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Golf Betting 101

When you look to bet on golf there are usually 3 types of bets that you can make. These 3 bets are betting on a golfer to win a tournament, betting a golfer will finish in the top 3 of a tournament, and betting that one golfer will place higher than another in a tournament (head-to-head).

If you check out odds for a golfer to win a tournament you will see a line much like this:

Tiger Woods + 130
Phil Mickelson + 270
Sergio Garcia + 700
Vijay Singh +700
Ernie Els + 700
Field + 600

These types of odds are money line odds, which means that for every $10 you bet on Tiger, you will win $13 if he bags the tournament. If you bet on Garcia, Singh, or Els and one of those golfers win the event you will win $70 for every $10 you bet. When you check out odds for most golf tournaments you will see a bet for the field among the odds posted for the individual golfers. If you make this bet a player that does not have posted odds will have to win the event in order for you to cash in. In the field bet it for golfers that are not high in the rankings and are not given much of a chance to win. This bet is little bit of a double-edged sword, as you are betting on quite a few golfers in the field, but they are not ones that generally, or ever, are in the winner’s circle.

Obviously the odds will be lower when you bet on a golfer to finish in the top 3 places in a tournament. The reason for this is that a sportsbook has to pay off 3 winning bets instead of just one.

Let’s use the above example when looking at this type of bet.

Tiger Woods -120
Phil Mickelson + 100
Sergio Garcia + +200
Vijay Singh +200
Ernie Els + 200
Field + -110

In this example you will have to bet $12 to win $10 that Woods will place in the top 3 of a tournament. If you bet on Garcia, Singh, or Els to place in the top 3, you will win $20 on a $10 bet.

The third bet is the head-to-head bet between two golfers. In this bet it does not matter how a golfer places, but the golfer that you bet on has to finish higher then the other golfer in your bet. Typically, if both golfers do not make the cut, you will lose your bet.

A line for the head-to-head bet will look like this:

Phil Mickelson -180 Sergio Garcia +140

In the above example betting on Mickelson to finish higher than Garcia will be risking $18 to win $10. If you think that Garcia will finish higher then Mickelson you will be betting $10 to win $14.

There are many types of golf bets that you can make and there are always more available for the bigger tournaments, especially the Majors. These three mentioned golf bets are ones that you can see posted for most golf tournaments.