Free Golf Betting Tips and Systems
In today's world, with the technology at our disposal, we are able to track and keep stats for just about every single thing imaginable. Hockey has it's "Corsi", the NFL has it's "DVOA" and the NBA has it's "true shooting percentage". The PGA tour has something called "Strokes Gained", which takes into account every single shot a golfer takes from anywhere on the course.
Over the next few hundred words, I'm going to try to explain to you our method of determining which golfer(s) has the best shot at winning on a weekly basis, where the only thing constant from week to week is the fact that every tournament is four rounds of golf.
At Doc's Sports, we pride ourselves in being among the best golf handicappers in the country, and we will be giving you insight into our selections as we progress throughout the golf season. You can join our winning golf team now by clicking here.
For those of you who are a casual golf fan or are new to betting on golf, I would suggest looking over this page first in order to help you understand how to bet on golf and what betting options are available to you. Another thing for new golf fans to keep in mind is that the season officially starts in October and runs through the following September, culminating with the highly-anticipated Ryder Cup Event.
Related: How To Read Golf Odds
Free Golf Betting Tips and Systems
Golf at its core seems like the easiest game to play. You hit the ball from a designated starting point with the goal of putting the ball into the hole where the flag is. However, as we all know, golf is probably the most complex sport around. So many factors go into every single shot. And despite being classified as professionals, consistency can elude any player on any given day. That's why winning a golf wager can seem damn near impossible to do, especially for those bettors who consistently bet on golfers that are extremely popular (Rory McIlroy or Dustin Johnson), make them feel nostalgic (Woods or Mickelson), or for absolutely no reason other than he seems like a good dude.
Picking a player to win a golf tournament isn't the same as picking a team to advance during March Madness. There are no cool mascots to base your pick on. There are only stats. Stats that tell you how well a golfer is playing in relation to the rest of the Tour and stats that will hopefully help you narrow the field down from well over 100 entrants to a handful of players who have a legitimate shot of actually winning the tournament.
The Strokes Gained Approach
This is a method we prefer the most as it gives us a better indication of how well a golfer is performing in every aspect of his game. We don't take the SG numbers as gospel, as we do like the eye test and horse-for-course scenarios. Strokes Gained affords you the ability to come up with about as accurate a hypothesis as possible leading into a tournament.
Before we get into breaking those stats down, the biggest thing you must keep in mind is that while the stat categories stay the same, the importance of each one changes from week to week since PGA Tour events are held at different courses every week. Stats that would be weighed heavily upon one week such as driving distance and Par-5 scoring may not matter the next week on a shorter course that favors players who are dialed in with their iron game.
Before we get into every single stats category available, I want to give you an idea of who and why this stats model was created. The "Strokes Gained" concept was initially developed by a professor at Columbia University named Mark Broadie. Broadie utilized every piece of ShotLink data that was available to him since 2007 in order to help create this formula. Broadie preached that "Strokes Gained" is an effective way to measure a player's performance against the rest of the field. This is different from regular statistics such as greens in regulation or putts taken because those stats focus on the individual golfer.
The following list of categories is what comprise the entire "Strokes Gained" research method.
-Strokes Gained: Total - This is simply a category that compares a player's score to the field average. If player X shoots 69 and the field average is 72, then that player would gain three strokes on the field.
-Strokes Gained: Tee to Green + Putting - These two categories make up the above total. Tee to green measures all strokes not taken on the putting surface while the opposite is true for the putting category.
Strokes Gained: Off the Tee - This category measures a player's performance off the tee on all par-4s and par-5's.
-Strokes Gained: Approach - This category measures a player's performance on approach shots. Approach shots include all shots that are not from the tee box on par-4s and par-5s. They do however include tee shots on par-3s.
-Strokes Gained: Around the Green - This category measures a player's performance on any shot within 30 yards of the edge of the green.
Those are the six crucially important categories you should focus on when it comes to laying down a wager on a golfer to win a golf tournament. However, not mentioned in those categories are things like par-5 scoring, scrambling ability, driving accuracy/distance, greens in regulation, and birdie-or better percentage. As I mentioned above, the PGA Tour visits a different course every week, so while driving accuracy may be important one week, it may not matter as much on a small course where driver is very rarely the play off the tee. Something else to keep in mind is that anything can happen on any given week, so just because a golfer rates well in the above categories, doesn't mean he's going to be handed the trophy for just showing up.