The six key strategies to nailing your golf betting picks

When betting on golf, what springs to mind for most people is betting on a player to win the golf tournament or placing an each-way bet in the hope of landing a big payday. 

This is especially true in golf’s four biggest events of the year, the major championships. 

When the poster events come around like the Masters and the Open Championship, bookmakers will offer extra place promos that can be lucrative. 

There is a diverse range of golf betting markets out there which are full of value. Read FIRST’s guide to discover the best value betting opportunities in golf.

How does each-way golf betting work?

What does each-way mean in golf betting? 

Placing an each-way bet in golf is making two bets. You are selecting a bet on the player to win and a second separate bet on the player to place in a specific finishing position, ie; top five, top eight or top 10. 

Half your outlay will be placed on each single bet - the win and the place parts. EW place terms for each-way golf betting will differ depending on the sports betting site and the golf tournament in question.

For example, if you back player A each-way for £10 at 50/1 with each-way terms of 1/5th odds (seven places) you would be outlaying £20. 

Should your player finish in the top seven, your return would be £10 @10/1 = £110. 

If your player was to win, you would also receive £10 @ 50/1 = £510 in winnings.

The age-old question is what each-way terms are better? 

Should we take extra places or bigger prices when betting each-way on golf? I’ve done a lot of research in this area, and as golf bettors, we can shop around to get the best prices. 

In my opinion, which is backed up by my statistics, the more places on offer at the bookies, the better, in what is a very competitive golf betting market now.

Calculating the expected value of my golf bets when betting each-way using specific place terms and odds. 

Over a large sample, having taken no lower than 75-80% of the general opening prices, the returns were bigger (over the long run) the more places I took. 

Outsiders in golf betting will land in the six to 10 finishing position zone approximately 2x more times than positions one to five in a golf tournament. 

It can often be worth taking lesser odds at better place terms to reduce variance and maximise your potential winnings.

Best golf betting markets 

Top nationality betting 

Narrowing down the field in golf betting can be advantageous, and the ‘top nationality’ market is a good avenue to explore when betting on golf. 

We might want to place a bet on ‘top European’ in a PGA Tour golf tournament. Using a ‘signature event’ as an example, there were 16 runners in the ‘top European’ market at odds ranging from 3/1 for the favourite to 70/1 for the biggest outsider. 

Each-way terms were 1/4 top three or 1/5 top four, depending on the bookmaker.

Let’s lose the top three and bottom three from this market. Now, we are looking at 10 players with odds ranging from 14/1 to 25/1. 

This area is usually where the value lies for win or each-way bets. If you fancy more than one player from this bracket, a good golf betting strategy is to use a wagering concept known as dutching.

For example, if a player is backed at 16/1 and another at 20/1 for £100 total outlay, we will put £55 on player A and £45 on player B. 

If either wins, it returns £940, getting odds of around 17/2 on our total outlay for either player to win the ‘top nationality’ market.

The ‘rest of the world’ market in this ‘signature event’ had 19 runners with odds ranging from 11/2 to 66/1 with the same each-way terms. 

The total book percentage for these markets will usually be around 130% but nearly half of this margin was taken up by the front four in the betting. 

That means we can often find golf value bets further down the field. 

Place betting in golf

Shopping around for the best odds (line shopping) is extremely important if you’re betting on golf, especially betting each-way in the win and place markets. 

Golf betting odds can differ vastly across the top golf betting sites. In the ‘signature event’ above, Maverick McNealy was 9/2 for a top 10 finish with BetMGM and 7/2 with Betway. 

Use an odds comparison website and look at the top prices available on each player. You will then be betting on close to a level playing field mathematically. 

This is a concept called ‘synthetic hold’, where you add up the different sports betting sites percentages, at the best prices being offered, and come out with a book close to 100%. 

There is little mathematical edge in the bookie’s favour in golf place betting if you bet top prices. 

We can now bet in the top 10, 20, 30 and even top 40 place betting markets in golf. To ‘make the cut’ is another popular golf betting market.

First-round leader betting 

The first-round leader betting market is a great market to play if you fancy a longshot to put in a strong performance but maybe not hang about over four rounds. 

Several variables come into play to find an edge in the first-round leader market:

Tee times - conditions are generally more favourable for early starters.

Weather - a wind increase of 10mph generally equates to approximately one stroke difference in the scoring average.

Course fit - a strong course fit can be worth as much as two strokes per round vs a neutral course for specific players.

Playing style - aggressive players who make a lot of birdies and are not afraid to go low pay well over time in the first-round leader market.

Odds in the first-round leader (FRL) market in recent years have become more efficient but we can still find some nice golf bets and betting value. 

In golf tournaments with more than one course in play, several bookmakers will price up the first-round leader for each individual course to aid your betting strategy.

Depending on the bookmaker it might be possible to put selections into multiples like a ‘trixie’ if you are chasing the dream win.

Golf match betting

There are plenty of golf match betting markets to bet on. These come in different shapes and sizes like group betting or six shooters, tournament match ups, round one (or specific round) match bets and threeball betting.

Threeball betting is a fun market to play in on an individual day if you don't want to wait four days for possible returns. 

We are usually looking at an overround of about 9% in the bookie’s favour which is beatable if we are selective with our threeball golf match bets. 

Threeball or group betting is best over rounds one and two of a golf tournament. I like day one threeball betting where there is often value before a tee ball is struck. 

Pay attention to any injury news, long travel situations and other hidden variables that could give you an edge against group golf bets priced up on recent data. 

Sometimes there are good opportunities to bet on the overpriced underdog of the threesome or perhaps rule the underdog out altogether and get some nice value on one of the other two players if you are privy to some info the golf betting sites are not.

Six shooter group betting is where six players are grouped together. We can bet on who will shoot the best score in the golf tournament between these players. 

It’s another way of narrowing the field, and similar markets are also known as bracket betting.

Head-to-head golf match-ups are an area where heavy golf bettors and recreational punters like to delve into. 

Odds compilers will match together similar players from a similar price zone, and we are usually looking at a pickem with odds of around 10/11 each of the two. 

There will be plenty of opportunities to find golf matchups that are heavily weighted in favour of one player, but the caveat is that the odds don’t portray this. 

These golf match-ups can come in the form of tournament match bets or matchups over 18 holes of golf.

Golf trading 

We don't have to stick to traditional fixed-odds golf betting. Exchanges like Matchbook allow you to back a certain golfer to win and exit your position (sell your bet) in-play if they are going well. 

This is called golf trading. On exchanges, you will typically benefit from better odds. You can also choose to back against a player by hitting the lay button.

A golf trading example would be backing player A for £10 at 100/1 to win the golf tournament. 

Player A has a strong performance on day one, and his odds are now 20/1. 

We lay player A for £50, and we have what is called an all-green book where we will now make a profit of £40 on our golf bet no matter what happens.

Golf future bets

Golf future bets or antepost bets can be an area to put some money into if you don’t mind having your funds tied up for an extended period. 

The four golf major tournaments are priced up all year round and there are several price adjustments in the lead up to the main events of the golfing calendar. 

This means we can often encounter great prices with future bets on players who might be a little under the bookmaker’s radar.

We can add multiples onto our bet slips with golf future bets. I love to place a season-long ‘Yankee’ on who will win each of the four major championships. 

I tend to stick with the favourites in these types of bets as that’s the best golf betting strategy. 

I’ll populate my bet slip with the likes of Scottie Scheffler to win the Masters, Rory McIlroy to win the PGA Championship, and Xander Schauffele to win the US Open. 

Why not throw in Jon Rahm to add a Claret Jug to his resume and win the Open Championship?

Prop betting and in-play betting on golf

Prop betting and in-running betting on golf is a great way to earn a side income. Why? 

These markets are less researched, and minimal time is spent pricing them up at golf betting sites. Traders might be rushing when putting up in-play prop markets. 

This means golf props are far less efficient markets, and if we specialise in this area, we can thrive as golf bettors with great value betting opportunities arising.

Please note that there will be lower betting limits on these golf betting markets as uncertainty and risk is higher for golf betting sites.

First, let's look at a few basic and some more advanced probabilities in golf betting:

1. Average odds for a birdie on a par 3: 4/1
2. Average odds for a birdie (or better) on a par 5: 4/5
3. Par 4 birdies occur every 1 in 4 attempts: 3/1
4. A top-level tour pro birdies on average 1 in 4.5 holes: 7/2
5. Bogeys hit the top player’s cards 1 in every 6.5 holes: 11/2
6. What are the average true odds for an elite pro to make Eagle on a reachable par 5? Circa 30/1.

I’ve researched, in-depth, the area of prop betting in golf. From a long-term study I did, capturing 230,000 attempts in a sample, my results showed that a top-level pro will ace a par three once in around 1,900 attempts. 

The stats showed that, from the 80 tournaments recorded on the DP World Tour and PGA Tour in one year, there were two or more aces recorded in 18 of these golf tournaments. 

So, around 3/1 is the correct price for this, right? Shrewd golf bettors will know that each tournament is different in a vacuum. 

Made in Denmark at Himmerland, for example, has an easy par three where aces are recorded way more than average. 

This significantly reduces the fair odds of multiple holes-in-one in that golf tournament.

In terms of probability, an Albatross will be recorded (on average) every one in 20,000 or so genuine attempts. 

We ‘expect’ to see more than one Albatross each year on the PGA Tour. In a full-field golf tournament on the PGA Tour, the true odds are around 12/1 to see an Albatross.

The moral of the story is that we put in some time to learn the true odds of random events occurring in golf. We can find some tasty golf bets in a diverse range of golf betting markets.

Betting on golf is as exciting as it gets.