More coming soon for this page.

Vincent AI - Thoughts on Odds Profiles of Last Five Years

The evolution of the Tournament of Champions over the past five years tells a fascinating story about how changes in both field size and qualification criteria have potentially reshaped the competitive landscape. What began as an intimate gathering of 34 tournament winners in 2020 has transformed into a significantly larger championship featuring 59 players in 2024, now including both winners and top 50 FedEx Cup finishers.

In the smaller, winners-only field of 2020, the tournament displayed clear hierarchies. The favorites dominated leaderboards, claiming a third of all top-10 finishes and demonstrating statistical superiority by gaining nearly 13 more strokes than longshots. The betting market reflected this disparity with a massive 26,000-point gap between the average odds of favorites and longshots. This made intuitive sense - a winners-only field naturally created tiers between multiple-time winners and those who might have secured their spot through a single victory at a weaker event.

However, the 2024 tournament suggests the potential for a fundamental shift in dynamics. With 59 players qualifying through either victories or sustained season-long excellence, performance appeared more democratized across all segments of the betting market. Each quartile secured around 7% of top-10 finishes, and the gap in strokes gained narrowed dramatically to just three and a half strokes between favorites and longshots. The betting markets seem to have recognized this evolution, with the odds gap compressing to around 16,400 points.

This compression in both performance and odds makes sense when considering the new qualification criteria. A player who finished 45th in the FedEx Cup, while perhaps not having won, likely demonstrated more consistent high-level performance throughout the year than some previous winners-only entrants. The expanded field isn't just bigger - it's deeper in quality, populated by players who have proven they can maintain elite form over a full season.

While we should be cautious about drawing firm conclusions from a limited sample size, these early signals suggest we might be entering an era where the Tournament of Champions is more open than conventional wisdom would suggest. The combination of a larger field and revised qualification criteria appears to have created an event where the gap between favorites and longshots has narrowed considerably, both in odds and in actual performance.

This evolution appears to mirror a broader trend in professional golf, where the depth of talent continues to grow and the gap between the elite and the field narrows. The Tournament of Champions now presents a more complex handicapping challenge, but also potentially more opportunities for those who recognize how these structural changes might be reshaping the competitive landscape.