While football and basketball continue to dominate the sports betting scene at the top online sportsbooks handling action from US players, the PGA has quietly opened-up its schedule for the New Year with last weekend’s Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.
The world’s No.1-ranked player, Dustin Johnston dominated the field last week with a total score of 268, which was 28 strokes under par and he comes into this week’s Sony Open as the clear favorite to win again after taking first place in this very same tournament in 2016. This will be the last event in Hawaii before the PGA Tour begins its annual West Coast swing in California and Arizona.
While most sports bettors tend to wait until later in the year to put professional golf back on the betting radar ahead of the Masters at Augusta in early April as the first of four Majors on the year, there are still ways to find some solid betting value in each week’s PGA Tournament if you know how and where to look.
The first thing that you will want to avoid early in the season is trying to bet on an outright winner. Johnston would be a tempting play this week coming off such a strong showing over his last four rounds, but winning back-to-back events any time of the season is a very tall task. The best betting strategy to employ over the coming weeks is small unit bets on high percentage betting odds.
While it may be hard to find a few online sportsbooks with extended betting options for professional golf this time of the year, one of the best betting options on the board for any tournament is for a Top 10 finish. You may even be able to find odds for a Top 5 finish, which can offer even more value based on the actual numbers. The main betting concept behind these types of futures bets is the simple fact that it is far easier to cash in on a player finishing near the top of the leaderboard as opposed to finishing at the top of the leaderboard.
The top golfers in the world play competitively all year long, so you will always have a pretty good idea of anyone’s current form. If they are playing well one week, there is a good chance that they will be competitive the following week as well. It is still hard to cash in on a top 10 bet, but the value in the odds far outweighs a much riskier bet on an outright victory.
A big part of the equation when it comes to gauging current form is a player’s past performance at that week’s particular venue. Most of the PGA events this time of the year take place at the same exact courses such as the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines or the Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale the same weekend as the Super Bowl. The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am is a regular PGA Tour stop in the West Coast swing as is the Genesis Open at Riviera.
The top players in golf tend to gravitate towards all of these events given their overall popularity with PGA fans so you should have a pretty good track record for each of their past performances heading into this year’s event. Going chalk is a viable betting strategy all year long when it comes to betting on golf, but it can be especially beneficial this time of the year. There is always going to be some breakout player that nobody has ever heard of before winning at least one of these events, but betting on the best players finishing in the hunt is still the best way to make money on golf right now.