Season Segment (Field) Page Added to Golf Predictor

Snippet of new Season Segment From page for the 2015 Turkish Airlines Open

New Season Segment Data panel on prediction data page ( for Rory McIlroy ahead of the 2015 Turkish Airlines Open)

Following on from the season segment analysis added earlier in the year, I am pleased to announce the adaptation of this functionality for the prediction data for tournaments on Golf Predictor. A new "Season Segment (Field)" page is available on the Form menu and it allows you to see at a glance which golfers in the field for the current tournament(s) perform better at the time of year (early/mid/late) the tournament is held in. While the original season segment analysis is based on all golfers on both tours who have played at least 45 tournaments in the previous five years, this new page lists only the golfers in the field for the current tournament, sorted by their GP Rank. This page should be very helpful for your fantasy golf, DFS golf or betting needs as it shows who in the field tends to play well versus his peers at the time of the year the tournament is held.

The first screenshot above shows a snippet of this new "Season Segment (Field)" page for the 2015 Turkish Airlines Open. Hovering over the golfer's first name will show the golfer's overall season segment rank (i.e. the rank for his average finish in all tournaments played in previous five years) and GP Score for the tournament, as shown above for Shane Lowry. The first screenshot above also shows the colour coding for the season segment (late season in this case) rank column. The colour coding goes from green to yellow to red. Green shades represent good rankings and red shades represent bad rankings, with deeper shades representing better/worse rankings. Yellow represents mid rankings from the almost 500 golfers in the system with season segment data.

As part of this adaptation, some season segment stats have been added to a new panel on the prediction data page for current tournaments. This new panel is shown in the second screenshot above for Rory McIlroy ahead of the 2015 Turkish Airlines Open. You can see his rank, average finishing position and number of tournaments played for each season segment on this panel. The season segment that the current tournament is in is highlighted in bold text, as can be seen above. This will help you easily compare his form in the current season segment with his form in the others. You can also click on the link in the bottom of the panel to see his more detailed season segment stats page.


 Some notes on this new functionality:

1. This new functionality is only for tournaments in the current week (have prediction stats, but no results). This is because the season segment stats are cumulative and thus only correct for upcoming events.
2. Further to the previous point, you will only see the current week's tournaments in the dropdown list on this new "Season Segment (Field)" page. In practice, these will generally be available from Monday evening to Sunday evening of the tournament week. Similarly, the new season segment panel on the prediction data page will only be available for golfers in the same tournaments.
3. The season segment stats are calculated across both tours, so while golfers on one tour (e.g. the European PGA Tour) may have a relatively modest ranking, many golfers above them may play mainly on the other major tour (e.g. the US PGA Tour) or may not be playing that particular week. Therefore, the rank column colour coding should be used to quickly identify the relative ranks in the field.
4. Columns where low is good (e.g. missed cuts or average finishing position) have high default values when null to help sorting. The converse is true for columns where high is good (e.g. wins or top tens). In either case, null values are displayed as "n/a" in the relevant column(s). Nulls will occur when a golfer hasn't played enough tournaments (45) to feature in the season segment stats or has not played any tournaments in a particular season segment.
5. You may have to refresh a page to see the new Form menu option or the new season segment panel on the prediction data page.

 As part of this enhancement, the following charts have been added to the system:

1. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the best average finishing position (rank) in the early season segment (for early season events).
2. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the most wins in the early season segment (for early season events).
3. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the most top tens in the early season segment (for early season events).
4. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the least missed cuts in the early season segment (for early season events).
5. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the best average finishing position (rank) in the mid season segment (for mid season events).
6. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the most wins in the mid season segment (for mid season events).
7. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the most top tens in the mid season segment (for mid season events).
8. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the least missed cuts in the mid season segment (for mid season events).
9. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the best average finishing position (rank) in the late season segment (for late season events).
10. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the most wins in the late season segment (for late season events).
11. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the most top tens in the late season segment (for late season events).
12. Bar chart showing the golfers in the field with the least missed cuts in the late season segment (for late season events).

These twelve new charts brings the total number of charts on the site to 445. This new functionality makes it much easier to use the season segment stats to pick golfers for the current tournament, as it shows each golfer's performance at that time of the year over the previous five years. I trust you will find it useful and any feedback (via comments on this article or email) would be most welcome. The new season segment  functionality is available to all users, although only for the golfers you are permitted to view (all golfers for subscribers, those ranked 11-25 in the GP Rankings and ranked 26-40 for the overall season segment metric for non-subscribers). In addition, non-subscribers will be similarly restricted for the new season segment panel on the prediction data page and will  not be able to view the new charts listed above. Therefore, sign up today to get the most out of Golf Predictor, the premier European and US PGA Tour statistics site. 

2015 - Week 43 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Turkish Airlines Open (European PGA Tour) and the CIMB Classic (US PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. Both major tours are in Asia this week and like last year, the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club, the home of the Maybank Malaysian Open on the European Tour for the past few years, is hosting the US Tour. As most of the field is from the US Tour, course history from the European Tour events is not much of a factor. The European Tour heads back to Turkey for the fist leg of the big money Final Series and several of the big European names are teeing it up on the Colin Montgomerie designed course. There are a few bigger names than usual in the Malaysian event this year, so it should make for a good week of golf on the US PGA Tour.

2015 - Week 42 Winners

Justin Rose (ranked 1st by Golf Predictor) won the UBS Hong Kong Open on the European PGA Tour. The 35 year old Englishman won his eighth tour title in an exciting weekend battle with Lucas Bjerregaard. The duo pulled away from the field and traded birdies over the final two days. However, when nerves got to the young Dane on the back nine Sunday and he double bogeyed the fourteenth, there was only going to be one winner. Rose duly closed out to take the title by a single shot. Including the winner, we had only six of the top eighteen plus ties (6/23) in total. 

Smylie Kaufman (ranked 79th by Golf Predictor) won the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open on the US PGA Tour. The 23 year old American became the latest rookie to secure his first tour title quickly with a brilliant final round of 61 (-10). After posting -16, Kaufman had an anxious wait of several hours, watching the leaders try to overtake him. However, his score held up and he won in only his fifth tour start. Our top ranked player, Rickie Fowler, finished in tied 25th and we had eight of the top sixteen plus ties (8/24), in an event where several rookies played very well.

2015 - Week 42 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the UBS Hong Kong Open (European PGA Tour) and the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open (US PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. There are more big names than usual playing in Hong Kong Open this year, where Miguel Angel Jimenez will find it more difficult to once again raise his own record of oldest winner on the European PGA Tour! Perhaps Justin Rose, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed et al are there to warm up for the bigger events in China over the next few weeks or maybe they have other reasons for being there! Meanwhile, the Las Vegas event on the US PGA Tour hasn't got many big names competing this year. However, they do have Rickie Fowler, who's teeing it up as the favourite with the many bookies there!

2015 - Week 41 Winners

Andy Sullivan (ranked 8th by Golf Predictor) won the Portugal Masters on the European PGA Tour. The 29 year old Englishman won his third title of the season and his career in stormy Vilamoura. The tour used a shotgun start over the weekend to get the tournament finished, but that didn't faze Sullivan. He won easily with an impressive wire to wire performance, finishing nine shots clear of the field in the end. Our top ranked player, Martin Kaymer, finished in tied 50th and we had six of the top eighteen plus ties (6/21) in total in the weather affected event. 

Emiliano Grillo (ranked 20th by Golf Predictor) won the Frys.com Open on the US PGA Tour. The 23 year old Argentinian won his first tour title in his very first event as a PGA Tour member in a play-off with Kevin Na. Despite missing a tiddler for victory on the first extra hole, Grillo regrouped to take the title on the next when Na hooked his driver from the fairway on the par five final hole. Just a few weeks after winning the Web.com Tour Championship, Grillo probably wishes more events had websites as title sponsors! Our top ranked player, Rory McIlroy, finished in tied 26th and in a tournament traditionally hard to predict, we had only eight of the top seventeen plus ties (8/25). 

Remaining Data Tables Upgraded on Golf Predictor

Original data table (abridged)

Updated data table (inside Bootstrap panel)

Following on from the recent update to the data panels, all the remaining data tables (in addition to the Google Maps pages and input forms) have been similarly enhanced on Golf Predictor. The existing data tables (as shown in the first screenshot above) have been placed into attractive Twitter Bootstrap panels. As can be seen in the second screenshot above, these new panels make the data tables look much better, with a new title, rounded corners and shadowing. The panels shown above are the same portions of the main Prediction Rankings page for the 2015 British Masters on the European PGA Tour. Panels have been added to the following pages:

1. All pages on the Predictions menu
2. All pages on the Form menu
3. All relevant pages on the Information men (including the Tournaments Google Map page)
4. All remaining pages on the Results menu
5. All pages on the Other Stats menu
6. The Search page
7. The Change Password page (input form)
8. The Edit Profile page (input form)
9. The Member Registration page (input form)
10. The Course Location page (Google Map)

Some notes on these new data panels:

1. The format of some pages, e.g. the Edit Profile page, has been improved as part of this update.
2. As almost all these data tables are the only stats on the particular page, there is no need to make the new Bootstrap panels around them collapsible. The only exception is the Tournament Statistics (Rounds) page, which has a panel with record round scores under it. Therefore, you can now click on the title of the Tournament Statistics data table to collapse it and access the Season Scoring Records panel underneath quickly.
3. I have tested the data panels on the latest versions of Chrome, FireFox, IE and MS Edge and found them to work fine. There is a lot of pages involved, so it is possible I didn't catch everything. If you experience any issues, please contact me immediately.
4. The registration page is the only responsive page that has been updated. I have tested this at various screen sizes to ensure that it works correctly.
5. If you are using an older browser, you should not experience any significant issues. I have only been able to test this using compatibility settings on IE11, but the only issue appears to be the expected lack of rounded corners and shadowing on IE7/8. If you are still using a very old version of IE (or any other browser), it is really past time to upgrade or change it!
6. Golf Predictor is not really designed for mobile devices, but I have also tested these new panels on Chrome (Android 5.1.1) and Safari (iOS 6.1.3). They appear to work fine in both cases.
7. You may have to reload a page or empty your browser cache to see the new panels. 

I trust you will agree that these cosmetic updates to the input forms, Google Map pages and the remaining data tables are an improvement. Just another way to make Golf Predictor a little better!

2015 - Week 41 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Frys.com Open (US PGA Tour) and the Portugal Masters (European PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. It's the first event of the new 2014/15 US PGA Tour season, and there are a few big guns trying to get their new campaigns off to a flying start. Like several others, Rory McIlroy is fulfilling his obligation to play (unlike his injured Nike stable mate!) and there are several protagonists from last week's Presidents Cup teeing it up on the opposite side of the Pacific. The field in Portugal is more modest, but there are a significant number of the bigger regulars on the European Tour playing in the Algarve.

2015 - Week 40 Winner

Matthew Fitzpatrick (ranked 27th by Golf Predictor) won the British Masters supp. by Sky Sports on the European PGA Tour. The 21 year old Englishman fulfilled his early promise by winning his first tour title at the resurrected event in Woburn. Buoyed on by the strong home support, Fitzpatrick showed great composure down the stretch to take his maiden victory by two shots. Our top ranked player, Danny Willett, finished in tied 46th and we had eight of the top seventeen plus ties (8/21).

There was no individual stroke play event on the US PGA Tour this week as it is the short close season (and the week of the Presidents Cup!).

2015 - Week 40 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the British Masters supp. by Sky Sports (European PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. There is no event on the US PGA Tour this week as it is still the short close season and the Presidents Cup is being held. While the top golfers from outside Europe are duking it out in South Korea, there is another tournament revival in Europe. The British Masters returns to the schedule for the first time since 2008 and as a result, it is being well supported by the home contingent!

2015 - Week 39 Winner

Thorbjorn Olesen (ranked 82nd by Golf Predictor) won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship on the European PGA Tour. The 25 year old Dane overcame a bad start to win his third tour title in Scotland. Leading by three overnight, Olesen had given the shots back by his first three holes. However, he bounced back well and won by two shots with the help of a monster birdie putt on the fifteenth. After his injury troubles over the past year or so, it was an emotional victory for Olesen. Our top ranked player, Brooks Koepka, finished in tied 2nd and we had only eight of the top nineteen plus ties (8/26).

There was no event on the US PGA Tour this week as it is the short close season.