The Masters 2024: Who are the value bets?

If we smash the golf statistics up against the Betfair Exchange odds, which golfers jump out as being worth backing…?

Edit: Now updated with results from The Masters 2024

My 2024 Majors betting record

The Masters 2024 — 12.5% loss
PGA Championship 2024 — 151% profit
U.S. Open 2024 — 89% profit
The Open Championship 2024 — 152% profit

The Approach

1. Choose a set of golf metrics which are typically a good fit for this course/event
2. Weight them, based on importance, and generate a weighted average rating for each golfer (on a 0 to 5 scale)
3. Source Betfair Exchange odds (win market) for each golfer
4. Rank them by rating & odds
5. Identify golfers whose odds look long, relative to their weighted average rating

Limitations:

(i) This analysis covers only golfers who compete on the PGA Tour, so players who play on the LIV tour (e.g. Rahm, Koepka, DJ, Mickelson, DeChambeau etc.) or solely on the European Tour aren’t considered in this analysis. In terms of materiality, there are 3 LIV golfers (Rahm, Niemann & Brooks Koepka) in the top 10 on the Betfair Exchange. There are 6 in the top 20, 7 in the top 30, 9 in the top 40 and 11 in the top 50. Not ideal, but I can live with it.

(ii) I aim to only highlight where a golfer’s rank based on Betfair Exchange odds is materially different from his rank based on how he has performed in 2023 & 2024, on a weighted basis, across the key metrics. As you move into the elite end (e.g. top 20) a difference in rank of 1 position will be a lot more meaningful than it would be at the other end of the scale (e.g. the rank outsiders at 999/1).

Which player metrics are most important for this event?

I chose these primarily based on course/event-specific insight from various blogs & podcasts.

3 — Strokes Gained: Approach (SG: APP)
3 — Strokes Gained: Around the Green (SG: ATG)
3 — Strokes Gained: T2G
3 — Form (over last 6 events)
2 — Approach 200+
2 — Fairway Proximity
2 — Strokes Gained: Putting (SG: PUTT)
2 — Bogey Avoidance
2 — GIR %
2 — Par 4 Birdie-or-Better Percentage
2 — Par 5 performance
2 — Approach Putt Performance
2 — Three Putt Avoidance
2 — Driving Distance (all drives)
2 — Driving Accuracy
2 — Final Round Performance (previous events)
1 — Approach 225–250
1 — Strokes Gained: Off the Tee (SG: OTT)
1 — Scrambling

Which golfers does this put on our radar?

Figure 1: Who appears to be value? (max odds 349/1)

All golfers with odds of 349/1 or lower who appear to be value. The higher up this list, the more the model favours them relative to their betting odds

Figure 2: How do the favourites compare?

The model’s Top 20 golfers plus a few additional notable names

Note: Jon Rahm’s numbers are based on 2023 PGA season and his “Form” rank of 100 is artifically too low, as he has moved to LIV and his LIV performances are not factored into these calculations.

Figure 3: Plot of all golfers, with odds of 349/1 or lower, against their weighted rating

The closer a player is to the top right, relative to his odds, the better…

Based on this data, who would I back?

At ~5/1 Scottie Scheffler is, by a distance, the top player in my model and represents a win probability of ~16%. As good as he is I’d rather spread my risk and instead back the ‘portfolio’ of the 5 golfers below, who collectively add up to a 16% win probability.

Model picks (Wyndham Clark & Xander Schauffele), strong LIV players (Brooks Koepka & Joaquin Niemann) and a wildcard (Shane Lowry) who isn’t rated by the model but is coming into a nice streak of form (6th overall across the last 6 events) and I have an inkling he could do well.

Each-way

Xander Schauffele @ 14/1 (8 places) -> Placed (+2.7pts) Finished 8th
Brooks Koepka @ 20/1 (8 places) -> Loss (-3pts)
Joaquin Niemann @ 25/1 (8 places) -> Loss (-3pts)
Wyndham Clark @ 27/1 (10 places) -> Loss (-3pts)
Shane Lowry @ 50/1 (8 places) -> Loss (-3pts)

Top X markets

Even allowing for the LIV golfers, these look to be good value in the Top 10, Top 20 and Top 30 markets.

Tony Finau top 10 @ 7/2 -> Loss (-1pt)
Max Homa top 10 @ 7/1 -> Win (+7pts) Tied for 3rd place
Akshay Bhatia top 20 @ 11/4 -> Loss (-1pt)
Lucas Glover top 30 @ 23/10 -> Win (+2.3pts) Tied for 20th place
Chris Kirk top 30 @ 17/10 -> Win (+1.7pt) Tied for 16th place
Stephan Jaeger top 20 @ 7/2 -> Loss (-1pt)
Stephan Jaeger top 30 @ 7/4 -> Loss (-1pt)
Eric Cole top 30 @ 2/1 -> Loss (-1pt)
Matthieu Pavon top 30 @ 2/1 -> Win (+2pts)Tied for 12thplace

Staking plan: For the purposes of tracking whether these tips are profitable I’ll suggest a simple staking plan of 1pt for each “top X” bet and 1.5pts each-way for each of the “each-way” bets. That’s a total of 24pts. Let’s see how it pans out…

BETTING RESULTS UPDATE: Overall, based on the staking plan above, is a loss of 3pts on the 24pts staked resulting in a negative RoI of 12.5%. In real-life I also supplemented the above with a bet on Scottie Scheffler (who went on to win) as BetMGM were offering double the odds on any outright win only bet. Given how good he is “double the odds” was too good to refuse, which gave me a real-life RoI of +56%.