Quick Masters/LIV/Weather Blurb
As well as past champions
I will not have any LIV players in the player pool. It isn’t some morality high ground type thing - we just do not have reliable enough data or in most cases, ANY, data to figure out where their games are at. Same goes for guys like Vijay Singh or Sandy Lyle. Past champions - they just don’t have any data. ***UPDATE*** —> Some of the LIV guys do have data and survived the first wave of cuts. It looks like a few participated in World Tour events and that actually has tracking capabilities. We’ll see if they stay in the player pool/model, but I would use caution on those players in case the data is somehow skewed.
While I firmly believe that the LIV format won’t lend itself to true competition the majors bring, it’s hard to ignore a guy like Cam Smith who has a terrific Augusta resume. Dustin Johnson has won here as has Patrick Reed, Phil, Bubba, Sergio and Charl Schwartzel. Augusta is easily the most correlated with past success in terms of predicting future success, so if you’re considering a LIV player (or a past champion like Vijay Singh who also has no data) you can dive into their records at ANGC to give you some type of baseline.
I’m guessing - and this is a pure guess - that you’re going to run into LIV golfers being rostered at a higher rate in the lower dollar amount entries — people are more comfortable losing what they deem a smaller amount — than the higher dollar contests. That makes someone like Cam Smith extreme leverage. If you’re getting him at a quarter or even a fifth of the percentage as a Rory or a Scottie, while saving salary cap dollars, then all that leverage is yours. But, you’re going in relatively blind in terms of where their game is at. If I’m betting on ANYONE on LIV, it’d be Smith.
Normally I run somewhere to 35-40 names. Depending on what the numbers spit back out at me, I may pare that down a little further so the pool is smaller. Only the top 50 plus ties see the weekend and there are only 88 players in the field. 61 in my current data set after the elimination of any golfer that doesn’t have data.
Wind is usually our biggest impediment when it comes to weather. And more times than not, any extreme challenges only move scoring a smidge in either direction. With the disclaimer that weather can literally change in an instant, I do know it’s currently raining tonight (Monday). It’s showing little to no precipitation Tuesday or Wednesday with temps in the high 80’s. I’ll be curious at how baked out the fairways and greens become for Thursday’s round before the forecasted rain comes rolling in. It’s tough to make a judgement on course conditions. My early lean is on distance hitters with good ball striking numbers and average or better putting. If I do factor in putting in the total score numbers this week, it will be after final cuts are made to the pool. It’s one of the few numbers that can wildly change a score, and unless you’re Luke List, your overall game numbers are more important.
Player pool I’m aiming to have out tomorrow and my team & I will have other quick thoughts, write ups and more this week.
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