New Look Data Panels on Golf Predictor

Old  look data panels (from Golfer Prediction page)

New look data panels (from Golfer Prediction page)

Most of the panels on the data pages have been updated on Golf Predictor. The first screenshot above (a snippet of the prediction page for Rory McIlroy for last week's BMW PGA Championship) shows how these panels used to look and the second screenshot shows how they are now. Hopefully, you will agree that it is indeed an improvement!

Similar panels on golfer, tournament, season stats, results, tournament round stats and show results by player pages have been updated. I have also replaced the image used to link to further information for golfers, tournaments, courses etc. This can be seen in the first panel of the second screenshot above. Just another way to make Golf Predictor a little better!


Note: You may have to refresh a page in your browser to see the new look.

2013 - Week 22 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Nordea Masters (European PGA Tour) and the Memorial Tournament pres. by Nationwide Insurance (US PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. As usual, there's a strong field for Jack's tournament, with Tiger Woods and the rest of the world's top six teeing it up in Ohio.The field in Sweden is therefore not so strong, with local Peter Hanson the highest ranked player at number 23 in the world.

2013 - Week 21 Winners

Matteo Manassero (ranked 13th by Golf Predictor) won the BMW PGA Championship on the European PGA Tour. The 20 year old Italian became the youngest ever winner of the flagship event after a play-off with Marc Warren and Simon Khan. It took four holes for Manassero to get the better of the former champion Khan after Warren dropped out at the opening extra hole. Our top ranked player, Rory McIlroy, was one of the many big names who missed the cut in an event. The extremely poor weather on the opening two days took its toll and we had only four of the top twelve plus ties (4/18). 


Boo Weekley (ranked 39th by Golf Predictor) won the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial on the US PGA Tour. The popular 39 year old American won his first tour event in five years by a single shot, despite missing a few short putts on the back nine. Our top ranked player, Matt Kuchar, finished in 2nd place and we had only four of the top fourteen plus ties (4/17) in a good week for bookies!

2013 - Week 21 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the BMW PGA Championship (European PGA Tour) and the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial (US PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. It's the flagship event on the European Tour this week and this is reflected in the strong field that has assembled to vie for the title. It's not often that the European Tour overshadows its American counterpart, but all the European heavy hitters are back in the UK to support their local tour! The Colonial has to make do with the world number thirteen Matt Kuchar as the headliner!

2013 - Week 20 Winners

Peter Uihlein (ranked 8th by Golf Predictor) won the Madeira Islands Open - Portugal - BPI on the European PGA Tour. The 23 year old American won his first tour title with an assured final day performance. Morten Orum Madsen will be kicking himself though, having double bogeyed the last to undo all his great work and finish two shots back. Our top ranked player, defending champion Ricardo Santos, finished in tied 19th and we had eight of the top nineteen plus ties (8/23)* in an event that is usually hard to predict. 

Graeme McDowell (ranked 1st by Golf Predictor) won the Volvo World Match Play Championship on the European PGA Tour. The 33 year old Ulster man went one better than last year, beating Thongchai Jaidee 2&1 in the final to register his second win in five weeks. Golf Predictor isn't designed for match play events, but as the annual joke goes, we had 24 of the top 24!!!!

Sang-Moon Bae (ranked 29th by Golf Predictor) won his maiden title at the HP Byron Nelson Championship on the US PGA Tour. The 26 year old South Korean lost a lost a four shot lead during a sticky patch in his final round, but he finished strongly to win by two shots. Our top ranked player, Matt Kuchar, finished in tied 33rd and we had eight of the top seventeen plus ties (8/20) in total.




*Shiv Kapur was a non-finisher, thus promoting Richard Bland into the top 23 in our rankings.

'Compare Tee-off Groups' Page Added to Golf Predictor

Portion of new 'Compare Tee-off Groups' page showing the stats for tee-off group 44 for the 2013 HP Byron Nelson Championship

I am happy to announce the addition of the very useful new 'Compare Tee-off Groups' page to Golf Predictor. As can be seen from the screenshot above, this new page is similar to the existing 'Compare Golfers' page and is available from the same menu ('Predictions'). However, while the 'Compare Predictions' page allows you to select up to ten golfers and directly compare their stats, this new page uses the pre-tournament tee-off list to compare the stats for each golfer in the selected tee-off group (normally a three ball) automatically. This page was added as a result of a member suggestion and it makes the task of analysing bookie tee-off group match-ups much easier. Some notes on this new page:

1. The first tournaments covered are the two stroke play events this week in Texas and Madeira. The match play event in Bulgaria is not covered.
2. As the golfers in each group are predetermined, there is no need for a 'Compare' button on this new page. Simply selecting a different group in the dropdown list will result in the prediction data being updated to show the information for the new group.
3. This functionality was more complicated to introduce than originally expected. Since the tee-off group information is generally available later in the week (normally on Tuesdays for regular events, sometimes Monday for bigger events with well defined fields) than the entry list (currently used to generate the predictions, usually on Mondays), this results in discrepancies. For example, there may be some golfers in the entry list (e.g. alternates) who are not in the tee-off group list. Similarly, there may be late entrants in the tee-off group list who are not in the entry list (or even in the database). In addition to dealing with these issues, metrics such as GP Rank, field strength and overround* have to be recalculated for each tournament**. It also means that, as things stand, I now have to input prediction information twice per week - on Monday as usual and again on Tuesday (or whenever the tee-off groups become available). 
4. On the other hand, the advantages of this new functionality are that the prediction list will be more accurate and there will be much fewer prediction records in the system for golfers who ended up not playing in the event.
5. For any other match-ups not involving members of the same tee-off group, you will have to continue to use the original 'Compare Predictions' page.
6. The group information for a tournament will be available from when the tee-off  information is inputted until when the results for one of the tournaments that week are inputted into the database. This will generally be from Tuesday evening to Sunday evening (GMT) of the tournament week.
7. Only the tee-off groups for the first two rounds (assuming a normal event with the cut after two rounds) with will be entered into the system. Groups for the weekend rounds will not be inputted at this point.
8. You may have to reload your current Golf Predictor page to see this new "Compare Tee-off Groups" menu option.

Just another way to make Golf Predictor even better! This new page is a terrific addition to the site and will greatly assist in analysing tee group match-ups for an event. The screenshot above shows the predictions for the 44th tee-off group for the 2013 HP Byron Nelson Championship. This group contains Ben Crane, John Huh and George McNeill and their prediction stats are shown in the table as a result. As with the original Compare Predictions page, hovering over an ID in the table shows more information in a pop-up. This is shown above for George McNeill.

As each group contains golfers with varying GP rankings, only subscribers can use this new page (non-subscribers are limited to golfers ranked 11-25). So, sign up today and reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

  

 *** Subscriber Feedback required ***
Due to the issues and ongoing workload with the second point above, I am considering either moving initial prediction generation from Mondays to Tuesdays (again) or else just add this group functionality for the bigger tournaments, e.g. majors/WGC & FedEx Cup events and selected others like The Players Championship (if the group information is not available on the Monday). I would like your feedback on this issue. If you have a problem with Tuesday predictions, would love to see the groups for every tournament or have no interest whatsoever in tee-off groups, please contact me or add a comment. For the time being, I shall continue to produce predictions on Monday as usual and update the system on Tuesday when the group information becomes available.

* Click here for an explanation of overround.
** For example, a whopping 85 golfer predictions were removed from the Madeira Open, reducing the field strength even more from about 59% to 51%.

2013 - Week 20 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Volvo World Match Play Championship (European PGA Tour), the Madeira Island Open - Portugal - BPI (European PGA Tour) and the HP Byron Nelson Championship (US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. There are three events on the two major tours this week. Even though Golf Predictor is designed for stroke play events, the Volvo World Match Play Championship has also been put through the wringer as usual! Matt Kuchar is headlining the field in Texas once again, while Graeme McDowell is the only member of the world's top ten teeing it up in the match play event in Bulgaria, the fortieth country to host a European Tour tournament. As usual, there's a particularly weak field for the event on Madeira, the second of the European PGA Tour events on this week. Just under 100* of the field list (including alternates) is outside the top one thousand in the world rankings for the Portuguese event.


*The updating of the field list due to the new tee-off groups functionality has reduced this number from 99 to 40.

2013 - Week 19 Winner

Tiger Woods (ranked 1st by Golf Predictor) won The Players Championship on the US PGA Tour. The 37 year old American won his fourth title of the season after his closest challenger Sergio Garcia choked spectacularly on the final two holes. Garcia was level with Woods on the tee of the famous seventeenth at Sawgrass, but proceeded to hit two balls in the water for a quadruple bogey seven. He compounded those errors by also finding water on the last and double bogeying. Including the winner, we had ten of the top nineteen plus ties (10/25).

2013 - Week 19 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, The Players Championship (US PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. As usual, there's a very strong field for the so called "fifth major". This year the field is even better as some big names that have snubbed the event in recent years are teeing it up in Florida. There is no event on the European PGA Tour this week.

2013 - Week 18 Winners

Brett Rumford (ranked 13th by Golf Predictor) won the Volvo China Open on the European PGA Tour.The 35 year old Australian completed a memorable fortnight by securing a Far Eastern double. Fresh off his win last week in Korea, Rumford easily held off Mikko Ilonen in the final round in China to secure his second successive tournament win. Our top ranked player, Branden Grace, finished in tied 33rd, but we had ten of the top fourteen plus ties (10/20)*.

Rookie Derek Ernst (ranked 157th by Golf Predictor) won the Wells Fargo Championship on the US PGA Tour. The 22 year old American won his first title in only his ninth event, beating David Lynn on the first play-off hole. Phil Mickelson will be kicking himself after coming unstuck on the Green Mile, dropping out of the lead with two bogeys in his last three holes. Our top ranked player, Rory McIlroy, finished in tied 11th and we had seven of the top sixteen plus ties (7/21)** in total.


*Due to David Howell's non-finish, Lee Slattery gets promoted into the top twenty of the GP rankings. 
** Dustin Johnson didn't play, so D.A. Points gets promoted into the top twenty one of the GP rankings.
 

'Compare Predictions' Page Slightly Updated

Grid for Zach Johnson with new Similar Length Course History (HSLC) column and number of tournaments moved to pop-up

The prediction data table on the 'Compare Predictions' page on Golf Predictor has been slightly updated. A column with the Similar Length Course History (HSLC) has been (albeit belatedly!) added to the table. To make room for this new statistic, the number of tournaments has been removed from its own column and added to the pop-up text for each selected golfer. This is shown above in the snippet of the page with just Zach Johnson selected ahead of the 2013 Wells Fargo Championship. Just another way to make Golf Predictor slightly better!