Golf Betting

A golf tournament sets out with a field of a hundred-odd players and four rounds of eighteen holes to play, one a day. Every stroke counts towards one total, measured against par, the score a hole is expected to take, and the lowest total wins. That is strokeplay, and it settles almost every tournament played.

After two rounds the field is cut, which sends everyone outside a scoring line home and leaves the rest to play the weekend for the trophy.

You can back the tournament winner across all four rounds, and the smaller bets inside the field beside it: which of two players shoots the lower round, and who finishes inside the top ten.

The competitions

Four tournaments a year are majors, and a player's career gets counted in them rather than in wins. They run from early April to mid-July, and the rest of the year carries on without them.

The Ryder Cup is the exception to nearly everything, starting with the fact that nobody in it is playing for themselves.

• The Masters. Early April, and the only major played on the same course every year, Augusta National in Georgia. Players who keep coming back to Augusta learn those greens in a way a first visit never allows.
• The USPGA Championship. May, run by the PGA of America, on a rotating pool of American courses.
• The US Open. Mid-June, run by the USGA, and on a different American course each time round.
• The Open Championship. Mid-July, the oldest of the four, and the only one played on links courses, the firm, bouncy coastal ground of the British seaside. The rota moves it around them, and wind is part of the test wherever it lands.
• The Ryder Cup. Late September, every second year, the United States against Europe, alternating between an American and a European host. It is matchplay: the golf is split into head-to-head matches decided hole by hole rather than on a total, so a match can end before the 18th green, and the team winning more of them takes the trophy.
• The tour below them. The main American tour and its European counterpart run a tournament most weeks of the year, individual strokeplay, most of them cutting the field after two rounds.

A major's price is open long before anyone tees off, and for most of that stretch it is the only golf market on it.

Round-by-round and pairing bets need players on the course before they can exist.

The markets

Outright and each-way

The outright backs the player who lifts the trophy. Tied leaders play extra holes to settle it, and that playoff counts towards the bet.

Each-way splits the stake in two: half on the win, half on the player finishing inside a set number of places, paid at a fraction of the odds. Both numbers are shown on the event and change with the field.

Round matchups

A matchup takes two named players out of the field and prices them against each other over a stated round or the whole tournament, and the lower score wins whatever the field does. A player who misses the cut loses to one who makes it. Where no tie is priced, a level finish voids the bet.

Two-balls and three-balls

Players go out in pairs and threes, and a two-ball or three-ball prices that group against itself: which of them shoots the lower score over the day's eighteen holes. The bet stands once every player named in it has teed off. If one of them withdraws before that, it is void.

Top finishes

A top-10 finish backs a named player to end the week inside the first ten, and the top 5 and top 20 versions draw the line elsewhere. Miss the cut and it loses. Players tied for a position all count at it, and the bet settles as a dead heat, with the stake split between them.

There is more on a tournament than these four, and what is listed shifts through the week as the field thins and the pairings are redrawn. The golf section of the Sports Betting Rules carries a line for every one of them.

In-play

Golf is priced while it is being played, and the outright is re-cut round by round. A player who pulls clear on Sunday afternoon goes on shortening until the price has almost nothing left in it, and everyone behind them gets longer by the hole.

On Friday the number to watch is the cut line, and it moves all day as scores come in. A player one shot outside it in the morning can be three inside it by the afternoon without hitting a ball, because the line moves towards the field rather than the other way round.

Weather is the other thing shifting the numbers. Play stops, half the field is out on the course and half is not, and the scoreboard tells you very little until everyone has finished. A tournament cut short by weather still settles the outright, provided 36 holes are completed.

What to look at before you bet

• Course form. The tour goes back to the same courses year after year, and at Augusta it is the same course every time. Two good finishes there are worth more than a place in the world rankings.
• Current form. Finishing positions and scoring averages over a run of recent starts beat one good week from months ago. A player who has made four cuts in a row is in the tournament; one who has missed four is a price rather than a chance.
• The draw and the forecast. Tee times come out in morning and afternoon waves. Check which wave your player is in against the wind, because a coastal breeze that gets up at noon can be worth several shots to the half of the field that played early.
• Length against accuracy. A wide American course rewards a long hitter who sprays it, and a tight layout or a windy links rewards a shorter, straighter one. A big driver on the wrong course spends the week in places the cameras do not go.
• Strokeplay or matchplay. Nearly everything is strokeplay, where every shot counts towards one total. The Ryder Cup is matchplay, decided hole by hole, and it rewards a player who enjoys a scrap over 18 holes more than the best striker of the ball.
• The shape of the field. A tournament with two clear favourites is a different proposition to one where the whole field starts long. The second kind is where each-way earns its keep.

The golf quick guide

1. Read the course before the names. A windy links and a wide parkland course reward different players.
2. Take the last five starts. Finishing positions and scoring averages beat a reputation.
3. Find the tee time. Morning or afternoon on day one decides which weather your player gets.
4. Fit the bet to the field. Two clear favourites suit the outright, and a field of a hundred-odd suits each-way and top finishes.
5. Count the survivors on Friday night. Half the field goes home after two rounds, and the weekend is priced off the ones left.

A dead heat, a withdrawal on the first tee and a washed-out Sunday each have an answer waiting in the golf section of the Sports Betting Rules, while the tournaments themselves are on the cards.