How To Use Past Course Form To Make Money In Golf Tournament Betting
On the face of it it seems obvious, but there’s more to using a player’s historical course form to make money in golf betting. It is just one (albeit an important one) of many indicators I use when compiling my weekly tournament betting previews and predictions. It takes me an average of two and half hours to finalize my predictions for any given tournament and that’s going as fast as I can!
The reasons why a player might continually do well on a certain golf course are many fold. It might be the way the course is set up, wide or narrow off the tee, a player having local knowledge, a right to left bias or vice versa, the grass type used on the greens, the climate….the list is endless. Of course there’s also the theory that a player returning to a course he has played well on before, will go well there again. He sees his poster on the streets, is recognized by the organizers, does a bit of media and he gets to feeling “I quite fancy it this weekâ€. Kiradech Aphibarnrat is just one who comes to mind as an example. Largely anonymous for most of the year, you just know when he tees it up in Kuala Lumpur he’s the man. After winning the Maybank Malaysian Open in March 2013 on the European Tour he returned to the course in October for the CIMB Classic on PGA Tour and almost repeated the feat at juicy odds, making each way punters very happy indeed.
Of course there are exceptions to the “horses for courses†rule. Elite players making their debut on a course can contend on their first go. I’m thinking the likes of Jordan Spieth and Peter Uihlein here. However on average it takes a players three to four times returning to a host course to learn the nuances and implement the correct strategy to win. There’s even one regular stop on the PGA Tour where it has taken players on average seven visits to win; can you guess which?
The great thing about golf betting is that we have the each-way market which usually pays out top five (with a place reduction for ties). So even given the elite rookies, or the likes of a returning Tiger Woods to a course after a 10 year absence, there’s still scope to make money.
As part of my tournament previews, I will research the top 15 finishing golfers for the previous six years on a given course. I go back six years because it works for me, some odds setters may go back further. If I do go beyond six years, it’s only to glance at the top three finishers each year. The reason I pick top 15’s is to look beyond the top five for clues. Of course I’m going to highlight players who consistently get placed over the six year period, that’s a given. But it’s often a profitable exercise to look a little deeper.
I consider the top 10 of an event to be the business end and I’m looking for players here, but oftentimes a golfer will play three super rounds and have a poor Sunday for some reason and finish outside the top 10; he’s as likely to be highlighted with my marker as a previous winner. Then there are the players who fare poorly in the first three rounds, then shoot a course record in the final round to surge up the leaderboard towards the top 10. I’m looking at him because the thought in his head as he drives in the gate is “I shot a course record the last round I played hereâ€. He’s chomping at the bit.
Having highlighted my players using this method, I then have a matrix of possibles from which to compile a shortlist. That comes with further research into current form, a players stats, weather, video highlights etc but that’s an article for another day! Make sure to check my betting tips for this week’s tournaments to see the theory in action.
Resources: I get my top 15’s from Tour websites and/or by searching the tournament name with keywords “yahoo leaderboardâ€. Yahoo compile great historical lists. I also use the excellent GolfPredictor.com which has a past course form function. I also use the European Tour’s stats function of the site which is great.
Happy punting!
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