Different Wagers for Betting Golf
It’s time for betting golf again as the 2012 PGA Tour kicked off in Hawaii. A lot of people don’t realize that there are tournaments every week out of the year. There are more to bet on than just the big majors such as the US Open, the Masters, the PGA Championship and the British Open. Some of these smaller tournaments in between and after the majors actually offer better betting opportunities. If you want to be effective and make money you will want to become familiar with as many of the golfers as possible. See how they have performed in the past. See how they have been playing lately. It’s also a good idea to know about the various courses that will be played.
There are several different types of wagers for betting golf. It is pretty much like any other sport. You will need to do your homework and work on handicapping the events. Let’s take a look at these different types of wagers.
We will start with a wager that is a bit easier to pick when betting golf. There are bets you can make on players to finish in the top 3, the top 5 or the top 10. There are odds posted on players for each one and the payout is better for picking a player finishing in the top 3. The payout gets a little less as you go down. If you can pick a couple or three players to finish in the top 10 you can actually come out quite well.
The next type of wager we will talk about for betting golf is the hardest. But it also pays out the most. And this is picking the winner of the event. This is a tough one but it is worth it if you hit. The odds are usually long, so you can many times bet on several players and still do well with one of them hitting. The sports book will have odds on all players in the field based on expectations of how they will do in the tournament. This is how the odds for this bet look:
2011 Masters:
Steve Stricker: 25/1
Lee Westwood: 20/1
Phil Mickelson: 18/1
Rory McIlroy: 12/1
To bet Lee Westwood to win the Masters you would risk $10 to win $200. You see that you could bet on all these golfers and make a tidy little profit if one of them won the tournament. Let’s say you bet all four at a total of $40. Even if the lowest odds, Rory McIlroy won, you would win $120 and come out $80 ahead.
We will finish talking about betting golf with a brief discussion of a match up bet. Oddsmakers will list pairs of players with odds against each other. You just pick one of the two to finish higher in the tournament. In other words they are just playing each other. Below is an example of a match-up bet:
Phil Mickelson: +120
Rory McIlroy: -160
You bet it just like the money line. Risk $10 to win $12 on Mickelson and $16 to win $10 on McIlroy.
It is not that hard to make money betting golf once you get used to handicapping the tournaments. You will notice trends of players that do well in certain events or play well on certain types of courses. Give it a try and have good luck on the 2012 PGA Tour.
Learn more about Sports Handicapping. Stop by AskTheBookie where you can find out all about Golf Betting.
Tags: betting golf, Gambling, sports handicapping
