Tournament Correlations Added to Golf Predictor

I am happy to announce a new tournament correlation capability for Golf Predictor. This relatively computationally intensive capability is not available to users directly, but I can run it to identify tournaments with the most similar (good) results in the same GP Season (calendar year) on the same tour (European/US PGA Tour). For example, this may provide insights into an upcoming tournament by comparing the results for the event in the previous year with the other tour events in the same year. Obviously, this would be more useful for events held on the same course as the previous year. The functionality can either compare the entire fields for correlations or just matching top twenty results. The latter is much more useful as it may identity potential good performers in the upcoming event.

 

When comparing the entire field of the selected event to each of the others, if the same golfer has played in both and his results are similar, they are tagged as correlated. The degree of similarity can be adjusted, but the default is plus//minus ten places, e.g. if player A finished 23rd in the selected tournament, any result from 13th to 33rd in any of the other tournaments will be designated as correlated. For top twenty correlations, the results in both compared events obviously have to be in the top twenty.

When finished comparing each tournament to the selected event, the number of correlated results are totalled and expressed as a percentage of the total number of matches found. For example, if there are fifty golfers found that played in both compared events and of those, fifteen had similar results in both, the correlation factor for those events would be 30%. Higher correlation percentages are easier to find when there are fewer matches, so only tournaments with a significant number of matches should count. Through experimentation, with an appropriate lower limit on the number of matches, correlation percentages of approximately 25-40% seem to be the highest. In events with over 120 golfers, the minimum number of matches needed should be set to around fifty for better results in overall correlations. For top twenty correlations, there should be a lower minimum number (e.g. 12) of matches and a similar minimum correlation percentage to overall correlations. In both cases, the minimum number of matches and the minimum correlation percentage for correlated events can be specified in the system.

 

Once the correlations are found, the system can then examine the field for the upcoming event and find those playing who performed well (i.e, finished in the top twenty) in each correlated event this year (or, if the event hasn't been held yet or isn't being held at all, last year's event). This list of players for each correlated event is then amalgamated and sorted by frequency to find the players with the most matches. This should tell us the most likely golfers to perform well. For example, for the 2020 Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, the golfers with the most matches in correlated results found by the system are:

Bryson Dechambeau, 4 

Abraham Ancer, 4 

Hideki Matsuyama, 3 

Chez Reavie, 3 

Patrick Cantlay, 3

 

The correlated events for this tournament, using top twenty correlations, a minimum of 12 matches and a correlation percentage of 25% are:

 

Genesis Invitational

Players Championship

US PGA Championship

3M Open

Safeway Open

Travelers Championship

Open Championship

RBC Heritage 

There may be a case for only including correlated events that are held on the same course in the last two years. Doing so in the above case would exclude the two majors and reduce the matches for all the golfers above by one, except for DeChambeau. It would also bring other golfers on two matches into the equation, including Frittelli, Simpson, Hahn, Dahmen, Homa, English, Redman, Streelman and Zhang.

 

Hopefully, this new correlated tournaments functionality will be useful for most upcoming events. I will probably run it for most events that are held on the same course as the previous year and post the results either on this blog or on social media. Just another way to make Golf Predictor a little better!

 

   

Betting Odds Comparison Updated

Field Stats (Odds) page for the Rocket Mortgage Classic, showing pop-up for Webb Simpson

Further to this post, I've resurrected this feature on Golf Predictor. While it looks almost the same as before, I have completely changed the back end to make it much easier to produce. As a quick refresher, this page shows the field ranked by their GP Score and the approximate fair odds they should be at given that GP Score. For tournaments that have bookie prices imported, the bookie rank for each player is also shown in a column along with the best price for him and the bookie(s) offering it in the pop-up on the Odds column. This can be seen in the screenshot above for Webb Simpson ahead of the 2020 Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Some notes on this page:

1. This is subject to change, but I plan to do this for most US PGA Tour and bigger European Tour events. 
2. The bookie rank for each player is based on his best price at the time of the comparison (see next point). 
3. I can only display the odds and comparisons at the beginning of the week (usually Monday afternoon/early evening GMT). I recommend you use a site such as Oddschecker to get the latest best prices for each golfer.
4. The Odds column is colour coded when the bookie odds are imported for a tournament. This allows you to see good and bad value at a glance. The greener the price is, the more undervalued Golf Predictor thinks the golfer is by the bookies and thus might be a good pick. Conversely, the redder the price, the more overvalued the golfer is. Yellow/gold means the bookies and Golf Predictor agree (more or less) on the ranking for a golfer.
5. Often, many bookies (can be sixteen or more) have the same top price. This is impractical to display, so if there are more than four, the number of bookies and the name of one taken at random will be shown in the pop-up.
6. I only can check the prices with a number of European bookies. However, the golfer ranks tend to be very similar for most bookies, so the colour coding could still be useful.
7. All odds are displayed "X/1". Some best odds at the top end from the bookies may not be like this. For example, odds of 11/2 will be displayed as 5.5/1.

Hopefully, this page will be useful for anyone looking for value bets for a tournament. This information is available for free for all Golf Predictor users, so sign up today to Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

Results By Form Pages Added to Golf Predictor

New Results Form (Tournaments) page for the 2020 Arnold Palmer Invitational

Similar to the existing Compare Form, Field Form and Winners Form pages on Golf Predictor, I have added two new "Results by Form" pages to the site. These new pages are available from the Results menu and also show each golfer's form in previous tournaments. However, these new pages show the results of the tournament, as opposed to the field stats ahead of the tournament.

This means you can now easily see things like the following:

1. Which golfers have come from nowhere to place well (or win!) the event.
2. Which golfers have bombed, despite good form leading up to the event.
3. Which golfers have continued to improve their results and which golfers have continued to slide.
4. Which golfers have kept their consistently good or bad runs going.
5. Which golfers were good or bad DraftKings picks (DraftKings salary and average points per game are on the table).
6. Which golfers played well despite no/little recent form e.g. Tyrrell Hatton in the screenshot above.

Like the other pairs of pages listed above, the first of the new "Results by Form" pages shows the previous ten matching results for each golfer while the second page shows the results from the fifteen previous matching tournaments. You can link from one page to the other using the link on each page.

The notes on the second of these new pages are very similar to those on the "Form Golfer (Field) - Tournaments" page, so please refer to that for more information. In addition, the following notes apply to both now pages:

1. As this is of lesser use for older events and relatively computationally intensive, I have limited this new functionality to tournament results in the current season. 
2. Due to the computationally intensiveness of these pages, the information for the entire field on these two new pages is restricted to donors (more below).
3. As in the other pages mentioned above, hovering over the golfer name shows more information. In these new pages, you get the round scores and total in addition to a summary of the golfers performance in the matching tournaments. This can be seen above for Marc Leishman.
4. As in the other pages mentioned above, you can also see more information by hovering over the DraftKings salary and the matching tournament columns.

These new pages should prove useful for analysing picks for completed tournaments, especially for DraftKings DFS purposes. This in turn should help with picks for future events. As this is a donor only feature, free site users will only see the data for golfers who finished in 11-25th*. However, you can donate after you log in to see the data for the entire tournament field. So, please consider donating today to reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

* Depends on the ties for a particular tournament.

Compare Form Pages Enhanced on Golf Predictor

New Compare Tee-off Groups Form (Tournaments) page for the 2020 Players Championship

Further to the recent addition of the Form Golfer (Field) - Tournaments page and Winners' Form - Tournaments pages, I have added new versions of the Compare Form and Compare Tee-off Groups Form pages to Golf Predictor. On each page ('Form' menu), this new version is available from the new link below the Tournament drop-down box. There is also a similar link on the new pages (see the screenshot above for the Compare Tee-off Groups Form for the 2020 Players Championship) back to the original Compare Form page. These new pages still list the same golfers, but they differ from the existing Compare Form pages in several ways: please click on the "Form Golfer (Field) - Tournaments" link above to see these differences. 

These new pages showing every tournament in the previous fifteen weeks (if using the "All Tournaments" scope) makes certain things more apparent visually. You can see tournament and rest streaks on the chosen tour* at a glance for each golfer shown, allowing you to get an indication if a golfer has played too much or too little recently. As each column lists the same tournament for each golfer, you can also easily see correlated events in the previous fifteen tournaments by examining the table.

The notes on these new pages are very similar to those on the "Form Golfer (Field) - Tournaments" page linked above, so please refer to that for more information. In addition, the following notes apply:

1. I have also added Same Region form to the Scope dropdown for both the original and new Compare Form pages.
2. There are no graphs on these new pages, unlike their original counterparts.That is because there are now gaps in the results which makes these less useful and less visually appealing.

These great new pages should prove very useful for deciding on good picks for upcoming tournaments, particular for match up bets. This information is available for free for all Golf Predictor users, so sign up today to Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

*Doesn't show the golfer's results on the other major tour, unless the new checkbox is selected. Also, note that some weeks have more than one event on a particular tour.

"Winners' Form - Tournaments" Pages Added to Golf Predictor

2020 Winners on US PGA Tour

Further to the recent addition of the Form Golfer (Field) - Tournaments page, I have added new versions of the Winners Form (all winners in a GP season) and Winners Form by Tournament (all winners of a particular tournament) pages to Golf Predictor. On each page ('Other Stats' menu), this new version is available from the new link below the GP Season and Tour drop-down box. There is also a similar link on the new pages (see the screenshot above for the curtailed 2020 GP season on the PGA Tour) back to the original Winners' Form pages. These new pages still list each winning golfer, but they differ from the existing Winners' Form pages in several ways: please click on the "Form Golfer (Field) - Tournaments" link above to see these differences.

These new pages show every tournament in the previous fifteen weeks (if using the "All Tournaments" scope) and make certain things more apparent visually. You can see tournament and rest streaks on the chosen tour* for each winner at a glance, allowing you to get an indication of the optimum level of play a golfer should have in advance of a tournament.

The notes on this new page are very similar to those on the "Form Golfer (Field) - Tournaments" page linked above, so please refer to that for more information. The main difference with these two new pages is that the "Include results from other tour?" checkbox on them triggers an automatic page post back. This is because there is no button on these pages, unlike the "Form Golfer (Field) - Tournaments" page.

These new pages should prove useful for deciding on good picks for upcoming tournaments, as they show the form of the winner of previous events with skipped events as well as those played. This information is available for free for all Golf Predictor users, so sign up today to Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

*Doesn't show the golfer's results on the other major tour, unless the new checkbox is selected. Also, note that some weeks have more than one event on a particular tour.

'Form Golfers (Field) - Tournaments' Page Added to Golf Predictor

New Field Form (Tournaments) page for the 2020 Players Championship

Further to the recent addition of the Form Golfer (Field) page, I have added a new version of the page to Golf Predictor. This new version is available from the new link below the Tournaments drop-down box on the original Form Golfers (Field) page, which is available on the Form menu. There is also a similar link on the new page (see the screenshot above for the 2020 Players Championship) back to the original Form Golfers (Field) page. This new page still lists each golfer with his DraftKings salary, but it differs from the existing Form Golfers (Field) page in the following ways:

1. The table shows all recent tournaments, regardless of whether any given player played in it or not (the original page only shows events each golfer played in). This means there will be gaps in the rows where a golfer has skipped events. You can see these gaps in the image above for all three players listed.
2. There is no average and standard deviation on this table. Because of the gaps mentioned above, I deemed it not as useful as in the original page.
3. To compensate for the above omission, I have added five more tournament fields to the table. That means you can can a significant amount of history when viewing the results for a single tour (up to fifteen weeks or about one third of a season if using the "All Tournaments" scope).
4. There is no "Both" option in the Tour drop-down box, so you must choose either the European or the US PGA Tour.
5. There is a new "Include results from other tour?" checkbox under the Compare button as some of the bigger names (especially Europeans) play both tours. However, ticking this checkbox could halve the timespan covered in the table, as results for both tours are now shown. Since both scenarios have their advantages and disadvantages, I have provided the ability to see both. Most golfers tend to play on one tour only, so the default view excludes the tournaments from the other tour.

This new page showing every tournament in the previous fifteen weeks (if using the "All Tournaments" scope) makes certain things more apparent visually. You can see tournament and rest streaks on the chosen tour* for each golfer at a glance, allowing you to get an indication if a golfer has played too much or too little recently. You can also easily see correlated events in the previous fifteen tournaments by examining the results in each column. Since each column now has the result for the same tournament for each golfer, it is possible to see, for example, that in 2020, the Mayakoba event, the Genisis Invitational and the WGC in Mexico seem to have similar good results for many golfers.

Some notes on this new page (many similar to the notes for the original page) :

1. As this new page is computationally intensive, this data restricted to the current week's events, and is available after the field stats are created and before the results are input into the system. This is usually approximately from Monday evening to Sunday evening (GMT) of the tournament week. However, The Players Championship was cancelled after it began due to the Coronavirus, so there are no results and the field stats are still on the system (for now!), so you can see this new page for that event.
2. Further to the above point, you cannot change the GP Season in the drop down box.
3. To keep things manageable, there is no sorting on the form data. However, you can sort by GP Rank, golfer name and DraftKings salary.
4. To ensure even the longest names can appear in the space available, the golfer names are displayed in one column in the Lastname, Firstname format.
5. Golfers with no DraftKings information are assigned "n/a" in the table. The metrics (finishing position, round scores etc.) are colour coded depending on their values, as shown in the screenshot above.
6. Hovering over a golfer name will show a summary of his performance in the matching (up to fifteen) tournaments.
7. Hovering over a tournament (T1-15) in the table for a golfer will show more information about that tournament and the golfer's performance in it. This is shown above for the T2 column for Rory McIlroy. You can still hover over the "-" to get the name of any tournament that the golfer skipped.
8. If there aren't enough matching tournaments to fill out the table, e.g. a new tournament with no course history, the table will be filled out with  "--", with no pop up.
9. There is a key table at the bottom of the page explaining the column headers.
10. The original Form Golfers (Field) page has been renamed slightly to the 'Form Golfers (Field) - Results' page to distinguish it more from this new page.
     

This great new page should prove very useful for deciding on good picks for upcoming tournaments, especially for DraftKings DFS contests. As this is a donor only feature, free site users will only see the data for golfers ranked 11-25 by the GP algorithm. However, you can donate after you log in to see the data for the entire tournament field. So, please consider donating today to reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.


*Doesn't show the golfer's results on the other major tour, unless the new checkbox is selected. Also, note that some weeks have more than one event on a particular tour.

'Tournament Winners by Round Rank' Page Enhanced

2020 US PGA Tour winners (to date) with new extra stats panel

Further to this post, I have added a useful new stats panel to the 'Tournament Winners by Round Rank' page on Golf Predictor. This new panel is located under the existing table of winners, as shown in the screenshot above for 2020 US PGA Tour events (up to the week of the Arnold Palmer Invitational). You can now read the season breakdown of the winners' positions after each round directly off the screen or see the breakdown visually with the pop-up charts available on the final row of the new panel. You can also see the average position for the winners after each round and how many rounds this was calculated over. Some notes on this new panel:

1. To facilitate the easier collation of these stats, I have removed the pager for the winners table on this page.
2. I have replaced the three non-pop-up charts which were located above the winners table with the three pop-up charts located on the last row of the new panel. These new pop-up charts show the same information as the replaced charts, but are generated differently.
3. The tournament winners table is now collapsible by clicking on it. This will allow you to see the new stats panel easier for years with a lot of tournaments. You can also click on the link in the introduction section.
4. This page update shows some interesting stats at a glance, such as the low number of first round leaders that win events. This tends to be about 20% percent for the PGA Tour and around 15% for the European Tour. This goes up to about 60% and 55% for round three leaders for the respective tours in recent years.
5. You might be surprised about the number of winners that aren't even in th top ten after round one, especially on the PGA Tour!

Just another way to make Golf Predictor even better! The stats on this new panel should help you make better in-tournament decisions. So, sign up today and reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

  

Form Golfers (Field) Page Added to Golf Predictor

 

 Composite image of the Field Rankings (Field) page for the 2020 Genesis Invitational.

I am pleased to announce the addition of more donor only advanced functionality to Golf Predictor. Similar to the recently added Field Ranking (Field) page, this very useful new Form Golfers (Field) page also shows colour coded data for the entire field in one place. However, on this page, you can select to see the following data for the field in one place:

1. Finishing position
2. Round 1 score 
3. Round 2 score 
4. Round 3 score  
5. Final Round score
6. Made Cut
7. Finishing score (to par)  

  You can also select which tournaments are examined for the above data:

1. All tournaments
2. Similar events (regular/WGC/major/FedEx) 
3. Same course/tournament
4. Same region 

In each case, the last ten matching tournaments (T1-10, with T10 being the most recent) will be shown for each golfer and you will be able to discern the form of the field at a glance. This new page is available from the 'Form' menu in the Member section. As can be seen in the screenshot above for the 2020 Genesis Invitational, these scores/finishing positions are colour coded and the average value is calculated for each golfer. As an added bonus for DraftKings DFS players, the DraftKings salary (hover over it for average points per game!) is also displayed on this new page. This should greatly help you make good selections for your DFS contests. 

Some notes on this new page :

1. As this new page is computationally intensive, this data restricted to the current week's events, and is available after the field stats are created and before the results are input into the system. This is approximately from Monday evening to Sunday evening (GMT) of the tournament week.
2. Further to the above point, you cannot change the GP Season in the drop down box.
3. To keep things manageable, there is no sorting on the form data. However, you can sort by GP Rank, golfer name and DraftKings salary.
4. To ensure even the longest names can appear in the space available, the golfer names are displayed in one column in the Lastname, Firstname format.
5. Further to the above point, I have changed the Field Rank (Field) page to display the names in the same format (was Lastname, Firstname initial).
6. Golfers with no data for a metric are assigned "n/a" in the table and are skipped for the average calculation. These metrics are colour coded brown, as shown in the screenshot above. Golfers with no DraftKings information are also assigned "n/a".
7. Hovering over a golfer name will show a summary of the performance in the matching (up to ten) tournaments. This is shown above for Rory McIlroy.
8. Hovering over a tournament (T1-10) in the table for a golfer will show more information about that tournament and the golfer's performance in it. This is shown above for the T4 column for Rory McIlroy.
9. There is a key table at the bottom of the page explaining the column headers.
10. I have had to edit the Form menu as there is now just too much functionality in it! To make space for this new addition and keep the Form menu to a reasonable size, I have converted the Performance Analysis options (Rounds 1 to 3) into a group.

This great new page should prove very useful for deciding on good picks for upcoming tournaments, especially for DraftKings DFS contests. As this is a donor only feature, free site users will only see the data for golfers ranked 11-25 by the GP algorithm. However, you can donate after you log in to see the data for the entire tournament field. So, please consider donating today to reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

Field Rankings (Field) Page Added to Golf Predictor

Composite image of the Field Rankings (Field) page for the 2020 Farmers Insurance Open.

As mentioned in the post on the site going free, I am pleased to announce the addition of donor only advanced functionality to Golf Predictor. This useful new page shows the field ranks of the entire field in various metrics at a glance and is available from the 'Predictions' menu in the Member section. As can be seen in the screenshot above for the 2020 Farmers Insurance Open, these field ranks are colour coded and the average value is calculated for each golfer. This new page will allow you to easily spot the relative performance of the golfers in the field in these metrics. The field rankings visible for the field on this page are:

1. GP season average
2. Last 5 events average
3. Similar length course average
4. World ranking
5. Wins in current GP Season
6. Top tens in current GP Season
7. Wins in last 12 similar events
8. Top tens in last 12 similar events
9. Course average
10. Tournament average
11. Last 12 similar event average
12. Same Region average
13. Cut streak
14. Winless streak

Some notes on this new page :

1. As this new page is computationally intensive, this data restricted to the current week's events, and is available after the field stats are created and before the results are input into the system. This is approximately from Monday evening to Sunday evening (GMT) of the tournament week.
2. Further to the above point, you cannot change the GP Season in the drop down box.
3. To keep things manageable, there is no sorting on the field rank data. However, you can sort by GP Rank and golfer name.
4. To ensure even the longest names can appear in the space available, the golfer names are displayed in the Lastname, Firstname Initial format.
5. Golfers with no data for a metric are assigned "n/a" in the table and are skipped for the average calculation. These metrics are colour coded brown, as shown in the screenshot above.
6. Hovering over a golfer name will show a summary of the rankings in the various metrics. This is shown above for Jon Rahm.
7. Hovering over a field rank in the table for a golfer will show more information and show what the column header means. This is shown above for the WS (Winless Streak) column for John Rahm.
8. There is a key table at the bottom of the page explaining the column headers.

I hope this new page will prove useful for deciding on good picks for upcoming tournaments. As this is a donor only feature, free site users will only see the data for golfers ranked 11-25 by the GP algorithm. However, you can donate after you log in to see the data for the entire tournament field. So, please consider donating today to reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

Bullet Charts Added to Golf Predictor

Season pane for F Molinari ahead of the 2019 BMW PGA Championship, showing 2 new bullet charts.

I am pleased to announce the addition of colourful new bullet charts to Golf Predictor. Bullet charts are a type of statistical chart that can be used to  show performance at a glance. I have adapted them for use with ranks (mostly field ranks, but also ranks for season and season segment data) in Golf Predictor, using the already available rank statistics on the various pages. This can be seen in the screenshot above of the Prediction Data page for Francesco Molinari ahead of the 2019 BMW PGA Championship.

There are several elements to a bullet chart:

1. The chart is broken down into five colour coded ranges, from deep green to deep red, with values nearest the left hand side (green end) being better. Each region represents 20% of the entire chart range (see next point).
2. The middle yellow range are average ranks and the entire chart range is the field size for the bullet charts on the Prediction Data page (varies from about 60 to over 200, depending on the event). For the bullet charts on other pages, the chart range is the total number of records (Season Segment Data) or number of records for that season (Season Segment Data).
3. The horizontal gold line and vertical bar represent the actual rank for the player in question. The position of the vertical bar tells you immediately how good the rank is. As can be seen above, Molinari's rank for season average is in the top region (dark green), which is well inside the top 20% of the field. However, his rank for average finish in his last five events is not as impressive, being in the second region (lighter green).

Hovering over a coloured range on a bullet chart will tell you the top value (rank) for that range. Doing this on the right hand deep red range will tell you the entire chart range. Hovering over the horizontal gold line or vertical bar will show you the golfer rank. This is shown above for the last five events average rank for Molinari (36). This will be the same as the value shown in the relevant rank field on the page (can also be seen in the final data row above). Some notes on these new bullet charts:

1. The bullet chart is hidden if the golfer has not played any relevant event and therefore does not have a rank for that metric.
2. Some extremely good ranks may be difficult to see on the chart, especially when the entire chart range is large (i.e. Season Segment Data and Season Segment Data pages). This is because the horizontal gold line will be extremely short and you may only see the vertical gold line.
3. These charts have been implemented using the same modestly sized JavaScript library as used for the box plots, so page performance should not be adversely affected. You may need to reload the library (press Ctrl+F5 on Windows) though, as I have amended the library slightly.

There has been a total of eighteen new bullet charts added to the pages on the site that show statistical information on a golfer's results in a certain collection of tournaments. Specifically, the bullet plots have been added to the following pages:

1. Season Data page (1 bullet chart for season results)
2. Season Segment page (4 bullet charts for overall/early/mid/late season segment results)
3. Prediction Data page (13 bullet charts for GP season/last five events/course/tournament/last twelve similar events/similar weather/similar length course results/region/field strength/season segment (same chart as shown in item 2)/DraftKings/PlayOn/strokes gained)

This brings the total number of charts on the site crashing through the six hundred barrier to 604! I trust you will find these new bullet charts useful as a graphical representation of a golfer's performance in certain key areas relative to his peers. Just another way to make Golf Predictor even better!

More Cosmetic Changes to Data Panels on Golf Predictor

Old look panels

New look panels

Further to this post, I have made some further cosmetic updates to most of the data panels on Golf Predictor. As you can see above, the text in the panels has been made bigger. The labels have also been bolded, the background lightened and a different font has been applied for increased legibility. These changes primarily affect wider screens - smaller devices in particular are not affected by these changes.

I trust you will agree that this is another small improvement. Just another way to make Golf Predictor a little better! 

More Field Spider/Radar Charts Added to Golf Predictor

Field Comparison for the Sony Open with new metric DK Ave Pts/Game selected and Danny Lee hovered over.

Further to this post from a few years ago, I am pleased to announce twelve new field comparison spider/radar/star charts to Golf Predictor. Like before, these new charts allow you to see at a glance which golfers have the best (or worst!) values in the metric of your choosing. The list of new charts is as follows:

1. Spider chart of world rankings for the field.
2. Spider chart of DraftKings salary for the field.
3. Spider chart of DraftKings average points/game for the field.
4. Spider chart of PlayON salary for the field.
5. Spider chart of PlayON average points/game for the field.
6. Spider chart of performance likelihood for the field.
7. Spider chart of cut streak for the field.
8. Spider chart of winless streak for the field.
9. Spider chart of wins in current season for the field.
10. Spider chart of wins in last twelve similar events for the field.
11. Spider chart of top tens in current seasons for the field. 
12. Spider chart of top tens in last twelve similar events for the field. 

These charts are available from the same Metric drop down box as the original nine charts on the chart page, linked to on the main Rankings page (Predictions menu). Because of the new metrics added to the chart page, this chart link has also been added to the Rankings (Streaks), Rankings (DraftKings) and Rankings (PlayOn) pages and renamed (see note one below). Clicking on this chart link on any of these pages will display a chart similar to above, which shows the DraftKings average points per game for the 2019 Sony open in Hawaii Field. As you can see, outliers (both good and bad!) can now be easily spotted at a a glance.

This brings the number of field comparison charts on this page to 21 and the total number of charts on Golf Predictor up to 587. Some notes on these new charts (similar to referenced post above):

1. I have renamed the link to this chart at its original location on the main Rankings page from Compare Form (Spider)" to "Compare Field (Spider)" as there is now a wider rang of metrics available.
2. The nearer the points are to the centre of the chart, the lower the value is.
3. Hovering over a point on the chart will show the golfer's name, his value in the metric, his GP Rank and another statistic, if relevant. This is shown above for Danny Lee, who is one of the golfers in the field with the largest number of average points per game.
4. The chart is ordered by GP Rank, with the top ranked golfer who is Justin Thomas in the chart above (not labelled, see next note) in the twelve o'clock position. As can be seen above, this means the values will tend to be better in the upper right quadrant (higher ranked golfers) and worse in the upper left quadrant (lower ranked golfers).
5. Due to the large number of golfers typically shown on these new charts is large, it is not possible to show the labels for each golfer in the field for legibility reasons. Therefore, the labels are shown for every n golfers, where n depends on the number of golfers displayed. This value varied from every golfer to every sixth golfer. For example, the chart above with 128 golfers shows the label for every fourth golfer.
6. Also for legibility purposes, golfer names are truncated if their surname is too long. This is shown above for O(llie) Schniederjans.
7. Golfers with no value for the metric are excluded from the chart and are listed underneath instead. These zero values are also excluded from the average field value shown.
8. You may have to reload a page (press F5 on Windows) to see the new chart links. 
9. I wanted to add strokes gained and round scores radar/spider charts too, but due to charting limitations, this was not possible. I can only vary the maximum value of the charts, not the minimum (zero). This makes plotting negative values (possible with strokes gained) or very similar values (round averages) infeasible (and I tried!). 
10. Depending on the values, some of these new charts (e.g. the streak ones) may be difficult to read for all golfers due to the scale. Unfortunately, I can't do much about that, but you will still be able to see most of the values easily, as smaller ones are the ones that suffer the most.

I trust you will find these new charts useful for quickly spotting good picks for upcoming tournaments. As with the existing field comparison charts, you must be subscribed to Golf Predictor to see these great charts. So, sign up today to Golf Predictor, the best golf statistics site!

Region History Added to Winners Form Pages

New Region History for the winners in the 2018 GP Season (US Tour)

The 'Tournament Winners (Form)' and Tournament Winners (Form by Tournament)' pages have been enhanced with the same region history. These pages are available on the 'Other Stats' menu in the member section of Golf Predictor. This new region option has been added to the 'Previous 10 events form to analyse' drop-down list on each page. This is shown above for the winners in the 2018 GP Season (calendar year) on the US PGA Tour. As usual, hovering over a result will show some details about that particular tournament; this is shown above for Charles Howell's previous result in the same region as the RSM Classic.

This new historical form may make it easier to spot potential winners of future tournaments, by analysing the trends of past winners. Just another way to make Golf Predictor a little better!

New DraftKings Version of Custom Ranking Page Added to Golf Predictor

New Custom Rankings page with DK salary column (Overall Score now in player pop-up).

Further to this post from a few years ago, I am pleased to announce that I have added a variant of the Rankings (Custom) page with DraftKings salary to Golf Predictor. This page was added as a result of a user request and is available via a link on the existing Rankings (Custom) page on the Prediction menu. This new page is shown above for the 2018 Memorial Tournament, where you can see the new Salary column on the right hand side and the link to switch between the two page variants above the sliders. Some notes on this new page:

1. Due to space restrictions, the computed Overall GP Score (based on your chosen weightings) shown in the right hand column in the original page is now in the pop up for each golfer. This can be seen in the screenshot above.
2. The pop-up for each golfer also shows their DraftKings average points per game, also shown in the screenshot above.
3. For tournaments with no DraftKings data, "n/a" is displayed in the Salary column.
4. You may have to refresh the Rankings (Custom) page (F5 on Windows) if you have viewed it recently to see the new link to the new page variant. 

I trust you will find this new custom rankings page useful for your DraftKings DFS analysis. Just another way to make Golf Predictor even better!

Strokes Gained for European Tour Added to Golf Predictor

Further to this post from a few years ago, I am pleased to announce that strokes gained for the European Tour has been added to Golf Predictor. This data has only recently become available and because of its importance, it has been added to the site. It will be available for European Tour events from week 21, 2018 (the week of the BMW PGA Championship). Some notes on this new strokes gained functionality:

1. This new strokes gained data is available on the existing Rankings (Strokes Gained) page on the Predictions menu. To facilitate this, you can now select your tour of interest in the Tour drop down box.
2. For consistency, the stats imported are the same as those imported for the US PGA Tour, i.e. strokes gained total, strokes gained rank (based on total), strokes gained tee to green and strokes gained putting. This also allows me to use the existing infrastructure for the strokes gained stats, already used for the US PGA Tour stats.
3. For the first few weeks, the source strokes gained values seemed to change every day. That appears to have stopped now, but the values will be imported on the Monday of tournament week, whatever they are!
4. For tournaments on both tours (i.e. majors and WGCs), the strokes gained for the US PGA Tour will be used, as this will cover more of the top players. 
5. The strokes gained for each tour are kept separate on the strokes gained charts on the Other tab of golfer Prediction Data pages. It doesn't make much sense to combine them, given the definition of strokes gained is dependent on averages for the particular tour. Given the previous point, data for majors and WGCs only appear on charts for golfers in US PGA Tour events.
6. In some instances, the names (or more accurately, the name variant) used in the source strokes gained lists do not appear to be the same as those used in the other lists (e.g. entry and results). I will endeavour to fix these anomalies as they are found, but some may fall between the cracks. This may prevent those particular golfers from having their data imported for that week.
7. I have checked/updated the Field Ranking, Rankings (Filter) and the DFS Lineup Builder pages to make sure that the strokes gained options now work for European Tour events, where the data is available.
8. You may have to refresh any page with strokes gained information (F5 on Windows) you have viewed recently to see the new European strokes gained statistics. 
9. I wanted to have this functionality live ahead of the start of the flagship BMW PGA Championship. However, due to the fact that I finally got to fulfil a long-time dream of visiting the amazing Skellig Michael (aka Star Wars island!) this week, I was unable to go live during the week!

I trust you will find this new strokes gained functionality useful for your European Tour analysis. Just another way to make Golf Predictor even better!

"Tournament Winners - Form by Tournament" Page Added To Golf Predictor

The course/tournament form of all winners of the Masters since 2003 (see note 1)

I am delighted to announce the addition of a new "Tournament Winners - Form by Tournament" page to Golf Predictor. This page is available on the "Other Stats" menu and  is similar to the existing "Tournament Winners - Form" page. However, instead of listing the form for all the winners in a particular GP Season, it lists the form of all winners of the selected tournament since 2003 (see note one below).

Like the "Tournament Winners - Form" page, you can now see the form for all winners of a tournament in their previous ten events in three selectable categories (All Tournaments, Tournament/Course and Similar Events) on the same page. This is shown in the screenshot above for the 2018 Masters, where the form of all recent winners in their ten appearances at Augusta prior to their win is displayed. As you can see, this new page makes it very easy to spot trends. For example, on selecting the Similar Events option, this new page clearly shows that ALL winners since 2004 had at least one top twenty in their previous five majors prior to the win. This ability to spot trends so easily makes this page invaluable for anyone interested in forecasting the outcome of tournaments.

Some notes on this new page:

1. GP records go back to 2003. Therefore, form for winners of older tournaments around that time will be incomplete, as there are no relevant results in the database before then. That shouldn't be too much of a handicap as there is at least ten years of newer, more relevant tournaments with complete form history to analyse.
2. All tournaments in the system will be listed for the selected GP Season. This means that in the current season with events that haven't taken place yet, the first winner displayed will be from the previous running of the event (usually the previous season). For events in the current season that have finished, you will see the latest winner first in the list.
3. Further to the above point, the first tournament displayed in the tournaments dropdown will be the last event for the selected season/tour. This means when you load the page initially, you will see this tournament and you must pick the current week's event from the dropdown, should you wish to see it. However, changing season should automatically bring you to the same tournament as currently selected in the new season selected (if it exists and GP is set up properly for that tournament!).
4. I fixed a bug with the existing "Tournament Winners - Form" page for Tournament/Course form for tournaments co-sanctioned by both the US and European tours.
5. The main data table has a year (GP Season) and a week column to allow you to distinguish easily between the different runnings of the tournament. Note that some tournaments have been held more than once in certain GP Seasons.
6. If you hover over the first or third columns in the table above, you will see more information. This is shown in the screenshot above for the year column for the 2013 Masters. This shows the tournament name, course name and dates for the event. Hovering over the winner's first name shows the tournament won, his world ranking and prediction ranking ahead of the event (for tournaments since Golf Predictor started in 2008) and a summary of the form being displayed.
7. You may have to reload any pages you have viewed recently to see the new menu option for this page.

This new page should be very useful for judging what type of form will be most suitable for a particular tournament. This is especially true for big tournaments like the Masters, which starts this Thursday. Like the original "Tournament Winners - Form" page,  only subscribers can access the premium form stats on this new page. So, sign up today and reap the full benefits of Golf Predictor, the premium professional golf statistics site.

Cosmetic Changes to Data Panels on Golf Predictor

Old look for data panels

New look for data panels

Most of the data panels have been updated on Golf Predictor. Twitter Bootstrap labels have replaced bare numbers in the data panels where there is a text label and value. This is shown above for the strokes gained panel for Dustin Johnson ahead of the WGC - Dell Technologies Matchplay. The first screenshot shows a segment of the Other Tab on his Prediction Data page as it was before this update and the second screenshot shows the new look. Panels with round scores (i.e. best/worst/average rounds) have been left unchanged,as they didn't look as drab as the aforementioned data panels!

As you can also see above, the data values in the Performance panel have also been updated with labels. The contents of each cell have also been centred to further improve the aesthetics slightly. Some notes on this cosmetic update:

1. Any data values in these updated panels that have pop up text (e.g. average dollars/point for the field in DFS panels on the Prediction Data page) have been updated to be a label with underlined text.
2. After much experimentation, the label colour was chosen to fit best into the current colour scheme. The exact colour will depend on your monitor/screen, but I eventually settled on a lighter shade of green than the panel headers.
3. For the most part, to maximise the aesthetics, the labels are the same width. The exceptions are predominately labels containing a number in brackets after the main value, e.g. round averages with the number of rounds in brackets after them.
4. Numbers with a percentage after them in brackets only have the number itself in the new label. This is because the labels tended to be a little too wide. This can be seen in the Performance panel above and also on panels which contains the number and percentage of wins/missed cuts/top tens etc. for a golfer. However, on most devices, they appear to the right of the label on panels other than the Performance panel
5. Some text labels describing these updated data values have been shortened for optimum display on smaller devices. For example, "Ave Position" is now "Ave Pos". The key on the bottom of the relevant pages have been updated correspondingly.
6. You may have to reload the page and its associated files (Ctrl + F5 on Windows) to see these new labels correctly.

I trust you will agree that these new look panels are an improvement over the existing panels and will make reading many of the great stats on the site easier. Just another way to make Golf Predictor a little better!