2023 Ryder Cup: Betting Odds and a Pick for Marco Simone Golf and Country Club
The Ryder Cup is the second most popular golf betting event of the year.
When the United Sates won the 43rd Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits in a 19-9 romp, golf betting was just starting to become a topic of conversation. Fast forward two years and weekend wagers on golf have become mainstream. For many bettors this will be your first opportunity to pick a winner of the world’s most popular golf match. For all the readers, whether you're new or often read my betting previews, this opus is for you!
The 44th Ryder Cup matches will be played at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club just east of Rome’s city limits. Host of the last three DP World Tour Italian Opens, this countryside course is a par-71, 7,268-yard match play masterpiece. Michelangelo himself would be proud of the aesthetics and DaVinci the innovation that has gone into the preparation of this course. There are amazing risk-reward holes designed with beautiful bunkering and pressure-filled penalty areas.
Brian Harman is a rookie on the U.S. team—but a major champion.
Alessandra Tarantino/AP
The rhetoric on this Ryder Cup started months ago. Rather than be redundant, I’m going to skip all the basic details and skip right to how you can bet and win this weekend. The first lesson comes straight from the Solheim Cup. The women’s biannual match concluded in Spain in a tie. The ladies follow the same format as the men’s matches. Two days of foursomes (alternate shot) and fourball (better ball of partners) team matches are followed by Sunday singles.
Both events have 28 points you can win. That even number can be split in hundreds of ways, but the women managed to rest on 14. The tie gives the team holding the Cup the win, a rule that has only been used twice in 43 previous Ryder Cups (1969, 1989). The first bet you will see is “to win” or “to lift the Cup.” What’s the difference? Picking the winner involves the points and a possible tie. If you picked Europe to win last week, you lost. "Lifting the Cup" eliminates the tie, and you just pick the team who will take home the trophy.
The odds change for each so pay attention. Another series of bets you will see pre-match are the points bets. These proposition or "prop" bets are very difficult to predict. Selecting the player who will earn the most points is a slippery slope. How do you know how often each player will compete? Years ago, the best players (Rory, Xander, etc.) would play all five matches. Analytics and strategy have taken over for emotion.
Captains now rarely play anyone for all five in fear of fatigue. In the last five Ryder Cups, an average of four players (out of 24) have played all five. The Europeans do it more than the U.S. Limiting a majority of the field to four matches make those props impossible to predict with any level of confidence. Stay away from the pre-match propaganda, save your budget for in-play betting. Once the pairings are announced, operators will set odds for each match. Predict those head-to-head matchups and your chances of winning are far greater than picking one high-points player.
Live or in-game wagers are also more fun. Most books will even offer hole-by-hole betting. We all should start each wager week with a set budget. Skipping the pre-match stuff just allows for more fun on Friday through Sunday. There will be endless amounts of coverage so pay attention and look for good matchups. Bet them live, sit back, and watch.
The Ryder Cup is unlike any other week in golf betting. All the action is unknown until the event starts. In-play betting is available all weeks, but the general media stops their betting coverage when the first round starts. Skip the conventional approach now and in the future. Get more involved when you watch and soon, you’ll be feeling nervous just like the players competing in Rome’s golf “coliseum.”
Win: Team USA
Winning the Ryder Cup comes down to three key factors: performance, pairings and experience. Both teams have four rookie players. I give Team USA the edge in debutants. Our guys have an advantage in experience by playing in the Presidents Cup. Max Homa and Sam Burns know what it means to carry the pressure of having a partner. Brian Harman and Wyndham Clark know the anxiety involved in capturing a major championship. These moments move our four first-timers ahead in my book.
Home-course advantage can be valuable when your team plays differently than your opponent. For the first time in decades, these two sides have very similar skill sets. Manipulating Marco Simone to handicap the American side might hurt the Europeans as well. Keeping the course playable for length and speed favors the away team and gives us another small edge.
There are a ton of questions surrounding the European team pairings. The home team has several new players, and the Americans appear to be further along in that development. While the U.S. is getting comfortable, the Euros are constructing. Counting on a couple of great partnerships has always provided a boost toward winning.
Marco Simone has been setup with three short par-4s and three par-5s. Those holes require great scrambling skills to score after the long approaches. The U.S. is deeper in short game skill. Those specific moments will make another small difference and carry them closer to the Cup.
There’s one more very important advantage the Americans have. If the score does finish 14-14, we keep the Ryder Cup. As close as the match looks, that might just be the key to unlocking the DaVinci Code and winning in Rome. Take the United States to win (+100 SI Sportsbook) to win the 44th Ryder Cup.
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