How to Make a Golf Prop Bet at a Sportsbook
Plenty of money has been made (and lost) so far on golf prop bets that have become extremely popular (and profitable) for sportsbooks to post. While golf prop bets are available every week, majors typically bring in more golf prop bet markets than typical weeks on Tour, as they bring more global attention. There is no shortage of options when it comes to betting PGA Tour events, so let’s take a closer look at a few and give some thoughts on how you can take advantage of them.
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What is a Golf Prop Bet?
While the traditional golf betting market allowed you only to bet on a player to win, like other sports, you can now bet on things within the course of a golf event. Like prop bets in American football, golf prop bets focus mostly on the performance of individual players.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at a few types of golf prop bets.
Types of Golf Prop Bets
Matchups
This golf prop bet most closely matches that of traditional sports, as it pits golfers against one another in a head-to-head matchup. In golf matchup bets, you’re betting Player A vs. Player B, with whoever finishes higher on the leaderboard winning the bet.
While the primary matchup market is for the full tournament, you can now also bet matchups round by round.
Top 5/10/20/30
For this golf prop bet, the bettor chooses a golfer to finish inside the top 5, 10, 20, or 30 on the leaderboard in a given week’s event. As you would expect, the odds are correlated with the outright market, as players in the top 5, according to the odds, require higher juice to play them to finish top 20, and so on down the line.
Make/Miss Cut
The most straightforward of the golf prop bets discussed, you are simply betting on whether or not a player will make the cut. Unlike other golf prop bets, not every player in the field is typically offered in this market, as the favorites are all but certain to make the cut in a given event.
Strategy for Making Golf Prop Bets
Just like when betting on the outright market, there are a few things you’ll always want to check into when betting on a golfer in a given week. Most importantly, recent form is critical, followed by history at a given course or type of course.
Depending on the course, key metrics are critical for success, so you’ll want to be aware of the player’s strengths (and weaknesses) when beginning your handicap.
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