Win probabilities: THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES, Round 2

Friday’s second round at THE CJ CUP @ NINE BRIDGES saw Scott Piercy ascend to the top of the leaderboard, while Brooks Koepka took a commanding share of the win probability. Here are the top 10 win probabilities through 36 holes according to our model: Koepka, who our model rates as the second-best player in this field, now has a better than 1 in 3 chance of winning come Sunday. Koepka finished Friday’s round on a high note, making eagle on the par-5 18th hole which added about 10 percentage points to his win probability. The leader, Scott Piercy, is estimated by our model to be approximately equal in ability to the average PGA TOUR professional. Koepka, on the other hand, is estimated to be about 1.5 strokes better per round. Therefore, we could instead think of their current win probabilities as describing a scenario in which two equally skilled players are separated by two strokes (with Koepka getting the two-stroke advantage). Friday’s low round belonged to Brian Harman, who shot an 8-under-par 64. Here is how he got it done: After an opening-round 76, Harman looked to be out of this event. The model gave him just a 7 percent chance at finishing in the top 20. However, his superb second round has revived his chances of having a good week: Harman is now 58 percent to finish in the top 20, and has an outside shot (1.4 percent) at claiming a victory this weekend.  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 five 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 10,000 simulations. To follow live finish probabilities throughout the remainder of THE CJ Cup @ NINE BRIDGES, 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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