Each week, including this week’s 2024 The Players Championship, Golf News Net offers PGA Tour betting picks and daily fantasy sports (DFS) lineups using our proprietary model, which is weighted toward longer-term performance.
However, we don’t just use our model when making these picks. We also need to look at current form, course fits and horses for courses. This data can and should help inform our decision making, including validating things we see in the model. If everything lines up, then a player can become an auto-play. If only some parts of the equation suggest a player will perform well this week, then we may look more tepidly at investing in a player.
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GNN Members-Only Tools
- PGA Tour results database
- Cheat Sheet
- PGA Tour top-15 trends
- Short-term model
- Quality Strokes Gained
- Strokes gained by round
- Course fit: Player vs. course
- Course fit: Course comparison
- SG:T2G trends
- SG:T2G variance
- Strokes gained by grass
- Strokes gained by course length
- Strokes gained by par
2024 The Players Championship history and current PGA Tour finish trends
Finish Trends
Recent PGA Tour Trends
We start by looking at the recent past, back at players who have finished inside the top 15 in the last five individual PGA Tour events. This week, we’re including players in the The Players Championship and the Puerto Rico Open.
- Sam Burns – 2 – T-3 Phoenix Open, T-10 Genesis Invitational
- Doug Ghim – 2 – T-12 Phoenix Open, T-8 Mexico Open
- Tom Hoge – 2 – T-6 Pebble Beach, T-8 Genesis Invitational
- Jake Knapp – 2 – WIN Mexico Open, T-4 Cognizant Classic
- Martin Laird – 2 – T-9 Cognizant Classic, T-10 Puerto Rico Open
- Shane Lowry – 2 – T-4 Cognizant Classic, 3rd Arnold Palmer Invitational
- Hideki Matsuyama – 2 – WIN Genesis Invitational, T-12 Arnold Palmer Invitational
- Maverick McNealy – 2 – T-6 Phoenix Open, T-13 Mexico Open
- Andrew Novak – 3 – T-8 Phoenix Open, T-8 Mexico Open, T-9 Cognizant Classic
- Scottie Scheffler – 3 – T-8 Phoenix Open, T-10 Genesis Invitational, WIN Arnold Palmer Invitational
- Nick Taylor – 2 – WIN Phoenix Open, T-12 Arnold Palmer Invitational
- Sahith Theegala – 2 – T-5 Phoenix Open, T-6 Arnold Palmer Invitational
- Justin Thomas – 2 – T-12 Phoenix Open, T-12 Arnold Palmer Invitational
- Erik van Rooyen – 2 – T-8 Mexico Open, T-2 Cognizant Classic
- Cameron Young – 2 – T-8 Phoenix Open, T-4 Cognizant Classic
- Will Zalatoris – 2 – T-2 Genesis Invitational, T-4 Arnold Palmer Invitational
Event Finish History
We like to look for potential horses for courses with most PGA Tour events, particularly those with regular host courses. We’re typically looking at players who finished in the top 15 in this particular event in the last five (for this event, two) years, keeping in mind that this is a new venue we’ve not seen.
Here are those players for the The Players Championship:
- Adam Hadwin – 2
- Brian Harman – 2
- Max Homa – 2
- Viktor Hovland – 2
- Shane Lowry – 2
- Hideki Matsuyama – 2
- Justin Rose – 2
Course Fits
A player is a course fit — or a potential course fit, at least — if their Strokes Gained breakout when they finish in the top 25 is similar to the average for top-25 finishers at this week’s The Players Championship.
Here’s our breakdown:
- Putting: 27%
- Tee to Green: 73%
- Off the Tee: 19%
- Approach: 41%
- Around the Green: 13%
Possible fits include:
Find course fits using our member-only tool which shows this week’s course numbers relative to the field.
I’ve also created a new listing which helps you find correlated courses by looking at the course fit breakdown for each recurring host course on the PGA Tour.
This week’s model
Check out the 2024 The Players Championship generic model, as well as our NEW short-term model which is available to GNN members.
My model weighs performance over multiple time frames (the last five events, 1 year and 2 years) with different weighting to strokes gained based on quality of competition.
We also have a tool for members which lays out the last field, our model and their results in the last five PGA Tour events and last five years of this week’s event. Check it out!
We have also dramatically updated all of our tools with better data presentation, export and more to come soon!
Good luck this week!
