
Almost every Australian sportsbook shows odds for the major golfing events, but finding one that offers plenty of interesting side bets, or which features lesser tournaments can be quite challenging.
Although that is in complete contrast to finding cricket betting odds for Australia , where you will be overwhelmed with wagering opportunities, do not despair. Our guide will show you the best ways to make your own golf odds comparison and give you some ideas for the most profitable ways to bet on golf as well.
You don’t need a degree to work out most scenarios and you can either do your sums on paper or employ a spreadsheet to do them for you. You will find plenty of those to download for free from golfing websites and it will save you the task of formatting a spreadsheet too.
First off, you need to use a decimal odds format to make this process easy, so even if you are more into fractional, you do need to convert. Such is the power of technology that you won’t find it challenging to track down an online version, or your bookie may have an option to change the odds on your betting platform.
You might remember covering probability at school and the first sum you need to do is aimed at establishing the implied probability of a win:
Implied Probability = 1 / decimal odds
So if your player is listed at 26.0 (which is 25/1) then this would be the calculation:
1 / 26.0 = 0.0384 = 3.8%
In that example, your selected player would have a 3.8% chance of winning.
Understanding the probability factor of betting odds is the key to successful betting in general, not just as applied to golf. You can do a football odds comparison , or calculate the best betting odds for rugby using exactly the same principle.
Being able to look at odds in terms of their implied probability will enhance your chances of being a more successful (and profitable) punter over the long term.
You really don’t have to look too hard to find information about the ‘dos and don’ts’ for bettors, which is all well and good. However, you need to think of them more in terms of the specific sport you are betting on, in this instance, golf.
Look at your golf betting wisely, or more to the point, logically and check more than just the statistics. By that we don’t mean how many times Tiger Woods has won the US Open, it needs to go deeper than that. You need to know which are Tiger’s favourite courses and his least favourite and why. Will his likes or dislikes actually affect his play and do other players feel the same?
It’s always good to listen to players being interviewed, or to read blogs about them. For example, Rory McIllroy particularly loves playing the course at the East Lake Golf Club, which is on the PGA Tour and stats prove he has always been successful there. In an interview he was very specific about why:
“…not many real doglegs. There’s not bunkers placed in weird areas. There’s not any ridiculously slopey greens. It’s a very fair test. You just have to put your ball in the middle of the fairway...”
The best betting odds for golf are not necessarily obvious. Even if you checked the golf betting odds for Australia across ten different sportsbooks, there will be discrepancies. If you favour a particular player to win, and he or she happens to be one of the favourites, then you are not likely to find much to choose between the odds for most of the sportsbooks you check, but sometimes you will and they can be valuable.
Even the top players can have an ‘off’ day where their game does not match up to expectations – theirs or yours, so rather than placing a win bet, go each way instead. You might also find that some sportsbooks are placing further than the standard five if you look carefully.
Keeping track is important and there are two ways you can carry out this sort of golf odds comparison, either by collating a list of bookies and seeing what each has got on offer, or by investing in some software that can complete the task for you. We think the former is more fun and you will learn much more too.
We don’t know who to credit this quote to, but it is something you should think about consistently “Pros don’t have picks; they have positions at favourable prices”.
As we mentioned earlier, knowing the implied probability of a win will help you to define your golf betting strategy and make you think more about the numbers than the individual players.
Those numbers will also help you to find the best value bets and enable you to use your bankroll more logically and profitably.
If you thought that the only way to bet on golf was predicting the winner, then think again. There is a lot of entertainment to be had from placing side bets, not to mention the fact that some of the best betting odds for golf are found in the side markets.
Below are listed the six most-favoured types of betting, with a brief description of each, but you are certain to find variations on a theme and even more exotic betting options with your own golf odds comparison.
This bet does not require much of an explanation. You decide which player you think will win a given event and place your wager. If your prediction is correct, you win and if not, you lose.
It does pay to shop around though, odds for Dustin Johnson to win the 2021 US Masters varied between 8.00 and 9.00 across the four different sportsbooks we checked. Depending on the size of your bet it can make a noticeable difference to your winnings.
Betting each way gives much more scope. If your selected player achieves a place near the top of the tournament prize list, you will still win your bet. Most sportsbooks offer five places, but some offer six.
The first half of your total bet works in the same way as a straight ‘win’ bet, with the remaining half of your wager representing a percentage of the original odds quoted for each place.
This is where you need to be astute, as some bookies divide the odds for the number of places, whereas others still give a set percentage per place, the latter being the bet that has the most value, especially if six places are available.
For example, when we did a golf odds comparison for the 2021 US Masters, which is imminent, of the five sportsbooks we checked, we found two were only offering outright win wagers, one had no odds posted for the event, but Unibet was offering 1/4 to 5 places and SkyBet had 1/5 to 6 places.
This is quite an exciting way to bet, particularly so at some of the bigger tournaments. Often, there are some interesting outcomes too. If you follow golfing ‘form’ you will probably know which players like to tee off first and which players perform best under pressure later in the day, amongst other factors.
In this market, you can often get fantastic odds for an outsider that has shown skills in the first round previously, although has no tournament winning form. To increase your chances further, you can even go each way in this market.
This is another great betting opportunity if you know your golfing stuff, or more importantly your players. Here you will be looking for the consistently steady player who rarely if ever makes it to the top five places, but by the same token is always high enough up the list to pick up a decent amount of prize money.
These types of players often ‘put up a show’ when they are edging close to losing the PGA Tour ticket, but because they are not consistent tournament winners, they often go under a bookie’s radar and you could be lucky enough to catch odds into three figures in this category.
There is a common misconception that getting a hole in one is as rare as hen’s teeth and for a Sunday morning 9-hole man that probably is the case. However, the world of professional golf shows some very different stats. Out of interest, the odds on an average golfer making a hole in one are about 12,500:1, for a professional, considerably less, at 2,500:1.
Here are some other facts that might make you think differently on this particular wager!
Statistics indicate that a hole in one is achieved somewhere in the world every 3,500 rounds, most often on a par-3 hole, with 40% achieved using a 7, 8 or 9 iron.
Although the odds of this event occurring are very low, Brian Harman achieved two holes in one, in a single round of the PGA Tour in 2015. In fact, 2015 was a particularly notable year for holes in one in general, with no less than 42 being recorded on that same PGA Tour.
Here is another entertaining side bet for you to think about, especially if you consider yourself a bit of a golf buff. There is also more than one option to look at as well. The first is predicting which player will have the lowest score from the group of 2-3 players that start off together. The second is to consider two players that are placed in different groupings.
Although that may not sound particularly spectacular, it is more about the fact that you can make the best use of your golfing knowledge, not to mention that there are some cracking odds available in this market.
Whilst we were checking out the availability of golf betting odds for Australia, we were rather surprised at the limitations. Most sportsbooks feature golf in their list of sports but the number of tournaments and wagering options are sometimes a little limited. It is not just golf that is somewhat lacking either, when we checked out ‘best betting odds for F1’ we noted a similar scenario.
However, if you take time to track down the best bookmaker, golf odds are far more likely to extend beyond the option of just picking the outright winner of a tournament. One potential alternative for you to think about is Betfair Australia, which is a betting exchange, as opposed to a sportsbook.
We do appreciate that might not be your cup of tea, but there is no getting away from the fact that compared to most other standard bookmakers, this is the site where you will find the greatest availability of tournament coverage and side betting opportunities.
Don’t blame your bookie! Sky TV, which just happens to have the television rights to all golf coverage, is to blame here. Even SkyBet, which is a subsidiary company, doesn’t have full coverage, which really shocks us.
You would have thought that SkyBet would also have the best betting odds in Australia , compared to other Australian bookies, not to mention multiple side-betting opportunities; as well as every golfing event on tap. However, that is not the case, so it is pretty much a poor show from greedy Sky TV on the live streaming front.
We thought it would be an easy task to find golf betting odds for Australia, but it proved far more difficult than we imagined. The best betting odds for golf were not where we expected to see them and even the sportsbook belonging to one of the world’s biggest TV and streaming businesses can’t match up to some of the best bookmaker odds for golf.
As an old saying goes “seek and you shall find” and that is exactly what you will need to do. There is no specific sportsbook in Australia that offers golf as a speciality sport, or that consistently offers the best betting odds for golf. If we had to pick one from those we compared, then it would have to be Unibet Australia. In our own golf odds comparison, the Unibet sportsbook had the best bookmaker golf odds on multiple occasions.
That is a very good question, which does not have a conclusive answer. Several Australian bookies feature golf consistently, but do not consistently offer the best odds. It is probably a good idea to start by finding the sportsbook that suits you best, and if you need help with that, go to CaptainGambling AU and check out all of our operator reviews and other interesting sports betting guides.
As well as the fairly standard ‘outright winner’ type of bet, there are other interesting and potentially more lucrative types of betting. If you need more inspiration for your golf betting, then head straight to CaptainGambling AU and check out our in-depth guide to golf betting and where you can find the best odds.
Yes, many sportsbooks offer decent odds for hole in one betting. To find out which online bookmakers have this option and some tips for finding the most likely player to pull it off, read our guide. You will find it here CaptainGambling AU along with plenty of other awesome sports betting guides and in-depth bookie reviews.
Most Australian bookies will give you odds on almost any sporting outcome, but you won’t find every eventuality online, it is mostly the ‘tried and trusted’ odds that you will find readily available. Start by reading our golf odds guide on CaptainGambling AU and even if you don’t find the exact type of golfing bet you want, then it is sure to set you on the right course to some great alternatives.
You have made a very good point and there are several reasons why not. If you read our in-depth guide ‘The Best Betting Odds for Golf in Australia’, which you can find here CaptainGambling AU, we can answer that question along with many others that golfing fans ask most often.
Above all the Captain demands transparency — and he gets that by seeing over the production of brutally honest bookmaker reviews. Only through constructive criticism will he weed out Dodgybookie and his evil bookie cronies.
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