Bet on Golf

Most casual fans are familiar only with the Masters Tournament, the U.S. Open, The Open Championship and the PGA Championship. However, there are many other events in the PGA Tour, and each one represents a chance to bet on golf. The two main, but not the only, types of golf bets are futures and matchups.

When you bet on a golf tournament future, you’re betting on the player you think it’s going to win the competition. Online sportsbooks, such as CashBet, give who they consider to be the best player on the field the best odds to win the tourney. But that doesn’t mean you should necessarily bet on that player. You can if you want to, but consider also that the longer a player’s odds, the more he will pay off – if he wins, of course. Here is an example:

• BROOKS KOEPKA +1400
• DUSTIN JOHNSON +1200
• RORY MCILROY +800
• TIGER WOODS +2200
• PATRICK CANTLAY +2500
• JUSTIN THOMAS +1800
• JORDAN SPIETH +5500
• JUSTIN ROSE +3300
• RICKIE FOWLER +4000
• JON RAHM +1400

Here, Rory McIlroy is the favorite to win a tournament. However, if you bet on him and he wins, you’re winning $800 for $100 you wagered. That’s actually not too shabby, but if that’s McIlroy’s value at +800, just imagine Jordan Spieth’s payoff at +5500. Of course, that doesn’t mean either you should bet on a given player just because you would make a killing if he won. Keep in mind also that the above list is a shortened example of a golf tournament field. Golf is unlike most sports in that you must choose the winner from over a hundred players. But then the reward for choosing correctly tends to be high.

Golf matchups are more akin to regular sports betting, especially when you bet on a team versus another. In golf you are betting on a player against another, though, unlike tennis, the golfers are not necessarily playing one another. That is to say, it’s not single elimination.

What you’re actually betting on is whether a player will finish higher than another player on the leaderboard (moneyline), and by how many points (spread). Let’s say, for instance, that McIlroy is paired with Spieth, and that the former is the favorite and the latter the underdog. All each has to do is finish higher than the other. The difference is that as a favorite McIlroy’s moneyline pays less in exchange for a higher risk, and the other way around for Spieth. Now let’s say McIlroy is a 3.5-point favorite; that means he has to finish with at least four more points than Spieth to cover the spread. Failure to do so would mean that Spieth would be the winning bet.

You can bet on who you think will be the leader at the end of a round. For instance, you can bet on Justin Rose to win the first round of a given tournament. Lines for subsequent rounds are often released after the day of play is over. This is a tricky endeavor, but if you know a player invariable does well in the first round of a competition, then it’s a bet that could pan out.

Betting on nationality is a bet that a player from a specific country or region will win. Or that a certain golfer will be the top player from a country or region. In the latter case, you could bet on McIlroy to be the top Irish player. If he finishes higher than all other Irish players, your bet would be a winner.

A parlay is a bet on multiple outcomes to occur; all outcomes selected must take place in order to win. For instance, if you parlay $100 on Tiger Woods beating Phil Mickleson and Brooks Koepka beating Justin Thomas, both Woods and Koepka must come out victorious; it doesn’t count if one does and the other doesn’t. In light of this, a parlay is a higher-risk golf bet, but it yields greater rewards.

Prop bets are side bets that can related to specific outcomes in a tournament or player performance. For example, will Dustin Johnson have the best score in the second round of a tourney? Will a competition be won by a margin of just 3 strokes? And so on and so forth.