Sucker Bets: I'll Take Tiger, You Take the Field

This Thursday the 138th British Open will tee off from Turnberry's Ailsa Course, Scotland. It’s a 7204 yard course with a Par 70, but if the weather looks anything like it did last year, Turnberry’s course might as well be Par 90. Last year Tiger Woods was about two weeks removed from reconstructive knee surgery, meaning none of you watched it. Apparently some guy named Padraig Harrington won it. He won it the year before too, but I knew that because Tiger was playing so it was slightly watchable. I have more respect for Golf and Golfers than most any other sport, mainly because I don’t have the patience to play it, but also because it takes such a tremendous amount of skill to be excellent. It’s just so darn boring without Tiger, and everyone knows it.

So I tell you that I’m going to take Tiger to win it and you get everyone else, what do you do? Never under any circumstances take this bet. Here’s some numbers to help. According to stats from BoDog, Tiger is currently favored at 2/1 odds. The next closest is Sergio Garcia at 20/1. Padraig Harrington isn’t far behind him at 22/1 and he’s won it twice in a row! Whether you bet on sports or not, you can tell that those odds aren’t even close. This spring before the NBA Playoffs, the same BoDog took the wrong side of a similar bet. They proposed to give $50 back to anyone who placed a bet on anyone besides the Lakers to win the Championship, essentially saying, take the Lakers and we’ll take everyone else. About 8,000 hungry fans took them up on it and BoDog ended up losing about $400,000, although I’m sure they ended up in the black before the day was done. To them, it was mostly a marketing ploy and they’re the bookie, so they play by different rules anyway.

Making financial decisions based off of odds set by the betting company is never reliable. Vegas will usually write odds in a way that will swing the hoi polloi into betting a particular way that will make them money. But those tilts are usually small and hard to notice, not 2/1 vs. 20/1. So if someone ever tells you that they’ll take the best two teams/players, and you get everyone else, just say no. Hey, it’s pretty good odds and I know you really want to take it, but you just can’t bet against Tiger. Just like BoDog and the Lakers, it just sounds fantastic, but it’s a sucker bet and you should know it. Whether Tiger wins or tanks this weekend is irrelevant, never take a bet like this.

Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN says that “Turnberry is built for shot-makers. That's why Tom Watson, Nick Price and Norman won [there] (and Nicklaus finished second to Watson in 1977).” Which, of course, begs the question: is there a course that isn’t built for shot-makers? I digress, PGA players and golf experts both say that putting on this course is much more difficult in comparison to the norm. Tiger’s long ball may still be suffering the after effects of having major surgery, but his short game is as strong as ever. It’s an advantage that could make the difference in an Open like this one, and could send him back for another trophy-laden photo-op this weekend in Scotland.