2023 Ryder Cup Betting Preview

There is no stroke-play action this week in the world of golf, but we get something even better. It’s the biennial Ryder Cup which is taking place in Rome at Marco Simone Golf & Country Club. 

It’s Team USA versus Team Europe, so let’s dive right in to see who has the advantage this week. 

Course Fit

The first step of the process is always to evaluate the course. 

The United States has lost six straight Ryder Cups on foreign soil, and the course setup has played a role in that. Part of the Ryder Cup agreement is the home team is in charge of course setup in the lead-up to the event. In previous years, the Europeans were always more plodder heavy while the Americans took a more modern, bomb-and-gouge approach to the game. 

This allowed the Europeans to shade things in a way that was more advantageous to accuracy and short game. That difference in the style of play does not really exist this time around, or at least the gap is much smaller if it does. 

One potential sneaky setup area I’ve noticed early in the week is the speed of the greens. They are notably slow in the early-week practice sessions. The DP World Tour plays on slightly slower surfaces when looking at the week-to-week green speeds compared to the PGA Tour. That could help out some of the back-end European players like Nicolai Hojgaard and Robert MacIntyre feel more comfortable, as they play most of their golf on the DP World Tour. 

When I look at top performers on slow greens over the last two years, six of the top nine names are on Team Europe.

Those top performers on slow greens are Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Jon Rahm, Max Homa, Tyrrell Hatton, Scottie Scheffler, Xanderr Schauffele, Viktor Hovland and Matt Fitzpatrick. This would definitely be one angle to consider but I wouldn’t put all of my eggs in this basket, either. 

Other than that, Marco Simone is a hilly track with some graduated rough that is very thick when missing far offline. There are quite a few blind shots. The grass is paspalum on the fairways, fescue rough, and bentgrass greens.  The hilly nature of the course is already being talked about by the captains and it may reduce the chances that we see a lot of golfers go all five sessions this week. 

Outright Odds

Here’s what the top of the board looks like on DraftKings Sportsbook:

• Team USA -110
• Team Europe +115
• Tie +1000

Europe was listed at +185 as recently as July, but there was a major shift over the last few weeks. Were the captain’s picks all that different than what the market was previously projecting, are people swayed by history more and more as the event draws nearer (US losing six straight overseas), or was the market just mispriced for most of the year? 

I think the numbers we saw for most of the year were probably more correct and would lean USA in winning the event. Like I talked about above, there is no longer a big stylistic difference in these two teams, but the Americans just have a deeper roster from top to bottom. 

Prop Market

The Ryder Cup is a unique event in terms of betting markets. Without a full field of outrights to fire at, we get a prop-heavy betting board. Here is the first prop that stands out to me. 

Tommy Fleetwood — Top European Captain’s Pick

(+225, DraftKings Sportsbook)

I talked about liking Team USA to win the event but one likely pairing I would not want to face this week is Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood. 

Fleetwood has a 4-2-2 record at the Ryder Cup and was the main attraction in Paris, teaming up with Molinari to go all five sessions that week. Healso ranks second in slow-green performance, in case that course setup angle does play out this week. 

Tommy ranks fifth in weighted baseline performance among the Euros and there is a sizable gap between him and the closest captain’s pick (Justin Rose). Aberg has the talent to breakout here but he’s a quiet killer and may not be called upon for a huge role at this point of his career. With match volume such a sizable component of this event, I like Fleetwood’s chances of playing four matches especially if he does team up with McIlroy out of the gate. 

This was the first bet that popped off the page but keep an eye on the PGA bet tracker for more plays this week. Over in discord, I will share my Madden-style grades this week for the entire field. It will break down each golfer according to baseline performance, historical head-to-head performance, split stat performance, and also include a little input from the betting markets. 

It may feel like a down period for PGA betting or PGA DFS but I’m extremely pumped for the upcoming FedEx Fall Series. Use promo code CULP when signing up for FTNBets and FTNDaily to get a 10% discount while staying sharp in the fall. I think it’s going to be a very fun finish to 2023 with so much of the competition having their attention stolen away by NFL.