THE POWER RANK

  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member
  • Log in

The problem with golf analytics at The Open

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

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

The top 5 sports betting podcast episodes

This article was sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter at 11:20am Eastern on Wednesday, July 13. This newsletter is a free service that strives to be:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

The primary focus of the newsletter is NFL and college football based on my predictive analytics.

If you sign up for this free newsletter, I’ll send you my top 5 sports betting podcast episodes, the ultimate education for your ears.

To get this free service delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: Golf, The Power Rank Newsletter

Finding value in the US Open

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

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.

Free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting

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

To get a free copy of The Logic of Sports Betting, sign up for The Power Rank’s free email newsletter. Valuable. Concise. Entertaining. Those are the goals with each correspondence.

To get these emails and a pdf copy of the book, enter you best email and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

After signing up, you will get a confirmation email. Click on the link in the confirmation email. This will send you to a page to download a pdf of The Logic of Sports Betting.

Filed Under: Golf, The Power Rank Newsletter

Podcast: Matt Courchene on the Data Golf predictions

By Dr. Ed Feng 1 Comment

On this episode of The Football Analytics Show, I’m joined by Matt Courchene, the co-creator of Data Golf with his brother Will. Among other topics, we discuss:

  • How to calculate player ratings (7:40)
  • Incorporating Shot Link data (13:38)
  • Which golfer skills, e.g. off the tee, putting, are more predictable (21:20, 38:24)
  • From player ratings to tournament simulations (25:20)
  • Course fit (30:20)
  • Jordan Spieth and the difficulty of golf predictions (46:50)
  • US Open favorite and adjustments for new courses (51:22)

I use Data Golf’s Scratch+ service for betting, and I highly recommend it. To listen to this awesome conversation on golf analytics, click on the right pointing triangle.

This episode of The Football Analytics Show is also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Filed Under: Golf, Podcast

The Open golf predictions

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

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

This article was featured in The Power Rank’s email newsletter. In a recent revamping of the newsletter, I’m striving for content that is:

  • Valuable
  • Concise
  • Entertaining

As the calendar turns to August, most of these emails will focus on the NFL and college football, the specialty of The Power Rank.

To get this information delivered straight into your inbox, enter your best email address and click on “Sign up now!”








 

 
 

Filed Under: Golf, The Power Rank Newsletter

Podcast: Colin Davy on analytics for The Masters and Jeopardy

By Dr. Ed Feng Leave a Comment

On this episode of The Football Analytics Show, I talk with Colin Davy, a data scientist at Facebook that runs his own, proprietary golf model. He has also won Jeopardy and the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Hackathon twice.

Among other topics, we discuss:

  • How his golf model depends on Markov chains, and he incorporates the course and age in his predictions (6:03)
  • Why Colin chooses not to use Shot Link data in his model (13:32)
  • How much the course at Augusta matters (19:43)
  • Colin’s surprising favorite to win the 2021 Masters (23:25)
  • The other markets that Colin likes (24:43)
  • Colin’s unique approach to becoming a Jeopardy champion (28:51)

The Jeopardy story is one of my favorites in all time of data science. Check out his full write up here.

To listen here, click on the right pointing triangle.

To download the mp3 file, click here.

Filed Under: Golf, Podcast

Data driven betting information

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.

To sign up for The Power Rank's email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"

Popular Articles

  • How to predict interceptions in the NFL
  • 5 insights from academic research on predicting world soccer/football matches
  • How to win your NCAA tournament pool
  • The ultimate guide to predictive college basketball analytics
  • Accurate football predictions with linear regression
  • The surprising truth about passing and rushing in the NFL
  • Football analytics resource guide
  • The Reason You Can’t Avoid The Curse of Small Sample Size
  • The essential guide to predictive CFB rankings
  • How computer rankings make you smarter about sports
  • How to win your college football bowl pool
  • Do you make these 3 mistakes with college football statistics?
  • The Top 10 Things to Know About The Power Rank’s Methods

Recent Articles

  • Podcast: Hitman on NFL betting, Super Bowl LVII
  • Members: Super Bowl game and prop analysis
  • 7-Nugget Saturday, January 28, 2023
  • Cincinnati at Kansas City, AFC Conference Championship Game
  • Podcast: Dr. Eric Eager on the NFL Conference Championships

© 2023 The Power Rank Inc., All rights reserved.

About, Terms of Use, Privacy Policy

Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes

Valuable. Concise. Entertaining.


These are the goals with every correspondence, which cover bets on the NFL and college football.


To sign up for The Power Rank's free email newsletter, enter your best email and click on "Sign up now!"


No thanks, I'll make my predictions without data and analytics.

{"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"","openAnimation":false,"exitAnimation":false,"timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":true}
  • About
    • About The Power Rank
    • Start Here
    • Contact
  • Predictions
    • Games
    • March Madness
  • Content
    • Must Read
    • Blog
    • Podcast
    • The Craft of Sports Betting Professionals
    • March Madness Book
  • Rankings
    • World Soccer/Football
    • College Basketball
    • College Football
    • NFL
    • NFL passing success rate
    • MLB
    • Cluster Luck
  • Members
    • My Account
    • Login
    • Become a member