How to Bet on Golf?
Golf is a sport that can bring rich rewards to punters who bet astutely using their skill and knowledge. The great thing about betting on golf tournaments is that the fields are massive, usually featuring well over 100 players and almost any player has a chance of winning. This makes it tricky for bookmakers and ideal for punters who really know their sport.
Best Golf Betting Strategy: Key Points
- Most golf events are stroke play tournaments
- The four Majors are the biggest tournaments
- You can bet on golf tours too, but these are less common
- Plenty of different betting markets available for major tournaments
5 Ways to Find the Best Golf Betting Strategy
As seen in our
cricket betting strategy
guide, betting on golf is very similar to betting on other sports, certainly in the way that the odds and main markets work. Even if you have never bet on golf before, many of the features of golf betting will be familiar to anyone who has previously wagered on other sports. What you will need to become familiar with, is the particular nuances and quirks that are specific to golf, if you want to come up with the best golf betting strategy.
If you’re new to betting on golf, then these five tips should stand you in good stead. You can use them to help formulate the best golf betting strategy - the one that works for you.
Pick the Right Tournament
One of the first things that you will notice about golf is that it is based almost entirely on tours and tournaments. There is no professional league structure as such, although the PGA rankings might be considered similar. Most tournaments also focus on individual players rather than teams. Some team events do take place, with the Ryder Cup being a huge draw for punters.
To develop your best golf betting strategy, you first need to understand the difference between a golf tour and a golf tournament.
Tours
Golf tours are different to tournaments in terms of who plays in them. Around 95% of tour players are working golf professionals, rather than full time professional players. To be able to compete in a tour, players must first become members of the tour and obtain a tour card. For the two main tours, this is achieved by being placed highly in a qualifying round, or by invitation from an existing tour member.
There are two main tours to follow. The first is the European Tour, which despite its name includes rounds in Asia and South Africa as well as Europe. This is a very cosmopolitan tour, with players from all over the world featuring. It's certainly not as wealthy or as high profile as the PGA Tour, which is played across the US over several weeks. There are many lesser tours, but you will find it a little more difficult to find a bookie showing odds for them.
Tournaments
Tournaments are largely populated by the top 100 professional players, whose names any golf enthusiast will recognise. The courses they are played on are much tougher and more technical than the majority of tour courses. There are four major tournaments that are considered by both bookies and punters as the blue ribbon golfing events:
- The Masters Tournament
- The US Open
- The PGA Championship
- The Open Championship
The first three are played across the US but the Open Championship is played in the UK on one of the 10 nominated links courses. All four tournaments carry a great deal of prestige for the winning player, not to mention a substantial prize purse, so there is a good deal of pressure on the players to do well.
When you bet on golf, you should make sure that you pick tournaments where you know the course well and have a good idea about the relative quality of the players that are taking part. You do not necessarily need to pick the biggest or most popular tournament to be a successful bettor. The best golf betting strategy will always take the tournament, the course and the players into account.
Use Different Types of Bet
If you’re looking to come up with the best golf betting strategy you need to understand the different types of bet that can be placed on the sport. Obviously, betting on golf is very different to a
horse betting system
and different again to betting on team sports such as football or rugby league.
It also lends itself to matched betting strategies.
Matched betting explained
briefly means laying every bet you place on a betting exchange, such as Betfair. When implemented correctly it can considerably reduce your risk of an overall loss. There is much more focus on individual attributes and skills, something which provides the enterprising punter with a different type of challenge.
Below are some of the most popular ways to bet on golf, all of which you might want to consider whilst searching for the best golf betting strategy.
Tournament Winner
The simplest form of bet in golf is to wager on the winner of a tournament. Not all golfers end tournaments as well as they start them, so in addition to betting on the overall winner of a tournament, you can place several different types of each way bets to give you the best shot at a win. Tournaments usually last three to four days, so bookies also offer live betting for the duration. You can see how live betting in golf works later on in this guide. There are plenty of good ways to complement the best golf betting strategy within this scope.
First Round Leader
Here you'll get to see some interesting turns of event and there's opportunities to take advantage of some fantastic odds too. If you've done your homework, you'll already know which players prefer an early start and which like to see how the contest is shaping up before they tee off. Some of the professional players do not always perform well in the early rounds, whereas a lesser player will be determined to shine. The best odds will be on the underdog here, so take advantage.
Head-To-Head Betting
Head-to-head bets can also be good fun. This is where you pick a pair of golfers and bet on which of them will finish higher in the tournament. There are other variations, one is a type of betting called ‘Six Shooter’ which can be lucrative as well as entertaining. In this case, you come up with a group of six golfers of similar standard to each other and bet on which you think will finish highest out of them. That can be an interesting challenge to anyone who is trying to shape their best golf betting strategy. Three-ball bets are another option. Tournaments usually have golfers setting off in pre-defined groups of three, so a three-ball bet requires you to use your skill to determine which of those players will finish with the best score.
Finishing Place
You can also place wagers on whether or not individual golfers will manage a top five, ten or twenty finish in a tournament. Another variation is a double bets, where you wager on which two golfers will finish in the top two slots, in any order. If you want to add more of a challenge and get even better odds, then you can place a double bet that predicts the exact order of the top two finishers. Of course, if neither of them wins you lose your bet, so your strategy might include using a matched bet to offset potential losses.
Exotics and Side Bets
Some of the best odds for golf are found in the side betting markets. Rather than picking winners, you could opt for lowest score bets, either within a three player group, or perhaps by selecting players from several different groups. Another fun way to bet on golf is predicting how many holes in one will occur during a tournament. Don't be fooled into thinking this is an unlikely event, if you look at the historical stats you'll get quite a surprise. And here's a quick tip for you, most holes in one occur on par-3 holes with the player using a 7, 8 or 9 iron!
As with all forms of betting, the more you know about golf, the more likely you are to be a successful punter. Expert knowledge should always be the foundation of the best golf betting strategy. You need to know exactly which players are in form ahead of tournaments. In addition you should also be digging into information about their course likes and dislikes and their previous successes or failures.
Tour and Tournament News
Each major tournament or tour has its own website that features statistics, news and interviews with the top players. There, you can also find facts and figures for things like the driving distance for each hole on a course and how often players hit the green straight off the tee and the accuracy of their putting. There is a rich feast of facts on offer that you should make proper use of. They are all really important when it comes to improving your overall golf knowledge.
Courses
An important part of formulating the best golf betting strategy is to understand the course too. Knowing the individual characteristics of specific courses will give you a real edge when it comes to successful betting. Individual players all have their own particular attributes that mean their style of play will suit some courses more than others. The astute punter will know exactly which players should perform best on a specific course and apply that knowledge to their betting.
Watch and Learn
Of course, the best way of researching is to watch as much golf as possible. If you’re already a fan of the sport, that shouldn't be too hard. When it comes down to basics, this is by far the most effective way of formulating the best golf betting strategy. The more golf that you watch, the more perceptive you will be when it comes to spotting betting opportunities. This is especially useful for live, or in play golf betting. This is something we’ll look at more closely in the next section of this guide.
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Use In Play Betting on Golf
Live, or
in play betting, is where you place bets on events and outcomes while a match is taking place. There are usually plenty of in play betting markets on offer for golf tournaments, and anyone looking to come up with the best golf betting strategy should be aware of the possibilities they offer.
This type of golf betting really does require expert knowledge. With in play betting you often have to respond very speedily to events that are taking place live. The astute golf punter therefore needs sharp knowledge and the ability to make quick decisions to make live betting work for them. Golf, though, tends to move much more slowly than many other sports, something that makes live betting a touch easier.
You also need to factor in things like the weather when it comes to live betting. If heavy rain suddenly strikes the course midway through a round, those players who are still out there will face some testing circumstances. This can create some potentially valuable situations for in play bettors. Successful live betting will always depend on the punter’s ability to be able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances.
When it comes to the markets for live betting on golf, you have plenty of choice. Many of the markets focus on hole-by-hole betting, so strong course knowledge always pays off. You can also place bets on eventual tournament winners while the tournament is taking place, which adds more options. Betting on the number of strokes a player will take to complete a hole can be a fun in play market too.
Remember to Expect the Unexpected
Golf is a sport where unexpected and extraordinary events often occur. For example, who could possibly predict that Brian Harman would achieve two holes in one in a single round of the PGA Tour in 2015! This is simply due to the nature of the way that the courses are structured. Tournaments have very large fields, meaning that massive numbers of variables can come in to play. You need to keep this in mind when you are considering what would be the best golf betting strategy to use.
Pressure is a real factor in golf and it often causes strong performers to under-perform at vital times. You always need to take into account a range of factors when determining the best golf betting strategy on any given day. The range of natural obstacles also puts pressure on the players and they are different on every single golf course. There is a water, rough, inconvenient trees and the omni-present sand bunkers on every golf course. They all play a part in determining outcomes, often in highly unexpected ways. The astute punter who is searching for the best golf betting strategy needs to understand these unique challenges.
Check Out Our Other Betting Guides
If you are interested in sharpening up your betting techniques on other sports, in addition to coming up with the best golf betting strategy, then you should check out
Betting.co.uk’s other guides. We can help you with the
best football betting strategy, including a special focus on
derby betting, but we also cover topics like
value betting
and matched betting strategies as well. If you’re serious about wagering on sports, you need to pay us a visit!
The Best Golf Betting Strategy is Based on Expert Knowledge
As you can see, coming up with the best golf betting strategy is pretty similar to knowing how to bet wisely on other sports. Knowing how to bet on golf requires sound knowledge of the sport, an appreciation of the specifics of events and a willingness to do your research. These principles hold true whatever you sport you bet on, but golf also requires you to have an understanding of the challenges presented by different courses and how well the players match up to those challenges.
Betting on golf can be very entertaining as well as lucrative. The pace of the sport, coupled with a variety of factors like the natural terrain and weather conditions, can make coming up with the best golf betting strategy a challenge in it's own right. However, once you're ready to put your money where your mouth is, be sure to check out the array of offers available to you, such as the
NetBet sports welcome offer
or the
Sky Bet welcome offer
to see if you can turn your golfing knowledge into a lucrative betting experience.
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