Gdula's Golf Simulations and Betting Picks: Fortinet 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 Fortinet Championship, according to the models.
| Golfer | FanDuel Salary |
Win% | Top-10% | Made Cut% |
FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jon Rahm | $12,500 | 21.1% | 62.3% | 89.9% | +410 |
| Webb Simpson | $11,800 | 5.0% | 28.5% | 75.2% | +1500 |
| Hideki Matsuyama | $11,600 | 3.4% | 25.2% | 72.9% | +1700 |
| Kevin Na | $11,300 | 3.2% | 22.7% | 70.9% | +1900 |
| Will Zalatoris | $11,400 | 2.9% | 21.3% | 69.6% | +2100 |
| Cameron Tringale | $11,000 | 2.8% | 20.2% | 69.0% | +3300 |
| Charley Hoffman | $10,500 | 2.2% | 18.4% | 66.8% | +4300 |
| Emiliano Grillo | $10,300 | 2.1% | 17.1% | 65.2% | +6000 |
| Talor Gooch | $9,700 | 2.0% | 15.0% | 63.3% | +7500 |
| Harold Varner III | $10,900 | 1.5% | 14.9% | 63.6% | +3300 |
| Siwoo Kim | $10,700 | 1.4% | 13.4% | 60.9% | +3300 |
| Doug Ghim | $9,700 | 1.4% | 14.1% | 62.1% | +7000 |
| Max Homa | $10,100 | 1.3% | 13.6% | 61.8% | +4300 |
| Taylor Moore | $8,700 | 1.3% | 13.9% | 62.5% | +9500 |
| Maverick McNealy | $10,200 | 1.3% | 14.2% | 62.4% | +4300 |
| Lanto Griffin | $9,300 | 1.2% | 11.4% | 59.0% | +9500 |
| Brendon Todd | $10,400 | 1.2% | 11.1% | 58.5% | +7500 |
| Patton Kizzire | $9,500 | 1.2% | 12.5% | 59.9% | +14000 |
| Chad Ramey | $9,900 | 1.1% | 11.2% | 59.3% | +7500 |
| Marc Leishman | $10,600 | 1.0% | 10.3% | 57.2% | +4300 |
| Hank Lebioda | $8,300 | 1.0% | 9.9% | 56.6% | +11000 |
| Stephan Jaeger | $9,800 | 0.9% | 10.0% | 56.8% | +4700 |
| Sebastian J Munoz | $11,100 | 0.9% | 11.5% | 59.0% | +3900 |
| Charles Howell III | $9,300 | 0.8% | 10.1% | 56.0% | +11000 |
| Luke List | $8,600 | 0.8% | 9.8% | 56.4% | +14000 |
| Alex Smalley | $8,800 | 0.8% | 9.4% | 54.5% | +16000 |
| Adam Hadwin | $9,000 | 0.8% | 9.5% | 56.0% | +9000 |
| Aaron Rai | $8,800 | 0.8% | 9.2% | 55.2% | +14000 |
| Lucas Herbert | $8,600 | 0.7% | 8.9% | 54.7% | +11000 |
| Chez Reavie | $9,800 | 0.7% | 9.3% | 55.3% | +6000 |
| Guillermo Mito Pereira | $9,900 | 0.7% | 9.6% | 55.9% | +7000 |
| Pat Perez | $9,600 | 0.7% | 10.0% | 56.7% | +9500 |
| Sahith Theegala | $8,900 | 0.6% | 7.4% | 51.9% | +12000 |
| Taylor Pendrith | $8,900 | 0.6% | 8.3% | 53.8% | +9000 |
| Ryan Armour | $8,200 | 0.6% | 7.0% | 51.2% | +14000 |
| Troy Merritt | $8,300 | 0.6% | 7.4% | 52.3% | +11000 |
| Michael Thompson | $8,400 | 0.6% | 7.6% | 52.2% | +19000 |
| Russell Knox | $8,200 | 0.6% | 7.2% | 51.5% | +14000 |
| Adam Svensson | $8,400 | 0.6% | 7.9% | 53.6% | +16000 |
| Brandt Snedeker | $9,900 | 0.6% | 7.7% | 52.8% | +6500 |
| Joseph Bramlett | $8,600 | 0.6% | 8.0% | 53.3% | +12000 |
| Brendan Steele | $9,200 | 0.5% | 6.9% | 50.3% | +11000 |
| Ryan Moore | $8,700 | 0.5% | 6.9% | 50.3% | +9500 |
| Vincent Whaley | $8,400 | 0.5% | 7.0% | 51.6% | +25000 |
| Tom Hoge | $8,300 | 0.5% | 7.0% | 52.1% | +14000 |
| Dylan Frittelli | $9,000 | 0.5% | 8.2% | 53.4% | +14000 |
| Brice Garnett | $8,000 | 0.5% | 7.1% | 51.1% | +11000 |
| Kyle Stanley | $9,000 | 0.5% | 8.0% | 53.4% | +19000 |
| C.T. Pan | $9,200 | 0.5% | 7.8% | 53.2% | +9500 |
| Matthew NeSmith | $7,000 | 0.5% | 5.4% | 47.3% | +32000 |
| Andrew Novak | $8,000 | 0.5% | 5.9% | 48.5% | +25000 |
| Harry Higgs | $9,100 | 0.5% | 7.1% | 51.1% | +8500 |
| Roger Sloan | $9,800 | 0.5% | 7.5% | 52.3% | +7500 |
| Patrick Rodgers | $8,300 | 0.5% | 8.4% | 54.0% | +16000 |
| Bo Hoag | $7,900 | 0.5% | 6.4% | 50.0% | +25000 |
I know Jon Rahm (+410) on Golf odds seems super short, and he is, but he's also undervalued, which is crazy. Rahm is basically 2.00 strokes per round better than everyone other than Kevin Na (+1900) over the past three months, per datagolf.
Other positive expected values in the simulation model include Talor Gooch (+7500), Emiliano Grillo (+6000), Patton Kizzire (+14000), Taylor Moore (+9500), Alex Smalley (+16000), and Lanto Griffin (+9500).
I'd be wanting to leave Smalley and Moore for top-10s or top-20s rather than outright, but they've got good data once adjusted for field strength. I also have interest in Cameron Tringale (+3300), who is more of a middling value.
My card will definitely include Na, Tringale, Gooch, Grillo, Kizzire, and Moore.
