The 2024 Summer Olympics are being played in France, so now, we’re being treated to 60 of the world’s best golfers competing in a cut-free, 72-hole stroke-play format to seize gold, silver, and bronze medals at the podium on Sunday.
No prize money is at stake but there are a lot of bragging rights and national pride that go along with winning an Olympic medal. Scottie Scheffler is once again the outright favorite this week, while a total of 32 countries are represented by the 60 golfers qualified to play at Le Golf National’s Albatros course this week.
It’s a par 71 course that has a lot of undulations and water hazards, especially on the final four holes. Rough is as high as four inches and big greens that are prepared to run fast are only half the challenge, as undulating ryegrass/fescue fairways can quickly send good shots into difficult lies. Expect a final scorecard of 10-under-par to be good enough to potentially win gold on Sunday.
I’m locked in on a couple of golfers to wind up cashing lucrative First Round Leader odds during Thursday’s opening round at Albatros. It’s a difficult betting market to predict, but these are my favorite golfers who tend to start hot and possess the skillset to avoid miscues and drain birdies early on. Follow me on X at Matt_MacKay_ for more free bets and weekly analysis.
2024 Olympics Best First-Round Leader Bets
Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.
Sepp Straka (+3500)
Sepp Straka ranks inside the top-40 in strokes gained: approach and Round 1 scoring average. These are strong numbers for the First Round Leader betting market, especially since Straka’s strength lies in his accuracy off-the-tee and on approach with his irons. 35-1 is relatively short for this market, but still a fantastic price if we hit, so let’s stake a 0.10 unit wager to grab 3.5 units of profit if Straka winds up atop the leaderboard early.
Nick Taylor (+8000)
Despite a tough stretch of golf since winning a playoff at the WM Phoenix Open back in February, Nick Taylor is another golfer in this field who has recently finished with low scores in opening rounds. A 68 at Travelers and 65 at the Scottish Open are both encouraging for the Canadian, who ranks 50th in strokes gained: approach in 2024.
If Taylor can find fairways, he’s a weapon with his irons. The putter isn’t bad either, although we’ve seen Taylor struggle a bit more on the greens lately. 80-1 is enough for me to recommend one more 0.10 unit wager to get back eight units of profit with a FRL ticket placed on Taylor.
Rafael Campos (+17000)
We’ve seen Rafael Campos have a couple events on the PGA Tour with sub-68 first round scores. He’ll likely need another effort like we saw during the Puerto Rico Open, starting off with a first-round 65, but the Puerto Rican native needs to fine-tune his irons a bit.
Campos hits over 68 percent of greens in regulation, which is the best part of his game, so it won’t take a lot of work to climb the leaderboard if he figures it out early at Albatross. Putting, scrambling, and off-the-tee need a lot of work, justifying oddsmakers’ pricing at 170-1. A final 0.10 unit wager sprinkled on Campos isn’t a bad investment though, so let’s finish our FRL bets with him as the final golfer on our card.
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Matthew MacKay is a featured writer for BettingPros and FantasyPros. For more from Matthew, check out his archive and follow him @Matt_MacKay_.