PGA Tour Golf Odds

Golf. It's the one sport where you can spend copious amounts of time practicing and "fixing" your swing only to get worse the more you play. Well, at least that's how my golf season goes every year. It really is mind blowing, but I am not a pro, so trying to crack 100 is good enough for me.

So is sitting on the couch on Sunday and watching professional golfers make runs on Sunday to get into contention or completely melt down and blow a multi-shot lead. Either scenario makes for appealing TV, but so does having a wager on a four-day golf tournament.

It's one of the biggest roller coaster events you can bet on because its played over four days, and it can go from good to bad or from bad to good within a few shots.

I must warn you, though, wagering on golf is tough. There are so many top-quality players that anyone with their PGA Tour card can win on any given week. Mike Weir won The Masters, for crying out loud.

If you want to read the basics fundamentals of betting on golf, continue reading. If you want to read more about the advanced golf options (yes, there is more options than "Who will win the tournament"), click here.

Betting on the PGA: Golf Market Place

If this is your first attempt at trying to understand the basics of betting on golf, it may seem a little deceiving, so I will try to explain it as simple as possible.

The simplest wager you can make on the PGA is predicting which one of the 100+ golfers will shoot the lowest score and take first place. This is called the "Golf Market Place"

For starters, there is a golf tournament happening somewhere for approximately 51 weeks a year. This means that every single Sunday (or Monday depending on the tournament/weather) a golfer will be declared a winner of said tournament. However, when you go to bet him, or her if you are betting the LPGA, you won't see the standard "Player X vs Player Y" line. Instead, you will see something like this:

Jordan Spieth +700
Dustin Johnson +800
Sergio Garcia +1200,
Phil Mickelson +1600,
Mike Weir +10000
Some Amateur Nobody's Heard of +25000

The simplest wager you can make on the PGA is predicting which one of the 100+ golfers will shoot the lowest total score over the course of four rounds and take first place. This is called the "Golf Market Place"

Every single player in the field will be listed, and their odds will look enticing to new bettors. The fact of the matter is, however, that while Spieth may be the favorite at 7/1 to win the Masters – he's the best player in the world –  it's almost impossible to handicap what is going to happen on any given hole of any given golf tournament. Golf is the one sport where consistency doesn't always lead to outright success and golf tournament wins.

Some books offer bettors an opportunity to place a bet called an "each way bet". This means that you can bet on Mickelson to win the Masters at +1600, and for the same risk you can place a second bet that will pay out if he were to finish among the top five. However, "each way" bets pay out 1/5 of the win odds on the place half of the bet.

Advanced Golf Betting Options

Group Betting

Since every golf tournament has upwards of 110 players each week, and this betting option gives you the opportunity to wager on a golfer to not win the tournament but instead to place higher than a few other select golfers.

For example, if The Masters started today you would be able to select one golfer from the following group:

Jordan Spieth +300, Dustin Johnson +330, Jason Day +400, Rory McIlroy +450, Phil Mickelson +500 and Rickie Fowler +600.

Whichever golfer you select, he must finish higher on the leaderboard than the other five players – regardless of the actual place he finishes. If you choose Day and he comes T-19 but is the highest-ranked golfer out of this group then you would cash your ticket.

Other examples of group betting are "Top Euro", "Top American", "Top Amateur", "Top South African".

Each of these groups will have a select number of players, and it's your job to pick the player you think will shoot the lowest total score out of that specific group.

Head-to-Head

Head-to-head in golf betting is the equivalent to the moneyline option in every other sport. Head-to-head pits one player against another, and the player with the lowest total score is declared the winner.

Example:
Jordan Spieth -120 vs. Jason Day -120.

There are two variations to the above bet. The first option is the "Tournament Head-to-Head" bet. This means that the player with the lowest total score over the course of the entire tournament is declared the winner.

The second is a head-to-head matchup in a select round. If these two players are paired up together on moving day (which is Saturday in golf terms) then you can bet on which player will card the lowest round of the day. Obviously, the player with the lowest round is the winner of this bet.

If the players were to shoot the exact same score, your bet would be a "push" and your money refunded.

Versus the Field

This betting option offers bettors the chance to wager on one or two golfers to win the tournament. The only caveat is they are going up against the entire field.

Example:
John Rahm or Jordan Spieth +350 vs Field -2000

Instead of placing separate wagers on both Rahm and Spieth to win the tournament, you have the option here to select both of them for the price of one wager. Since the tournament field sizes are so big, picking a winner in golf is tough to do, which is why you will always see "the field" as such heavy favorites.

Individual-Round Betting

Individual-round betting is similar to the head-to-head betting option. Each day of the tournament the sportsbook will put out a variety of matchups that you have the opportunity to wager on.

Not only does individual-round betting offer up head-to-head matchups, but it can be inclusive to "First-Round Leaders" and "Who will lead after X number of holes".

The "first-round leader" option is pretty self explanatory. Which golfer will shoot the lowest round of the day and start the second round atop the leaderboard. This is a very difficult prop to hit, which is why odds generally start around +500 and upwards.

Here is a list of our other betting lines and odds pages.
NFL Odds | College Football Odds | NBA Odds | College Basketball Odds | MLB Odds | NHL Odds | Soccer Odds | WNBA Odds | CFL Odds | Boxing Odds