Introduction to Form Golfer
As a visitor to Form Golfer, chances are you have an interest in golf, sports betting, or both. However, you may not be fully familiar with golf betting, so this article is intended to provide a simple overview of the markets on offer and how to apply our recommendations.
The most important concept, which we will regularly refer to, is value. We are not trying to identify the most likely winner; that will invariably be the tournament favourite. We are trying to find players whose actual chance of winning is greater than their odds imply. For example, a player who is available at odds of 9/1 has a theoretical chance of winning of 10% (9/1 means that in every 10 events, they would be expected to lose nine times and win once). If we conclude that their actual probability of winning is greater than 10%, that player represents value, which means that in the long run you would make a profit by backing them.
Golf has many variables. Clearly overall ability is the primary predictor of success, but performance is highly volatile (perhaps more so than in most sports) – and no player is capable of achieving the same level week in, week out. Factors such as course characteristics (even down to the type of grass) can be hugely important, and can be used to help identify players who are more likely to outperform expectations in any given week. We use a combination of overall ability, recent form and as many other data points as possible to narrow the field down and identify those players who we believe are most likely to be profitable to follow.
Our tips fall into three categories:
- Outright – this is the most popular market, where we are simply trying to identify players who are more likely to win the event (or be placed) than their odds imply. With typically upwards of 150 player in the field each week, winners will be less frequent and performance more volatile, since a single winner can have a big impact on profit. We may only find 5-10 winners per year, but still find this is enough to be in profit overall.
- Match ups – in this market players (who are usually closely matched) are paired and we are trying to identify which will beat the other over the course of the tournament. In contrast to outrights, we need to be achieving a strike rate of 55% plus on these recommendations to be making a long term profit. So these will be less volatile and we hope to deliver a small but steady profit from these recommendations.
- Others – there are many other golf markets to consider, ranging from finishing in the top 10/20/30 (which can be a good way to support outsiders who may perform above expectations, but are unlikely to win), to the top player of a certain nationality, whether there will be a hole in one, or the margin of victory. We review these markets each week to make sure that we don’t miss any opportunities to find value.
We track and report our performance across each of these categories, so it’s easy for our members to see where we are having the most success.
We have provided separate articles on staking and each way betting.