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Valspar one and done11/8/2023 If anything, picking a player to win the same tournament again includes less variance, as skill and experience play a factor in determining success, unlike with the roulette wheel.Īgain, unless you’re blindly analyzing the statistical data and playing edges, human emotion is always going to play some part in our selections – and often those emotions try to suggest that something which happened already has less of a chance to occur again. While it might seem unlikely that the small white ball would come to rest in the exact same spot for a second straight time, each spin is a new scenario, offering a 1-in-38 opportunity for success. The very next year, he too successfully defended his title, giving the Valspar a rarity of back-to-back back-to-back winners.īetting a defending champion is like playing a repeat number on the roulette wheel. After a cancelation due to COVID-19 in 2020, Sam Burns broke through for his first victory in 2021. The very next year, he won this tournament again. In 2018, Paul Casey broke a nine-year drought of close calls by claiming his second career U.S. It’s a relevant topic once again this week, as the PGA Tour travels from TPC Sawgrass to Innisbrook’s Copperhead Course for the Valspar Championship. Point is, there were undoubtedly bettors who assessed Scheffler as a potential option last week and decided that even though he’s one of the world’s most talented players and a proven closer, he’d won so much over the past year that he simply wasn’t as much of a viable option to win again. Of course, some of those players are, to continue the analogy, ordering multiple items at the counter. Each of the game’s best players take a ticket, wait in line, and eventually have their number called to claim a trophy. I’ve previously compared it with a deli line. In the cyclical nature of this game at the professional level, it’s not uncommon to track the peaks and valleys, the ebbs and flows, that so often occur, even with elite-level competitors.Įssentially, you want to catch a player as they ascend those peaks, and one who’s triumphed with frequency in recent months might not fit that criterion. Since last February, Scheffler had already won five times, including the Masters and a few other big-time events which featured many of the world’s best players. Or maybe you let previous outcomes impact your decision making. Maybe you liked another top player’s chances more than his. Maybe you were unenthused about the brutally short odds he held prior to the opening round. If you didn’t bet him, there were probably a few reasons for this. If you bet him to win prior to last week’s Players Championship, congratulations on your no-sweat ticket. This law-which-isn’t-a-law can influence how we think as bettors, especially golf bettors, even though each tournament is an individual occurrence unto itself.Īll of which leads us to Scottie Scheffler. Consider it a metaphor for so many other things. As soon as we start thinking, though, that’s where we can get in trouble. Those who wager by solely employing statistical models to analyze the data won’t be deterred by any law of averages trying to nudge them in a different direction. Strictly interpreted, though, the law of averages isn’t a law at all, but a logic error – and as the Google machine tells us, it’s often referred to as “the gambler’s fallacy.” OK, the terminology exists, defined as “the commonly held belief that a particular outcome or event will, over certain periods of time, occur at a frequency that is similar to its probability.”
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