Betting on golf – growing the game, or just increasing the revenue stream?

Last summer, as the opening rounds of the 2020 U.S. Women’s Open were being played, I read a social-media post relating the news that Sei Young Kim, the pre-tourney favorite and only player in the field with single-digit outright odds, had opened 4-7-5-4, and was four-over after the first four holes. I responded, somewhat in jest, as follows:

“Exhibit # 1 in the case against betting on golf.”

That post prompted an offline response from a longtime golf writer who has made the move into covering the betting side of the game:

“Or... don’t bet a 6/1 favorite? The “don’t bet golf” crowd is silliness.”

“Call me silly, then, because I feel that bringing betting into any sport is never a good idea. Gambling of all kinds has long-standing ties to organized crime, and it enables addictive behavior.”

“Oh jeez. That’s exactly why every single tour/league is fighting to have it legalized. The impact on fan investment/engagement is immeasurable. The NFL is 10% of what it is without gambling/fantasy.”

“Even legalized it’s marginal behavior.”

“…says the vocal minority.”

“Guilty as charged, and no regrets.”

“Can’t tell you how much better my job is since leaving traditional media and covering the game from a betting perspective. Also can’t tell you how many people from those traditional media places are losing their jobs every week and trying to come work for us. Not that any of that will or should change your mind, but dismissing sports gaming as “bad” is a huge whiff right now.”

“To each his own. I guess I’m lucky that I cover golf as a sideline, freelance gig, so I feel no pressure to jump on the betting bandwagon. My objections to sports betting are philosophical, and I don’t see betting improving the sport in any way except to open up another revenue stream for the corporate entities that run it.”

“I have so many friends—let alone Twitter followers, radio listeners, etc.—who were never big golf fans, but have started betting a few bucks on it each week or playing a few DFS lineups, which has turned them into massive fans. For an industry that has literally tried everything to ‪#growthegame the engagement this has forged—from new and often younger fan—is well beyond any other attempt to carve that personal investment.”

“Do they play, or just bet on the pros? Because just betting isn’t ‘growing the game.’”

“Oh, does growing the game only mean people playing more? Why wouldn’t it also mean more people consuming the product and paying greater attention on a more frequent basis? Why should we limit growing the game simply to more people playing?”

“You know, before it morphed into a larger discussion, this started as a joking reference to the wild uncertainty of betting on golf.

No, I don’t think that ‘more people consuming the product and paying greater attention on a more frequent basis’ comprises ‘growing the game’. Gambling on golf, or any sport, reduces the attention on the game to considerations of who wins or loses, or who covered the spread, or whatever, removing considerations of the beauty of execution, the satisfaction of achievement that, to me, lie at the heart of sport.

I am happy for you and all the other media folks who have lost their jobs writing about the actual playing of golf, and have found new homes promoting the gambling side of the game, but ‘growing the game’ means playing the game and/or appreciating the game, even if only as a spectator, for its intrinsic qualities, not increasing the depth of the betting pools. ”

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As I noted in my last comment in the string above, this discussion began as a joking reference to the uncertainty of betting on golf, but I have strong feelings about the other two threads that it branched into: 1) the morality of sports betting; and 2) whether legalizing betting on golf can really be characterized as “growing the game”.

I’m not going to stand up on a soapbox and preach too much about the morality of gambling on sports, but I will say this: Gambling is a known addictive behavior, and it has historically been associated (for good reason) with criminal influences being brought to bear to affect the outcome of sporting events. We all hate those guys who shout things at players on the course, right? You know, the “Get in the hole!” and “Mashed potatoes!” crowd. Well, think about it—how long will it be before some punter with a barrel of cash on a match yells during a player’s swing, intentionally, or steps on a ball in the rough? And what about the possibility of more sinister forces coming into play, like gambling syndicates influencing outcomes from behind the scenes? It has happened in boxing, in horse racing—why not golf?

As for the question of gambling “growing the game”, does increasing the fan base by the addition of eyes on the TV coverage, eyes that are only there because they’ve got money riding on the outcome, mean “growing the game”? Television coverage of golf has started to include the betting line on players that are in contention, and the talking heads in the booths refer to the odds on a player as often as they refer to the difficulty of the shot the player faces, the lie their ball is in, or their stats. It has become ubiquitous, pervasive—even during the TV coverage of the Ryder Cup, a competition that is supposed to be about no more than national pride and bragging rights, with no prize purse at stake, the broadcast made mention of the betting line.

“Growing the game” through betting only increases the revenue stream associated with the game, putting money in the pockets of the tour organizations that sanction it and the other corporate entities that back it and push it as the end-all and be-all purpose behind the game. Betting on golf doesn’t get more people out on the course or the range and it doesn’t increase sales of golf equipment or create jobs in the golf industry—the things that really represent growth in the golf industry, the things that really mean “growing the game”.

Of course, while growing the game means increasing participation and getting more people playing the game, more importantly it means increasing accessibility to the opportunity to play the game. This means making golf welcoming and available to everybody who wants to play, regardless of age, gender, race, or income level.

According to National Golf Foundation data there has been an 11% decrease in the golf facility supply in the United States since 2006, an increase that has been, in their words, “disproportionately concentrated in value-priced courses (less than $40 green fee).” That means that there is work to be done to keep golf accessible and affordable, but is that accomplished by pushing gambling on golf as the next big thing, by including odds and the betting line in televised golf, by replacing an appreciation for the beauty and skill of execution in the game with cold calculation of the odds and anticipation only of the monetary benefit of a player’s performance relative to the betting line?

No—no, it isn’t.

“Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot”: Latest from Bob Rotella is more of the same: blah-blah-blah, rah-rah-rah ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹

Golfers are a conundrum, psychologically speaking. They are at once the most hopeful, and most pessimistic, people you will ever encounter—hoping for the best but not daring to expect it, and chasing perfection in an imperfect world, they are certain that a change of clubs, a change in their swing, a new golf ball, a fancy new grip on their putter, a different pair of shoes—almost anything, in fact—will make all the difference. Some change, some magic bullet, is all they need to open up the wonderful world of fairways and greens hit, of putts made; the world of breaking 100, 90, or 80, of low handicaps and strokes given, not gotten.

Professional golfers, as you might expect, take this to the extreme (or at least many of them do.) Take the frustration that we feel as recreational players and multiply it by factoring in the pressure of making a living for yourself— and your caddie, if you have a regular looper—or providing for your family. It’s easy to see how professionals golfers get wrapped up in their own heads and end up turning to “gurus” like Bob Rotella to guide them back out of the dark places their minds go to when fairways elude them and putts don’t drop.

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I freely admit to being skeptical when it comes to mental-game “self-help” books; as a wise man once said, “The very fact that self-help books exist is proof that they don’t work.” In fact, I am more than skeptical: I think they’re pointless nonsense, and Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot, the latest book from Dr. Bob Rotella, does nothing to change my mind.

Supporting my case for that point of view is the choice of golfer to write the foreword to this book: Padraig Harrington. Don’t get me wrong, I think Paddy Harrington is a great guy; a real gentleman, and one of the best interviews in golf. He gives thoughtful answers to good questions—sometimes rather long and rambling, but responsive and well thought-out. But… Paddy won the Open Championship two years in a row, in 2007 & 2008 (not so unusual a feat, actually—it has been done nine times since 1900, including six times post World War II), and was ranked as high as #3 in the world—and then he decided that he needed to change his swing. 

Why would he do that? He was right up there at the pinnacle of his sport, and even followed his 2008 Open Championship win with a PGA Championship later that year. And the result of changing his swing? Within a couple of years he had dropped out of the Top 25, and a few years later began a slide that saw him bottom out at #385 in the world by late 2014.

To me, Paddy Harrington is a great example of the way that pro golfers sometimes can’t get out of their own way—so maybe they do need someone like Dr Bob whispering in their ear—but to me all of this “mental game” stuff is just common sense and can be boiled down to a few simple concepts: Play within yourself, know your game, know (and trust) your abilities; or in the (paraphrased) words of my favorite golf writer, Dan Jenkins (as spoken by pro-golfer character Bobby Joe Grooves in Dan’s golf novel Slim and None): “…keep your mind from jacking with your swing when you haven’t invited it to the shot.”

Maybe it’s because my competitive background is in two very different sports (different both from golf and from each other): motorcycle racing and gymnastics. These are sports in which you are on your own—no caddie holding your hand and giving you advice—and in which the consequences of poor choices or indecisiveness can be severe. In the case of motorcycle racing it can be high-speed crashes (been there, done that); in gymnastics it’s flying off of the apparatus in an unintended manner and landing on something other than your feet (had some close calls…). 

As consequences go, drowning a new Pro V1 in the hazard fronting a long par-3, or three-putting from four feet to turn a birdie into a bogey—well, they sort of pale in comparison, and what this means is that I learned my self-reliance skills in a school of hard knocks, and I didn’t need the words of a self-help guru like “Dr Bob” to guide me on my way.

This book is replete with pithy, self-help-ish chapter titles like “You Are What You Think About Yourself”, “Believing In You and Your Game”, and “A Quiet Mind Will Set Your Talent Free” – all sounding very self-help-seminar-at-the-convention-center, and all very eye-roll inducing.

All I can say about Make Your Next Shot Your Best Shot is that the several hours one might spend reading this book, and the $27.00 + tax that you would spend to buy it, would be better spent at your local golf course, just getting out and playing the game—and figuring it out for yourself.