How To Bet On Golf: Outright Winner, Each-Way, In-play, Top Finishes and more

With at least one tournament taking place nearly every week across the various different tours, golf provides a regular betting opportunity with several markets to choose from.

For those new to the sport or looking to have greater knowledge about the ins and outs of placing wagers, we have developed a short guide on how to bet on the key markets and the best ways to approach them.

How To Bet on Outright Markets and Each-Way Wagers

There are several outright markets to choose from in golf, but the main one provides the odds for each individual to win the tournament (to win outright). You can simply back a player to win at the given odds, with a victory the only way this bet wins.

An option to make this bet an each-way play will be available when placing your stake, with the odds shortening for the extra places you take.

The standard each-way bet usually provides five or six places, with extra places regularly offered for top eight, 10 and 12.

An each-way bet is essentially two bets being placed. For example, if you backed Rory McIlroy £5 each-way to win The Masters at 10/1 at five places with a quarter of the odds, the total wager would be £10. There would be £5 to win and £5 to place.

If McIlroy won the tournament, then you get paid for both the win and each-way parts of the bet plus the stake. If he doesn't win but places in the top five, you would lose the £5 to win part of the stake, but the each-way part would be successful.

Therefore, you would get a quarter of the 10/1 odds, which is 2.5, and times that by £5, providing winnings of £12.50 plus the £5 stake (£17.50 total).

Given the large fields in golf, each-way bets give you more cover and help to increase the chances of getting something back if your selection doesn't win.

The more places you take, the bigger chance of success. Each-way bets are particularly profitable if you back a player with big odds and they manage to win or place.

Some of the other outright markets are first-round leader, player’s winning margin, margin of victory, play-off required to determine the winner and hole-in-one to be made.

Dead-heat rules do come into play in golf. For example, if you backed McIlroy to finish fifth and he ended up tied in that position with another player, you will get paid full odds but your stake would be halved.

If there are three people in a tie for fifth, the stake is divided by 3, and so on.

How To Bet In-Play

Should your pre-tournament selections start off poorly, then in-play betting gives you the chance to look at other players and back someone during the event.

The number of places available on each-way bets will diminish with each round, with around five places usually given at the halfway stage and then top two or three on offer after the third round.

How To Bet on Top Finishes Markets

Another good betting option available in golf is the top finishes market. You can choose a player to record a top two, three, five, 10, 20 and 30 finish on most occasions, with the price shortening the more places you take.

Another market in this bracket is for a player to make the cut or not. The odds are generally short for this market but there can be value if you have a good look at the prices.

How To Bet on Match Markets

Golf also provides a match market, where you can back the winner of a two-ball or three-ball pairing.

There are also often random match-ups created for the tournament, so the players are not necessarily playing in the same group, but you can back one of them to outscore the others.