Arnold Palmer Odds: Betting Info For Bay Hill Invitational Golf

BAY HILL COURSE PREVIEW

Par is a good score on this course. Twelve holes have a scoring average over par. Four of the six holes that do not are par 5s, so Par-5 Scoring will be crucial. Especially so with each of the par 5s reachable in two for the longer hitters. For one, hole No. 16, at 511 yards, has a 5% eagle rate.

Just under 7,500 yards, Bay Hill ranks among the longest courses on the PGA TOUR. With narrower-than-average fairways and some of the thickest rough on TOUR, the course plays even longer than the scorecard suggests. Drives that miss these fairways become stopped in their tracks, but bombers have begun to find an advantage by taking more aggressive lines to cut off angles.

Length is the defense of this course, with 30% of approaches funneled to 200+ yards. All four par 3s play over 200 yards, which is the longest par-3 average on TOUR. Five par 4s land in the 450-500 yard range, a similar concentration to what we would see in a Major venue.

A Balanced Course

The dichotomy of a Bryson DeChambeau/Lee Westwood top two at the 2021 API sums up what this tournament offers. You can bomb and gouge this course and lean on your distance to cut angles over trees and water and leave yourself a wedge from the thick rough.

But, if you don’t have plus distance, you can still manage. Skilled veterans like Westwood, Francesco Molinari and Leishman have also found success setting up angles with positional tee shots and a well-rounded game in all four SG categories.

In short, players who tend to perform well in majors are most likely to rise to the top at Bay Hill.

Bay Hill Course Trends

Bay Hill is the most challenging set up on the Florida Swing each year and with its elevated Invitational status, can always be counted on to attract one of the best non-Major fields of the season. Bay Hill’s combination of length and thick, penal rough have produced leaderboards akin to a Major championship, as plus distance coupled with a well-rounded game from tee-to-green is required to contend over four days at this event.

In terms of Course History, Rory McIlroy, Bryson DeChambeau, Sungjae Im, Tyrrell Hatton, and Francesco Molinari highlight the list of players who have repeatedly played well at Bay Hill, which further illustrates the advantage that players with past success at Major championships bring to this event.

BAY HILL CLUB & LODGE COURSE SPECS

• Yards: 7,466
• Par: 72 (4x 3s / 10x 4s / 4x 5s)
• Greens: Bermuda (Firm & Fast)
• Average Green Size: 7,500 sq. ft. (Above Average)
• Average Fairway Width: 33 Yards (Below Average)
• Rough: 3″ Ryegrass (Thick)
• Architect: Dick Wilson (with 2009 renovation from Arnold Palmer)
• Historical Cut Line: +2 to +4
• Comp Courses: Quail Hollow, PGA National, Innisbrook Resort (Copperhead), The Concession, Muirfield Village, The Country Club, Bethpage Black, Winged Foot, Torrey Pines (South), The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, Augusta National
• Hole-by-hole Breakdown:

ARNOLD PALMER INVITATIONAL ODDS: BETTING TRENDS & COURSE HISTORY

The betting favorites have a strong track record at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, with six of the last 10 winners opening at 33-1 odds or shorter. If the wind remains as much of a factor as it was last year, the difficult conditions should continue to favor the elite players in the field as the most viable bets at this event.

Here are consensus pre-tournament outright odds for the last 10 winners of the Arnold Palmer Invitational.

How to bet on the Arnold Palmer Invitational

Betting on the Arnold Palmer Invitation is simple. You can bet on which golfer you think will win the tournament via outright odds. Then there are more granular markets like Top 5, Top 10, Top 20 and Top 40 finisher. End of round leader, Head to Head matchups and Hole Props like 3 Ball Hole Winner are also popular bets for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Here is an explanation of some of the top golf betting markets.

Outright winner betting on the Arnold Palmer Invitational

Outright betting will be the most popular method of betting on the Arnold Palmer Invitational. This market offers extremely appealing odds, even for favorites.

Favorites usually have around +800 to +1200 odds to win at the start of golf tournaments. Many weeks a longshot will cash with +20000 pre-tournament odds. The issue, of course, is the size of the field. There are upwards of 150-plus golfers in a typical PGA tournament, so it’s always worth diversifying exposure across multiple players week-to-week when considering outright betting.

Some sports betting sites will offer Each Way markets, which duplicate your outright bet and pay out in full if a player finishes in the top 4-7 (depending on the sportsbook and market). Bettors without access to Each Way markets may also consider manually pairing their outright bets with a top-5 bet as a safeguard.

First Round Leader at API

The sport of golf has a ton of volatility each day of the tournament. The First Round Leader market is not a reliable market to turn around profits consistently. Given the volatility of what can happen in one round of golf, this market often offers longer odds than outrights, and pays out at the conclusion of the first round.

Round Leader markets are available in R2 and R3 as well.

Top 5, Top 10, Top 20 and Top 40 betting markets

Betting a golfer to finish top 5, top 10, top 20 or top 40 can be lucrative. You will often find the favorites at near even odds to finish top-10, and can find the mid-range of the field in the +200 to +400 range to finish top 20. For longshots who are unlikely to contend, but are well-suited for a given course, top 40 bets can also be a golf betting market to consider.

Head to head, 3-Ball

Another popular golf betting market is matchups. Matchups, especially for single rounds, tend to be a high volume bet, and are best placed when a bettor feels both positive about one side and negative about the other side of the matchup.

Personally, I try to avoid betting golf for profit in single-round increments, as I feel the volume of four days is a much wider sample for the better player to prevail. For that reason, I tend to only consider full-tournament matchups, however this is limiting to the total number of matchup options a bettor will have per week.

Beyond standard head to head matchups, there are also three-ball matchups, which offer better odds for players to choose who will finish best from a ground of three.

Arnold Palmer live betting

As is the case with most sports today, you can now bet on the outcome as the event is taking place. Maybe you’ll be looking to hedge against a pre-tournament outright in this year’s Arnold Palmer Invitational or maybe you’ll want to buy in on a placement bet. When live betting, it can often be useful to reference live strokes gained data to identify players who are strong from tee-to-green and simply not making putts, as putting is a volatile statistically that can more easily be turned around day-to-day.