Is golf vulnerable to a gambling scandal?

As legalised sports gambling became prevalent, my former instructor asked me if I was worried it was going to affect me. I laughed. There are people at my own club who don’t know my PGA Tour status, so there is no chance the common fan knows me, let alone cares enough to bet on me. Golf gambling would be focused solely on the superstars, I thought. I had no idea how wrong I was.

I watch other sports. It feels as if every other commercial is an ad for a new sportsbook or online betting app. Of course, sports gambling has been in the news recently for the wrong reasons. The translator for baseball’s Shohei Ohtani got popped for illegal gaming in California, and NBA player Jontay Porter has been banned from the league for his participation in a prop-bet scheme. These are serious stories that threaten to undermine the integrity of the games. You might be wondering the same thing as my former instructor: is golf vulnerable to a similar controversy?

Golf is different from most sports in that we don’t have a winner and a loser;  We have one winner and many people who are not. To even be in a situation to win is hard, let alone to close the deal.
I can’t imagine a pro golfer purposefully throwing a tournament if he or she had a chance to win. Now that only the top 70 players earn their cards for next season, every shot matters more than ever, even for top-30 finishes. I can’t see anyone “throwing” an event.

However, golf could be vulnerable to prop bets, such as, “Player A will beat Player B,” or “Player A’s over/under is 70.5”. If it’s a Sunday and a golfer is out of contention and already has his status secured for next year, I could see that person being in on a fix. I think it’s highly unlikely, but many of the guys out here don’t have the financial security you would assume they do. I’m not going to act like everyone out here is a choir boy.

The PGA Tour knows this, too. The tour got a lot of heat last year when they suspended two Korn Ferry Tour players, Vince India and Jake Staiano, for betting on PGA Tour competitions in which they were not playing. From what I have heard, a big part of those punishments was to appease government regulators, but that’s above my pay grade. Personally, I think those suspensions were a message to the rest of us: don’t screw around with sports gambling.

One grey area is insider tips. As you can imagine, a lot of people we meet want to know what it’s like on tour. Most of that comes from a place of curiosity, but I’ve noticed gambling starting to sneak through. It will sound innocuous: “Who do you like this week?” or “Hey, any idea what’s going on with [fill in a player’s name]?” A lot of times, I’ll give my thoughts, because (1) I don’t want to go through the whole song-and-dance of saying I won’t because of compliance concerns or (2) I know the person in question isn’t betting large sums of money. Plus, it’s ridiculously hard to predict a golf tournament’s outcome.

A few tidbits could be helpful, mostly when it comes to distractions. A number of players play worse when they have their wives and kids in town for the week. Their focus isn’t 100 percent on golf. If we’re in a big town, be leery of superstars. It has nothing to do with drinking or partying; they’re more likely to get pulled into extracurriculars or sponsor obligations, and we’re already strapped for energy when we’re on the course. If the football team a player supports has a big game on Saturday, for instance, the odds aren’t great that he will go low.

To me, the bigger issue when it comes to golf and gambling is what we’re dealing with on the course. I know golfers have it easy when it comes to dealing with crowds. We’re not trying to hit a fast-moving ball or evade a 130-kilogram forward before a stadium cheering for our demise, but all it takes is one idiot to yell something to make things awkward. No matter where you are on the moneylist, you hear something at least once a week out here, sometimes once a day. The comments are mostly innocuous things like, “Hey, I have money on you today, let’s go!” or “Going to need some more birdies from ya!” but occasionally it gets worse. I had a fan earlier this year tell me I was “costing him money” after I mucked up a par 5, and a few years ago someone cheered when I missed a putt on a Saturday (clearly, he had bet the over). One of my friends had a guy jeer him in Detroit last year: “Don’t worry, I bet on Wyndham [Clark], not you.” As mad as that makes us, it’s worse when we have family and friends in the crowd who must listen to it. That’s the part I wish the tour would police more.

However, you can’t say anything about this unless (or until) something major happens; otherwise you’re made to feel like a fuddy-duddy. I realise sports gambling isn’t going anywhere. Just about every sports league sees the industry as a revenue driver. It has been three years since the tour started building sportsbooks on its properties. I’m fine with that, but the next time you come to the course, please, keep your bets to yourself.