Golf Betting Tips, Previews & News

Golf is a sport that evokes fierce passion from aspiring professionals all over the world, but is mastered by a rare few.

Played just about everywhere grass grows and richly rewarding its best players with some of the best prize money in all of sport, golf is a popular betting market and offers professional tournaments and majors to gamble on all-year round.

Huge global audiences tune in to watch major tournaments like the Masters, the British Open, US Open, USPGA Championship, Ryder Cup and President’s Cup.

With a wide array of markets, bet-types and tournaments to analyse, golf can be a challenging pursuit for new punters — read through our guide below to get up to speed.

Golf’s biggest majors are a betting bonanza for bookmakers and punters alike, meaning you’re going to field a number of different offers and promotions in the lead up to each one.

Bookmakers have been known to offer early pay-outs on tournament leaders, boosted odds, bonuses back for near-misses, multi deals and specific deals around big-ticket players like Tiger Woods.

With some tournaments fielding in excess of 150 players, finding a winner in any golf tournament can be a big ask, so it’s incumbent on punters to do their homework and use the specials on offer from the bookies to improve their chances and maximise their returns.

While the courses and conditions will change dramatically depending on where the tournaments are played, the rules of play and betting markets for punters to choose from are consistent.

We’ll take you through the most popular options below:

Winner betting:

This is as advertised. If you’re able to choose the player who shoots the lowest score over four days then you’ll win the bet.

Top 3, 5 and 10 betting:

Given the enormous playing fields, punters can often find real value in ‘place’ betting, whether it be a top 3, top 5 or even top 10 market. The odds will obviously be shorter than the winner market, but your chances of winning the bet also improve dramatically and you don’t have to wear the heartbreak of any last-hole losses.

Be warned, check with your bookmaker on the terms and conditions on if and how they will pay out bets if your wager is ‘equal’ third, fifth or tenth. Some bookies have different pay out policies than others.

Bet without the favourites:

Back in the days of Tiger Woods’ absolute dominance, when the US champ was winning tournaments for fun, bookmakers began to offer a winning market without him, to provide more competition and better odds for punters.

In the years after Tigers’ dominance waned the popularity of the market lived on, with other favourites like Jordan Spieth or Rory McIlroy taking his place.

Essentially, you will win this bet if your player either wins the tournament or finishes second to the ‘favourite’ who has been left out of betting.

Handicap betting:

This betting market works the same way it does for hacks around the world. Golfers in the field will be allocated a handicap by the bookmakers that are designed to even up the field.

If you bet on a player that has a 4-shot handicap and he finishes behind the eventual winner by just 3 shots, you will have won the bet and the player will have played to the handicap.

Group betting:

When a group of three or four players tees off on the first or second day of a tournament, you can bet on which player will emerge the highest on the leader board after 18 holes. This market essentially eliminates the rest of the tournament’s field and lets punters focus on a niche battle with smaller odds.

First day leader betting:

As advertised again. Betting on the leader of the first day is for punters who don’t want to endure four days of waiting, with pay-outs at the end of the first day if you select the correct player to start hot.

Multi betting can be a difficult equation for golf punters due to the fact many bookmakers will not allow conflicting legs to be placed together.

There are some bookmakers that allow ‘same game multis’, but even within that, you will have to find separate markets that do not directly influence each other.

Multi betting that will work in golf is accumulating different tournament results together. This may mean your wait for a result and pay-out is longer, but given how hard it is to pick the winner of one tournament, let alone multiple, the odds are much, much higher.

Betting on golf without knowing anything about the game is fraught with danger.

You don’t have to be an expert, but it does help to know some key aspects before you part with your hard-earned money.

While the rules of golf stay the same, no matter where it’s played, the conditions can change dramatically.

For example, there are three different kinds of golf courses — links, parkland and desert.

Links courses are seen throughout the United Kingdom and see golfers challenged with rolling hills, thick rough, deep bunkers and sandy, windy conditions. Fairways are more open without any trees to separate the holes.

Parkland courses are much greener, tree-lined and heavily manicured with introduced flora. Parkland fairways are typically flatter than links courses, but also thinner, challenging players to hit straighter.

Desert courses are much, much rarer than the other two types and mostly found in natural desert landscapes in the middle east and even in Australia. The course typically only has grass on tees, fairways and the greens and provides a unique challenge for golfers that are wayward.

Here’s some questions to ask yourself before betting:

• What kind of player am I betting on? Is he/she strong off the tee, or better with irons and short play
• Does the course suit the strengths of the player I’m betting on?
• Has the player played at the course or before? How did they fare?
• What kind of golfers win the tournament I’m betting on? Does that match my selected player?
• How has the player gone in recent weeks? Are they 100% fit?

A good punter is a well-researched punter.

The world’s biggest golfing majors are among the most-popular betting events on the sporting calendar and attract the game’s best talent, looking to etch their name in golf history.

Keep an eye out for these tournaments, which bookmakers will often target with special promotions and extra betting markets:

The Masters:

Held in April at the legendary Augusta National Golf Club each year, the Masters is the biggest golf tournament in the world, in terms of attendance, viewers and global reach. US great Jack Nicklaus has won a record 6 Masters titles.

Open Championship:

Played in the third weekend of July each year at a number of different courses and hosted by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club ofSt Andrews, the British Open, or Open Championship, is the oldest of the majors, having been established in 1860. British great Harry Vardon still holds the record with 6 Open Championship titles with six.

PGA Championship:

Held on the weekend prior to the US Memorial Day weekend and played at various locations around the US, the PGA Championship has been a huge part of the golfing calendar since it was first held in 1915. Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen share the record for the number of titles at five each.

US Open:

The US Open is the oldest tournament held in North America, having been established in 1895. Held in the third weekend of June at a variety of locations around the country, it has seen Willie Anderson, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Nicklaus share the spoils for the most titles, all lifting the crown four times.

Australia has a rich history of producing golfing greats like Peter Thompson, Greg Norman, Kel Nagle and modern-day stars like Adam Scott, Jason Day and Geoff Ogilvy.

The land down under may have a smaller population than most strong golf-playing nations, but we’ve always punched above our weight on the international stage.

So, what about the great Australian golf tournaments?

It may surprise some to know that Australia has its own majors that are well over 100 years old and a huge feature of the Australian sporting summer.

Australian Open:

First played in 1904, the Australian Open is the oldest tournament in the PGA Tour of Australasia and played in November each year. While the prize money may not offer the same incredible riches we see overseas, the major has always been able to attract the game’s best players and has an incredible list of former winners that includes Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Greg Norman, Jordan Spieth and Peter Thompson.

Australian PGA:

Coming one year after the Australian Open in 1905, the Australian PGA Championship has gone through a number of different formats and venue changes over the last century, but remains a key date in the Australian golf calendar. Played in December each year, it boasts winners like Adam Scott, Ian Baker-Finch, Greg Norman and Kel Nagle.

With professional tournaments on throughout the summer months in both hemispheres, there is never a shortage of golf to bet on in any given week.

Taking note of our tips above, we recommend keeping a consistent eye on bookmaker promotions and watching the recent form of the key betting favourites before placing your wagers.

The world’s biggest golfing tournaments like the US Masters and the Open Championship have always been televised live into Australian homes on free-to-air television, meaning you can download the Nine Now app to live stream those tournaments on your smart phone.

In addition to overseas majors, the two big Australian majors like the Australian Open and Australian PGA are now live on Channel Seven, so getting the Seven Plus app will get you the live vision there too.

For other golf events around the world, Bet365 streams selected tournaments from Europe and Asia to its members via the Bet635 app.

Australians can also pay a subscription to Foxtel or Kayo to get even more live golf from around the world.