How To Bet On Golf
You would think betting on golf would be easy.
A field of 120-156 PGA Tour players, most of whom are scrubs that barely get by on tour with a handful of big names to keep the tournament sponsors happy is what you get in 75% of the schedule. The remaining tournaments like the 4 majors, the WGC tournaments and a few others will have the Top 50 golfers in the world and of those there are about 10 that will win multiple tournaments during the year.
Yes I am filled with sarcasm, betting on golf is hard but you can improve your odds of winning if you narrow down your focus a bit. Whether you are looking to bet on the PGA Tour, the European Tour or even the LPGA tour, there are certain rules that you should train yourself to follow and they will improve you odds of winning more money betting on golf.
Using A Sports Betting Site
First and foremost, you need to find a betting site to place your bets with. Amateurs will pick just one site and join but golf odds vary so much from site to site, it may be best to start an account at a few of them to take advantage of better odds at different sites. If you are from the US there are only a few offshore sites that will accept US players the best one for golf we find is Intertops.com.
Types Of Golf Bets
The one great thing about betting golf online is the sheer amount of options you have at your disposal. Back in the day your local bookmaker would only give you a few options for golf betting. They were most likely just Outright Winner and Head to Head matchups. Today you have the flexibility to bet hundreds of different bet types and if your new to the game we are going to cover the most popular golf bets right now.
Outright Winner
The most popular bet made on golf is simply betting on who will win. A betting site like the ones above will provide money line odds on every golfer in the tournament and the amount that you can win if they win that week. Occasionally you will also see a bet that isn’t a player but “The Field” which means that you can pick anyone that isn’t already listed to win as potential winners. Most betting sites don’t offer this option much anymore. Here is an example of what the odds to win a tournament would look like:
If you like Jordan Spieth who is the favorite to win at +900 then a $100 bet would win you $900 if Spieth was to win. If you go down the list and want to bet on a longshot like Ryan Moore at +15000 then a $100 bet would win you $15,000 if Moore wins the tournament.
Head to Head Matchups
A golfer matchup or a head to head wager is where the odds makers matches up two golfers in a tournament and sets odds on which of the two golfers will post a better score. In some cases this is done for a particular round and in some cases it is for the entire tournament. Here’s an example:
Dustin Johnson – 150
Jason Day +130
In this example Dustin Johnson has been paired with Jason Day and Day has been listed as the underdog with DJ as the favorite. If you like DJ in this head to head match over Day you would need to risk $130 for every $100 you would like to win. If Dustin Johnson finishes higher in the tournament standings than Day, you will have won you bet.
Group Matchup Betting
Just like the Matchups Betting but instead of head to head the sports betting site offers a matchup pool with three or more golfers. You as the bettor then picks which golfer out of the pool you think will win. Group matchups offer a higher payout than regular golfer matchup bets because your pick needs to beat out 2 or more golfers for you to cash in. For Example:
Jordan Spieth +100
Phil Mickelson +150
Tiger Woods +170
In a group matchup of 3 golfers, if you want to bet $100 on Tiger Woods to win this group, Woods needs to finish ahead of both Jordan Spieth and Phil Mickelson. If you win, you would cash in $170 on that $100 bet.
Future Bets
A future bet is when odds makers create odds for an event in the future or scenarios to bet on. There are various futures bets that can be made: Which golfer will finish highest on the PGA Tour money list, who will win the FedEx Cup, betting on the 4 majors months in advance. Another example is how many majors a player will win like in the example below:
How Many Majors Will Rory McIlory Win?
0 – 10 to 1
1 – 6 to 1
2 – 9 to 1
3 – 16 to 1
4 – 35 to 1
If you think that Rory will win 2 majors this year and you bet $100 then if he wins 2 out of the 4 you’ll win $900.
Golf Prop Bets
With there be a Hole in One? Will Dustin Johnson get an Eagle this week? These are just a couple of examples of prop bets that you can make in a tournament. There are really just too many different types to list but it gives you the bettor tremendous flexibility to find some value. Prop bets can be an area where the lines may be mis-priced as a lot of them are just for fun and the bookmakers don’t necessary care about getting the sharpest odds out there. A lot of them can be pure flip a coin gambling but if you look around you can find some edge.
Do you your homework and check out which of the best golf betting sites offer the most prop bets that you can take advantage of.
Golf Betting Bankroll Management
Why are you getting into betting on sports? Is it to make a fortune and retire – then you are in the wrong game! Don’t get me wrong, you can make some nice money betting on sports but you need to be smart about it. It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon to win money and you will have some bad losing streaks along the way.
First things first, you need to decide how much of a deposit you going to put in. You can look at it this way – how much are you comfortable losing if over time your balance turns to $0?
For example, If you use $1000 as your starting bankroll a good management system would say that you never bet more that 10% a night of your total bankroll and should stick to 4% to 7% per night. Using our $1000 example, you could pick 5 games and bet $10 each, or if you like some games more than others then you can do $20, $10, $10, $5 and $5 or if you truly only like one game then the most you would bet would be $40 – $70 that night. Remember, professional gamblers only have a winning percentage of 53% – 55% over the long term which makes them a profit especially since they bet bigger amounts so you want to strive for being anywhere over 50% to be making money.
Do Your Own Research
You can read all the stats in the world and dissect the final leaderboards all you want but you can pick up so much from actually watching the tournaments. You’ll hear stuff from the commentators that talk to the players and they’ll tell you how the players’ game is going. You’ll find out who’s having a tough go with their putter and they let you in on their opinion of players since they watch every tournament week to week. Also, watching the tournaments will help you formulate your own opinion of how guys are doing. Are guys finishing well but getting lucky bounces on to the greens, are guys just missing putts but reading the lines well, do they look stressed with their game or playing well and having fun? All these factors can be caught watching the 4 rounds (even just the weekends) and will help you when making your golf bets.
