Presidents Cup 2019 Sports Betting Guide

The 13th semi-annual Presidents Cup gets underway this afternoon when two dozen of the world’s best golfers, broken up into two teams of the United States versus international players,  face off on the international stage in Melbourne, Australia. For the United States, Tiger Woods is this year’s captains and has chosen himself to participate in the event, while Ernie Els leads the international team but will not play in the event. Per usual, the  Americans are heavy favorites (-335) with the international team sitting at +275 to take home the title. With the event largely occurring after normal working hours for much of the United States and in primetime over the weekend, this event is a bettor’s dream and offers plenty of opportunities to get some action. Let’s take a deeper look at the event and field to see where we can find an edge.

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Event Overview

The 2019 Presidents Cup gets underway later today at 5:30 pm EST with a dozen players from the United States and another dozen from international countries facing off in a match play style event. The players for each team are the top eight in the Official World Cup Rankings, with four more hand-selected by each team’s captains to round out the 12 on each side. Day one of the event features a four-ball format where two golfers from each team go against one another, each playing their own ball with the best score from a single-player counting for his team for that hole. Day two of the event features foursomes, where two-golfer teams from each side go at it against one another in a best-ball format switching off shots of the same ball. Day three of the event, Friday, features a mix of both foursomes and four-ball. The final day of the event, expected to run from 6 pm EST to 12 am EST Saturday, features singles with one-on-one matches played throughout the day.

Course Preview

The only international venue to now hold this event twice (1998), the Royal Melbourne Golf Club was founded in 1891 and is Australia’s oldest golf course. While the club is broken up into two 18-hole East and West courses, this event will be held on 18 holes that crisscross the two to make a par-71 event. This event will contain two par 5s, three par 3s, and 10 par 4s, and is widely considered by many to be very close in style and feel to that of the famed Pine Valley in New Jersey. Initially designed by Dr. Alister MacKenzie around the turn of the 20th century, this club leaves little room for error for players who miss the fairway, and creates some difficult angles which should make for a great event among the world’s elite.

Best Bets

Tony Finau – Top USA Points Scorer (+1000 on DraftKings Sportsbook)
This being his second time representing the United States following his 2018 Ryder Cup experience, I expect Finau to continue to settle into the role of representing the Red, White, and Blue. With two top 10s in his last five events, Finau has played well to start the 2020 golf season and is coming off a 2019 campaign that saw 12 top-25 finishes and a seventh-place finish in FedEx Cup points. With two of the American’s biggest hitters held out of this event with injuries in Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, I expect Wood’s to lean on Finau’s 309.5 average driving distance to get the United States off to a hot start.

United States – Lead After Day 2 (-180 on DraftKings Sportsbook)
While the United States is laying a ton of chalk to win the event, I see some value in the team just leading after day two. The United States might be missing some big sticks with the absence of Johnson and Koepka, but this is an international team that is trotting out seven rookies making their first international appearance and players, like Marc Leishman and Louis Oosthuizen, whose best days are well behind them. While anything can happen in day one’s four-ball format, I like the Americans to be in a comfortable lead by the end of the second day heading into the weekend.

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TJ Perun is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from TJ, check out his archive and follow him @JohnnyCovers.