2015 - Week 4 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Omega Dubai Desert Classic (European PGA Tour) and the Waste Management Phoenix Open (US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. It's the last week of the Desert Swing on the European PGA Tour and three of the top ten in the world, including top dog Rory McIlroy, are teeing it up in Dubai. Meanwhile, the US PGA Tour has made the short hop from California to Arizona, where there are also three of the top ten in the world playing this week. All eyes there will be on Tiger Woods, who makes his latest comeback after injury in his 2015 début. He starts with his lowest ever ranking* (by some distance!) on Golf Predictor, although that hasn't stopped him being third favourite with the bookies!


*So low that initially I didn't even notice him in the field!

2015 - Week 3 Winners

Branden Grace (ranked 8th by Golf Predictor) won the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters on the European PGA Tour. The 26 year old South African won his second title of the season with a one shot victory over Marc Warren. Grace needed an eagle on the drivable par four sixteenth and a closing birdie to pip the Englishman to the title. A miracle birdie from the trees during the third round also helped Grace land his sixth tour title. Our top ranked player, Sergio Garcia, had a horror finish to his third round and finished tied 46th. In an event where many of the bigger names failed to perform, we only had six of the top nineteen (6/22) in total.

Bill Haas (ranked 13th by Golf Predictor) won the Humana Challenge in pship with the Clinton Foundation on the US PGA Tour. The 32 year old American also won his sixth tour title by a single shot over the field. After breaking the logjam at the top with a birdie on sixteen, Haas overcame a sticky stance with his second on eighteen to clinch the title for the second time. Haas had to stand in the bunker with the ball on the edge at almost waist height. However he managed to advance it up the fairway and then rescue a par on the closing par five. Our top ranked player, Matt Kuchar, failed to get up and down at the last for a birdie and finished tied 2nd. Overall, we had only six of the top fifteen plus ties (6/20)* in total.


*Due to a non-start and a withdrawal, Charley Hoffman gets promoted to the top 19 in the GP rankings.

Golf Predictor SSL Issue Fixed

Further to the recent SSL issue with Golf Predictor (arising from the forced upgrade), you may not be able to register for or log into the site for a while over the weekend while the SSL settings are being updated. I'm told the process could take up to two days to take effect, but it should be fixed much sooner than that. At the moment, the process is not affecting logging in or registering, but this may change over the next few hours. Thank you for your continued patience during this time and I will update this post with any new information.

[Update Sat 24 Jan 11pm]
I am happy to announce that the SSL issue has finally been resolved. After a brief site outage a few minutes ago, the SSL certificate now appears to be working properly. This means that there are no more security warnings on browsers. This was the last outstanding issue, so Golf Predictor is back working properly after the server migration. Thank you once again for your continued patience during this process.

SSL Certificate Issue

Further to the recent server upgrade with Golf Predictor, it has been brought to my attention that the SSL certificate issue alluded to in that post gives a more serious warning in Chrome*. I am working towards a fix, but in the meantime, it should be safe to log in by clicking "Advanced" and then "Proceed to www.golfpredictor.com". On other browsers, select the option to continue on to the website.

The issue is caused by the recent server upgrade and not by an attack on the site. Apologies for any inconvenience caused in the meantime.

*This doesn't happen on all versions of Chrome


[Update 7.30pm]
As I suspected, I have to change a SSL setting which will make the site unavailable for up to another 24 hours. Therefore, I will again wait until the weekend, when the site is less useful. Until then, please follow the instructions above to continue on to the site.

2015 - Week 3 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters (European PGA Tour) and the Humana Challenge in pship with the Clinton Foundation (US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. The European Tour stays in the Arabian Gulf this week, where the action once again starts on Wednesday in Qatar. Meanwhile, the US PGA Tour makes its season début on the mainland at La Quinta. All eyes at the annual birdie fest will probably be on Phil Mickelson, who is making his season début in the Californian desert.

2015 - Week 2 Winners

Gary Stal (ranked 61st by Golf Predictor) won the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship on the European PGA Tour. The 22 year old Frenchman closed with an impressive bogey free 65 (-7) to win his maiden title in extraordinary circumstances. Martin Kaymer led by six shots going into the final round and increased his lead to ten strokes early on in the round. However, the normally unflappable German began leaking shots, dropping six in total over his closing thirteen holes to end up finishing third behind the fast finishing Frenchman and world number one Rory McIlroy. The Northern Irishman was our top ranked golfer and we had seven of the top twelve plus ties  (7/19) in total.

In the first full field event of the year on the US PGA Tour, Jimmy Walker (ranked 4th by Golf Predictor) won the Sony Open in Hawaii. The 35 year old American successfully defended his title by blitzing the field and winning by nine shots. Walker put the disappointment of letting victory slip last week by shooting 62-63 over the weekend to run away with the title. Our top ranked player, Jason Day, finished in tied seventeenth and in an event where many of the bigger names didn't perform, we had nine of the top seventeen plus ties (9/25).

Golf Predictor Upgrade

Further to the recent serious issue with Golf Predictor, the site may be down over the weekend while it is moved to a new and improved server. I'm told the process could take up to two days to take effect, but hopefully it will be back on-line much sooner than that. Thank you for your continued patience during this time.

[Update 11.30pm]
The process has gone well so far, except that I forgot about the sub-domain for the Golf Predictor blog! I've had to point the blog back to its original Blogger URL for the time being. The main Golf Predictor site has been successfully transferred to its new server. However, the SSL cert has had to be transferred and this takes some time (anything from 2 to 24 hours, I've been told).

Because this cert protects your sensitive data (e.g. password and registering information), I have disabled both logging in and registering until the process completes. In the interim, all pages that use the cert on Golf Predictor will not display anyway. I have temporarily disabled the SSL feature on the log in and registration pages, so that they display. However, I have removed the registration form and made the fields on the log in page read only for the moment. I will check the SSL status in the morning (Irish time) and throughout the next few days until the process completes.

[Update Jan 17 8am]
The SSL cert hasn't transferred over to the new server yet. Looking at the administration page for the cert, it says it could take up to 72 hours. This is longer than I was told over the phone, but hopefully it won't take that long.

[Update Jan 17 10am]
The sub-domain for the Golf Predictor blog (blog.golfpredictor.com) has been restored. The only outstanding issue now is the SSL cert

[Update Jan 17 5.30pm]
Still waiting on the SSL cert.

[Update Jan 17 11pm]
The SSL cert has been transferred successfully, so I have re-enabled the login and registration pages. The site appears to be working fine now, except for the missing captcha image on the registration page. As a result, I have removed the captcha for the time being. Note that you may have to add a security exemption to your browser when accessing a secure page (e.g. the log in page) on the site for the first time. Thank you for your patience while the site was down.

2015 - Week 2 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship (European PGA Tour) and the Sony Open in Hawaii (US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. All eyes will be on Rory McIlroy, who makes his 2015 début in the Middle East, as usual. Although there is a strong field with four of the top ten in the world teeing it up in the gulf state, McIlroy is the runaway favourite. Meanwhile, the second leg of the Hawaiian swing is the first full field event on the US PGA Tour in 2015 and it's a little harder to pick out a clear favourite!

2015 - Week 2 Predictions Delayed

Due to the late Monday night finish (Irish time) of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions in Hawaii, the predictions for this week (Sony Open in Hawaii and the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship) will be later than normal. The results have inputted into Golf Predictor, but the predictions for this week can not be generated until the latest world rankings arising out of last week's events become available.

I will endeavour to produce the predictions as soon as possible, but given the time difference, it is looking like this evening (Tuesday, Irish time) at the moment before they will be available. I will update this post should the situation change in the meantime and I thank you for your patience. Note that this is an annual issue and is unrelated to the Golf Predictor outage of recent days.

2015 - Week 1 Winners

In the opening golfing week of 2015, Andy Sullivan (ranked 9th by Golf Predictor) won the South African Open Championship on the European PGA Tour. The 27 year old Englishman won his maiden title after Charl Schwartzel once again squandered a third round lead at his home open. Schwartzel was five up after round three and four up with five to play, but conspired to fritter away his lead and lost at the first extra hole in the ensuing play-off. Schwartzel was our top ranked golfer, and we had seven of the top fifteen plus ties (7/19) in total.

Patrick Reed (ranked 3rd by Golf Predictor) won the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. The 24 year old American surprised even himself by winning from four down with four to play. However, an adventurous finish of birdie, eagle, bogey and birdie and some help from Jimmy Walker saw him make the play-off with his aforementioned compatriot. Reed prevailed at the first extra hole with yet another birdie to win his fourth tour title. Our top ranked player, Bubba Watson, finished in tenth and we had eight of the top fourteen plus ties (8/16) in this restricted field event.

GP Hosting Issue

Unfortunately, there is a database connection issue with Golf Predictor at the moment. While you can see the site homepage and other front facing pages, you can not log into the member area at the moment. This is a problem with the hosting service, not Golf Predictor itself. I have raised the issue with my provider, but the system may be down for a while.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused by this issue, which is beyond my control and I ask for your patience at this time.


[UPDATE 9pm]
After a long and frustrating day, I'm afraid the situation is bleak for a quick fix. This inexplicable problem is a connection issue with the database which holds the member information, which is why no one can log in. All looks well on the hosting side, although there is one strange issue related to the database in question. While I can manually access the database content/structure as usual, the website has suddenly stopped being able to connect to it after about seven years. The host company have denied making any changes that could have caused this connection issue, so we're at a bit of an impasse. I've decided to take this opportunity while the site is down to upgrade the hosting account. This involves moving the site files and recreating the databases on the new set up. I hope to be able to restore the problem database, so there isn't any loss in data. When finished, the site performance should increase due to the upgrade, but it may take several days before all this is complete. Thank you for your continued patience. I will apply free subscription time in lieu of any downtime, so no one will lose out financially due to this outage.

[UPDATE Sun 11 Jan, 1pm] 
Still working on the problem. Not much progress made thus far today unfortunately, although not for the lack of trying!

[UPDATE Sun 11 Jan, 8.45pm] 
I have managed to transfer most of the site to the new hosting account. Only the problematic database remains to be done, along with some necessary reconfiguration.

[UPDATE Mon 12 Jan, 12.45pm] 
I have managed to recreate the site on the new server. More testing is needed, so I'm not sure that everything is working just yet. If all proves to be well, the site will have to be pointed to its new home which I'm told could take a day or two to take effect. I may be able to point the old site to the new databases and get the system back up in time for this week's events. I would then do the full changeover this coming weekend. Note that the late Monday finish (Irish time) to the Hawaiian event means that no predictions would be available until Tuesday evening at the earliest, regardless of the state of the system. That's some useful breathing space for me, given the circumstances!
 
[UPDATE Mon 12 Jan, 9pm] 
I have managed to get the site working again by pointing the existing site to the databases on the new server. These had exactly the same content as the ones on the existing server, but without the inexplicable error on the membership database. I hope to complete the changeover to the new server at the weekend, once this week's tournaments have started and Golf Predictor isn't quite as useful! Thank you for your continued patience during this very difficult time. Now, I'm off to bed!

2015 - Week 1 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Hyundai Tournament of Champions (US PGA Tour) and the South African Open Championship* (European PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. It's the first week of the new GP season (the 2015 calendar year) and it's time for everyone to look forward to another full year of golf! I would like to wish all readers/users a Happy New Year and a prosperous 2015 using Golf Predictor!


*The full name of this event is The South African Open Championship Hosted by the City of Ekurhuleni, which is a little too verbose for Golf Predictor!