British Open 2024: Bets not panning out? New research says they shouldn't

If gambling were an investment strategy, Charles Schwab would be sponsoring it. Golf, specifically wagering on golf, is of course the most capricious of enterprises, with just as many Scottie Schefflers and Xander Schauffeles populating leaderboards as Nicolai Højgaards and Sam Horsfields. In short, golf betting is a roulette wheel in an earthquake, and getting anything right is like throwing darts on top of the Royal Troon clubhouse Thursday morning.

Don’t believe us? There’s now research that shows golf to be the most unpredictable professional sport there is (to some, at least: our expert betting panel has successfully picked the last two major winners). And this isn’t some podcaster ruminating in his mother’s basement with a hot take or two. These are numbers produced by HSBC, the banking giant with over $3 billion in assets that knows a thing or two about investments, good or bad.

According to the findings, the winners of a major golf championship from 2004-2024 were more likely to have had a lower world ranking when compared to champions in other individual sports. Golf’s major winners were ranked an average of 18th, while for tennis, it was 10th and for Formula 1 racing it was 3rd.

The study also looked at public opinion and found that 39 percent felt golf to be the most unpredictable sport, well ahead of soccer (19 percent) and tennis (9 percent). Fans weren’t particularly bullish on correctly choosing a winner, either. According to the HSBC study, they had 10 percent less confidence in their golf pick than their tennis pick and 30 percent less confidence than they had in their F1 choice.

It gets worse, of course. The Open Championship is particularly vexatious to prognotication. The study reports that over the last 20 years, Open winning scores have shown the greatest range when compared to the other three majors, including a low of -20 at St. Andrews in 2022 and a high of +3 in 2008 at Royal Birkdale. As well, the average difference between a player’s best and worst rounds was six shots.

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