Yes, You Can Bet On Golf Without Tiger

Go to any sports site right now and click on the “Golf” section and you’d think it was the year 2005-2006. 

“Tiger is making golf relevant again.”

“How many more tournaments will Tiger win?”

“Where did Tiger’s hair go?”

Pity poor Matt Kuchar, the actual number one golfer in the world, and the other 13 golfers ranked ahead of Tiger in the 2019 FedEx standings. An middle aged guy gets a green jacket and still, two weeks on, nobody can talk about anything else. 

But we can, and we will. 

Why? Because there’s great golf still being played, especially this weekend in New Orleans, where the PGA implemented a team format for the Zurich Classic.

What’s the Team Format?

In the Team Format,Round 1 and 3 are Four-Ball(Best-Ball) and Rounds 2 and 4 are Foursomes(Alternate Shot).

For Four-Ballplay, the players on each team will each play his own ball throughout the entirety of the round, with the best score on each hole recorded. Example: On the first hole, both golfers on each team tee off. Player A pars the hole and Player B birdies it. The team will be credited with a birdie.

For Foursomesplay, players rotate tee shots. One player will hit the tee shots on all the odd-numbered holes, and the other will hit the tee shot on even-numbered holes. For example, Player A and Player B are partners. On the first hole, Player A tees off; Player B plays the second shot; Player A plays the third shot; and so on until the ball is holed. The total strokes taken will result in the team’s score for that hole.

Who’s Playing?

Just to get it out of the way, no, Tiger is not playing. But a bunch of the top players in the world are. Here’s a few of the top pairings:

• Jason Day & Adam Scott: The Aussies are going in as the favorites despite sub-par years from both. (NOTE: if my sub-par year involves me “only” earning $2 million, have me committed.)
• Billy Horschel & Scott Piercy: Both have had good years so far. Plus they’re the returning champs.
• Kevin Kisner & Scott Brown: Another pairing of golfers blazing through 2019. They played well together on this course last year, leading most of the way.
• The Koepka Brothers: Brooks and Chase Koepka are big underdogs in this tournament, which makes us wonder if they’re fighting as to which of them is bringing the other down. 
• Tommy Fleetwood & Sergio Garcia: Playing as a pair, these two have combined for 15 top ten finishes, and Fleetwood did well on this course last year, finishing tied for 4^th.

There are lots of other entertaining pairs in this tournament (Smith & Blixt, Bubba Watson and J.B. Holmes to name a few) and, with this new format, so many ways to place a wager.

• Overall Tournament Winner: Pretty straightforward. (Remember: you can’t bet on Tiger.)
• Round One Sixshooters: For round one of the tournament, the house selects six sets of golfers around the same ability, no matter when they are playing. For this round, you can place a wager on any pair, and they are only competing against the people in the selected group.
• Groups: Based on the rankings, these selected groups consist of 5 pairs of golfers. Similar to Sixshooters, but based on overall results instead of just one round.
• Matchups: Different pairs are golfers are matched up against others, and you can bet on which team places better in the overall standings, or is you think they’ll tie.
• There are also different prop bets on things like: who will make the cut, winning margin of victory, nationality of winner, and if you think there will be a playoff.

So place your bets, kick off your shoes, lay back on the couch, flip on the Golf Channel, and enjoy some fun team format golf this weekend. It’ll be a fun, and hopefully fruitful weekend in the Big Easy.