What you are looking at is a revelation in golf. Well, golf betting at least. A cacophonous revolution in the way that I pick my selections. The process is relatively self explanatory. You take the course form for each player from the last five years, add each result together, and divide by the number of times he has competed. For instance, if a player had played four of the five last years, finishing 1st, 10th, 48th and missing the cut, the sum would appear as (1+10+48+95)/4. 95 is the score given for a missed cut, as it will always be higher than players who have just made the cut, by as much as 20 points. That compiles the course form, and our mythical player scored 38.5.
The next column is current form, which takes in to account the mean of the player's last five finishes in any competition. Missing the cut still scores 95, so if our player had last finished 18th, 29th, 8th, MC and 5th, then the sum would be (18+29+8+95+5)/5 which totals 31.00.
The penultimate column is "SG Putting". This stands for Strokes Gained putting, and is taking directly from the PGA Tour website stats. It means, in effect, how many putts, on average, out player is better than the field. We just use the ranking number, so being T5 in SG Putting equals a 5 for his score.
The final column is "SG Tee to Green". This stands for, you guessed it, Strokes Gained Tee to Green, and is representative of how efficiently a player can get from the tee to the green, versus the average of the field. Again, we just take the ranking number, so if out theoretical golfist was ranked 35th, he would score a 35.
The next bit is the simplest, which is adding together the scores. Which for our player means the sum of 38.5+31+5+35=109.5. The total sum which looks a little confusing is ((1+10+48+95)/4)+((18+29+8+95+5)/5)+5+35+109.5. This would make for the best score of the lot and I would certainly back him. However, this bloke is not involved.
In order to qualify to move on from course form to current form, players had to score in the top ten, and have had more than 3 results at the course. Unfortunately, there were no stats available for Joe Affrunti, which means that his place at the top of the leader-board is not a realistic representation of his ability, but his course form was so strong, I had to have him involved, and at a price of 750/1, I snapped him up.
After that, we can see that Kuchar leads the scoring by a fair margin to Hoffman. This makes Kuchar my primary selection for the week, and at 20/1, I'm hoping to see a good return.
Hoffman is a bit of a no brainer here, performing well in Texas regularly, and scoring well in the stats, Hoffman should be aided by his distance off the tee, which will count for extra around this relatively soft course. Hoffman should be insulted at being priced up at 28s, and I hope to pay the bookies back in kind, on his behalf. Were I to speak to Hoffman, I'm sure he would thank me, and would state that he lives vicariously through me.
Next up Ryan Palmer. Palmer has excellent form around here, with finishes of 10th, 22nd, 33rd, 9th and 2nd. His current form is also in pretty good shape, having not missed a cut since the Frys.Com, and finishing T4 in the Valero. Palmer also ranks highly in driving distance, which will make a huge difference this week, with heavy rain forecast. Palmer is surprisingly priced up at 50s, which for a player of his calibre around this course is nothing short of defamatory.
Getting to the heady heights of the list is Jason Dufner. He just squeezed through in the the main plan, thanks only to ranking well in course form, and SG Tee to Green. Dufner hasn't made much of an impact since winning the Career Builder, but he had a good rest after the Masters, and has made both of his cuts since then. Dufner, like Palmer, is 50s, which seems like a good piece of the pie.
Finally, quick words on the second part of the plan. DeLaet, Keegan Bradley and Scott Piercy all make it in due in large part to their impressive course form. Piercy actually ranks 2nd of all my picks in SG Putting, whilst Bradley ranks 2nd in SG Tee to Green. They all make it in, and their prices are below.
Kuchar 20
Hoffman 28
Palmer 50
Dufner 50
DeLaet 60
Piercy 35
Bradley 80
Affrunti 750
Finally, time for some reasons to take on the market leaders. Both Jordan Spieth and Dustin Johnson would have been at the top of our plans, Jordan would have scored 121.15, making him a narrow leader over Matt Kuchar. However, Spieth doesn't seem to have recovered from Augusta yet. Putting excellence can only get you so far, and Jordan's ball striking is nowhere near where it used to be. Mentally, he isn't the same yet, and this is a bombers course, and his relative lack of distance won't help him here. A missed cut last week won't inspire confidence in the world number 2, and best price of 8/1 doesn't inspire me either.
Dustin Johnson scored a chart crushing 67.4667, which is astounding. His average finish on this course is 11.6th, his current form average finish is 10.8th, he's ranked 37th in SG Putting and 8th in SG Tee to Green, which is impressive. This powerhouse should be able to crush this course this weekend, and with the possibility of a 54 hole finish, may find himself winning without any pressure. However, I cannot bring myself to back Dustin Johnson, for anything other than 1st round leader, until he wins a tournament. His famed three putt at the US Open last year leaves a sour taste, and even though I agree, he was putting to win the US Open, not get in the play-off, he hasn't been the same ever since. He hasn't won since the WGC in March 2015, and even though he is in good form, and loves the course, his price does not justify the risk.
Edit: Ok so I had a quick look at the betting for the Irish Open and Kjeldson is 40s so I have had a piece of the action.
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