Win Probability: 2018 THE PLAYERS Championship

At the halfway point of the THE PLAYERS, Webb Simpson has built himself a 5-shot lead after a dazzling 9-under par 63. It could have been even better for Simpson if not for an errant tee shot that found the water on the island green 17th, ultimately leading to a double bogey. Given this unique circumstance of one player finding himself five clear of an otherwise bunched leaderboard, it is difficult to intuitively come up with accurate win probabilities without the use of a statistical model. Here are the top 10 win probabilities according to our model as we head into the weekend: As expected, Webb Simpson is the heavy favorite with a 50 percent chance of becoming THE PLAYERS champion. This is obviously due in large part to the lead he has built, but another important factor is how highly our model rates Simpson, who it estimates to be the 17th strongest player in the field. Moving down we see two big names in Jason Day and Dustin Johnson, who despite being positioned T8 and T11 respectively, each carry sizable win probabilities. This is not surprising given our model estimates them both to be more than 2 shots better per round than an average PGA TOUR player. It was also an exciting day around the cutline. In the end, 80 players finished at 1 under par or better and will advance to play the weekend. This excitement can be characterized nicely through the cut probability evolution of Tiger Woods, who ended up making the cut on the number:   At the time of finishing his round Woods was tied for 64th, but with the course playing relatively easy at the time, he only had a 47 percent chance of making the cut. Luckily for Woods, the course toughened up for the afternoon wave, which at one point boosted his chance of making the cut to 95 percent. Things then got very interesting. Toward the end of play birdies were in abundance for the remaining players on the course, so much so that at one point Woods fell to T72 and outside the cutline. The model wasn’t to be fooled though, as it still gave him a 66 percent probability of making the cut given how difficult the finishing holes were playing. In the end the model estimates were accurate as TPC Sawgrass reminded us all of what may be to come on Sunday, as a host of the TOUR’s best players stumbled down the finishing stretch to move the cutline back to minus 1. 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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