Golf Betting Tips

With its international following and mainstream TV presence, golf has become pretty popular among sports bettors these days. Sure it's not football or basketball, but golf still retains a prominent place in the betting community.

But as we at GTBets commonly say, popularity and knowledge don't go hand in hand with regard to betting. This being said, you can find a number of money-making opportunities in golf simply because many of the bettors are so clueless. Assuming you're just getting started with wagering on the game and want to avoid the clueless category, here's a quick look at some golf betting tips.

Tip #1: Success goes to those who are Patient

For anybody who's used to making straight bets on football, basketball or baseball, golf betting can be a frustrating endeavor. After all, most PGA betting lines deal with picking outright tournament winners. And while there are plenty of other wagers, the outright winner category is the most prevalent.

This being said, it takes a lot of patience to be a good golf bettor. Even if you're picking Tiger Woods to win every tournament, you won't win a very high percentage of the time. So it's critical that you be able to keep your wits and still make strong picks, despite successful wagers coming few and far between.

Tip #2: Look for Sleepers

One great thing about making outright winner bets in golf is that you can earn huge payouts if you make the right prediction. That's because there are a fair amount of sleepers (underrated players with a good chance of winning) in every tourney who'll pay big dividends if you can find them.

So how do you consistently pick good sleepers? Well there's no magic formula, but one great way is to look for mid-ranked players who've had strong past Majors (four biggest annual golf tourneys) performances and have a game suited to the particular course at hand. For example, if you're looking at the PGA Championship, you want to pick a good driver because the fairways are extremely long here.

Tip #3: Never dismiss a Long Shot

If you want to take things even father than sleepers, why not seek out a long shot. Not only do long shots offer huge payouts if they win, but you can earn these payouts for only a few dollars. Just imagine how thrilled you'd be to cash in on a player with 200-1 odds!?

These kinds of upsets do happen in golf, as evidenced by when 110th-ranked Y.E. Yang won the 2009 PGA Championship. Down two strokes to Tiger Woods going into the final round, he mounted an impressive comeback and won one of golf's most prestigious events. But was this really such an upset when you look at Yang's career?

Maybe not when you consider that he won the 2006 HSBC Champions and 2009 Honda Classic prior to his first Major victory. If you're searching for solid long shots, start by checking out their previous tournament results - especially on the exact tourney that you'll be betting on.

Tip #4: Heavily Analyze the Course

Just as it's important to study golfers before a Major tournament, it's also crucial to look at the course. Every golf course is unique when you consider its fairways, greens, rough and hazards. And what may work to the advantage of one player may completely throw another golfer off.

So sometimes you might want to start by going over how the course itself affects golfers before researching them. For example, windy coastal courses (a.k.a. links) favor players who are good at hitting low drives that stay out of the wind. Once you understand what types of players a course caters to, you can begin focusing on certain golfers that you're familiar with.

Tip #5: Break Down Statistics on Golfers

One great thing about the age that we live in is how you have access to a wide range of golf statistics. In fact, there are stats on just about anything you can think of, from basics like average driving distance to the more obscure like approaches from the right-hand rough.