The Golf Engine Predicts the Best Bets for the PGA Championship

August 07, 2018 - Pat Ross

The Golf Engine Predicts the Best Bets for the PGA Championship

We take a break from football to bring you a golf engine which uses machine learning to evaluate 1,500 different statistics for every golfer on the PGA Tour over each tournament since 2004. The analysis of this massive dataset provides an opportunity to predict players that are due to go low.

The engine looks at how each statistical set contributes to what we can expect from players on this stage, at this tournament. It’s a complex web of information that can only be properly analyzed by a math engine, yet yields some objectively surprising results.

This year’s Championship is no exception as the model is calling for Phil Mickelson (100/1 odds) to break into the top 5, with Kyle Stanley (80/1 odds) and Tony Finau (40/1 odds) cracking the top 10!

Some surprises:

Kyle Stanley (80/1 odds), Tony Finau (40/1) and Phil Mickelson (100/1) inside the top 10.

Zach Johnson (100/1) and Patrick Cantlay (50/1) inside the top 15.

Perhaps just as surprising are the golfers that may underperform this week. Two recent Major Championship winners were projected outside of our top 20 - Francesco Molinari (33/1 ) and Jordan Spieth (20/1).

Notable left-outs:

Tiger Woods (28/1), Henrik Stenson (50/1) and Alex Noren (50/1) finishing outside the top 25!

Rickie Fowler (22/1), Justin Rose (22/1), Patrick Reed (35/1) and Bubba Watson (50/1) all finishing outside the top 10.

A few more points of note:

Top 5

Dustin Johnson (8/1 odds). Getting the top call from both the oddsmakers and the model is not hugely surprising. The TOUR leader in Fedex Cup points and 3-time winner this season is also leading the TOUR in Strokes Gained: off-the-Tee, Strokes Gained: Tee-to-Green and Overall Strokes Gained. Oh, and he’s fresh off of a dominating win 2 weeks back and a low-round 64 at the WGC: Bridgestone this past Sunday. He is a threat to win anywhere and everywhere.

Justin Thomas (14-1 odds). No surprise here considering his dominating performance at last week’s WGC: Bridgestone Invitational.

Jason Day (20/1 odds). A two-time winner in 2018 (so far) and already a PGA Champion, putting better than 90% from inside 10 feet this season… just let that sink in.

Jon Rahm (25/1 odds). The results haven’t been there of late, but his game appears to be rounding back into form in perfect time for the final Major of the year and with the Fedex Cup playoffs just around the corner.

Phil Mickelson (100/1 odds). I’m not sure which is more surprising… seeing "Lefty" in our model’s top 5 at the age of 43 or the 5-time Major Champion at such long odds. Either way, he looks like a the value at 100-1.

Top 10

Tony Finau (40/1 odds). Finishes in Major Championships this season: the Masters (T10), US Open (Solo 5th), Open Championship (T9). At 40-1 he’d be the steal of this year’s Championship if not for Phil.

Kyle Stanley (80/1 odds). The Gig Harbor, Washington native has been playing sneaky good golf this year, including an impressive 2nd place finish last week at the star-studded WGC: Bridgestone. Can he ride the hot-hand into this week's equally dense field and finish with another top 10?

The Field

The rest of the projections include some other surprising results like Tiger outside of the top 25 and Aaron Wise in it. Below is the entire list of all the golfers playing in the PGA Championship and their rank according to the engine.

Projected Rank	Player	ODDS
1	Dustin Johnson	8
2	Justin Thomas	14
3	Jason Day	20
4	Jon Rahm	25
5	Phil Mickelson	100
6	Brooks Koepka	20
7	Tommy Fleetwood	28
8	Rory McIlroy	12
9	Tony Finau	40
10	Kyle Stanley	80
11	Rickie Fowler	22
12	Justin Rose	22
13	Patrick Reed	35
14	Zach Johnson	100
15	Patrick Cantlay	50
16	Webb Simpson	75
17	Marc Leishman	66
18	Bryson DeChambeau	80
19	Aaron Wise	125
20	Jordan Spieth	20
21	Bubba Watson	50
22	Cameron Smith	200
23	Paul Casey	50
24	Francesco Molinari	33
25	Matt Kuchar	80
26	Ian Poulter	100
27	Tiger Woods	28
28	Hideki Matsuyama	66
29	J.J. Spaun	250
30	Louis Oosthuizen	80
31	Luke List	125
32	Rafa Cabrera Bello	150
33	Kevin Na	200
34	Anirban Lahiri	200
35	Gary Woodland	100
36	Ollie Schniederjans	300
37	Henrik Stenson	50
38	Emiliano Grillo	200
39	Ross Fisher	250
40	Byeong Hun An	125
41	Pat Perez	250
42	Chesson Hadley	250
43	Brendan Steele	250
44	Kiradech Aphibarnrat	200
45	Kevin Kisner	100
46	Charl Schwartzel	150
47	Adam Scott	150
48	Xander Schauffele	50
49	Brian Harman	100
50	Daniel Berger	100
51	Kevin Chappell	125
52	Shane Lowry	150
53	Brandt Snedeker	150
54	Branden Grace	100
55	Patton Kizzire	300
56	Jason Kokrak	500
57	Ryan Moore	150
58	Billy Horschel	200
59	Jhonattan Vegas	200
60	Jamie Lovemark	200
61	Brian Gay	250
62	Charley Hoffman	100
63	Russell Henley	150
64	Jimmy Walker	200
65	Satoshi Kodaira	300
66	Russell Knox	150
67	Austin Cook	300
68	Peter Uihlein	300
69	Charles Howell III	250
70	Keegan Bradley	100
71	Andrew Landry	250
72	Chris Stroud	300
73	Sergio Garcia	100
74	Adam Hadwin	300
75	Bill Haas	500
76	Jim Furyk	250
77	Stewart Cink	200
78	Brice Garnett	300
79	Chris Kirk
80	James Hahn	250
81	Chez Reavie	400
82	Michael Kim	250
83	Scott Piercy	300
84	J.B. Holmes	200
85	Troy Merritt	200
86	Beau Hossler	200
87	Padraig Harrington	250
88	Nick Watney	200
89	Scott Brown	300
90	Jason Dufner	200
91	Ryan Armour	250
92	Tyrrell Hatton	150
93	Paul Dunne	200
94	Matthew Fitzpatrick	150
95	Thomas Pieters	150
96	Ryan Fox	300
97	Julian Suri	200
98	Dylan Frittelli	200
99	Chris Wood	250
100	Seungsu Han	400
101	Alexander Björk	200
102	Joaquin Niemann	66
103	Brandon Stone	250
104	Ryuko Tokimatsu	400
105	Shubhankar Sharma	200
106	Jorge Campillo	250
107	Eddie Pepperell	200
108	Danny Willett	250
109	Sungjae Im	300
110	Alexander Levy	250
111	Andy Sullivan	400
112	Yusaku Miyazato	300
113	Matt Wallace	250
114	Yuta Ikeda	300
115	Martin Kaymer	300
116	Ted Potter Jr.	400
117	Andrew D. Putnam
118	Meen-Whee Kim
119	Jordan Smith	250
120	Thorbjorn Olesen	75
121	Hao-Tong Li
122	Alexander Noren	50
123	Si-Woo Kim	150
124	Vijay Singh	300
125	Michael Block	750
126	John Daly	750
127	Davis Love III	500
128	Shaun Micheel	200
129	Omar Uresti	2000
130	Johan Kok

Odds Courtesy of Bovada

How the Golf Engine makes its picks

In golf, a pro matches up as much with the golf course as another competitor. Which is why any attempt to predict the outcome of a golf tournament must account for the nuances of the course. Analyzing past and present data through the use of math can more accurately project future performance.

In this model, we use machine learning to evaluate 1,500 different statistics for every golfer on the PGA Tour over each tournament since 2004. The analysis of this massive dataset allows gives us an opportunity to predict players that are due to go low.

The machine learns how these statistics can become a unique strength or glaring weakness for each golfer by comparing tens of thousands of different combinations and separating the patterns from the noise. The resulting ‘model’ is able to ‘deep dive’ and determine when to expect low rounds from a pro, given their unique style of play. These calculations are next to impossible to do quickly and certainly without personal and subjective biases, until now.

This is the second tournament the golf engine has been used to predict on the site. Here are its predictions for the Open Championship.

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