The PGA Tour kicks off its action this week with the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, one of the most popular annual stops on the Tour. Despite Tiger Woods not playing this week, the field is stacked with Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Rickie Fowler, and most of Golf‘s biggest names showing up.
Rory McIlroy is the favorite to win this week, coming in with 15-2 odds followed by Jon Rahm at 12-1. I’m tossing out odds here which seems a bit pointless because if you’re a person who bets on golf this recent survey indicates you’ve already memorized these odds.
The survey came from Hot Paper Lantern who recently published a ‘State of the New Sports Bettor Report’ with information about which sports people bet on most frequently, how much they spend, and how they stack up to gamblers that bet on other sports. What they found was people who regularly bet on Golf are likely to gamble more frequently and wager more money than bettors on other sports.
Here’s how the survey shakes out, via ActionNetwork:
Bet $1,000+ A Month:
Making Bets Several Times A Week:
Favorite Type of Bet:
We were chatting amongst the BroBible staff and some were surprised that Golf led the charge while nothing has ever shocked me less. Betting on NHL and MLB games requires nearly a full-time commitment to the game. You need to be watching pitching matchups in baseball, hot streaks, and in hockey you need to be riding those hot streaks, watching the road-home splits and recent history against the teams. It’s a lot.
I’m not saying it’s any easier to bet on Golf successfully but, at least in my world, the people who bet on Golf regularly are already tapped into the information they need to bet just by being fans of the sport. If you are betting the head-to-head matchups in pairings there’s a solid chance you know which is the better golfer, who is coming in hot, how they’ve performed recently and in the past. That’s all just part of being a PGA fan. You don’t’ necessarily have to be tracking a pitcher’s home vs. road splits on the West Coast after 11 days of rest and other intricate stats like that.
With all that said, my favorite sport to bet on over the past few years is Hockey but that’s probably because I’m a Tampa Bay Lightning fan and they pay out FAR MORE OFTEN than they let you down. But I’m quick to put a small fortune in action on Golf with friends on the weekend, each taking a piece of the action on the individual head-to-head matchups. It just makes the weekends more enjoyable, or it used to, at least.
