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How Do You Bet On Golf?

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Placing a bet or two this fall? Don’t forget about golf!

Well, we’re headed into my favorite time of year.  It’s early September and right around the corner will be cooler temperatures, the changing of the leaves and of course…football will be in full swing.  Now I have said before that when football season starts, my golf season comes to an end.  But that’s not exactly true.

Fall is also my favorite time of year for golf, mainly for the first two reasons mentioned above – golf is much more fun to play when you are comfortable, and depending upon where you’re playing, the changing leaves make it a more aesthetically pleasing experience as well.

However, if I play golf on a Sunday, I want to be home on my sofa by 1:00. Besides just watching football, one of my favorite things about the sport is betting on it.  Whether it’s straight up betting, playing fantasy football or getting into a knock-out pool, putting a little money on the game makes everything more interesting.

As a matter of fact, it’s not just football.  I’d be willing to put money on anything.  However, I’ve never really done much along the lines of betting on golf, except of course for betting out on the course.  But maybe it’s time I change that. The problem for me is, I just don’t really know how to easily bet on golf.

Sure, I could go on a site such as Betfair and get the odds for each tournament.  But then what?  Do I go to a guy at work and tell him I’ll give him 7-to-5 on Rory?  People just don’t bet like that.  Maybe we just do it like we did some horse racing – all of the names go in a hat and you pull one.

Maybe you only put a certain number of names in there and one of them is “The field.”  Or maybe we do like we did World Cup Soccer where we just picked a country ourselves and went with it. I suppose there are plenty of options and ways to go, but choosing one is going to be the hard part.

However, the easy part is knowing that I need to get in on the action and bring some people along with me.  After all, if the money helps get people more interested in the game, then I may actually be doing the game a service, right?

Swing ’til you’re happy!

How TV Can Make Me More of a Golf Fan

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First and foremost, let me state that I am in no way, shape or form being compensated for this post. I am offering up my opinion purely based on my experience.  My experience with what you ask?  My experience with DirecTV and how they made watching The Open Championship a better experience for me.

As I’ve stated before, I love to play golf, but I’m not a huge fan of watching it on TV.  Truthfully, I find it a bit dull.  So when I got a message on my TV from DirecTV regarding watching The Open Championship on multiple channels, I didn’t pay it much mind.  I figured it’s just a couple more channels that I won’t be watching.  But early on Saturday afternoon, something told me to take a look anyway…and I’m glad I did.  When I tuned to the channel in the message and began to watch, I was presented with another menu option.  When I hit the red button on my remote to bring up the additional options, the fun began.

Option #1 – “The Top 5 leaderboard” – A nice, quick reference when you just want to know who’s on top and what’s their score, without waiting for 156 names to scroll across the bottom of the screen.  But, if you want to see the entire leaderboard while scrolling through it at your own pace, well that’s available at…

Option #2 – “Leaderboard” – You don’t have to watch the bottom of the screen for the leaderboard and worry about missing the name you may be looking for.  Also, if it’s moving a little too quickly, you can use the menu to scroll at your own pace.

Option #3 – “Tune To” – This gave me five further options:

a.  “The Open Mix” – This splits my TV to show four separate screens – ESPN, Holes 1 & 18, Holes 7/8/9 and the International View.  More on this below.

b.  “ESPN” – This channel would show an alternate feed from ESPN (which was showing the regular broadcast) even when they were on a commercial.

c. “Holes 1 and 18” – Just as it sounds.  This channel would rotate between holes 1 and 18.  So rather than bounce all around the course, you see every player that passes through both holes.

d. “Holes 7/8/9” – See above, but for holes 7/8/9 instead.

e. “International View” – Not exactly sure where this feed was from, but I’m going to make the pretty obvious guess that it would be Scotland.  If not, then somewhere in the U.K. at least.  Anyway, it was another alternate feed from the other two ESPN’s.

Option #4 – “Scoreguide” – This is an option that shows up on all of the sports channels on DirecTV, and it showed up here as well.  This option gives you the scores from the rest of the sports world as well as the option to switch over to that channel if the game is on one of the channels you get.  It’s a nice feature for keeping up on scores from other sports or other games when you don’t want to change the game you’re watching.

I’ve had three different TV providers, and so far I’m pretty high on DirecTV.  It’s great if you’re a sports fan.  For me, I’m a big football fan and love NFL Sunday Ticket.  How can you beat having the option to see every game?!  And being able to plug-in your fantasy league matchup is the cherry on-top!  But this experience with golf as well has opened up a new option for me.

Now, when the PGA Championship rolls around in a few weeks, I’ll know that watching golf on TV will be that much better than it was before.  However, this in no way trumps Sunday Ticket.  Any final round still takes a backseat to the NFL.  Sorry.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

Why I Don’t Bet On Golf

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I really can’t afford to do it, but I sometimes can’t help myself.  I like to bet on things.  I don’t know about anyone else, but the prospect of winning a few extra dollars makes any game more interesting.  It’s one of the many reasons I enjoy fantasy football.  But I like to bet on the games themselves, get into pools, draw horses names from a hat for the Kentucky Derby…whatever.  And not just on sports either – a co-worker is pregnant, let’s start a baby pool!  But there’s one sport that I’ve never bet on and I’m just not sure I ever will – golf.

Is it me, or is golf just too hard to bet on.  For me, there’s two reasons this is the case: 1. In the bigger tournaments where the superstars are, the odds are always crappy.  You have to put down way too much money to win anything significant.  2. In rounds when the stars aren’t playing, the field is so wide open and some names are so unfamiliar that there’s rarely a “good bet.”  Take for example this weekend.  Leading up to it, everyone was saying that Mickelson is the favorite among golf betting fans to win the Greenbrier Classic, and he is one of the superstars.  But lo and behold, the weekend rolled around and he was nowhere to be found.  At +2, he didn’t even make the cut!  So much for favorites.

So, what about the majors, when all of the stars come out to play?  Well, the odds for the Open Championship later this month have Tiger as the early favorite at 8 to 1.  But with his relatively inconsistent play, is that where you want to put your money?  And with the field full of such stars, the odds are probably not even as good as they may appear to be.  So what to do?  All of those names at the top look tempting, but then again, so do many of the names on the list.

You see what I mean?  There are just too many options and the field is just too wide open.  Do you go with one of the favorites, or one of the sleepers?  And in the majors, are there any sleepers really?  It’s just too damn complicated.  So for me, I think I’ll stick with football and pregnancy pools.  However, that being said, I’m going with Luke Donald.

Swing ’til you’re happy!

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME…Golf?

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The start of the NFL bodes well for golfers... (photo by Greg D'Andrea)
The start of the NFL bodes well for golfers… (photo by Greg D’Andrea)

So today marks the start of the 2012 NFL season – are you excited? Perhaps I should rephrase that: ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?!?!?!? I know I’m excited!

Here in the United States, football (not to be confused with fútbol) is all the rage. It’s quite physical, requires extreme athletic ability and fits perfectly into neat little 3-hour programming blocks for TV networks.

What’s more, legions of football fans (myself included) also partake in fantasy football – a betting game involving pretend teams of real NFL players – so for many, there’s double the reason to get lost in this pigskin-mania that sweeps the nation every autumn.

That being said, every Sunday from September through January, millions of Americans plop down in front of the big screen – snacks and beers in hand – to watch the football games. That’s games with an ‘s’ – not just one game, but typically several games throughout the day.

In fact, many people get so lost in gridiron-gaga, that time typically dedicated to “other things” gets diverted to watching football. One of these “other things” of course, is golf. Last year, Stinky Golfer Chris explained how the start of the NFL season marks the end of his golfing season.

And this is where I break from the normal football fan/golfer. Remember when I said I was excited the football season was starting? Well I am. But not because football is on every Sunday. You see, the reality is I don’t really watch football!

Now don’t get me wrong – I like football, but these days I don’t sit in front of the TV all day going from game-to-game whenever a commercial comes on. I may watch 10 minutes here or 5 minutes there – but that’s it.

Yep, I won the Super Bowl in my fantasy league last year and never even watched one entire game! But what’s even cooler is how empty the golf course is on Sunday afternoons here in the Fall. I can make a 1PM tee-time and zip right through 9 holes on a course where it would normally take two and a half hours to play during non-football season!

And autumn in New England is the best time to play golf to boot! You have perfect weather and an empty course – how much better can it get? So to all you football fans who are also golfers – please, please, please keep packing on the pounds in front of the tube all Sunday while I’m out enjoying a perfect day on the links – I wouldn’t want the course to start getting crowded again!

OK, I should admit that I do check my fantasy football app on every tee-box. Hey after all, I’m still an American.

The Beginning Of The End To My Golf Season

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Does football mark the end of your golf season? (Photo via Pixabay)

It’s already begun. This past Thursday night Stinky Golfer Tom shows up at my house, beer in hand, ready to watch the first NFL game of the season. This will be the official start to my favorite time of year…football season.

Every year, immediately after the Super Bowl, I find myself already anxious for the start of the next season. It’s not just the fact that I love the sport itself. It’s everything that goes along with it. Getting together with friends to watch the games, the fantasy football leagues, maybe a few pools here and there…and of course a Super Bowl party.

However, I guess the start of the football season is a bit bittersweet as well. As much as I love it, it also means my golf season (as little as I played this year) is coming to an end. Football marks the nearness of autumn, with winter soon to follow. And being that here in CT we’ve already had a few sub-70 degree days, winter may be here sooner than expected.

But it’s the fact that this weekend, the first of many this this season that a few buddies will head over to my place to watch the games and stuff our faces rather than playing golf on a Sundays, tells me something about where golf stands in my sports life. As far as my buddies and I watching football, I’ve mentioned before that we don’t get together to watch golf .

When it comes to fantasy sports, I’ve been participating in fantasy football for over 15 years now. But fantasy golf? I took my first shot at it this year and was bored with it by week 3. I don’t really know enough of the players on the tour, and I don’t follow the tour closely enough to care. So fantasy golf quickly becomes dull.

But what about a pool or some type of wagering? That always makes things much more interesting. Well, it simply isn’t common enough for golf. I’ll get into Super Bowl pools as well as some regular season pools or random wagers. But golf…no one cares enough. And if someone approached me about a golf pool, I’d probably do it. I bet on everything. Hell, I even put a few bucks in on the Home Run Derby this year! But no betting equals no additional interest.

But obviously, the most important part of football season is the games themselves. I desire enough to watch the games that, from this weekend on, golf is now limited to Saturdays only. If golf is going to be played on a Sunday (and that’s a BIG if), it will be limited to nine holes only and must be played locally or early enough that I can be home in time for the start of the games.

I love playing golf. But one of the things I love most about it is the camaraderie with my golfing buddies. Just hanging out with my friends on the course, having a beer and some grub afterward are part of what’s great about getting out and golfing. But watching the games with my friends provides the same camaraderie and includes the non-golfers. Not too mention the other factors mentioned earlier and even more excitement and interest is provided.

But as much as I love football, it can’t actually take the place of being out on the golf course with my pals. Well, on Saturdays anyway…

Swing ’til you’re happy!

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