GOLF

Gdula's Golf Simulations: The Memorial Tournament

We've got a loaded field at Muirfield Village, so how does that impact the win odds?

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 hiatus, I made some tweaks to my original golf model, which used 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 was 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.

I liked it, and it worked, but it didn't isolate out tee-to-green and putting performance enough, so I made some alterations, this time leveraging strokes gained data and adjusting that for field strength.

For now, I'm averaging out both models.

Here are the results for the Memorial Tournament.

Golfer Simulated
Win%
FanDuel
Sportsbook
Win Odds
Golfer Simulated
Win%
FanDuel
Sportsbook
Win Odds
Rory
McIlroy
6.1% +1400 Justin
Thomas
5.9% +1200
Jon
Rahm
4.2% +2200 Bryson
DeChambeau
4.1% +1000
Hideki
Matsuyama
4.0% +2500 Patrick
Cantlay
3.8% +1500
Webb
Simpson
3.1% +2500 Viktor
Hovland
3.0% +2500
Xander
Schauffele
2.8% +3300 Collin
Morikawa
2.8% +2200
Dustin
Johnson
2.2% +1700 Tiger
Woods
2.0% +2500
Brooks
Koepka
1.9% +2800 Paul
Casey
1.7% +7500
Patrick
Reed
1.6% +5000 Gary
Woodland
1.6% +4500
Rickie
Fowler
1.6% +4000 Tony
Finau
1.5% +6500
Billy
Horschel
1.5% +7500 Justin
Rose
1.4% +5000
Abraham
Ancer
1.3% +5000 Daniel
Berger
1.3% +4000
Sergio
Garcia
1.2% +7000 Marc
Leishman
1.2% +7500
Sungjae
Im
1.2% +6500 Matthew
Fitzpatrick
1.2% +8000
Matt
Kuchar
1.1% +7500 Scottie
Scheffler
1.1% +15000
Harris
English
1.1% +15000 Louis
Oosthuizen
1.0% +15000
Kevin
Na
1.0% +15000 Joaquin
Niemann
0.9% +7500
Jason
Day
0.9% +6500 Byeong
Hun An
0.9% +12000
Ian
Poulter
0.9% +12000 Corey
Conners
0.8% +15000


This is a super tough field to break down because it's so deep and so good at the top. Win odds are depressed in the simulations, and it's just really not a week where a lot of long shots should be outright contenders come Sunday. The top 12 golfers account for 44.0% of the win equity based on the sims. That's wild.

We're getting Rory McIlroy (+1400 on FanDuel Sportsbook) priced about where he should be. He's been elite in 2020 while being cold in the return to action (32nd, 41st, 11th). The long-term form should win out, and Rory is a possible option to start the card.

Jon Rahm (+2200) is in a similar boat: he was the second-best golfer in the world behind McIlroy but has been just okay since the hiatus ended (33rd, 37th, 27th). The value is about right. We can also kind of say the same about Hideki Matsuyama (+2500), who is an elite tee-to-green performer. Last week at Memorial, Matsuyama finished 22nd with great tee-to-green numbers but poor putting.

Xander Schauffele (+3300) is someone I recommend a lot because he's such a balanced and good player. He can keep himself in contention any week, and he has thrived against tough fields in the past. Now back down to +3300, Schauffele is priced appropriately in this field.

Sungjae Im (+6500) is being forgotten about after a cold opening to the new portion of the season. Im has finished cut, 58th, 53rd, and 63rd while losing strokes via his approach play in all four events. That's very uncharacteristic of Im, so we have some bounceback appeal.

Paul Casey (+7500) and Matt Kuchar (+7500) are also viable but have plenty of question marks. For the value, they're in play, but that range from +2200 to +6500 looks most appealing.

My outrights include on Rahm, Schauffele, Im, and Joaquin Niemann.