- Best Pro Golf Gambling Stories For Beginners
- Best Pro Golf Gambling Stories Videos
- Best Pro Golf Gambling Stories 2019
- Best Pro Golf Gambling Stories Games
The show's popular Best Bets segment highlights not just the day's biggest events, but where the hosts think they (may) have an edge. The rest of the program covers betting angles on pro and college football, basketball and most other major sports, along with information for survivor pools, fantasy picks, value bets and much more. Legal gambling on pro golf has surged in recent years—and there's much more to come. Share this story: Facebook. 'Golf as a gambling product is the best or second-best to football. The Action Network spoke with several of today's top professional golfers to find out their favorite personal golf betting stories. The players interviewed include: Adam Scott, Justin Thomas, Gary Woodland, Kevin Kisner, Tony Finau, Paul Casey, Marc Leishman, Rickie Fowler, Rory McIlroy, Zach Johnson, Brendan Steele, Bryson DeChambeau, Corey Conners, Matt Kuchar, Louis Oosthuizen, Chez.
Best Pro Golf Gambling Stories For Beginners
Best Pro Golf Gambling Stories Videos
Gambling is intricate to the game of golf. So much so that the USGA in its amateur status rules actually differentiates between winning prize money and winning dollars in gambling – with the former costing a player his/her amateurism and the latter generally not.
With the PGA Tour in Las Vegas this week for the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, Golfweek took a look into gambling in golf. What are the best and funniest stories out there involving wagering on the game? Whether the events happened in reality or fiction, we compiled some of the most compelling tales of gambling in golf.
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Ryder Cup heckler makes putt for $100
We'll start out with a recent one. While this may not have been the highest stakes bet in terms of cash thrown down, it is in terms of the stage.
As you likely recall, an American fan named David Johnson was heckling European players for missing the same putt over and over during a practice round at the 2016 Ryder Cup. The Euros somehow heard him and called him out from the crowd to prove that he could make the putt himself.
The man obliged and Justin Rose put down $100 for Johnson to win if he could sink it. Turns out the Englishman underestimated the fan, as Johnson calmly buried the putt in front of several thousand to earn $100.
Has the @rydercup started already??pic.twitter.com/s6EImcbnZv
— Rory McIlroy (@McIlroyRory) September 29, 2016
Note to Rosie: If you can't win this bet, it's probably best you stay away from the slots.
Phil Mickelson's Tin Cup story
Phil Mickelson was one of the pros to make an appearance in 'Tin Cup,' a movie about the unlikely quest that leads fictional driving range pro Roy McAvoy to nearly win the U.S. Open.
Lefty didn't have a prominent role in the flick, but that didn't stop the short game master from performing an unbelievable trick shot and taking some cash for it in the most hilarious way.
Cheech Marin, who played McAvoy's caddie Romeo in the film, offers the tale:
'There was this really tall pine tree, and someone said to Phil Mickelson, ‘I bet you can't put your shoulder against the tree, drop a ball and hit it over the tree.' ' Marin told Golf.com. 'The shot basically had to go straight up. Everybody threw in a hundred bucks. I think there was $1,200 in the pot. And he did it! When the ball was still in the air, Mickelson bent over, picked up the money, and put it in his pocket.'
Best Pro Golf Gambling Stories 2019
Oh, Phil!
Phil Mickelson tricks Nick Watney into bigger payout
Mickelson's known for being an extremely eager gambler on the course, so we had to post a second Phil story here. And this one may be even funnier.
It comes courtesy of Nick Watney, an apparent victim of Mickelson's penchant for practice-round money games. In 2010, Watney joined Mickelson and Dustin Johnson for a practice round at the British Open and agreed to a $1,000 bet due to 'peer pressure.'
Well, Watney would lose and that's where things really got interesting.
The recounting from Shane Ryan's ESPN The Magazinestory:
'On the 18th green, Watney counted out $1,000 and handed it over with a word of congratulations. Mickelson grabbed the stack of cash, gave it a quick glance and handed it right back. ‘This is Britain,' he told Watney. ‘I need pounds.'
Best Pro Golf Gambling Stories Games
Watney stared at him, hoping it was a joke. It wasn't. He had no choice but to pay Mickelson $1,700 to satisfy the currency exchange. ‘They've asked me to play again,' Watney says with a slight smile. ‘And now I just say ‘f— you' and walk away.' '
Titanic Thompson… pick a story
One of the most famous gamblers of the 20th century, Titanic Thompson was also a golfer that Byron Nelson believed was good enough to make it on the PGA Tour if he wished. Needless to say, plenty of his high-stakes betting dealt with golf.
As Kevin Cook chronicled in Titanic Thompson: The Man Who Bet on Everything, there's a number of startling tales on Thompson golf betting.
One time a teenage caddie tried to rob Thompson at gunpoint hours after a money match. On another occasion, Thompson had one of his men tamper with the cups with a pocket knife to throw an opponent off. Then there was the ingenious instance he magnetized a few cups and then bought balls with steel cores. In the ensuing match, the trick meant Thompson's golf ball sucking right into the hole.
Oh and don't forget the time he doubled down tens of thousands on Raymond Floyd in a series of big-money matches against Lee Trevino even though Thompson couldn't cover the money if Floyd lost. Floyd won on the final hole.
What it must have felt to be Titanic Thompson.
'Gambling is illegal at Bushwood, and I never slice.'
There are so many iconic scenes from 'Caddyshack,' but this has to be right up there.
Throughout the movie, we see the brash Al Czervik and stodgy Judge Smails clash but maybe never more so than in this clip. Czervik taunts the slow-playing Smails on a tee at Bushwood Country Club and tries to goad him into a bet. Smails doesn't exactly submit to the gambling, but you could say he gets rattled. 'DAMN!'
And then later on…
Then when he actually gives in and plays a match for money, he loses $80,000 on a fluke final putt. Poor Smails 🙁
Tin Cup 7-iron bet
We go to the realm of movies again (and back to Tin Cup) to find some of the best golf betting stories.
This one may be the most elegant of all due to its simplicity. McAvoy, fresh off qualifying for the U.S. Open by parring out with just a 7-iron over his final nine holes, is feeling just a bit cockier than usual (which is saying something for him).
Nothing like getting knocked down a peg by getting beat by your fiercest rival with your own club. An emboldened McAvoy challenges his greatest foe (and the movie's villain) David Simms, a fictional rising star on the PGA Tour, to a bet with McAvoy's trusty 7-iron. At first reluctant, Simms is goaded in by McAvoy, and teaches the upstart a lesson.
With McAvoy's car versus $1,000 from Simms on the line in a bet for who can hit McAvoy's 7-iron farther, Simms promptly outsmarts the driving range pro and walks away with maybe the most satisfying victory in golf gambling history.
