Cut prediction: THE PLAYERS Championship

There was plenty of starpower on display Thursday at TPC Sawgrass for the first round of THE PLAYERS. The afternoon pairing of Tiger Woods, Rickie Fowler, and Phil Mickelson drew the biggest crowds, but they didn’t provide them with much to cheer about. All three players have work to do tomorrow if they would like to secure a tee time on the weekend: Woods (Even par, 71 percent made cut probability), Fowler (2 over par, 42 percent), and Mickelson (7 over par, 2 percent). Here is how their respective cut probabilities evolved throughout the day: TPC Sawgrass is best known for its water-filled finishing three holes. It is a great stretch of golf in part due to the wide variance in outcomes it can produce. This variance (or, at least one side of it) was on full display today during the finish to Hideki Matsuyama’s round. Matsuyama arrived at the 16th tee 1 over par and, according to our model, with about a 50 percent chance of making the cut. Three holes later he was 7 over par, and now has just a 2 percent chance of making it to the weekend. In a single hole (the par-3 17th), Matsuyama’s cut probability fell from 33 percent to just 1 percent thanks to a quintuple bogey 8. Heading into Friday’s play, there are 85 players at Even par or better (T69th position). Our model is projecting tomorrow’s cutline as follows (as usual, assuming that the course plays to a scoring average similar to Thursday’s): Even par: 61 percent 1 under par: 38 percent 1 over par: 1 percent A final note from Thursday’s play: TPC Sawgrass played decidedly more difficult for the afternoon group of players than it did for the morning wave. This final graphic details the hole-specific differences in scoring averages between the morning and afternoon. Perhaps not surprisingly, the island green 17th hole played the most different between the two waves, playing 0.4 strokes more difficult in the afternoon. NOTE: These reports are based off the live predictive model run by @DataGolf. The model provides live “Make Cut�, “Top 20�, “Top 5�, and “Win� probabilities every 5 minutes from the opening tee shot to the final putt of every PGA TOUR event. Briefly, the model takes account of the current form of each golfer as well as the difficulty of their remaining holes, and probabilities are calculated from 10K simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of the THE PLAYERS Championship, or to see how each golfer’s probabilities have evolved from the start of the event to the current time, click here for the model’s home page.

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