2021 Masters Tournament model and fantasy golf rankings

Welcome to my weekly fantasy golf model for the 2021 Masters!

Beginning in 2020, I developed a weekly rubric which offers a clear-cut ranking system based on data points weighted in a formula. So far, it's been a tremendous success. Here's a look at the PGA Tour winners in the restart and where they landed in the model:

• Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial: Daniel Berger - No. 21
• RBC Heritage: Webb Simpson - No. 7
• Travelers Championship: Dustin Johnson - No. 10
• Rocket Mortgage Classic: Bryson DeChambeau - No. 2
• Workday Charity Open: Collin Morikawa - No. 11
• the Memorial Tournament: Jon Rahm - No. 6
• WGC FedEx St. Jude Invitational: Justin Thomas - No. 6
• PGA Championship: Collin Morikawa - No. 13
• The Northern Trust: Dustin Johnson - No. 20
• BMW Championship: Jon Rahm - No. 2
• US Open: Bryson DeChambeau - No. 9
• Sanderson Farms Championship: Sergio Garcia - No. 40
• CJ Cup at Shadow Creek: Jason Kokrak - No. 17
• Zozo Championship at Sherwood: Patrick Cantlay - No. 9
• The Masters: Dustin Johnson - No. 7
• Mayakoba Golf Classic: Viktor Hovland - No. 5
• Sentry Tournament of Champions: Harris English - No. 13
• Sony Open in Hawaii: Kevin Na - No. 33
• Farmers Insurance Open: Patrick Reed - No. 8
• Waste Management Phoenix Open: Brooks Koepka - No. 10
• AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am: Daniel Berger - No. 1
• The Genesis Invitational: Max Homa - No. 30
• WGC-Workday Championship: Collin Morikawa - No. 17
• Arnold Palmer Invitational: Bryson DeChambeau - No. 3
• The Players Championship: Justin Thomas - No. 3
• Corales Puntacana Resort and Club Championship: Joel Dahmen - No. 22
• Valero Texas Open: Jordan Spieth - No. 9

Let me walk you through the rubric's tenets and show off this week's results.

How the rubric works

The reason I'm calling this a rubric is because I think a model implies a guess about how the tournament will play out. I don't think any model can do that. There are plenty of factors data can't quantify, including luck of the draw, playing partners, hole locations, weather and sheer random stuff.

That's why the rubric is rooted in things we can quantify more broadly without getting too into the weeds. I don't believe specific statistics matter for each course. Each player is different, and they achieve their best results slightly differently, as our Course Fit tool indicates. A player can perform well on most PGA Tour courses doing things their way, and their past performance on a course is best indicative of their fit, not where they rank in certain categories.

That said, the biggest chunk of my rubric relies on strokes gained, as well our derivative, Quality Strokes Gained, which weights a player's strokes gained against the depth of field they face. The rubric looks at this data over the longer term and medium term to derive a player's quality across the tour and across different fields. In the fall of 2021, I included specific weighting of strokes gained and Quality Strokes Gained against the field strength that week, creating a range of comparison to see how players do against particular competition.

Next, the rubric accounts for two factors I look at every week: current form in the last five PGA Tour events played and their average strokes gained on the host course in the last three years.

All told, the model is designed to point out quality players and boost those middling players who have good current form or good course history.

2021 Masters rankings

You'll see with the rubric that I've listed the top 50, as well their current betting odds and DraftKings price.

The Masters is back in April, and we've got one hell of a tournament shaping up before us. You'll see that there aren't a lot of surprises in the model. The biggest one for me? Hideki.

Click header to sort; the better their position, the more the rubric likes them

POS	PLAYER	PTS	DK PRICE	DK RANK	ODDS	ODDS RANK
1	DeChambeau, Bryson	2.349	10800	3	800	1
2	Schauffele, Xander	2.034	10000	6	2000	8
3	McIlroy, Rory	1.995	10200	5	1800	7
4	Rahm, Jon	1.855	11000	2	1200	5
5	Morikawa, Collin	1.645	9600	8	3000	10
6	Thomas, Justin	1.633	10600	4	1000	3
7	Simpson, Webb	1.611	9000	13	5000	16
8	Finau, Tony	1.485	9100	12	3000	10
9	Johnson, Dustin	1.464	11500	1	900	2
10	Wolff, Matthew	1.404	7100	36	15000	37
11	Scott, Adam	1.401	7600	27	6000	22
12	Scheffler, Scottie	1.396	8400	19	5000	16
13	Cantlay, Patrick	1.367	9800	7	2000	8
14	English, Harris	1.352	7300	32	15000	37
15	Reed, Patrick	1.337	9300	10	3000	10
16	Matsuyama, Hideki	1.335	8300	20	5000	16
17	Koepka, Brooks	1.304	9200	11	1000	3
18	Zalatoris, Will	1.3	7300	32	12500	35
19	Casey, Paul	1.288	7700	26	5000	16
20	Hovland, Viktor	1.28	8700	16	3000	10
21	Berger, Daniel	1.272	8500	18	5000	16
22	Fitzpatrick, Matthew	1.127	8100	22	6000	22
23	Day, Jason	1.015	7500	28	6000	22
24	Oosthuizen, Louis	0.987	7500	28	6000	22
25	Kokrak, Jason	0.94	6900	41	15000	37
26	Woodland, Gary	0.917	6800	44	15000	37
27	Griffin, Lanto	0.835	6400	60	30000	58
28	Niemann, Joaquin	0.795	7400	30	8000	29
29	Im, Sungjae	0.773	8600	17	5000	16
30	Westwood, Lee	0.762	8800	15	6000	22
31	Todd, Brendon	0.725	6200	69	100000	72
32	Wallace, Matt	0.706	6400	60	20000	47
33	Bezuidenhout, Christiaan	0.705	6700	48	20000	47
34	Fleetwood, Tommy	0.669	8000	23	6000	22
35	Hatton, Tyrrell	0.625	8900	14	6000	22
36	Rose, Justin	0.607	7200	34	10000	31
37	Poulter, Ian	0.545	6800	44	25000	52
38	Ancer, Abraham	0.522	7400	30	10000	31
39	Spieth, Jordan	0.465	9400	9	1200	5
40	Kisner, Kevin	0.454	6700	48	25000	52
41	Conners, Corey	0.452	6900	41	10000	31
42	Smith, Cameron	0.451	8200	21	30000	58
43	Lowry, Shane	0.443	7000	38	15000	37
44	Horschel, Billy	0.416	7200	34	50000	66
45	Watson, Bubba	0.413	7800	25	50000	66
46	Harman, Brian	0.397	6800	44	3000	10
47	Ortiz, Carlos	0.33	6500	56	60000	69
48	Palmer, Ryan	0.315	6500	56	20000	47
49	Homa, Max	0.277	7100	36	15000	37
50	Hughes, Mackenzie	0.204	6300	64	30000	58