The Key Factors to Consider When Placing Golf Bets
- Current form
- Course history
- Stats on similar course layouts
- The odds
- Tee time weather/elements
Often, one of the more under looked aspects to golf betting is when players tee off. On the PGA Tour, there is a morning and afternoon wave of tee times for the first 2 rounds. Each grouping will play in both time slots, rotating from Thursday to Friday. For Saturday and Sunday, the better your score is, the later you tee off. But our focus here is the first 2 rounds of a golf tournament, where its decided which players will make the cut or not
While when your favorite players tee off can be random, it’s important to look at the weather forecasts for these 2 days to check if the golfer/s you’re eyeing are getting the benefit of the draw or not. For example, if on Thursday, the forecast calls for a calm morning with 5 MPH winds, with winds picking up in the afternoon to 15 MPH, there’s a high likelihood that the average scoring in the AM will be better, giving a major boost to the golfers who have Thursday AM/Friday PM tee times.
This element to golf betting is even more paramount when you consider that sportsbooks are NOT factoring weather forecasts into their odds. For example, Rory McIlroy will be the odds-on favorite to win most tournaments he pegs it up in. However, let’s say according to the forecast, Rory is on the bad side of the draw, playing in the afternoon on Thursday with 20 MPH wind gusts. This will have NO impact on his odds, as the main factors considered by bookmakers are: Current form, OWGR ranking, Course history, Stats on similar courses, and Betting Exposure
When you look at scoring averages over an entire season, there’s only about a 3 shot difference between the #1 player in the world (66) and the #50 player in the world (69). So, essentially, Rory and the other elite golfers have a 3 shot advantage going into each tournament. Similarly, to other outdoor sports like football, the weather can have a great impact on the outcome. Golf is perhaps even more weather-driven. How can the 50th ranked player pick-up shots on the #1 ranked player?
Easy, they get the benefit of draw, and are playing in the more favorable tee time wave. If the scoring average in the morning wave is 68 and the afternoon average is 70, there’s a better than 50% chance that the winning golfer will have teed off on Thursday AM. This allows you the bettor to identify which wave is the better one, which will narrow down your pool of golfers you’re eyeing to bet. Since sportsbooks have not factored in weather, you’re able to use this info to gain an edge on them, as you’ll be able to bet on players with longer odds in the premium tee time slots, who have better implied odds of winning than what the books have them priced.