tkgolf fans,” says Will), but it is a way to monetize their efforts.
Through mid-July, the Data Golf betting model was beating
the betting market, and like other aspects of the site, it is a work
in progress. “Ours puts a lot more weight on a player’s long-term
form than, say, short-term form or course history,” says Matt.
“We aim for our model to offer a really solid baseline every week,
because golf is such a fickle game. There are always ways you can
improve upon our model problem by knowing things like when a
player is struggling with their health or in their personal life, and
sometimes you can just learn a lot from watching somebody play
golf—but you can also get misled. Our model is pretty simple,
and it’s focused on doing something mathematically sound
with a long stretch of scores for each player.”
Data Golf ’s betting model “never finds value at the top of a
field in terms of winning tournaments. Those guys get all the
juice because people know them, but our motto is we don’t bet
on winners because that’s always a long-shot bet. We don’t want
massive swings in our betting results, so we mostly bet top 20
because those will hit more frequently and you can get
some consistency in your results.”
The players the betting model focuses on have
consistently mediocre finishes that go unnoticed by casual
fans. For example, the model was big on Patrick Cantlay
before he broke out, and recent stalwarts in the model
include Peter Malnati and Denny McCarthy. “For about a year,
McCarthy has been a half to a full shot better than the average
PGA Tour player,” says Matt. “He’s playing super consistently, but
he never wins. We’ll always snap up a player like that, until they
win—and then the model probably won’t like them for a while.”
And how would the model currently assess their own games?
“We both have experienced exponential declines in the quality
of our game,” says Will. “I just can’t hit a good shot anymore.
We’re both scarred by the game, but get dragged back into it
from time to time. Like for everyone else who isn’t on the PGA
Tour, it can get pretty rough out there.”
84 GOLF.COM / S e p t ember 2019
ExperienceBY MARTIN KAUFMANNAll Masters,
All the Time
Augusta National
and IBM teamed
up to make sure
online viewers
never missed a shot
GOLF/Technology 2019