Gdula's Golf Simulations and Betting Picks: Wyndham Championship
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 Wyndham Championship, according to the models.
| Golfer | FanDuel Salary |
Win% | Top-10% | Made Cut% |
FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Louis Oosthuizen | $11,800 | 7.6% | 34.7% | 79.5% | +2000 |
| Webb Simpson | $12,100 | 5.7% | 32.9% | 78.4% | +1200 |
| Patrick Reed | $11,700 | 4.8% | 26.9% | 74.8% | +2200 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | $11,900 | 3.9% | 27.2% | 74.4% | +1500 |
| Brian Harman | $11,300 | 3.8% | 26.2% | 74.7% | +2900 |
| Jason Kokrak | $11,400 | 3.5% | 22.0% | 71.3% | +3100 |
| Sungjae Im | $11,200 | 2.4% | 18.6% | 68.3% | +3100 |
| Will Zalatoris | $11,500 | 2.3% | 18.2% | 67.9% | +2700 |
| Russell Henley | $10,900 | 2.2% | 18.4% | 68.1% | +3200 |
| Kevin Streelman | $9,900 | 1.8% | 16.9% | 66.5% | +5500 |
| Talor Gooch | $9,600 | 1.7% | 14.4% | 62.8% | +6500 |
| Siwoo Kim | $10,600 | 1.7% | 14.5% | 63.6% | +3400 |
| Adam Scott | $10,800 | 1.6% | 12.5% | 60.6% | +4500 |
| Brendon Todd | $8,700 | 1.6% | 14.9% | 64.1% | +10000 |
| Bubba Watson | $10,500 | 1.4% | 12.4% | 60.6% | +4800 |
| Tommy Fleetwood | $11,000 | 1.4% | 12.3% | 60.9% | +4000 |
| Lanto Griffin | $8,600 | 1.3% | 11.1% | 59.8% | +10000 |
| Justin Rose | $9,800 | 1.3% | 11.6% | 59.9% | +5500 |
| Doug Ghim | $9,000 | 1.2% | 13.0% | 61.7% | +8000 |
| Harold Varner III | $9,300 | 1.2% | 11.8% | 60.7% | +0 |
| Kevin Na | $10,300 | 1.2% | 12.7% | 61.3% | +4400 |
| Kevin Kisner | $9,900 | 1.2% | 11.1% | 59.3% | +4800 |
| Chris Kirk | $8,600 | 1.1% | 11.7% | 60.3% | +14000 |
| Patton Kizzire | $9,100 | 1.1% | 10.8% | 58.2% | +8000 |
| Matt Jones | $8,500 | 1.1% | 10.0% | 57.8% | +14000 |
| Robert MacIntyre | $10,100 | 1.1% | 12.5% | 61.0% | +4400 |
| Lucas Glover | $9,300 | 1.1% | 10.8% | 58.8% | +7000 |
| Seamus Power | $10,400 | 1.0% | 10.7% | 58.1% | +4200 |
| Zach Johnson | $9,400 | 1.0% | 10.2% | 57.8% | +6500 |
| Charl Schwartzel | $9,700 | 1.0% | 10.7% | 58.5% | +5500 |
| Sebastian Munoz | $9,700 | 1.0% | 10.3% | 57.9% | +5500 |
| Branden Grace | $9,500 | 1.0% | 10.4% | 58.9% | +7500 |
| Jhonattan Vegas | $9,600 | 1.0% | 11.1% | 58.8% | +5500 |
| Joel Dahmen | $8,900 | 1.0% | 11.3% | 58.8% | +9000 |
| Hank Lebioda | $9,200 | 0.9% | 9.8% | 56.9% | +7000 |
| Gary Woodland | $10,200 | 0.9% | 10.2% | 58.2% | +4400 |
| Mackenzie Hughes | $9,100 | 0.8% | 8.2% | 54.1% | +8000 |
| Mito Pereira | $9,500 | 0.8% | 9.1% | 56.2% | +4800 |
| Aaron Wise | $8,300 | 0.8% | 9.1% | 56.0% | +17000 |
| Adam Hadwin | $8,400 | 0.8% | 7.8% | 53.7% | +14000 |
| Rickie Fowler | $10,000 | 0.7% | 8.7% | 54.4% | +5000 |
| Chez Reavie | $8,900 | 0.7% | 9.9% | 56.5% | +9000 |
| Matthew Wolff | $10,700 | 0.6% | 5.9% | 49.5% | +4200 |
| Michael Thompson | $8,000 | 0.6% | 8.5% | 55.3% | +19000 |
| Ryan Armour | $8,500 | 0.6% | 9.6% | 56.4% | +9000 |
| Brandt Snedeker | $9,800 | 0.6% | 7.9% | 54.7% | +5500 |
| Kyle Stanley | $8,400 | 0.6% | 9.7% | 56.5% | +17000 |
| Mark Hubbard | $8,100 | 0.6% | 7.8% | 53.2% | +17000 |
| Erik van Rooyen | $9,400 | 0.6% | 7.9% | 53.4% | +6000 |
| Ryan Moore | $9,000 | 0.6% | 8.2% | 53.5% | +8000 |
| Luke List | $8,800 | 0.5% | 7.5% | 52.9% | +10000 |
| Brice Garnett | $8,100 | 0.5% | 7.8% | 53.5% | +19000 |
| Francesco Molinari | $9,000 | 0.5% | 6.9% | 50.8% | +12000 |
| Brian Stuard | $8,200 | 0.5% | 7.8% | 53.5% | +17000 |
| Roger Sloan | $8,100 | 0.5% | 6.9% | 52.0% | +17000 |
| C.T. Pan | $8,900 | 0.5% | 6.8% | 52.0% | +9000 |
| Doc Redman | $8,800 | 0.5% | 6.5% | 50.9% | +10000 |
| Matt Kuchar | $8,700 | 0.5% | 6.5% | 51.9% | +17000 |
| Nick Taylor | $7,600 | 0.5% | 5.8% | 49.4% | +25000 |
| Kramer Hickok | $8,400 | 0.5% | 6.5% | 50.7% | +12000 |
| Bo Hoag | $8,500 | 0.5% | 7.5% | 53.3% | +14000 |
| Martin Laird | $8,000 | 0.5% | 7.1% | 52.6% | +19000 |
| Dylan Frittelli | $8,600 | 0.5% | 5.9% | 49.6% | +12000 |
The data is preferring Louis Oosthuizen (+2000 on Golf odds) to make good on his recent run of form and convert a win, and his 7.6% odds make him a positive expected value at the 20/1 number.
The model likes Webb Simpson well enough but sees him as overvalued at a place where he has won and historically played great golf. The model also thinks that Hideki Matsuyama (+1500) is overrated, though it's hard to argue with his recent form.
With the model not interested in Simpson and Matsuyama, value is emerging on other golfers at the top. There's Oosthuizen, of course, but also Patrick Reed (+2200) and Jason Kokrak (+3100), all of whom outperform their numbers in the model.
As for longer shots and top-10 or top-20 contenders, Kevin Streelman (+5500), Talor Gooch (+6500), Patton Kizzire (+8000), and Lanto Griffin (+10000) have a good combination of expected value and current stats for the setup at Sedgefield Country Club.
