2018 - Week 9 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the WGC - Mexico Championship (European/US PGA Tour) and the Tshwane Open (European PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. All eyes will be on Mexico, where a quality field has again assembled for the first WGC event of the year. There's forty five of top fifty in the world rankings where world number one Dustin Johnson will be defending his title. Meanwhile, the European PGA Tour heads back to South Africa, where once again there is a poor field this year.

If you want to try a DFS contest for this week's events, check out DraftKings or the Official Daily Fantasy Partner of the European Tour, PlayON.
 

2018 - Week 8 Winners

Eddie Pepperell (ranked 32nd by Golf Predictor) won the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters on the European PGA Tour. The 27 year old Englishman won his first tour title with a one shot victory over Oliver Fisher in Qatar. Despite having built up a three shot lead on the back nine, Pepperell was made to sweat by Fisher, who overcame a poor front nine to finish strongly and narrowly miss forcing a play-off. In a hard to call event, our top ranked player, Thorbjorn Olesen, missed the cut and we had nine of the top nineteen plus ties (9/27).

Justin Thomas (ranked 2nd by Golf Predictor) won the Honda Classic on the US PGA Tour. The 24 year old American won his eighth tour title after a play-off victory over Luke List. In a tight contest all day, both Thomas and List birdied the last to finish tied at the top after seventy two holes. List found trouble off the tee on the first extra hole, but still had a chance on the green to extend the play-off. However, he missed his birdie putt and Thomas two putted for his win after finding the green in two. Our top ranked player, Rickie Fowler, disappointingly missed the cut in his title defence and we had seven of the top seventeen plus ties (7/23) in the tough conditions. 

2018 - Week 10 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Hero Indian Open (European PGA Tour) and the Valspar Championship (US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. As the build up to Augusta begins in earnest, seven of the top twenty in the world rankings are teeing it up in Florida, including Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth. Of course, there may be some interest  in a certain Tiger Woods too! Meanwhile, the European PGA Tour returns to India where Joost Luiten and local hero Shubhanker Sharma are headlining the field in New Delhi. Note that as Golf Predictor does not track the Asian Tour, the tournament/course/recent history of the Asian tour players is not taken into account.

If you want to try a DFS contest for this week's events, check out DraftKings or the Official Daily Fantasy Partner of the European Tour, PlayON.
 

2018 - Week 8 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters (European PGA Tour) and the Honda Classic (US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. The European Tour stays in the Arabian Gulf this week, where the action moves to Qatar. Meanwhile, there is a much better field on the US PGA Tour, with eight out of the top twenty in the world rankings teeing it up in the first event of the Florida swing. 

If you want to try a DFS contest for this week's events, check out DraftKings or the Official Daily Fantasy Partner of the European Tour, PlayON.

2018 - Week 7 Winners

Joost Luiten (ranked 3rd by Golf Predictor) won the inaugural NBO Oman Open on the European PGA Tour. The 32 year old Dutchman won his sixth tour title at the new event in the Middle East. Luiten broke away from a packed field on the final day on the back nine and won by two shots in what turned out to be a two horse race with Chris Wood. Our top ranked player, Alex Levy, finished in tied 4th and we had eight of the top sixteen plus ties (8/20).
 
Bubba Watson (ranked 30th by Golf Predictor) won the Genesis Open title on the US PGA Tour. The 39 year old American won his tenth tour title and third in Los Angeles by beating Tony Finau and Kevin Na. into second place. Watson also broke away from a crowded leaderboard on the back nine to win  by two shots. Our top ranked player, Dustin Johnson, had an up and down week and finished in tied sixteenth. Overall, we had eight of the top twenty plus ties (8/25) in total.

Similar Field Strength Metrics added to Filter Pages

New Similar Field Strength filters

Further to this post from a few weeks ago, I am pleased to announce that similar field strength metrics have been added to the filter pages on Golf Predictor. as shown in the screenshot above, you can now narrow down the field on both the Prediction Rankings (Filter) page and the DFS Lineup Builder pages by the average position, number of wins, number of top tens, number of cuts missed and number of tournaments played in similar field strength events.

This may help you to select golfers for an upcoming event. You can now filter the field on these two pages by 57 different metrics. Just another way to make Golf Predictor even better!

2018 - Week 7 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the NBO Oman Open (European PGA Tour) and the Genesis Open (US PGA Tour), are now available on Golf Predictor. It's the last week of the California swing this week on the US PGA Tour and there's a quality field in Los Angeles. Eleven of the top twenty in the world are teeing it up, which doesn't leave many of the top players for the new event in the Middle East! They have to make do with five golfers from the lower regions of the world's top one hundred to headline in Oman. Note that the course history from the Challenge Tour event is not tracked by Golf Predictor.

If you want to try a DFS contest for this week's events, check out DraftKings or the Official Daily Fantasy Partner of the European Tour, PlayON.
 

2018 - Week 6 Winners

Kiradech Aphibarnrat (ranked 14th by Golf Predictor) won the ISPS HANDA World Super 6 Perth on the European PGA Tour. The 28 year old Thai won his fourth tour title in Australia, defeating James Nitties 2&1 in the final of the  super 6 event. Aphibarnrat was the last man into the matchplay segment after a play-off for the last spot on Saturday and played the eighteenth hole an amazing fifteen times (including as the dead heat hole) during the event! Aphibarnrat was our top ranked player and we had only four of the top seventeen in the hot and breezy conditions.


Ted Potter Jr (ranked 92nd by Golf Predictor) won the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am on the US PGA Tour. The unfancied American saw off many big names on the scenic Pacific layout to secure his second tour title. After flirting with a 59 on Saturday, Potter was joint leader with world number one Dustin Johnson overnight. However, while DJ stalled on Sunday, Potter wasn't put under any real pressure on the back nine and reeled off a long succession of pars after four early birdies to win by three shots. DJ was our top ranked player, and  despite a poor final day by his standards, still finished in tied second. Overall, we had ten of the top twenty plus ties (10/25).

2018 - Week 6 Predictions/Statistics Online

The predictions and statistics for this week, the ISPS HANDA World Super 6 Perth (European PGA Tour) and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am (US PGA Tour) are now available on Golf Predictor. The California swing continues this week on the US Tour, where, as usual, a strong field has assembled to play with the stars. Eight of the top twenty in the world rankings, including world number one Dustin Johnson, are teeing it up in the annual pro-am at scenic Pebble Beach and two other nearby courses. That doesn't leave many of the top players for the Super 6 event in Perth! They have to once again make do with world number sixteen Alex Noren and world number twenty nine Louis Oosthuizen. That duo joins the usual large local contingent of unknowns in the large field, which will be shrunk down to twenty four for six hole match play after the third round to settle the winner.

If you want to try a DFS contest for this week's events, check out DraftKings or the Official Daily Fantasy Partner of the European Tour, PlayON.

2018 - Week 5 Winners

Shubhankar Sharma (ranked 58th by Golf Predictor) won the Maybank Championship on the European PGA Tour.  The 21 year old Indian won his second tour title in a matter of months with a fantastic finish in Malaysia. Trailing by four shots overnight, Sharma closed with a 62 (-10) to beat third round joint leader Jorge Campillo by two shots. Our top ranked player, Henrik Stenson, never got going and finished in tied 60th. In an an event where once again many of the bigger names did not perform, we had only six of the top seventeen plus ties (6/22).

Gary Woodland (ranked 26th by Golf Predictor) won the Waste Management Phoenix Open on the US PGA Tour. The 33 year old American won his third title in a play-off with Chez Reavie. On a back nine where no one seemed to want to win at one stage, Woodland finished strongly to post -18. After a bogey on the raucous 16th, Reavie needed to birdie the last two holes to tie. That's exactly what he did, with a great putt on the last to leave Woodland possibly ruing a missed short birdie putt on the last. However, Reavie made a mess out of the first extra hole after having the advantage after the tee shots. A poor second and chip meant the bunkered Woodland won with a par. Our top ranked player, John Rahm, had a frustrating final day and finished in tied 11th. Overall, we had ten of the top seventeen plus ties (10/20) in total.

Golf Predictor Member Pages go Secure!

Further to this post from a few weeks ago, I am pleased to announce that the member section of Golf Predictor has also been updated to use secure pages (SSL). This means almost all URLs for the site will now start with https:// rather than http:// and offer greater security to site users. One page had to be left using standard http as it wouldn't work (see notes below). This SSL upgrade task was bigger than it might have been, due to the way GP was developed originally prevent SSL from being used on most pages. However, this update will now make it much easier to make any similar changes in the future.

Please edit any relevant bookmarks you may have to point to the new URL (just add an "s" after http). Note that you will be automatically redirected to the secure URL if you continue to use the non-secure version.

Some notes on the SSL upgrade:

1. The Odds Checker page (Information menu), which has an external page embedded in it, wouldn't work with SSL. Instead of removing it, I have left it as a non secure page.
2. The three Google Maps pages used on the site also did not display under SSL. These were being displayed using an old control that was actually generating several warnings in the browser console. Therefore, I decided to redevelop these pages using the latest Google Maps API directly. These new map pages are SSL compatible and you can now also hover over a map marker and see the course name without having to click on the marker.
3. While working on this, I was able to fix a few small bugs in the system. The most notable of these were some winner and tournament bar charts with only one or two bars. The formatting of these charts has been improved with much narrower bars.
4. You may have to reload (press F5 on Windows) some cached pages in your browser to see the updated versions.

I have tested the site under SSL and everything appears to work as expected. If you notice any issues, please let me know via the Contact GP page. Just another way to make Golf Predictor even better!