Matt Fitzpatick has been on a tear. He has five top 10 finishes in his last six tournaments, and this includes a win at the US Open.

Data Golf ranks Fitzpatrick 5th in the world. It seems like a no brainer that he should be favored over Jordan Spieth, the 20th ranked golfer. In their match up section, Data Golf gives a 57.8% chance that Fitzpatrick beats Spieth.

However, there are limitations to predictive golf analytics.

On an episode of The Football Analytics Show, Matt Courchene, the analytics guru behind Data Golf, explained how his model has problems with golfers like Spieth. The model uses years of data, and it doesn’t react too much to a stretch of good performance.

This analysis is based on research over all golfers. However, Spieth might be an exception. He rocked the golf world with two wins and a 2nd place at majors in 2015. He won another major in 2017.

Spieth’s past performance suggests a high ceiling. Data Golf should have a different reaction to a stretch of good play from Spieth than an average golfer. Right now, it doesn’t.

On my podcast, Matt admitted that his model is probably sluggish to react to Spieth compared to the markets. This season, Spieth has five top 10 finishes and a win at the RBC Heritage.

Two other reasons also favor Spieth over Fitzpatrick:

• Spieth excels at The Open. For example, he won this major in 2017 and finished 2nd last season.
• Circa has better win odds for Spieth (+1800) than Fitzpatrick (+2100).

This suggests value on Spieth +100 in a match up over Fitzpatrick at DraftKings.

In no way do I mean to denigrate the work on Data Golf. In fact, their work has significant market influence.

Some sports books go to the extent of copying Data Golf’s match up probabilities. This is lazier than finding a wife in a catalog from Eastern Europe.

It’s also another reason why you might like Spieth in a match up over Fitzpatrick.

Check out Matt Courchene’s appearance on The Football Analytics Show podcast at any of these places:

• The Power Rank
• YouTube, with links to various segments
• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts

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You want to find a value on the US Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. The results of one bet doesn’t make for firm conclusions, but finding value bets over the long term leads to grinding out a profit.

One thing that determines value is the hold of the sports book. As a simple example, consider this match up bet at DraftKings.

• Cameron Smith +100 (50% break even probability)
• Jordan Spieth -120 (54.5% break even probability)

To calculate the hold, you sum up the break even probabilities and subtract 100%. This implies a 4.5% hold on this match up bet.

This hold on a match up is tiny compared to the outright winner market. Based on data aggregated by Data Golf (subscription required), here are the hold percentages at a few books on Wednesday morning:

• Circa, 17.2%
• Pinnacle, 20.95%
• DraftKings, 34.73%

You want to take advantage of the match up market.

The hold in the outright market also indicates the confidence the book has in its numbers. The lower the hold, the higher the confidence. It’s the difference between the blond star QB in white tuxedo as he strolls into the prom compared to the Chinese kid with a big head in a jester outfit.

The low hold at Circa and Pinnacle suggests using their outright market to find value in match ups. For example, both books are higher on Cameron Smith to win the US Open than Jordan Spieth. This suggests that Smith should have a higher than 50% chance to beat Spieth, and there is value in betting Smith +100.

In addition, the skill profiles for Smith and Spieth look similar. According to Data Golf, both golfers struggle with driving accuracy but excel at their approach and around the green.

Accuracy off the tee might seem important on a course with narrow fairways and tall fescue grass on the far side of the rough. However, the Country Club has small greens, and a close up look at the course suggests that approach and around the green will be even more important than accuracy.

Based on a similar analysis, Colin Morikawa +105 over Matt Fitzpatrick also looks like a value bet (DraftKings). This also means fading the narrative that Fitzpatrick won the US Amateur Open in 2013 on this course. That was a long time ago.

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In their foundational book, Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow provide the ultimate introduction into the sports betting world. Among other topics, they write about:

• The crucial concept of a no hold market
• The surprisingly simple procedure that market making sports books use to determine the spread (it’s not analytics)
• The truth about parlays

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What have you done for me lately. The golf markets seem place a ton of emphasis on this question each week.

In my last golf newsletter, the numbers questioned whether Rory McIlroy should have been the favorite at the PGA Championship. He finished 49th at +5.

Instead of an overrated golfer, let’s focus on an underrated golfer for The Open in Britain.

Tony Finau has missed the cut in his last two tournaments. This includes the last major at the US Open in June.

However, this recent form masks stronger performance over the past year. In his 20 tournaments in 2021, he has finished top 20 in 11 of those tournaments but also missed 5 cuts.

To dig deeper into Finau, let’s look at the results of two models.

• Brandon Gdula of numberFire, who uses multiple data sources to adjust tournament results for field strength. He has Finau at 2.5% to win, 20.0% to finish top 10.
• Abnormally Distributed, a professional bettor with an academic background. While he doesn’t reveal the details of his model, he commanded credibility in a recent interview on the Circles Off podcast. He has Finau at 2.0% to win, 17.4% to finish top 10.

FanDuel Sportsbook has Finau at 50 to 1 to win, which gives a break even probability of 2%. I’m not a fan of such long odds. It’s like thinking England will win a penalty shoot out at a major international tournament.

Luckily, there are markets for top 10 and top 20 as well. FanDuel has Finau at +490 to finish top 10, a 16.9% break even probability. Both models have a higher probability for Finau to finish in the top 10.

The best balance of value and odds is most likely Finau at +210 to finish in the top 20. As mentioned on Covering the Spread, my FanDuel podcast, Finau has finished in the top 20 in 12 of the 21 majors he has played since 2015.

The results of the two models have significant differences. This is mostly likely because of the even playing field in pro golf. However, they agree on Tony Finau.

Both models are worth checking out before The Open tees off on Thursday morning:

• Brandon Gdula
• Abnormally Distributed

Data driven betting information

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