2017 - Week 39 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 (Golf Predictor is not suitable for team matchplay events). Lee Westwood has managed to attract some big European names to the event in England, where the tournament has moved to yet another new course and another new host. This doesn't make the task of forecasting it any easier!

2017 - Week 38 Winners

Lucas Bjerregaard (ranked 37th by Golf Predictor) won the Portugal Masters on the European PGA Tour. The 26 year old Dane won his first tour title with an impressive front running display in Vilamoura. Leading by one overnight, Bjerregaard shot an eight birdie 65 (-6) to put his poor season behind him and win by four shots. Our top ranked player, Thomas Pieters, finished in 74th and we had only six of the top twenty plus ties (6/24*) at the birdiefest in the Algarve.

Xander Schauffele (ranked 30th by Golf Predictor) won the Tour Championship on the US PGA Tour. The 23 year old American rookie capped a fantastic début season by taking the prestigious title at East Lake. Schauffele showed nerves of steel to hold off a quality field, pipping Justin Thomas with a short birdie putt on the last. Runner-up  Thomas had the consolation of banking the $10 million FedEx Cup jackpot. Our top ranked player, Dustin Johnson, finished in tied 17th and we had twelve of the top seventeen plus ties (12/18) in the restricted field event.  


 *Gallacher withdrew, promoting Burmester to the top 24 of the GP rankings.

2017 - Week 38 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions for this week, the Tour Championship (US PGA Tour) and the Portugal Masters (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 and it's the usual cream of the crop,with some exceptions e.g. defending FedEx Cup champion Rory McIlroy. The field in Portugal is more modest, but there are a significant number of the bigger regulars on the European Tour and a few US based Europeans playing in the Algarve.
 

2017 - Week 37 Winners

Romain Wattel (ranked 61st by Golf Predictor) won the KLM Open on the European PGA Tour. The 26 year old Frenchman overcame some poor recent form to land his maiden tour title. Wattel, who played steady golf on Sunday, was helped somewhat by overnight leader Aphibarnrat, who double bogeyed two of the last four holes to finish three shots behind. Our top ranked player, Bernd Wiesberger, finished in tied 9th and in an event where many of the bigger names failed to perform, we had only three of the top nine plus ties (3/13).

Marc Leishman (ranked 20th by Golf Predictor) won the third event of the FedEx Cup play-offs, the BMW Championship. The 33 year old Australian won his third tour title with an impressive wire to wire victory at Conway Farms. Leading by five overnight, Leishman was put under some pressure by Justin Rose and Rickie Fowler before steadying the ship and preserving his lead in the end. After a lacklustre opening three days, our top ranked player, Dustin Johnson, finished strongly with a 64 (-7) for tied 33rd. Overall, we had twelve of the top twenty plus ties (12/26).

Tabs & Stats Added to Golfer Page

New Golfer page for Rory McIlroy showing new tabs. The data and chart links in the Season Segment/Region tab are displayed.

Spider Chart for McIlroy's Region Performance, showing relatively poor performance in his home region and to a lesser extent, the Eastern US region.

I am pleased to announce the addition of tabs and more statistics to the Golfer page on Golf Predictor. This page is accessible from clicking on the icon beside a golfer's name on one of the many data pages or the Golfers page in the Information menu. While this has been planned for some time, I also got some user feedback which prompted me into action! The new stats added to this page are:

1. All the prediction/field stats records in the system for the golfer in one place, i.e. his stats ahead of each event.
2. All the DraftKings records in the system for the golfer in one place, i.e. his DraftKings stats ahead of each event.
3. All the strokes gained stats records in the system for the golfer in one place, i.e. his strokes gained stats ahead of each event.
4. The season segment (early/mid/late) stats in the system for the golfer, i.e. his up to date data in each part of the GP Season.
5. All the region stats in the system for the golfer, i.e. his performance in each region he has played in.

To facilitate the addition of all these new stats, I have added tabs to the Golfer page. The four new tabs can be seen in the first screenshot above, which shows the Season Segment/Region tab for for Rory McIlroy. The existing information on the Golfer page was largely focussed on the results and this is now almost all located in the first tab. The only exception is the list of season statistics records, which have been moved to the same tab as the new predictions/field stats table. All these newly added stats were already in the system, but displayed in tournament focussed tables with other golfers (i.e. the field). These new tables added to the Golfer page focus on the golfer and show all his stats in one place. This will save you a lot of time should you be interested in the data for a particular golfer only. Some notes on these changes to the Golfer page:

1. Most of the tab titles have been abbreviated to save space, particularly for smaller devices such as phones or tablets.
2. Only the DraftKings/strokes gained data in the database is shown. These are not generally stored forever and may be cleared out at the end of every GP Season.
3. Most of these newly displayed stats are based on stats generated or used for the prediction/field stats before a tournament. This is particularly relevant for region stats, which do not include the result of the actual tournament itself (if finished) in that region. However, in this case, you can hover over the region to see the result of the last tournament in the region. You can also click on the region name for see the complete Prediction Data page for the golfer for that tournament, which contains his results and further stats for that region.
4. There are no column keys for the tables on these new tabs. However, most of the abbreviations should be self evident and are almost identical to those on the tables with the same data for the field. For example, the new DraftKings table has very similar columns to the existing Rankings (DFS) page, so you can refer to the key on this table if you are unsure. However, I have renamed some of the columns on these new player centric tables on the Golfer page to make them more obvious.
5. Two spider charts have been added to the Golfer page, one existing chart for the season segment stats (already available on the Season Segment page) and one new chart for comparing region stats easily. The links for these new charts can be seen in the first screenshot above. This new chart is shown in the second screenshot above for Rory McIlroy. Interestingly, it shows that, despite a few wins, McIlroy's worst performances by a considerable margin over almost all other regions over the past five years have been in his home region*. Also, it shows that in the US, he does worst in the Eastern region, which includes major venues like Oakmont, Baltusrol and Congressional.
6. You may have to refresh the GP site files in your browser cache to see the new tabs properly. The easiest way to do this on Windows is to press Ctrl+F5 on any GP page. Alternatively, you can clear your browser cache, but this will also affect other sites.

In addition to facilitating the display of large amounts of data, these tabs also allow for more modular development. Instead of one large monolithic page and associated code, I can now divide up the page into logical (and reusable, if necessary) chunks and use one per tab. Therefore, over the next while, I plan to add tabs to other pages on the site, including the Tournament and the main Prediction Data pages. In doing so, no stats will disappear, but some may be moved around, e.g. the course history data panel and associated results might be shown together in one tab. At the moment, the associated results are far down the prediction data page from the course history data panel.

The new regions spider chart brings the total number of charts on the site to 487 and these new stats should be very useful in helping you pick good golfers for your fantasy golf, DFS or betting needs. For the first time, a golfer's statistics are displayed in one place and information such as his relative performance in different parts of the world is displayed. 

Only subscribers can view this new chart and the new golfer centric data tables, so sign up today and reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

*Luckily, GP uses the British Isles as a region, which includes Britain and the whole island of Ireland. This allows me to dodge the political minefield!!

2017 - 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 the pressure will be on to qualify for the lucrative Tour Championship next week. As usual, the bigger names are still in FedEx Cup contention in America, but there still are a few European players in the top fifty in the world rankings teeing it up in the Netherlands this week.

2017 - Week 36 Winner

Matthew Fitzpatrick (ranked 7th by Golf Predictor) won the Omega European Masters on the European PGA Tour. The 23 year old Englishman won his fourth tour title by defeating Scott Hend in a play-off in the scenic Swiss mountains. Fitzpatrick trailed third round leader Hend by four shots overnight, but finished strongly to briefly overtake the Australian. However, he bogeyed the penultimate hole and finished level with last year's runner-up in a play-off. Hend, who had a birdie putt to win on the last hole in regulation, also missed a short putt n the second extra hole which was to prove costly. After finding trouble off the tee, Hend could only bogey the third extra hole and Fitzpatrick took the title with a par. Our top ranked player, defending champion Alexander Noren, finished in tied 6th and in an event where many bigger names failed to perform, we had only five of the top sixteen plus ties (5/19). 

There was no event on the US PGA Tour this week.

2017 - 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. As usual, there is also a decent field of tour members assembled for the popular track in Switzerland this week. The field is led by world number twelve and defending champion Alex Noren, who is joined by several other stalwarts of the European Tour. There is no event on the US PGA Tour this week as it is the rest week in the FedEx Cup play-offs.

2017 - Week 35 Winners

Haydn Porteous (ranked 41st by Golf Predictor) won the D+D REAL Czech Masters on the European PGA Tour. The 23 year old South African won his second tour title in a final day battle with third round leader Lee Slattery. Although trailing by two shots overnight, Porteous reeled in Slattery straight away with two opening birdies, and despite a slight mid-round wobble, reclaimed the initiative and held on to win by two in the end. Our top ranked player, Thomas Pieters, had a disappointing final round (which included a six putt!) and finished 66th Overall, in an event where almost all of the bigger names didn't perform, we had only a disappointing two of the top eighteen plus ties (2/21) in total. 

Justin Thomas (ranked 14th by Golf Predictor) won the Dell Technologies Championship on the US PGA Tour. The 24 year old American won his fifth title of a memorable season with a three shot win over Jordan Spieth. After an amazing front nine on Sunday where most of the top players came out all guns blazing, the scoring cooled considerably on the back nine. Most fell away down the stretch,  including Spieth, who had to chase his good friend late on. That allowed Thomas to win his first FedEx Cup event reasonably comfortably in the end. Our top ranked player, Dustin Johnson, finished in tied 18th and we had nine of the top eighteen plus ties (9/21).