Best Golf Betting Sites 2021

With golf now being one of the popular sports to bet on, there is a surplus of golf bookmakers and expert tipsters presenting offers and advice. This page is a guide to help you navigate to the best golf betting sites for however you like to bet on golf.

Golf betting can be a complex place even for an experienced hand, with all of the different types of golf betting markets and odds, don’t worry, that’s why we are here! We are happy to help if newcomers need guidance when betting on golf. On this page, you will find the best golf betting sites, best sites for each tournament, the different types of golf betting markets, what makes a good golf betting site, best golf odds and how to find tips and predictions.

Over time with golf betting, you will come to the conclusion on the best golf betting site that suits you. The beauty of the golfing world is that it has a very packed schedule, with the availability to bet on golf on The European Tour and the PGA Tour most weeks throughout the year, featuring the best players in the world. There are many sites that offer different types of markets and odds for all different types of tournaments, all different bookmakers will offer differing perks trying to gain your business. Besides the standard weekly tournaments that are on offer, there are more higher-profile tournaments that are popular with golf bookmakers.

These include the four WGC (World Golf Championship) events which are played by players from both the European and PGA Tour so the field is always strong in those events. Another big event that occurs bi-annually is the Ryder Cup for men which features the 12 best players from Europe v the 12 best players from the U.S.A, and the same goes for the female equivalent - The Solheim Cup.

The bookmakers that provide betting on golf do not just focus on the professionals at the top of their sport, they also offer odds and markets for the smaller tours such as the European Challenge Tour, Europro Tour, Ladies Tour of Japan and many more giving a wide variety of different events for the customers to be able to bet on golf.

An undeniable reason betting on golf has become so favoured in the UK is the ‘anything can happen’ factor on any of the four days of a golf tournament, the intense pressure and excitement has driven the popularity of people wanting to place bets on golf and there is no better example of that than the major championships. The U.S. Masters, the U.S. PGA Championship, the U.S. Open Championship and the British Open Championship are the four majors that are spread out over the calendar year, they are the staple tournaments of the golfing calendar and subsequently the most popular times of the year for betting on golf, these are the tournaments that golf bookmakers will offer their best odds for golf, their widest array of markets and most enticing offers. The best golf bookmakers that offer these betting markets are SkyBet, Bet365, PaddyPower and Betfair, all with their own unique characteristics that make them stand out from the others.

When betting on golf the most common type of tournament you will be betting on are stroke play tournaments, these are individual tournaments over four days Thursday-Sunday usually with 100 plus players in the field. There are many different types of markets that are offered during the course of a tournament, there are some that you will either enjoy and feel as though you can make some good selections from and some that you may think are too hard to select for not a good enough return.

Outright and Each-way bets

The most popular type of bet in golf is picking the outright winner of the tournament. The odds are usually determined based on the world golf rankings and form going into the tournament, and odds vary from tournament to tournament. When there are 100 plus players at an event it might seem a difficult task to pick one player to win, that is when people then elect to place each-way bets, which is much more attractive for people wanting a bit more reliability with their bets, and a smarter move for customers who select players that are very consistent, but don’t quite manage to win.

When betting each-way, half of your stake is placed on the outright win and the other half is placed on the player being placed. What it means by ‘placed’ is that the bookmaker will offer ¼ the odds if the player comes in the top 5, depending on the bookmaker they may enhance the place terms and offer ¼ odds if they come in the top 10 - especially for the major tournaments mentioned previously. At the Masters 2020, SkyBet offered place terms up to 11 places. This gives you the customer, more of an opportunity to win and less pressure of having to pick the winner of the tournament.

The important factor to take into consideration when betting on outright winners is whether they have won before or not, there is a lot to be said for experience and knowing what it takes to close out a golf tournament. The amount of pressure that the players are on, from financial gain, crowd pressure, personal pressures a lot of guys can crumble, even the best players in the world.

Betting on the cut

After two rounds of the tournament, the field is cut in half where the lowest scoring players do not go through to play the final two rounds, which is described as ‘missing the cut’. The players that make the cut then go on to play the final two rounds to determine who the winner of the tournament is. This is in fact a market that some bookmakers offer, you can place bets on who you think will make the cut and the players that you think will miss the cut. Granted the odds will not be high for the top professionals to make the cut because they usually make the cut week in week out, but it might be the route to take for the, not as established players who are maybe playing in their first tournaments.

Round one leader

To follow on from outright betting, instead of selecting a player that will win at the end of the four days, some bookmakers have the option of picking the leader at the end of round one, it does not matter what happens after this as this bet counts only towards day one only. This is something that might appeal to some customers if they know that some players get off to really good starts, but maybe struggle to finish off and complete the tournament at the top of the leaderboard.

Top 5, 10 or 20 finish

These markets are exactly what they say on the tin, you are putting a bet on players that you think will finish in the top 5, 10 or 20. Customers are able to utilise these markets if they know a player is very consistent and is playing good enough golf to finish inside the place you have selected, but this will also be reflected in the prices of these players. Again there is no pressure on to pick a winner, just a player or players that you think will place, in the majors some bookmakers offer top 30 because the strength of the field is higher, the standard of the players is higher and therefore more difficult to pick players that will feature in the top 30 on the leaderboard.

Match bets

These types of markets select two or more players to go against each other, they don’t have to be playing in the same group but a matchup the bookmakers would think is a tight contest, in which the winner will be the player who shoots the lowest score. For example, if the world ranked No.1 player v the world ranked No.2 player are playing, who are in theory are the two most consistent players in the world and it should be an exciting match. This market can take place over the first round, or the whole tournament but other than how the players match up against each other nothing else in the tournament matters for this bet.

Unique ‘Top…’ bets

Usually only seen in the majors where more markets are available, Top Amateur or Top Nationality selections are open to being bet on. Similar to outright betting you are placing bets on a player that you think will perform best and shoot the lowest score in the tournament from a particular subcategory, not against the whole field. For example, if there are 10 Englishmen in the field, you are selecting who you think will shoot the best score of the tournament out of those 10 men, everyone else in the field is irrelevant for the purpose of this bet.

Hole-in-one bets

Popular with customers is the market of whether there is going to be a hole in one at the tournament, for this bet, it is just a choice of ‘yes’ there will be a hole in one or no there won’t, not specify whether you think a certain player is going to have a hole in one during the tournament. With the knowledge that hole-in-ones are very rare and unlikely the odds are usually high for this market.

The biggest advantage to give yourself the best chance of selecting winning bets is doing research. With the sheer number of players playing in a golf tournament any snippet of information that may mean one player may be more likely to perform better one week to the next is valuable. The easiest research to do is form, has a player had consistent finishes over the last month, have they just come off of a win last week or have they been performing well but has not been reflected in their finishing positions, on the flip side are they going through swing changes, so less likely to perform well, these are all things to take into consideration when placing golf bets.

Course form is another area of research that could help guide your selections, is one player more suited to the golf course that they are playing this week, have they had previous success or good performances at one venue because confidence at a course can have a huge impact on how the player plays.

Finally, an important area of research would be suitability to conditions, factors out of the players control such as the weather, altitude, length of course etc. Do it suit a shorter hitter who is more accurate or a player that putts it well. The best example of this is the British Open Championship that is played on links golf courses where it is typically very windy and cold, this would suit the British players in the field who grew up playing these type of golf courses and their game has adapted, but the players from the U.S.A, for example, are used to playing in warmer conditions and not necessarily had much exposure to golf courses in Britain.

Golf betting sites will all have different draws that differ from each other, some bookmakers give value to the customers through their in-play markets during golf tournaments, and others give the customer a wide variety of golf tournaments to bet on. The most important thing is to find a golf bookmaker that offers the markets that suit your style of betting.

It’s also important to remember that each bookmaker requires different payment methods for both depositing and withdrawing money and you will need to check each site and bookmaker to see which depositing methods are accepted. For example, some welcome offers require you to use a debit card and not PayPal in order to claim the welcome offer, and if you were to not follow this process, the welcome offer would stop. So, be sure to read everything regarding the payment, depositing and withdrawing processes to make sure your welcome offer is not destroyed.

Markets Available

Variety of available markets makes for a good golf betting site, both in-play and pre-tournament markets should be a feature, this gives the impression that the bookmaker has placed an importance on golf betting and it is not an afterthought to include it on their site, this will result in more markets that may be of interest for you which are interesting to follow, betting on golf should enhance the experience of the tournament and enjoyment is key, so the more markets there are the better not just offer the outright winners.

The in-play market is a significant factor that makes a good golf betting site, the ability for the customer to make a decision and bet based on what they are seeing in events as they happen in real-time so you are able to apply your insights before people it actually happens and get ahead of the game, with golf rounds being 4-5 hours long a lot can happen during that time so the ability to bet whilst it unfolds is unrivalled.

Promotions

An important aspect of what makes a good golf betting site is the promotions that the bookmakers offer. This is what draws us into working with a particular bookmaker consistently, what can they give the customer to keep our business. Paddy Power is renowned in the golf bookmaking industry for having the best enhanced odds offers, offering very big odds for events occurring that are likely to happen. It is not just Paddy Power that offers these type of promotions, SkyBet for example during the 2021 Masters offered their customers to pick an outright winner, and they will give the customer £1 for every birdie the players makes in round 1 in free bets, which is a way of enhancing the experience for the customer.

It is a very common feature for good golf bookmakers to include promotions on golf tournaments because they would get left behind as Betway, William Hill, Betfair, Bet365 and so on all offer something unique, so be sure to turn on email notifications to be notified each time there is a free bet or promotions offer, usually related to a specific golf tournament, and take advantage of what you can get.

Cash-out

When betting on golf, the cashout feature can be a very important factor when placing your golf bets. As mentioned previously golf rounds can last 4-5 hours even longer sometimes and momentum can shift very quickly during a round and seeing the signs early can make a massive difference to your winnings, and can be the difference between making some money and losing the bet.

With the sheer number of golf tournaments across the world that have available markets resulting in a large number of golfers competing, there is always going to be variation in odds that golfing bookmakers offer. It is important to search around bookmakers to see who has the best golf odds, so you can make your selection knowing you’re making the max winnings.

Finding the most competitive odds is especially paramount when the major championships are on because typically it is the best players in the world that peak just in the right time to perform best for these competitions and end up winning the tournaments, so a bookmaker that has the best odds for the top 15-20 players in the world is the best golf bookmaker. Betfair usually has the best odds among the top golf bookmakers, however, if you are not an outright bettor, it would be worth looking at what bookmaker offers the most places for an each-way bet, of which Skybet offer the most places during the majors, and then you can weight up whether you think the better odds is worth the less each-way places.

Welcome Offers

All good golf bookmakers should offer you an incentive to sign up to their site and give them your service and will offer bonuses that you will be able to spread out over several bets, this will give you a chance to see what kind of bets best fit your eye. For example, William Hill is offering Bet £10 get £40 in free bets, SkyBet offer bet £5 get £30 free bets, Paddy Power offers £20 first bet - money back in cash, and many more, it is an opportunity for you to make the most of these offers and use them to your advantage. Bookmakers usually change their welcome offers regularly so it is best to keep looking around for ones that catch your eye, SkyBet is renowned for having the best welcome bonus offers all year round for new customers.

When claiming your welcome offers golf bookmakers will make the process straightforward and as easy as possible for you to sign up, but qualifying for the sign up offer you will need to be quite precise and tick off each minimum requirement asked for by the bookmaker. The Paddy Power offer of bet £10 get £40 in free bets, the bet £10 part must be on a bet with the odds at a minimum of 1/2, so a bet that has odds of 1/3 would not count and the welcome offer will not be redeemed. So it is imperative to read the little details in the welcome offers to make sure that you qualify, as each one is different.

To make sure of the process, we have a free bets information page on our site that shows the latest odds and free bets out there with clear instruction and guidance on how to sign up and redeem your offers trouble-free, leaving you to pick and select the offers that suit you best.

When it comes to looking for golf betting tips and advice there are many people and sites out there that claim to be experts so don’t take notice of them all and take some with a pinch of salt. On our site we offer golf betting tips that cover a range of different markets that are available based on the metrics that we have explained above, we make selections based off of our own insights and predictions dependant on our own research on the players form, conditions that week, course form and of course what type of tournament it is, from the Challenge Tour to the LPGA Tour to the major championships. On our page, we offer a wider selection of golf betting tips when it is one of the four major championships because there are more markets to choose from on the bookmakers’ sites and they are the most exciting four weeks of the year on the golfing calendar, so anything to enhance the experience for people that visit our page.

Is it Easy to Bet on Golf?

For the average punter, it will not seem that easy to bet on golf, if you’re trying to pick a winner out of 150 players it suddenly appears very tough and unlikely. For the customers that have an interest in betting on golf, that does their research on all of the factors above that we have gone through in the article and the number of markets that the best golf bookmakers’ offer gives the customer the best chance of success.

Is it Worth Betting on Golf?

It is definitely worth betting on golf, betting on any sport allows the customer to enhance the experience of watching the event. In terms of making money from betting on golf, there is every opportunity to do so, for people that follow events week in week out they can see when players are peaking and coming into good form and who isn’t. Golf is very much a momentum sport so people that can spot what players are doing what tend to be favourable when betting on golf.

How Many Each Way Places Are Paid on Golf?

It varies from bookmaker to bookmaker, it can be up to 11 or 12 places that get paid or it could be 5, it also varies from one tournament to another, but it will be clearly stated on the bookmakers’ site.

How many Professional Tours Are There in Golf?

There are many different professional tours in golf, but the pinnacle tours are The European Tour, Ladies European Tour, the PGA Tour and LPGA Tour based in the U.S.A. These are the tours that every golfer strives to get to because these tours are where all the biggest prize money is.

Are There Any Betting Tips For Golf?

Find a market that a bookmaker offers that you feel as though you are able to make successful selections from and do your own research on players, conditions, courses before making selections to make more informed decisions.