British Open 2024: Betting not paying off? New research says not | Golf news and tour information

If gambling were an investment strategy, Charles Schwab would sponsor it. Golf, and especially golf betting, is of course the most fickle of enterprises, with as many Scottie Schefflers and Xander Schauffeles filling the leaderboards as Nicolai Højgaards and Sam Horsfields. In short, golf betting is a roulette wheel during an earthquake, and getting it right is like throwing darts on the roof of the Royal Troon clubhouse on a Thursday morning.

Don’t believe us? There’s now research showing that golf is the most unpredictable professional sport in existence (for some, at least: our expert betting panel successfully picked the last two big winners). And this isn’t some podcaster sitting in his mother’s basement mulling over a hot take or two. These are figures from HSBC, the banking giant with over $3 billion in assets that knows a thing or two about investing, good and bad.

According to the findings, winners of a major golf championship from 2004-2024 were more likely to have a lower world ranking compared to champions in other individual sports. Golf’s major winners were ranked 18th on average, while for tennis it was 10th and for Formula One racing it was 3rd.

The study also looked at public opinion, finding that 39 percent thought golf was the most unpredictable sport, well ahead of football (19 percent) and tennis (9 percent). Fans were also less than optimistic about picking a winner. According to the HSBC study, they were 10 percent less confident in their golf choice than their tennis choice and 30 percent less confident than their F1 choice.

Of course, it gets worse. The Open Championship is particularly difficult to predict. The study notes that the Open winning scores have shown the greatest range of any of the other three majors over the past 20 years, including a low of -20 at St Andrews in 2022 and a high of +3 in 2008 at Royal Birkdale. The average difference between a player’s best and worst rounds was also six strokes.

So yeah, don’t feel bad if your betting slips are more useful as crying rags. The research suggests that Powerball or discovering gold under your back deck might be a more fruitful option.