Europe begin their quest for a fourth consecutive Ryder Cup crown at Valhalla Golf Club on Friday as joint favourites. The spread betting firm cannot split the two sides and offer a spread of 11.5–13 points about both on an index where 25 points are awarded for a victory and 10 points for a tie. Buyers of Europe will be hopeful that Faldo can lead his men to a sixth Cup win in seven attempts, whilst sellers will take encouragement from the fact that the USA hold a better record over time, if not over the last decade. Since 1927, when the first Ryder Cup took place in Massachusetts, the USA have won 24 of the 36 played.
For the first time since Brookline in 1999, the Ryder Cup gets underway with foursomes rather than fourballs – a seemingly rather strange choice of US captain Paul Azinger. The fact of the matter is that the key to Europe’s recent hegemony has in fact been the foursomes and ‘Zinger’ may regret that decision. Not since 1991 have Europe come out second best in the alternate shot format and Sergio Garcia’s 100% foursomes record over eight matches has been instrumental in this. Over the last seven Ryder Cups, Europe has won 32 and halved seven out of 56 foursomes matches (0.63 points per match) and that record even improves a little in the USA (0.65 points per match). Therefore, buyers of Europe’s Day One points supremacy at 0.4 could well be out in force.
The vocal Kentucky crowd looks sure to play a part and it will be interesting to see how the more inexperienced members of the European squad cope with such hostility. Let’s not forget that Hansen, Karlssson, McDowell, Rose, Poulter, Stenson and Wilson only have three caps between them. Sporting Index have opened up a 50/30/20/10 index on which European player will score the most points and Sergio Garcia is pitched at 18-21 points. McDowell looks certain to attract plenty of buyers at 5 points if he lines up with Harrington as expected on the opening day. However, it remains to be seen whether the partnership will stay together even if they are paired up in the foursomes.
Recent European captains have refrained from pairing the same players together in both formats; Ian Woosnam changed his pairings for each format whilst only the Monty/Harrington partnership was used by Bernhard Langer for the first three rounds at Oakland Hills. Yet, Nick Faldo himself played six Saturday morning matches with the same partner as he had had throughout Friday and took five and a half points out of six. Langer, Monty (twice), Woosie (twice) and Lee Westwood were his successful accomplices. Therefore, you couldn’t rule out the chances of Faldo keeping winning partnerships together.
The Top debutant point scorer market looks really interesting and the bookies make Anthony Kim favourite to come out on top. Buyers of one of golf’s bright young stars will have to pay 20 points to side with him on this 50/30/20/10 index and it will be interesting to see whether he is paired with another rookie or with someone more experienced. It’s important to remember that this year Nick Faldo has four rookies to introduce, but Paul Azinger has six. This could be critical because pairing two newboys together has been wholly unsuccessful historically.
David Howell and Paul Casey’s win over Jim Furyk and Chad Campbell in 2004 was Europe’s first all-rookie win since 1981. The USA have had a little more success with five wins and a half from 16 matches but it has still not proved a successful policy. Europe averages 0.30 points per match and USA average 0.34. At least Zinger may be able to offer some helpful guidelines for turning this trend around; he and Chip Beck won both their matches together in 1989 as rookies.
As always, the traders at Sporting Index have come up with a host of creative novelty spread bets on the event. Local boy JB Holmes looks sure to get plenty of attention this week and ‘Holmes under the Hammer’ rewards punters with 5 points every time Holmes (or his partner) win a hole. The market is currently pitched at between 55-60 points and it will be interesting to see how often Azinger uses the big hitter. Another market which catches the attention is Kim Kong which centres on the performance of Anthony Kim. With 10 points awarded for every match won and a 50 point bonus if unbeaten, his fans may well be tempted to buy at 27.
Finally, it’s just worth mentioning that the Sporting Index golf trading team will be offering 40 in-running markets per match as well as trading 20 long term market in-play at the same time. That’s staggering! When I worked on the sports trading floor back in 1999 for the Battle of Brookline, I think we just about traded one market in-play for each match. Punters around the world have never had more choice - this really is the golden age of betting.
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Golf Spreads Betting - 7 Aug 08
The USPGA will already have started, but the spread betting public will likely be out in force once again due to the open nature of the tournament without Tiger. Sporting Index have a plethora of markets and specials on the tournament and sellers of Phil Mickelson’s finishing position at 26 will be feeling confident, as he was the last player to win the tournament after Tiger’s two consecutive victories. The USPGA initially started as a match play tournament before it changed to stroke play in 1958. Buyers of British or European players in the leaderboard index will have to be concerned, as no European player has ever won the tournament. Incredibly, the USA have won 41 of the 49 tournaments and Vijay Singh (finishing position spread 32-25) was the last non-US winner in 2004.
It will be no surprise to many that only one golfer has ever finished the tournament with a figure as good as 18 under – Tiger Woods, who has done it twice. SportingIndex have set a spread of 277.5-278.5 for this year’s winning score and sellers will be pleased to hear that six of the last eight years have been under this figure. However, three of those victories have come from Mr Woods, but surprisingly the best figure ever recorded was David Toms victory at the Atlanta Athletic Club in 2001, when he posted just 265 shots to win. This year the tournament takes place at the Oakland Hills Country Club for the first time since 1979. Interestingly, the player who won that year was David Graham from Australia, which may be a boost to those selling fellow countryman Stuart Appleby’s finishing position at 40. Graham won with a total of 272 strokes.
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Golf Spreads Betting - 10 Jul 08
The Open will be well underway now, but with literally hundreds of in-running spread markets, there are plenty more opportunities to follow your judgement over the weekend. Prior to the tournament, Sporting Indexd the winning margin spread at 1.6-1.9, so sellers will be pleased to hear that five of the last 10 Open Championships have gone to a play-off, including the last one played here at Royal Birkdale in 1998. The course is regarded as one of the best and toughest in the world, so there will be plenty of punter interest in the winning score market. The spread was set pre-tournament at 276-277, which suggests we are in for a similar renewal to last year (Garcia and Harrington were tied at 7 under after 277 shots). Sellers will be delighted to hear that five of the last eight winners have posted scores lower than 276, but before you start to scream “sell, sell”, be warned that three of those victories were by a certain Mr Woods. When Mark O’Meara won here in 1998, he won at level-par, having played 280 shots for the 72 holes, whilst buyers will be praying for a repeat of the infamous Lawrie-Van de Velde battle at Carnoustie a year later, when the Scot eventually won in a play-off, with a 6 over par score of 290.
With two Europeans in the top three in Sporting Index’s finishing positions market, sellers of either Garcia or Westwood will be alarmed to hear that only two Europeans have won the Open since Nick Faldo became the last Englishman to win it in 1992. The Americans have an outstanding record at this major and the spread betting public will undoubtedly be interested in the USA Super 10 Index. Punters are awarded between 5 and 50 points based on a top-50 finish from a selection of 10 players. The USA have won 10 of the last 13 Open Championships and they have won five of the eight ever played at Birkdale; whilst a European is yet to win here. In addition to this, buyers of USA performance will be further buoyed by Americans occupying the top three spots here in both 1998 and 1983, whilst they had to put up with just five of the top six places when Ian Baker-Finch won for Australia in 1991. However, sellers of the stars and stripes will be more pleased to hear that not one American finished in the top five positions last year.
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'Golf Spread Betting', Guide by D. Jones, last update: 17 Sep 08
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