Gdula's Golf Simulations and Betting Picks: The Open Championship
![Which golfers are most likely to win the British Open this week at Royal St. George's in the final major of the year?](https://d1tjohjvimcqgl.cloudfront.net/website/articles/39025_a11.jpg)
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 Open Championship, according to the models.
Golfer | FanDuel Salary |
Win% | Top-10% | Made Cut% |
FanDuel Sportsbook Win Odds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jon Rahm | $12,300 | 8.0% | 39.5% | 86.6% | +750 |
Xander Schauffele | $11,500 | 5.4% | 32.7% | 83.6% | +1800 |
Dustin Johnson | $11,900 | 3.8% | 25.8% | 78.8% | +2500 |
Justin Thomas | $11,400 | 3.7% | 25.7% | 79.5% | +1800 |
Brooks Koepka | $11,800 | 3.2% | 21.7% | 75.6% | +1600 |
Jordan Spieth | $11,600 | 3.0% | 24.1% | 77.7% | +1800 |
Patrick Cantlay | $10,700 | 3.0% | 23.6% | 77.9% | +3300 |
Viktor Hovland | $10,900 | 3.0% | 21.7% | 76.8% | +3000 |
Patrick Reed | $10,600 | 2.8% | 22.2% | 77.2% | +3300 |
Tony Finau | $10,200 | 2.5% | 20.0% | 74.9% | +5000 |
Louis Oosthuizen | $11,100 | 2.5% | 20.3% | 74.9% | +3000 |
Collin Morikawa | $11,000 | 2.3% | 20.1% | 75.4% | +3500 |
Webb Simpson | $10,100 | 2.2% | 17.9% | 73.0% | +6500 |
Bryson DeChambeau | $11,300 | 2.2% | 20.1% | 74.6% | +3500 |
Daniel Berger | $10,000 | 2.2% | 18.6% | 74.0% | +7000 |
Tyrrell Hatton | $10,800 | 2.0% | 17.6% | 72.7% | +3300 |
Scottie Scheffler | $9,700 | 2.0% | 18.4% | 73.0% | +4500 |
Rory McIlroy | $12,100 | 1.9% | 18.3% | 72.9% | +2200 |
Matthew Fitzpatrick | $9,900 | 1.9% | 17.1% | 72.1% | +4000 |
Paul Casey | $10,300 | 1.9% | 17.0% | 72.6% | +4000 |
Harris English | $9,200 | 1.6% | 15.7% | 71.2% | +7000 |
Cameron Smith | $9,900 | 1.5% | 14.4% | 69.4% | +6500 |
Joaquin Niemann | $9,700 | 1.4% | 14.0% | 69.0% | +7000 |
Brian Harman | $9,100 | 1.3% | 12.9% | 68.6% | +12000 |
Abraham Ancer | $9,300 | 1.2% | 13.4% | 69.0% | +7000 |
Jason Day | $9,000 | 1.2% | 12.9% | 67.6% | +7500 |
Jason Kokrak | $9,300 | 1.2% | 12.2% | 66.3% | +10000 |
Corey Conners | $8,700 | 1.1% | 12.4% | 67.3% | +15000 |
Russell Henley | $8,600 | 1.1% | 11.1% | 65.8% | +13000 |
Will Zalatoris | $9,500 | 1.0% | 11.4% | 66.1% | +7500 |
Cameron Tringale | $8,900 | 0.9% | 10.4% | 64.3% | +25000 |
Charley Hoffman | $8,800 | 0.9% | 11.2% | 64.8% | +17000 |
Sergio Garcia | $9,500 | 0.9% | 10.4% | 63.4% | +6000 |
Shane Lowry | $9,800 | 0.8% | 10.9% | 64.4% | +3500 |
Ryan Palmer | $8,200 | 0.8% | 9.4% | 62.6% | +12000 |
Talor Gooch | $7,800 | 0.8% | 8.5% | 60.8% | +30000 |
Sam Burns | $9,000 | 0.8% | 10.7% | 64.2% | +15000 |
Christiaan Bezuidenhout | $8,900 | 0.8% | 8.6% | 61.0% | +8000 |
Stewart Cink | $8,300 | 0.8% | 9.5% | 62.0% | +15000 |
Ian Poulter | $8,400 | 0.7% | 8.5% | 61.5% | +8000 |
Tommy Fleetwood | $10,500 | 0.7% | 8.4% | 60.9% | +3500 |
Kevin Kisner | $8,900 | 0.7% | 7.3% | 58.4% | +15000 |
Keegan Bradley | $0 | 0.6% | 9.2% | 61.8% | +15000 |
Adam Scott | $9,600 | 0.6% | 9.8% | 62.4% | +7500 |
Emiliano Grillo | $0 | 0.6% | 7.0% | 58.0% | +19000 |
Max Homa | $9,000 | 0.6% | 7.4% | 58.3% | +17000 |
Lanto Griffin | $7,700 | 0.6% | 7.0% | 58.4% | +35000 |
Carlos Ortiz | $8,100 | 0.5% | 7.4% | 58.7% | +25000 |
Justin Rose | $9,800 | 0.5% | 7.5% | 57.8% | +5000 |
Billy Horschel | $8,300 | 0.5% | 6.7% | 57.7% | +20000 |
Alex Noren | $8,600 | 0.5% | 8.5% | 60.9% | +9000 |
Chris Kirk | $8,000 | 0.5% | 6.4% | 56.5% | +24000 |
Matt Wallace | $8,400 | 0.5% | 7.2% | 58.8% | +15000 |
Kevin Streelman | $8,500 | 0.5% | 7.5% | 59.0% | +20000 |
Harold Varner III | $0 | 0.5% | 6.0% | 55.7% | +30000 |
Brendon Todd | $8,300 | 0.4% | 6.1% | 55.9% | +31000 |
Matt Jones | $8,200 | 0.4% | 6.9% | 57.3% | +25000 |
Branden Grace | $8,800 | 0.4% | 7.6% | 58.5% | +5000 |
Lucas Herbert | $8,000 | 0.4% | 6.3% | 56.2% | +7500 |
Marc Leishman | $9,400 | 0.4% | 6.0% | 54.1% | +6000 |
Mackenzie Hughes | $7,800 | 0.4% | 4.7% | 52.5% | +35000 |
Gary Woodland | $8,600 | 0.4% | 6.4% | 56.2% | +18000 |
Rickie Fowler | $9,400 | 0.3% | 6.0% | 54.8% | +6500 |
Robert MacIntyre | $8,500 | 0.3% | 6.3% | 54.7% | +6500 |
Sebastian Munoz | $7,800 | 0.3% | 5.0% | 53.1% | +24000 |
Matt Kuchar | $8,200 | 0.3% | 4.9% | 53.1% | +20000 |
Bernd Wiesberger | $8,300 | 0.3% | 5.2% | 53.8% | +13000 |
Erik van Rooyen | $8,100 | 0.3% | 4.9% | 52.2% | +25000 |
Lee Westwood | $9,600 | 0.3% | 5.5% | 53.7% | +4000 |
Garrick Higgo | $9,200 | 0.2% | 4.0% | 49.5% | +8000 |
Phil Mickelson | $8,700 | 0.2% | 3.8% | 47.1% | +8000 |
Once again, Jon Rahm (+750 on Golf odds) is the favorite to win both on the odds board and in my win simulations. However, the simulations do not really get him close to the 11.8% odds he needs to be an even value, so he's not someone I'd be looking to bet.
I love Xander Schauffele (+1800) and don't inflate the numbers. One of the reasons I always like him is that his skill level has him on par with or outperforming his betting odds, and we get the latter this week for Schauffele, who has made all three cuts at his past Open Championships, including a runner-up finish.
The long-term adjusted form -- even adjusting for recency -- likes Dustin Johnson (+2500) as the third-most likely winner, and we're starting to see value on his name at the odds. That's a pretty juicy line if you ask me (or the model).
And with some overvalued options (Rahm, Justin Thomas [+1800], and Jordan Spieth [+1800]), we get easier value on the next tier, including Patrick Cantlay (+3300), Viktor Hovland (+3000), and Patrick Reed (+3300). Tony Finau (+5000) also enters as a big value option.
Longer shots Webb Simpson (+6500) and Daniel Berger (+7000) are just better players long-term than the odds suggest and make for strong top-10 options if not outright dark horses.
Other golfers at long odds who outperform their win odds and are some I'm looking for top-10s and top-20s include Cameron Tringale (+25000), Talor Gooch (+30000), Corey Conners (+15000), Brian Harman (+12000), Charley Hoffman (+17000), and Harris English (+7000).
I'm set on getting exposure to Schauffele, Cantlay, and Finau as outright winners but am also considering Dustin Johnson as the odds fall. I'll be hammering the top-10 and top-20 list, as well.