Five storylines for Sunday: Matsuyama’s time?

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Through 36 holes at The RSM Classic, Charles Howell III leads by 3 strokes at 14 under par. His closest pursuers are Cameron Champ and Jason Gore, both of whom are sitting on 11 under. Here are the top 10 win probabilities according to our live model: We have Champ and Howell III estimated to be of nearly identical ability levels; therefore the 30 percentage point advantage for Howell III is entirely due to his current 3 stroke advantage. A little further back is Webb Simpson at 6 under par. Simpson is by a wide margin the class of this field according to our model and could be a player to watch for over the weekend. Howell III has been a model of consistency throughout his career. Shown below is his performance data for every tournament since the 2014 season. The y-axis here is in units of adjusted (for field strength) strokes-gained. Remarkably, despite having a 10 event moving average (the black line) that fluctuates between 0 and +1 for most of this time span, Howell III had just 1 event in which he averaged more than +3 strokes-gained. This is statistically very unlikely, and indicates that Howell III is a low-variance player (i.e. has fewer great rounds but also fewer poor rounds than the typical player of his ability level). To win on the PGA TOUR, anywhere from a +2.5 to +6 true strokes-gained performance can be required to get it done (depending on field strength and how widely dispersed scores are in a given week). To win this weekend for the first time since 2007, Howell will almost certainly need to average above that +3 strokes-gained barrier for the week. 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 RSM Classic, 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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