GOLF
Gdula's Golf Simulations: The Honda Classic
The field strength is down for The Honda Classic, so how does that affect win odds for this week?

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 very 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 Honda Classic, according to the models.

Golfer Simulated
Win%
Simulated
Top-10%
Simulated
Made Cut%
FanDuel
Sportsbook
Win Odds
Russell Henley5.3%31.6%78.5%+2900
Joaquin Niemann4.8%29.7%77.4%+1800
Sungjae Im3.8%24.4%73.9%+1200
Cameron Tringale2.6%20.2%70.1%+4000
Talor Gooch2.2%18.8%69.1%+3100
Shane Lowry2.2%15.4%65.4%+2000
Lee Westwood1.9%17.0%67.8%+2000
Kevin Streelman1.9%16.2%66.6%+7500
Henrik Norlander1.8%13.1%62.5%+9500
Cameron Davis1.8%16.8%66.4%+4000
Harold Varner III1.8%13.6%63.8%+9500
Chris Kirk1.7%14.4%64.6%+3700
Zach Johnson1.7%16.3%66.4%+9500
Brendan Steele1.7%14.9%65.1%+4000
Adam Scott1.6%14.2%63.8%+2800
John Huh1.5%9.9%56.2%+10000
Jim Furyk1.5%9.0%54.4%+9000
Rickie Fowler1.4%11.3%60.8%+4900
J.T. Poston1.3%11.9%61.3%+6500
Patton Kizzire1.3%13.7%63.1%+8500
Matt Wallace1.3%13.1%62.3%+6500
Keegan Bradley1.3%12.2%62.3%+4900
Doug Ghim1.2%12.3%62.0%+6500
James Hahn1.2%12.5%61.7%+11000
Mackenzie Hughes1.2%15.6%65.2%+8000
Ian Poulter1.2%13.3%62.3%+7000
Denny McCarthy1.1%10.5%59.6%+14000
Chez Reavie1.1%9.4%57.1%+8500
Dylan Frittelli1.1%12.6%62.0%+6500
Adam Hadwin1.1%10.6%58.6%+8500
Matthew NeSmith1.1%10.6%59.1%+8500
Erik van Rooyen1.0%12.5%61.6%+7500
Alex Noren1.0%10.7%58.8%+7500
Lucas Glover1.0%10.0%57.5%+10000
Michael Thompson1.0%9.6%57.9%+8000
Sepp Straka1.0%10.7%59.9%+16000
Rory Sabbatini0.9%10.0%58.7%+12000
Tom Hoge0.9%10.5%58.8%+9500
Pat Perez0.9%8.9%56.2%+22000
Richy Werenski0.9%9.2%56.3%+8500
Scott Stallings0.8%10.0%58.7%+17000
Mark Hubbard0.8%9.6%57.5%+16000
Ryan Moore0.8%6.4%48.6%+8500
Charl Schwartzel0.8%8.3%55.7%+14000
Matt Jones0.8%10.6%58.7%+8500
Luke List0.7%8.5%55.7%+8000
Brian Stuard0.7%7.5%53.3%+25000
Bo Hoag0.7%8.6%55.9%+16000
Steve Stricker0.7%6.7%51.7%+19000
Aaron Wise0.7%7.6%53.3%+8500
Kristoffer Ventura0.7%8.2%54.9%+24000
Wyndham Clark0.6%8.7%55.4%+7000
Phil Mickelson0.6%6.0%50.3%+9500
Jhonattan Vegas0.6%7.8%54.3%+9500
Adam Long0.6%9.0%57.2%+7500
Stewart Cink0.6%8.0%54.8%+19000
Patrick Rodgers0.6%8.1%53.8%+16000
Tyler Duncan0.6%7.9%54.0%+25000
Peter Malnati0.6%11.4%60.8%+16000
Harry Higgs0.5%7.1%52.7%+11000
Kyoung-hoon Lee0.5%5.7%50.6%+7000
Nick Taylor0.5%7.4%54.0%+12000
Adam Schenk0.5%6.6%51.4%+19000
Cameron Percy0.5%7.8%54.0%+16000
Roger Sloan0.5%6.6%52.7%+25000
C.T. Pan0.5%6.2%51.6%+23000
Russell Knox0.5%7.0%51.8%+8000
Camilo Villegas0.5%4.5%43.7%+35000
Chesson Hadley0.5%5.8%49.8%+23000
Byeong Hun An0.5%6.0%50.4%+6000


A ton of golfers have at least 0.5% odds to win, according to the combined models simply due to the parity all the way down the list.

[Editor's note: Daniel Berger has withdrawn.] Daniel Berger is easily the class of the field by recent form and is at least in the conversation at +1000. But there are a few model favorites at the top of the list, as well.

With Berger out, Joaquin Niemann at +1800 has a lot of appeal, but he's not a positive value. We see just about everyone from +1800 to +6000 close to a justifiable bet.

The model is heavy on Russell Henley at +2900 with his elite iron play and good course form. He has finished top-25 in three straight years and 8th last year and won in 2014.

Cameron Tringale (+4000) and Talor Gooch (+3100) are also flashing some value. Tringale has made three of four cuts over the past four years, and Gooch has made two straight cuts at PGA National. The recent form, though, is what's giving them value here.

Kevin Streelman (+7500) and Henrik Norlander (+9500) are in play as moderate long shots, though Norlander was a nightmare here last year and isn't in great form. The weak field is leaving the door open for just about everyone.

I bet Henley and Gooch early in the week. I have since added action on Tringale, Streelman, Zach Johnson, and John Huh.

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