By Chris Dell
UPDATE: I've made a minor tweak to our Strokes Gained Net Ratings formula (SGR), which I will try to explain simply here below. What we've been doing is taking 2-3 relevant strokes gained stats and subtracting strokes gained putting from each of them. Then, after this, we've been adding those 2-3 stats together to create our SGR ratings. One issue here, however, is that we are putting too much weight on putting regression. What I've done is gone back to using only Strokes Gained Tee To Green stats, which combines around the green, off the tee and approach numbers. We will take our Strokes Gained Tee to Green number for each golfer and then subtract their strokes gained putting numbers to determine our new SGR rating. This new strategy now puts an equal weight distribution between putting regression and overall strokes gained success. As I've said in previous articles, the goal is to continue to refine our SGR process and improve our statistical edge week in and week out. When we see a day or two with either negative or neutral results, like the last two days, that will force me to go back to the drawing board and focus on what numbers we need to refine in our SGR formula. Without further adieu, let's go:
We went 7-7 total on Saturday using our Strokes Gained Net Ratings (SGR) for Round 3 at Winged Foot, cashing in our buy bets on Harris English, Hideki Matsuyama and Lanto Griffin. We also cashed in by fading Bernd Wiesberger, Daniel Berger, Jason Day and Patrick Reed. The bets we lost included buys on Tony Finau, Abraham Ancer, Rickie Fowler, Cameron Smith and Thomas Pieters. We also lost our fade on Lucas Herbert, although he shot a +4. The problem was that his head-to-head matchup opponent, Chesson Hadley, shot an even poorer score of +7. Nonetheless, we now still have just two losing rounds out of the last 18 rounds throughout the past 4+ tournaments, and we and are still up +44.5 units over that time, our W/L record now to 91-47-12.5 - I'll take it.
While a 7-7 isn't the most ideal of days, we all know that every day and every round simply cannot all be winners. Instead, we will keep our nose to the grindstone and continue to trust the math. I will include our Strokes Gained Ratings summary below with links to our best bets tracker, SGR tracker, Strokes Gained primer and DataGolf.com's live strokes gained stats table. You'll notice our buy/fade threshold numbers below are lower than in day's past. This is because we are now using an aggregate score of "strokes gained tee to green minus strokes gained putting" instead of adding up each individual strokes gained statistic together. I believe this will put a good balance on our putting regression and strokes gained success to give us even more of a statistical edge heading into Round 4 at Winged Foot on Sunday:
Strokes Gained Top BUYS For Round 4
- Thomas Pieters +10.009
- Bubba Watson +8.851
- Viktor Hovland +5.741
- Bryson DeChambeau +5.497
- Matthew Wolff +5.311
- Dustin Johnson +5.083
- Will Zalatoris +4.663
- Adam Long +4.411
- Hideki Matsuyama +3.789
- Matt Wallace +3.503
- Rickie Fowler +3.475
- Michael Thompson +3.225
Strokes Gained Top FADES For Round 3
- Romain Langasque -8.415
- Cameron Smith -6.171
- Alex Noren -5.923
- Robert MacIntyre -4.877
- Justin Thomas -4.727
- Adam Scott -4.643
- Webb Simpson -4.043
- John Rahm -3.649
- Charles Howell III -3.369
- Patrick Cantlay -3.283
- Shugo Imahira -3.279
- Rory Sabbatini -3.217
Round 4 Head-to-Head Matchup Bets
*Note: When it comes to betting a +1/2 dog in head-to-head matchup, I will split my unit between the ML and the +1/2 spread. When it comes to betting heavy favorite, I will often just lay the juice on the moneyline and risk losing on the push. If the money line is -200 or more, I'll pass:
- Pieters > Reed
- Watson > Todd
- Hovland > Cabrera-Bello
- DeChambeau > Schauffele
- D. Johnson > Casey
- Matsuyama > Oosthuizen
- M. Thompson > Pendrith
- Pak > Merritt
- Berger > Howell III
- Herbert > Langasque
- Day > Cantlay
- Glover > Noren
- Duncan > MacIntyre
- Ishikawa > Scott
- Bezuidenhout > Rahm
- Niemann > Simpson