Are you new to betting on golf? Betting on professional golf is one of the best ways to get your toes wet when it comes to wagering. The options available to you are not limited to just picking the winner! Like any other type of sports betting, some basic information is needed to help you get off to a good start. After all, some good tips are always worth looking over.
Here are the top 7 tips for betting on golf. These are based on how I make my selections and they can be applied to professional tours of all types. That includes the PGA, LPGA, DP World Tour, LIV, and even college golf. Let’s tee off with the first tip which is where everything takes place.
1. Study the Course
One of the first things to consider when it comes to betting on golf is to know what the venue is. The golf course is the only constant for all of the players in the field. Every course is different and each has unique characteristics beyond the layout. Also, courses are known for how their staff’s set up the greens, holes, rough, and more. Is it a tight course, wide open, or more of a target golf design? But those are not the only considerations.
Check to see if any major changes have been made on the course. This can be as simple as replacing a tee box or green or as big as a redesign. Augusta lengthen a hole for the Masters which was a few weeks ago. Changes like this will come into play and are often well publicized in media reports. The other factor is the weather! Rain, wind, heat, and temperature changes can change how a course plays during each day and over four days.
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2. Analyze All of the Betting Markets
When odds are released before a golf tournament starts, the initial reaction is to look for names you think can win the tournament outright. That’s fine! But don’t limit yourself to thinking that’s the only wagering option or the best one for you. I often tell people that are starting on betting on golf to look at offerings throughout the entire event. This goes beyond picking a winner, or top-three, five, or ten finishers.
Think of it this way, the gambling industry is also an entertainment industry and they quickly realized that golf is perfect for additional types of betting. And, these offerings change as the event goes on, and how the leaderboard is changing. Depending on your platform and the event, the daily prop bets can range from most birdies, number of aces, number of balls hit into the water, and more. You can even look for wagers on the best finishes by players from the same country.
3. Utilizing Statistics
The world of professional golf loves statistics. Perhaps more than baseball, racing, and football. There are too many stats to list here when it comes to the pros but it is important to make sure that you are utilizing statistics when making your selections. And the PGA makes this amazingly simple as the official PGA website has every stat for each player as well as where they rank against all of the other players on Tour.
Look for stats that are obvious, such as greens hit in regulation, birdie average, driver accuracy, and more. But also dive into stats that pertain to the course. Remember the first tip about knowing the course? If a course is known for being tough around the greens then you may want to look at stats for approach and for scrambling.
This stat is broken down into several categories such as scrambling in general, around the green, from the sand, from the rough, and different distances. The same goes for putting! There are seven main categories under the putting stat umbrella. There are at least five sub-stat categories for putting under each main putting category.
That sounds complicated, but professional golf, at least the PGA and LPGA, make finding relevant information easy. Utilizing statistics when it comes to betting on golf is a key to making successful wagers.
4. Past Course Winners
One of the easiest ways to research a tournament is to look for how players have traditionally played at the same event. If a player has won the event before then they are worth considering. And these wins do not need to be consecutive. Tiger Woods seemed to be the master at this as he was a repeat winner at the same tournament several times.
He won 83 times on Tour with 40 of those wins coming on six courses. He’s tied with Sam Sneed for most wins at the same event. Both hold the record at eight with Woods doing it twice. That equals 16 wins on the same two courses. The bad part of this tip is that not every player is Tiger Woods. That’s where this next tip comes into play.
5. Past Course Performance
Now follow the same advice as above when it comes to how a player performed the last time they played an event, but dive deeper into the stats. This time consider any past wins at the venue but also look for overall performance. Take into consideration how they finished overall – such as inside the top ten or better.
You can also look at if they challenged for the win in years past. A great source for this outside of a Tours official website is Wikipedia. If you search a PGA Tour event the dedicated Wiki page will show winners by each year as well as the second-place players. It will also show if the event ended in a playoff and how many strokes separated the top spot from the runner-up.
6. Player Changes (Clubs, Swing, etc.)
The last two tips are very similar but I’ve decided to break them into two different categories. I did this because one is related to equipment and one is related to outside influences. First, look for stories about a player making an equipment change or swing change during their career and even during a season. When I hear about a player changing their drivers, shafts, putter, or ball it makes me worry.
I also tend to fade on a player if I hear that they are changing a physical issue such as a swing style or even their putter grip. This is often an indication that the player is out of sync and looking for a fix. This is fine – but moves like this often take time to work through. It could take a week, month, or even longer for the player gets back in a groove and becomes used to the change. This is all easy to research just by scanning media reports… which is the last tip!
7. Keep Track of Media Reports
Several years ago I placed a wager on a PGA player who then missed the cut. And this was an event that he had played well in before. After the fact, I was talking to a fellow PGA fan, and it was brought to my attention that the player’s wife had recently given birth and this was his first event back after the happy event. I instantly remembered how tired I was – for weeks or months – following the birth of our child.
My weekly research now includes a quick internet search of players that I am considering. I look for media reports that suggest outliers such as the birth of a baby or even a wedding. But I also look for injury reports, or possibly a personal loss such as the death of a loved one. After all, professional golfers are people and they go through the daily life events we all do.
Putting Your Betting Bag Together
These are the top seven tips for betting on golf and I admit at first glance they may all seem too easy to be true. The key is to use several of them at once, or all of the tips, when making your selections for any golf tournament. So, to steal a phrase from the golf world, let’s put your bag together!
Start by looking at the event, the course and the weather for an overall feel of what the week will be. Then start to look at the odds, but remember that you don’t have to pick a winner and walk away. Some people I know lean toward golf prop bets during a tournament for more entertainment. Next, dive into some stats of the players you are considering and see if they’ve won or done well at the event in the past.
Lastly, check out media reports by simply entering a player’s name in a search engine and check out a few news articles to see if they are making swing or equipment changes. Or if they had a big event happen in their life recently. Combining some or all of the tips I’ve listed should help you make better- informed decisions when it comes to making your selections.
