2015 - Week 17 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions/statistics for this week, the WGC - Cadillac Match Play Championship (European/US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. Although Golf Predictor is designed primarily for stroke play events, like previous seasons, the WGC - Cadillac Match Play Championship has been put through the prediction engine. There are no other tournaments on the two major tours this week.

2015 - Week 16 Winners

Ashun Wu (ranked 70th by Golf Predictor) won the Volvo China Open on the European PGA Tour. The 29 year old made history by becoming the first Chinese golfer to win on home soil on the European Tour. He had some help from David Howell though, who finished with a poor bogey on the par five eighteenth to lose by a shot. Our top ranked player, Tommy Fleetwood, disappointingly missed the cut, and we had nine of the top eighteen plus ties (9/25).
 
Justin Rose (ranked 22nd by Golf Predictor) won the Zurich Classic of New Orleans on the US PGA Tour. The 34 year old Englishman won for the sixth straight year in ideal scoring conditions on Sunday. On a course softened by heavy rain, Rose hit a clutch putt on the last to win by one from Cameron Tringale. Our top ranked player, Jason Day, finished in tied 3rd and we had only four of the top twelve plus ties (4/21) in the weather affected event.

Upgraded Charts on Golf Predictor - Part 3

Further to the most recent post about the chart upgrade, I am pleased to announce that the last tranche of charts have been upgraded on Golf Predictor. These are the charts on the following pages:

1. Outstanding pages on Prediction menu (e.g. main prediction ranking page)
2. Outstanding pages on Form menu (e.g. season form page)
3. Pages on Information menu (e.g. golfers page)
4. Pages on Results menu (e.g. results by position - all page)
5. Pages on Other Stats menu (e.g. tournament stats page)

All the charts on these pages (and there are a lot of them!) are of the non-popup variety and are comprised of bar and pie charts. Some further notes on these new charts:

1. The pop-up text on bar charts with positive and negative values (e.g. average round score vs par charts) will not display consistently for negative values. You will have to hover over certain parts (anywhere outside the area in which the pop-up appears) of the negative bars to see the pop-up text.
2. All charts should be formatted properly. However, some charts may need further tweaking or have a label slightly truncated, depending on the data, e.g. a long name under the rightmost bar on a bar chart.

As ever, any feedback (via comments on this article or email) on these new charts would be most welcome. Barring any oversight on my behalf, this thankfully completes the somewhat tedious and repetitious conversion of all the charts on Golf Predictor to Flot!

2015 - Week 16 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Volvo China Open (European PGA Tour) and the Zurich Classic of New Orleans (US PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. No big names are teeing it up in China this week, which makes it very hard to call. However, there are several big names playing in Louisiana, where five of the top twenty in the world are in the field.

2015 - Week 15 Winners

Kiradech Aphibarnrat (ranked 1st by Golf Predictor) won the Shenzhen International on the European PGA Tour. The 25 year old Thai won his second tour title in a play-off with young local Hao-tong Li. Despite playing patchy over the opening sixteen holes, the overnight leader eagled the penultimate hole and parred the last to catch Li, who must have been confident of victory in regulation. Our top ranked player, Bubba Watson, didn't challenge after flying half way across the world following the Masters. Watson did finish strongly however, closing with  a 65 (-7) for tied 29th. Overall, we had seven of the top fifteen plus ties (7/21).
 
Jim Furyk (ranked 2nd by Golf Predictor) won the RBC Heritage on the US PGA Tour. The 44 year old American won his seventeenth tour title in a play-off with Kevin Kisner. Furyk was pushed all the way, having to birdie the two extra holes and nine more in regulation, just to win his first title in almost five years. Our top ranked player, Jordan Spieth, still managed to finish tied 11th, despite his Masters hangover.  Overall, we had only five of the top fifteen plus ties (5/17). Despite the relatively benign conditions, many of the bigger names failed to perform.

2015 - Week 15 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Shenzhen International (European PGA Tour) and the RBC Heritage (US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. After the excitement of The Masters, it's back to the grind for the ordinary pros this week! While most of the big names are resting after the exertions of Augusta, there are several big names playing in South Carolina. Not least among them is the newly crowned Masters champion Jordan Spieth, who is sure to attract a large following.

Meanwhile in the new event on the European Tour, Bubba Watson is headlining the field and is the only Masters competitor* teeing it up in China with the multitude of local golfers and European Tour journeymen. I wonder what made him fly half way around the world directly after Augusta?!


*As far as I can see!

2015 - Week 14 Winner

Jordan Spieth (ranked 4th by Golf Predictor) won the first major of the year, The Masters (European/US PGA Tour). The 21 year old American went one better than last year and won his first major with a brilliant display of golf. After opening with a fantastic 64, the young Texan was never less than three shots ahead for the rest of the week, setting a slew of records in the process. Tiger Woods produced an impressive display on his latest comeback, even if he faded to tied 17th on the final day. Our top ranked player, Rory McIlroy, didn't fire on all cylinders, but finished strongly to end up in 4th place. Overall, we had ten of the top nineteen plus ties (10/20).

Upgraded Charts on Golf Predictor - Part 2

Further to the recent post about the chart upgrade, I am pleased to announce that the second tranche of charts have been upgraded on Golf Predictor. These are the charts on the following pages:

1. Field Rankings
2. Field Rankings (Form)
3. Compare Field Rankings pages 
4. Compare Form pages
5. Compare Predictions pages

All the charts on these pages (and there are a lot of charts on some of them!) are pop-up charts and include multi-line, bar and bar stacked charts. Some further notes on these new charts:

1. Bar numbers are now not shown in bar charts with less than 4 bars. This is due to a formatting issue caused by the bar numbers in this situation.
2. The X-Axis title may be misaligned for some horizontal bar charts with bar numbers. This is again due to the bar numbers, which seem to cause more problems than they solve! In this case, they cause the x-axis label to be non-centred (more to the left). I couldn't find a solution to this, so I left it as is, since it's not a major issue and the display of the bar numbers outweighs it.

As ever, any feedback (via comments on this article or email) on these new charts would be most welcome. This completes the conversion of the pop-up charts to Flot on the site. I will be converting the non-pop up charts over the coming weeks and will post when the first tranche of these is complete.

2015 - Week 14 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, The Masters (European/US PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. Only one tournament this week, but it's the big one! It's that time of the year again and excitement is mounting among golf fans ahead of the first major of the season at Augusta. The big news is that Tiger Woods is in the field and his presence should take a lot of the limelight off Rory McIlroy's quest for the career grand slam. It promises to be an exciting week's golf and I, for one, will be glued to the TV!

2015 - Week 13 Winner

J.B. Holmes (ranked 10th by Golf Predictor) won the Shell Houston Open on the US PGA Tour. The 32 year old American stormed through the field with a closing 64 (-8) to win his fourth tour title after a play-off with Jordan Spieth and Johnson Wagner. Both Spieth and Wagner holed putts (the former for par, the latter for birdie) on the difficult final hole to make the play-off. However, Holmes wasn't to be denied and he prevailed on the second extra hole. The in-form Spieth was our top ranked player and was upset by a camera click on the first extra hole and was eliminated first. Overall, we had eight of the top seventeen plus ties (8/24)*.


*Walker didn't play, promoting Henley into the top 24 in the GP rankings.

Current Season Stats Now on Golf Predictor

The season stats for the current GP Season (the 2015 calendar year so far) have been added to Golf Predictor. This was done after a user request came in for this data ahead of The Masters. This information is very useful for picking players for a sweep ahead of the stats being available for the event on Golf Predictor.

Because Golf Predictor uses the most recent results and world rankings possible, the tournament stats can not be generated until the latest world rankings from the previous week's tournaments are available. This is generally the Monday of a tournament week. It is not convenient to extract field information from Golf Predictor before this happens, but these current season stats should make the task easier.

Season stats were hitherto now only available for completed GP seasons, but I will put a process in place to update the current season stats after every tournament week as the season goes on, so they can be used ahead of other tournaments. Note that like completed season stats, only players who have played at least five events in the current season will be shown. Just another way to make Golf Predictor a little better!