Opinion & Analysis
The Golf Engine predicts the best bets for the PGA Championship
We take a break from the football hype 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 five, 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.
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 Bridgestone Invitational.
Jason Day (20/1 odds). A two-time winner in 2018 (so far) and already a PGA champion, putting better than 90 percent 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 five at the age of 43 or the five-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 second-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 |
Odds Courtesy of Bovada
View the projected finish of the entire 2018 PGA Championship.
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.
Learn more about the author, Pat Ross.
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19th Hole
Vincenzi’s 2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans betting preview
The PGA TOUR heads to New Orleans to play the 2023 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. In a welcome change from the usual stroke play, the Zurich Classic is a team event. On Thursday and Saturday, the teams play best ball, and on Friday and Sunday the teams play alternate shot.
TPC Louisiana is a par 72 that measures 7,425 yards. The course features some short par 4s and plenty of water and bunkers, which makes for a lot of exciting risk/reward scenarios for competitors. Pete Dye designed the course in 2004 specifically for the Zurich Classic, although the event didn’t make its debut until 2007 because of Hurricane Katrina.
Coming off of the Masters and a signature event in consecutive weeks, the field this week is a step down, and understandably so. Many of the world’s top players will be using this time to rest after a busy stretch.
However, there are some interesting teams this season with some stars making surprise appearances in the team event. Some notable teams include Patrick Cantlay and Xander Schauffele, Rory McIlroy and Shane Lowry, Collin Morikawa and Kurt Kitayama, Will Zalatoris and Sahith Theegala as well as a few Canadian teams, Nick Taylor and Adam Hadwin and Taylor Pendrith and Corey Conners.
Past Winners at TPC Louisiana
- 2023: Riley/Hardy (-30)
- 2022: Cantlay/Schauffele (-29)
- 2021: Leishman/Smith (-20)
- 2019: Palmer/Rahm (-26)
- 2018: Horschel/Piercy (-22)
- 2017: Blixt/Smith (-27)
2024 Zurich Classic of New Orleans Picks
Tom Hoge/Maverick McNealy +2500 (DraftKings)
Tom Hoge is coming off of a solid T18 finish at the RBC Heritage and finished T13 at last year’s Zurich Classic alongside Harris English.
This season, Hoge is having one of his best years on Tour in terms of Strokes Gained: Approach. In his last 24 rounds, the only player to top him on the category is Scottie Scheffler. Hoge has been solid on Pete Dye designs, ranking 28th in the field over his past 36 rounds.
McNealy is also having a solid season. He’s finished T6 at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and T9 at the PLAYERS Championship. He recently started working with world renowned swing coach, Butch Harmon, and its seemingly paid dividends in 2024.
Keith Mitchell/Joel Dahmen +4000 (DraftKings)
Keith Mitchell is having a fantastic season, finishing in the top-20 of five of his past seven starts on Tour. Most recently, Mitchell finished T14 at the Valero Texas Open and gained a whopping 6.0 strokes off the tee. He finished 6th at last year’s Zurich Classic.
Joel Dahmen is having a resurgent year and has been dialed in with his irons. He also has a T11 finish at the PLAYERS Championship at TPC Sawgrass which is another Pete Dye track. With Mitchell’s length and Dahmen’s ability to put it close with his short irons, the Mitchell/Dahmen combination will be dangerous this week.
Taylor Moore/Matt NeSmith +6500 (DraftKings)
Taylor Moore has quickly developed into one of the more consistent players on Tour. He’s finished in the top-20 in three of his past four starts, including a very impressive showing at The Masters, finishing T20. He’s also finished T4 at this event in consecutive seasons alongside Matt NeSmith.
NeSmith isn’t having a great 2024, but has seemed to elevate his game in this format. He finished T26 at Pete Dye’s TPC Sawgrass, which gives the 30-year-old something to build off of. NeSmith is also a great putter on Bermudagrass, which could help elevate Moore’s ball striking prowess.
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19th Hole
Vincenzi’s 2024 LIV Adelaide betting preview: Cam Smith ready for big week down under
After having four of the top twelve players on the leaderboard at The Masters, LIV Golf is set for their fifth event of the season: LIV Adelaide.
For both LIV fans and golf fans in Australia, LIV Adelaide is one of the most anticipated events of the year. With 35,000 people expected to attend each day of the tournament, the Grange Golf Club will be crawling with fans who are passionate about the sport of golf. The 12th hole, better known as “the watering hole”, is sure to have the rowdiest of the fans cheering after a long day of drinking some Leishman Lager.
The Grange Golf Club is a par-72 that measures 6,946 yards. The course features minimal resistance, as golfers went extremely low last season. In 2023, Talor Gooch shot consecutive rounds of 62 on Thursday and Friday, giving himself a gigantic cushion heading into championship Sunday. Things got tight for a while, but in the end, the Oklahoma State product was able to hold off The Crushers’ Anirban Lahiri for a three-shot victory.
The Four Aces won the team competition with the Range Goats finishing second.
*All Images Courtesy of LIV Golf*
Past Winners at LIV Adelaide
- 2023: Talor Gooch (-19)
Stat Leaders Through LIV Miami
Green in Regulation
- Richard Bland
- Jon Rahm
- Paul Casey
Fairways Hit
- Abraham Ancer
- Graeme McDowell
- Henrik Stenson
Driving Distance
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Joaquin Niemann
- Dean Burmester
Putting
- Cameron Smith
- Louis Oosthuizen
- Matt Jones
2024 LIV Adelaide Picks
Cameron Smith +1400 (DraftKings)
When I pulled up the odds for LIV Adelaide, I was more than a little surprised to see multiple golfers listed ahead of Cameron Smith on the betting board. A few starts ago, Cam finished runner-up at LIV Hong Kong, which is a golf course that absolutely suits his eye. Augusta National in another course that Smith could roll out of bed and finish in the top-ten at, and he did so two weeks ago at The Masters, finishing T6.
At Augusta, he gained strokes on the field on approach, off the tee (slightly), and of course, around the green and putting. Smith able to get in the mix at a major championship despite coming into the week feeling under the weather tells me that his game is once again rounding into form.
The Grange Golf Club is another course that undoubtedly suits the Australian. Smith is obviously incredibly comfortable playing in front of the Aussie faithful and has won three Australian PGA Championship’s. The course is very short and will allow Smith to play conservative off the tee, mitigating his most glaring weakness. With birdies available all over the golf course, there’s a chance the event turns into a putting contest, and there’s no one on the planet I’d rather have in one of those than Cam Smith.
Louis Oosthuizen +2200 (DraftKings)
Louis Oosthuizen has simply been one of the best players on LIV in the 2024 seas0n. The South African has finished in the top-10 on the LIV leaderboard in three of his five starts, with his best coming in Jeddah, where he finished T2. Perhaps more impressively, Oosthuizen finished T7 at LIV Miami, which took place at Doral’s “Blue Monster”, an absolutely massive golf course. Given that Louis is on the shorter side in terms of distance off the tee, his ability to play well in Miami shows how dialed he is with the irons this season.
In addition to the LIV finishes, Oosthuizen won back-to-back starts on the DP World Tour in December at the Alfred Dunhill Championship and the Mauritus Open. He also finished runner-up at the end of February in the International Series Oman. The 41-year-old has been one of the most consistent performers of 2024, regardless of tour.
For the season, Louis ranks 4th on LIV in birdies made, T9 in fairways hit and first in putting. He ranks 32nd in driving distance, but that won’t be an issue at this short course. Last season, he finished T11 at the event, but was in decent position going into the final round but fell back after shooting 70 while the rest of the field went low. This season, Oosthuizen comes into the event in peak form, and the course should be a perfect fit for his smooth swing and hot putter this week.
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Opinion & Analysis
The Wedge Guy: What really makes a wedge work? Part 1
Of all the clubs in our bags, wedges are almost always the simplest in construction and, therefore, the easiest to analyze what might make one work differently from another if you know what to look for.
Wedges are a lot less mysterious than drivers, of course, as the major brands are working with a lot of “pixie dust” inside these modern marvels. That’s carrying over more to irons now, with so many new models featuring internal multi-material technologies, and almost all of them having a “badge” or insert in the back to allow more complex graphics while hiding the actual distribution of mass.
But when it comes to wedges, most on the market today are still single pieces of molded steel, either cast or forged into that shape. So, if you look closely at where the mass is distributed, it’s pretty clear how that wedge is going to perform.
To start, because of their wider soles, the majority of the mass of almost any wedge is along the bottom third of the clubhead. So, the best wedge shots are always those hit between the 2nd and 5th grooves so that more mass is directly behind that impact. Elite tour professionals practice incessantly to learn to do that consistently, wearing out a spot about the size of a penny right there. If impact moves higher than that, the face is dramatically thinner, so smash factor is compromised significantly, which reduces the overall distance the ball will fly.
Every one of us, tour players included, knows that maddening shot that we feel a bit high on the face and it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s not your fault.
If your wedges show a wear pattern the size of a silver dollar, and centered above the 3rd or 4th groove, you are not getting anywhere near the same performance from shot to shot. Robot testing proves impact even two to three grooves higher in the face can cause distance loss of up to 35 to 55 feet with modern ‘tour design’ wedges.
In addition, as impact moves above the center of mass, the golf club principle of gear effect causes the ball to fly higher with less spin. Think of modern drivers for a minute. The “holy grail” of driving is high launch and low spin, and the driver engineers are pulling out all stops to get the mass as low in the clubhead as possible to optimize this combination.
Where is all the mass in your wedges? Low. So, disregarding the higher lofts, wedges “want” to launch the ball high with low spin – exactly the opposite of what good wedge play requires penetrating ball flight with high spin.
While almost all major brand wedges have begun putting a tiny bit more thickness in the top portion of the clubhead, conventional and modern ‘tour design’ wedges perform pretty much like they always have. Elite players learn to hit those crisp, spinny penetrating wedge shots by spending lots of practice time learning to consistently make contact low in the face.
So, what about grooves and face texture?
Grooves on any club can only do so much, and no one has any material advantage here. The USGA tightly defines what we manufacturers can do with grooves and face texture, and modern manufacturing techniques allow all of us to push those limits ever closer. And we all do. End of story.
Then there’s the topic of bounce and grinds, the most complex and confusing part of the wedge formula. Many top brands offer a complex array of sole configurations, all of them admittedly specialized to a particular kind of lie or turf conditions, and/or a particular divot pattern.
But if you don’t play the same turf all the time, and make the same size divot on every swing, how would you ever figure this out?
The only way is to take any wedge you are considering and play it a few rounds, hitting all the shots you face and observing the results. There’s simply no other way.
So, hopefully this will inspire a lively conversation in our comments section, and I’ll chime in to answer any questions you might have.
And next week, I’ll dive into the rest of the wedge formula. Yes, shafts, grips and specifications are essential, too.
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mil phickelson
Aug 8, 2018 at 11:38 am
FIGJAM (Phil) wishes he was 43…he turned 48 in June.