No Predictions Next Week

As this is the new US PGA Tour close season and the only events on next week are team events (Presidents Cup and Seve Trophy), there will no predictions next week on Golf Predictor. The site is designed for individual stroke play events (although I do crank out predictions for the match play and Stableford events on the two major tours) and is of no real use for team events. Therefore, it will be a rare week off for me in the Golf Predictor engine room!

Note that the results for this week (the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the European PGA Tour) will be late in being inputted into the system as I shall be enjoying my week of freedom! I will be back in plenty of time for the following week, which marks the start of the new 2013/14 US PGA Tour season.

2013 - Week 39 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship (European PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. There is no event on the US PGA Tour this week as it is the new short close season between the old 2013 calendar based season and the new 2013/14 season. The European PGA Tour rolls on though, but there isn't the usual strong line-up in Scotland. Only eight of the top fifty in the world (and only one of the top twenty) are teeing it up with the celebrities this year on the three links courses used in the event.

2013 - Week 38 Winners

Julien Quesne (ranked 40th by Golf Predictor) won the 70° Italian Open Lindt on the European PGA Tour. The 33 year old Frenchman won his second tour title after storming home in 31 shots and setting a clubhouse target that wasn't caught. Our top ranked player, local favourite Matteo Manassero, finished in tied 42nd and in a difficult to predict tournament, we had five of the top sixteen plus ties in total (5/22). 

Henrik Stenson (ranked 18th by Golf Predictor) won The Tour Championship by Coca-Cola on the US PGA Tour. The 37 year old Swede capped a great few months by leading from start to finish and banking the FedEx Cup jackpot with his fourth US PGA Tour victory. Our top ranked player, Tiger Woods, found it hard going this week and finished in tied 22nd. Overall, we had twelve of the top fourteen plus ties (12/17) in the restricted field event. 

Custom Predictions now on Golf Predictor!

New Custom Predictions page showing sliders with random weights applied to 2013 BMW Championship

GP video tutorial on this new page

I am excited to announce the addition of a useful new 'Custom Prediction Rankings' page to Golf Predictor. As can be glimpsed in the screenshot above, this new page is similar to the existing 'Prediction Rankings' page and is available from the same 'Predictions' menu in the Member section. However, while the 'Prediction Rankings' page shows the tournament field sorted by GP Rank (as calculated by the GP prediction algorithm), this new page contains sliders which allow you to adjust the different parameter weightings and re-rank the field as you see fit. I have had the idea for this page on the back burner for some time and after a member suggested it earlier this year, I finally got around to implementing it. Some notes on this new page:

1. Simply adjust the weighting sliders as desired (subject to point two below) and press the 'Rank' button to re-rank the field.
2. The combined values of all the weighting sliders must add up to 100 or you will not be allowed to proceed. There is a colour coded 'Total' label under the sliders which shows you the running total. This 'Total' label is black when zero, green when 100 and red besides.
3. If you would prefer, you can bypass the sliders and input values directly into the text boxes underneath them. Note that you should only enter numbers between 0-100 into these boxes. There is validation on these boxes to ignore text and correct numbers that are out of this range.
4. The parameters available to adjust are season history, last five events history, course history, tournament history, last 12 similar events history, similar length course history, world ranking similar weather history and season scoring average.
5. You can not reverse engineer the GP algorithm using this page, which just uses the simple averages of the above mentioned statistics (where applicable). While the "top secret" GP algorithm is much more complicated (and therefore accurate), this page should still prove very useful.
6. Because the simple averages are used, you may find golfers who have played only one matching event ranking higher than expected. Use the pop-up text over a golfer's first name to determine whether to discard them from your analysis or not. This pop-up text will tell you how many tournaments the golfer played in each applicable category and is shown above for Tiger Woods.
7. It proved very difficult to find sliders that work on every browser. I have tested this page on the latest versions of FireFox, Chrome, Safari and Opera, I have also tested it on IE7, IE8, IE9 and IE10. I had to try a couple of different sliders before settling on the jQuery ones shown above. These proved to be the most compatible with the different browsers, but they do not look as well on IE7 (in particular) or IE8. They still work, but they are not rendered as well as in the more modern browsers. If you're still using these versions of IE, you should really upgrade to a later (and "less bad"!) version!
8. Your custom rankings are just displayed on this page and not saved. This means that if you were to click on a  link as usual (e.g. to a golfer prediction page) and return to this page via the browser's Back button, your custom rankings will be lost. Because of this, the golfer prediction links on this page open up in a new browser window. If you want to return to this page, I recommend right-clicking on any other link (e.g. the tournament page link) and opening the page in a new tab/window.
9. You can only rank the predictions for tournaments with no results in the system (i.e. the current week's event(s) before the results are inputted). This is because this new functionality is relatively computationally intensive and not to be "wasted" on old tournaments! The 'Rank' button will therefore be disabled for completed tournaments.

Just another way to make Golf Predictor even better! This new page is a terrific addition to the site and should greatly assist you in analysing the field for an event. You will no longer limited to Golf Predictor's (albeit more accurate) rankings - you can create your own using your own judgement. The screenshot above shows custom predictions for the 2013 BMW Championship (US PGA Tour FedEx Cup series) with some random weightings applied.

As this is a premium feature (and computationally intensive) which will expose golfers outside those ranked 11-25 by the GP algorithm, only subscribers can re-rank the field. Non-subscribers can access the page, but the 'Rank' button will be disabled. So, sign up today and reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

2013 - Week 38 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions for this week, The Tour Championship by Coca-Cola (US PGA Tour) and the 70° Italian Open Lindt (European PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. Only the top thirty in the FedEx Cup rankings are playing in the US season finale this week, but what a field that is! While most of the world's top thirty will be playing for big money in Atlanta, European journeymen will be teeing it up in Italy. Two home golfers have the highest world ranking in the event, which has moved to a new course in Turin.

2013 - Week 37 Winners

Joost Luiten (ranked 5th by Golf Predictor) won the the KLM Open on the European PGA Tour. There were jubilant scenes as the home favourite secured the title in difficult conditions. Luiten defeated veteran Miguel Angel Jimenez at the second extra hole after the duo finished locked on -12 after 72 holes. Our top ranked player, Matteo Manassero, finished in tied 26th and we had six of the top sixteen plus ties (6/21)*.

On the US Tour, Zach Johnson (ranked 12th by Golf Predictor) won the third event of the FedEx Cup play-offs, the rain delayed BMW Championship. The 37 year old American finished impressively with two birdies in his last three holes to win by two from Nick Watney. Despite shooting just the sixth ever 59 in US PGA Tour history in difficult conditions on Friday, Jim Furyk failed to convert a third round lead into a victory for the sixth time in a row and had to settle for third place. It was an exciting event with the thirty to qualify for the Tour Championship changing many times during the final day. Our top ranked player, Tiger Woods, finished in tied 11th and we had ten of the top eighteen plus ties (10/22).


*Due to non-starters/non-finishers, De La Riva gets promoted to the top 21 in the GP rankings.

2013 - Week 38 Predictions/Statistics Delay

Due to the weather delay at the BMW Championship, which is now not finishing until today (Monday), the predictions for this week will not be available until tomorrow. The Tour Championship by Coca-Cola and 70° Open D'Italia Lindt statistics can not be generated until the final result of the third FedEx Cup event is known and the latest world rankings are available.

I will of course update Golf Predictor and generate the predictions/statistics as soon as possible.

2013 - Week 37 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions/stats for this week, the BMW Championship (US PGA Tour) and the KLM Open (European PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. It's the third leg of the FedEx Cup play-offs in the US this week and after the week off, the pressure will be on to qualify for the lucrative Tour Championship next week. Not many big names at the KLM Open this year, where only two of the top fifty* in the world are teeing it up in the event.


*To be fair, the world number 51 is also playing!

2013 - Week 36 Winner

Thomas Bjorn (ranked 17th by Golf Predictor) won the Omega European Masters on the European PGA Tour. The 42 year old Dane won his fourteenth tour title with a play-off victory over Craig Lee in the scenic (but foggy!) Swiss mountains. The Scot can consider himself somewhat unlucky, having shaved the hole at the last in regulation for what would have been a winning birdie. He also only had one bogey in his final 54 holes, but that counted for nothing when Bjorn stroked in the winning birdie putt at the first extra hole. Our top ranked player, Jamie Donaldson, missed the cut, but we had seven of the top fifteen plus ties (7/19) in total. There was no event on the US PGA Tour this week.

2013 - Week 36 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Omega European Masters (European PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. The FedEx Cup series takes a break this week, so there is no event on the US PGA Tour. As all the big names are competing in the season finale in America, it leaves the usual relatively weak field in Switzerland. While none of the top thirty in the world are competing, Matteo Manassero is the next best thing, at 31 in the rankings!

2013 - Week 35 Winners

Gregory Bourdy (ranked 41st by Golf Predictor) won the ISPS Handa Wales Open on the European PGA Tour. The 31 year old Frenchman won his fourth European PGA Tour event with a brilliant finish. After bogeying thirteen and fourteen in the challenging conditions, Bourdy birdied the three final holes to deny Peter Uihlein and get his Ryder Cup qualification bid off to a great start. Our top ranked player, Francesco Molinari, missed the cut, but we had nine of the top eighteen plus ties in total (9/25)*.

Henrik Stenson (ranked 17th by Golf Predictor) won the Deutsche Bank Championship on the US PGA Tour. The 37 year old Swede capped his consistent season by finally securing the win he deserved. Stenson won by two shots to overtake Tiger Woods at the top of the FedEx rankings. Woods was our top ranked player, but he never really featured and  finished in tied 65th. Overall, we had eight of the top sixteen plus ties (8/19).


*Non finishes promote de la Riva into the top 25 in the GP rankings.

2013 - Week 36 Predictions/Statistics Delay

As usual for the Labor Day holiday in the US, the Deutsche Bank Championship is not finishing until today (Monday). Because of this, the predictions/stats for the Omega European Masters this week will not be available until tomorrow, when the final result of the second FedEx Cup event is known and the latest world rankings are available.

I will of course update Golf Predictor and generate the predictions/statistics as soon as possible.