2014 PGA Championship Preview

Wed, 06 Aug 2014 00:00:00 +0000

The 2014 PGA Championship at Valhalla Golf Club starts tomorrow amid several interesting storylines. Will Tiger be healthy enough to play (and if so, will he tell us before our fantasy draft starts)? Will Rory continue his dominance and retain his World Number 1 status, or will Adam Scott parlay his strong majors performance and regain the top spot? Or will a past champion like Padraig Harrington or Y.E. Yang reclaim Glory’s Last Shot?

As an administrator (and participant) of a Golf Majors pool, I like to know the world rankings and betting odds for the field to help inform the draft and facilitate automated picks. For this last major, I also wanted to know how the field has performed in this year’s prior majors. Here’s how they’ve fared in 2014 (must have played in at least one major).

**Best Majors Performers in 2014**
Player	The Masters	U.S. Open	British Open
Rickie Fowler	T5	T2	T2
Adam Scott	T14	T9	T5
Jim Furyk	T14	T12	4
Rory McIlroy	T8	T23	1
Jimmy Walker	T8	T9	T26
Justin Rose	T14	T12	T23
Jordan Spieth	T2	T17	T36
Henrik Stenson	T14	T4	T39
Chris Kirk	T14	T28	T19
Matt Kuchar	T5	T12	T54
Jason Day	T21	T4	T58
Francesco Molinari	50	T23	T15
Louis Oosthuizen	25	T40	T36
Martin Kaymer	T31	1	70
Brandt Snedeker	T37	T9	T58
Bill Haas	T21	T35	T51
Kevin Stadler	T8	T63	T39
Stewart Cink	T14	T54	T47
Gary Woodland	T26	T52	T39
Keegan Bradley	CUT	T4	T19
Thomas Bjorn	T8		T26
Graeme McDowell	CUT	T28	T9
Victor Dubuisson	CUT	T28	T9
Sergio Garcia	CUT	T35	T2
Ian Poulter	T21	T17	CUT
Stephen Gallacher	T34	CUT	T15
Phil Mickelson	CUT	T28	T23
Steve Stricker	T31	T21
Brendon Todd		T17	T39
Hunter Mahan	T26	CUT	T32
Billy Horschel	T37	T23	CUT
Ryan Moore	CUT	T48	T12
Brendon de Jonge	T37	T28	CUT
John Senden	T8	CUT	T58
Kevin Na		T12	T54
Darren Clarke	T44	CUT	T26
Brooks Koepka		T4	T67
Hideki Matsuyama	CUT	T35	T39
Thongchai Jaidee	T37	CUT	T39
Zach Johnson	CUT	T40	T47
Russell Henley	T31	T60	CUT
Kevin Streelman	T42	CUT	T54
Paul Casey		T56	T47
Thorbjorn Olesen	T44		T64
Bubba Watson	1	CUT	CUT
Jonas Blixt	T2	CUT	CUT
Erik Compton		T2	CUT
Miguel Angel Jimenez	4	CUT	CUT
Marc Leishman	CUT		T5
Charl Schwartzel	CUT	CUT	T7
Lee Westwood	7	CUT	CUT
Edoardo Molinari			T7
Shane Lowry		CUT	T9
Robert Karlsson			T12
Jamie Donaldson	T14	CUT	CUT
J.B. Holmes		T17	CUT
George Coetzee			18
Angel Cabrera	CUT	CUT	T19
Matteo Manassero	CUT		T19
Chris Wood			T23
Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano	T26	CUT	CUT
Joost Luiten	T26	CUT	CUT
Ben Martin			T26
Brian Harman			T26
Steven Bowditch	T26
Kenny Perry		T28
David Hearn			T32
K.J. Choi	T34		CUT
Patrick Reed	CUT	T35	CUT
Ernie Els	CUT	T35	CUT
Branden Grace	CUT		T36
Vijay Singh	T37
Marc Warren			T39
Koumei Oda			T39
Nick Watney	T44	CUT	CUT
Webb Simpson	CUT	T45	CUT
Danny Willett		T45	CUT
Harris English	CUT	T48	CUT
Jason Dufner	CUT	CUT	T51
Tom Watson	CUT		T51
Seung Yul Noh		T52
Matt Jones	CUT	CUT	T54
Ryan Palmer		CUT	T58
Luke Donald	CUT	CUT	T64
Boo Weekley	CUT	66	CUT
Charley Hoffman			T67
Tiger Woods			69
Matt Every	CUT	CUT	71
Roberto Castro	CUT	CUT	CUT
Y.E. Yang	CUT	CUT	CUT
Graham Delaet	CUT	CUT	CUT
Pablo Larrazabal		CUT	CUT
Bernd Wiesberger		CUT	CUT
Hyung-Sung Kim		CUT	CUT
Scott Stallings	CUT		CUT
Ross Fisher			CUT
Padraig Harrington			CUT
Mikko Ilonen			CUT
Richard Sterne			CUT
Geoff Ogilvy		CUT
Shawn Stefani			CUT
Chesson Hadley			CUT
Brian Stuard		CUT
Chris Stroud			CUT
Cameron Tringale			CUT
Fredrik Jacobson			CUT
Kiradech Aphibarnrat			CUT
Rafael Cabrera-Bello			CUT
Anirban Lahiri			CUT
Tim Clark	CUT
George McNeill			CUT
Tommy Fleetwood			CUT
Brendan Steele			CUT
John Daly			CUT
Ryo Ishikawa			CUT

No big surprises here. Rickie Fowler has been sniffing at a major championship all year, falling short to two dominant performances by Kaymer and McIlory. Some other folks have been quietly consistent, like Jimmy Walker and Chris Kirk (haven’t heard their names on the Golf Channel all week). I was surprised to see normally consistent players turn in poor performances for the year (looking at you Jason Dufner and Angel Cabrera).

Hope this information helps your golf handicapping/gambling purposes! If you have any other suggestions for stats/blog posts please let me know!

Accenture Match Play Statistics

Wed, 19 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

February madness is here! The Accenture Match Play Championship starts today, and although the usual big names of Tiger, Phil, and Adam Scott are absent this year, there still promises to be some drama. Can Matt Kuchar become the first player not named Tiger to go back-to-back? Will Jimmy Walker improve upon his obscene winning percentage this year? Will past Ryder Cup emotions fuel players to victory (looking at you Mr. Poulter)? We’ll find out.

The other source of drama is due to the vagaries of the match play format. Underdogs regularly upset favorites, and only one person has won the event as a number one seed (Tiger). This makes completing a bracket the ultimate exercise in futility. While I’m sure Warren Buffett’s billion dollar NCAA wager is very safe at odds of 1 in 9.2 quintillion, I’d imagine a similar wager on this tournament would be even safer (though statistically it’s the same odds).

Anyways, I’ll be looking at some random statistics as the tournament progresses. One such stat is average holes played per match. If you fill out your bracket on pgatour.com, you’re asked to put in a tiebreaker of total holes played by the champion of the tournament. A champion will have played six matches in total. For each match, a winner can play less than 18 holes, the full 18, or more than 18 if still tied (here’s a good primer on match play scoring for the uninitiated). I took a rough guess that on average, a match ends after the 16th hole. But I wanted to be sure (I’m in a money league for my bracket, can’t hold anything back). So naturally, I turned to programming.

Here’s a very simply program to gather data on past matches. This parses out the holes played for roughly 2,000 matches in this event from 2005 to present. The result was that the average holes played per match is 16.64116095. For the tiebreaker, you’d multiply this by 6 to get (roughly) 100.

That’s it for now, I’ll try to dig deeper and come up with more interesting stats. If you have any suggestions feel free to comment!

Joe Conley Tagged statistics

2014 PGA Championship Preview

Accenture Match Play Statistics