas | $11,900 | 5.8% | 45.8% | 100.0% | +800 |
| Cameron Smith | $10,700 | 5.7% | 44.6% | 100.0% | +2000 |
| Jordan Spieth | $10,900 | 5.0% | 48.5% | 100.0% | +2000 |
| Viktor Hovland | $11,400 | 4.9% | 41.4% | 100.0% | +1100 |
| Collin Morikawa | $11,700 | 4.5% | 34.0% | 100.0% | +1000 |
| Xander Schauffele | $11,500 | 4.3% | 39.2% | 100.0% | +1200 |
| Daniel Berger | $10,500 | 4.2% | 39.9% | 100.0% | +2200 |
| Sam Burns | $11,100 | 4.1% | 37.6% | 100.0% | +1600 |
| Tony Finau | $10,000 | 3.3% | 33.8% | 100.0% | +2700 |
| Talor Gooch | $9,400 | 2.8% | 30.8% | 100.0% | +4100 |
| Abraham Ancer | $10,100 | 2.5% | 29.3% | 100.0% | +2900 |
| Sungjae Im | $10,400 | 2.4% | 27.9% | 100.0% | +2200 |
| Jason Kokrak | $9,300 | 2.4% | 28.4% | 100.0% | +3300 |
| Marc Leishman | $9,600 | 2.0% | 24.4% | 100.0% | +3300 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | $10,800 | 1.9% | 25.5% | 100.0% | +2000 |
| Brooks Koepka | $10,200 | 1.9% | 26.6% | 100.0% | +2900 |
| Harris English | $9,700 | 1.8% | 24.5% | 100.0% | +3300 |
| Seamus Power | $9,100 | 1.6% | 22.2% | 100.0% | +5000 |
| Kevin Na | $9,000 | 1.5% | 23.7% | 100.0% | +6500 |
| Patrick Reed | $9,900 | 1.4% | 20.8% | 100.0% | +2700 |
| Billy Horschel | $8,800 | 1.2% | 19.1% | 100.0% | +6500 |
| Max Homa | $8,500 | 1.0% | 20.1% | 100.0% | +8000 |
| Branden Grace | $8,100 | 0.9% | 14.4% | 100.0% | +10000 |
| Stewart Cink | $7,000 | 0.8% | 13.7% | 100.0% | +21000 |
| Matt Jones | $7,200 | 0.8% | 14.7% | 100.0% | +15000 |
| Kyoung-hoon Lee | $7,500 | 0.7% | 14.9% | 100.0% | +12000 |
| Erik van Rooyen | $7,300 | 0.6% | 11.6% | 100.0% | +13000 |
| Siwoo Kim | $8,600 | 0.6% | 11.7% | 100.0% | +8000 |
| Joel Dahmen | $7,400 | 0.6% | 11.2% | 100.0% | +12000 |
| Lucas Herbert | $7,900 | 0.5% | 13.8% | 100.0% | +10000 |
| Cameron Davis | $7,700 | 0.5% | 12.2% | 100.0% | +12000 |
| Lucas Glover | $7,100 | 0.4% | 9.5% | 100.0% | +21000 |
| Garrick Higgo | $8,000 | 0.4% | 9.3% | 100.0% | +10000 |
| Phil Mickelson | $7,800 | 0.3% | 7.4% | 100.0% | +12000 |
| Cameron Champ | $8,900 | 0.1% | 5.3% | 100.0% | +6500 |
| Kevin Kisner | $8,200 | 0.1% | 5.1% | 100.0% | +10000 |
Both of the co-favorites -- Jon Rahm and Justin Thomas at +800 -- are overvalued, per the model, and there looks to be some plus value on Patrick Cantlay (+1400), Cameron Smith (+2000), and Jordan Spieth (+2000) as a result of most of the other favorites being too short on the odds board.
If you look back at the past winners here, you'll talk yourself out of long-shot bets and reserve those sneaky names for top 10s. We've had Harris English, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele, Dustin Johnson, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, and Patrick Reed win the past seven of these.
So that's why I'm focused on Cantlay and Smith primarily at the top.
Daniel Berger (+2200) is a pretty fair value, as is Tony Finau (+2700), though I'm personally considering going with Brooks Koepka (+2900) in hopes of a hot start to the 2022 season on someone who seems to be getting healthier.
Without longshot bets drawing my attention, I'll be looking for top-10 plays on any or all of Jason Kokrak (+3300 to win; +240 to finish top-10), Talor Gooch (+4100; +240), Max Homa (+8000; +320), and Kevin Na (+6500; +360).