Golf betting tips: Olympic Games women's golf preview and best bets

Olympics betting tips: Women's Golf at Paris 2024

1.5pts each way Rose Zhang at 18/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook 1,2,3,4,5,6 1/5)

1pt each way Amy Yang at 40/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook, BoyleSport 1,2,3,4,5,6 1/5)

1pt each way Lydia Ko at 40/1 (bet365, Skybet, William Hill, 888Sport 1,2,3,4,5 1/4)

1pt each way Albane Valenzuela at 80/1 (BoyleSport 1,2,3,4,5,6 1/5)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

You don’t need me to tell you that 124 years is a very, very long time and that an awful lot has changed since the first Paris Olympic Games. Take the women’s golf competition, for example.

The American Margaret Abbot won that 1900 event. She was born in Kolkata when it was part of the British Raj, her family had relocated to Chicago, her mother Mary was a novelist, Margaret would later marry a famous writer, and her son would become a successful Hollywood screenwriter.

All of that was to come, however, and in 1900 Margaret and her mother were enjoying a year out in the City of Light with Mary scribbling away while Margaret hung out with Edgar Degas and Auguste Rodin as she studied art on the banks of the River Seine.

The pair were socialites, but also enjoyed golf, and when they spotted notices for an open-to-all event they entered. Mum finished in a tie for seventh alongside Baroness Lucile de Fain while third place went to Abigail Pratt, later to become Daria, Princess Karageorgevich, and with that marriage she became the mother-in-law of the Count Alexandros Merkati of Greece who had competed in the men’s event.

It perhaps needs to be stressed that I am not making any of this up. It did happen.

Margaret won the nine-hole tournament with a score of 47, was awarded a porcelain bowl mounted in gold (medals would only become traditional after the 1904 St Louis Games), and returned to her easel. Even when she died in 1955 she was oblivious that she was an Olympic champion. Her family were also in the dark until an academic revealed the truth in the 1980s. They all thought she’d won a knockabout Paris Championship yet she was not only the first American woman to win an Olympic event while representing Team USA, she also remains the only Olympic contestant who competed alongside and against her mother.

Last month I asked Nelly Korda to compare and contrast her experience of winning gold in Tokyo with Margaret’s ghost win 120 years earlier. By a curious coincidence, Korda’s mother is also an Olympian (she played tennis for Czechia in 1988) but that’s where the similarities end. “When I stood on that podium there was a complete rush of emotion like I’ve never felt in my entire life,” she said. “My WHOOP (fitness tracker) said my heart rate peaked that day when I was standing on the podium and the impact of showing the medal to people has been really cool.”

Who will be enjoying those thrills this week and forever afterwards? The Americans won both event in 1900, both events in 2021 and Scottie Scheffler added gold last week so there’s a good chance of another double but, while only a fool would discount her, Korda’s price of 11/2 is far from enticing. True, she won six times in seven starts earlier this season, but since then she’s missed three cuts before finishing T26 at the Evian Championship. Two-time major winner in 2023 Lilia Vu will also be a threat but I’m looking elsewhere.

Le Golf National, the host course, was looking spectacular for the men’s event and we can expect more of the same this week but there is a distinction between the two fields in that many of the men’s competitors had experience of the test yet it has never hosted professional women golfers. It was, however, the venue for the World Amateur Team Championship in 2022 and in the women’s event ROSE ZHANG finished tied first in the individual scoring.

She carded 69-72-69-69 that week which suggests that it suited her eye and she landed her first professional win last year at Liberty National in New York which has many similar dynamics: flowing high grass on the banks, breezy, modern shaping and lots of water hazards, many of them close to the playing surfaces.

She was a winner in May and was sixth last time out in Canada when third with 18 holes to play. “A lot of positives from this week,” she said afterwards. “It’s nice to be back in contention, so we’ll just take that momentum into the Olympics.” She arrived early in Paris to watch her fellow athletes, was at the swimming in La Defense on Saturday evening, and said in Evian that she was excited about re-engaging with other sports as she had done when a college star at Stanford. The clincher is that approach play was crucial last week for the men and Zhang ranks second in Strokes Gained Approach this season.

CLICK HERE to back Zhang with Sky Bet

Second pick is an outsider who can defy her odds – Switzerland’s ALBANE VALENZUELA. Ten years ago she made her first start in a professional event as a teenager, was second at halfway and third with 18 holes to play before finishing ninth in the Open de France. It was a sign that she had an affinity with the nation and there’s a simple reason why: her mother is French.

Valenzuela herself is practically the Olympic ideal in human form. She was born in New York City, her father is Mexican, she was brought up in Mexico City, moved to Geneva when she was six and starred for both Stanford University and Switzerland as an amateur.

“I have four passports and a very international family,” she said two years ago. “In Mexico I feel Mexican, in the United States I am American. When I am in France, I feel French, and I chose to represent Switzerland in the Olympic Games because it is the country where I grew up.”

She was still an amateur when she debuted in the Olympics, finishing T21 in Rio. Five years later she was T18 in Tokyo. Now settled on the LPGA last year she contended for the win in last year’s Chevron Championship (a major) before finishing fourth. Earlier this year she was second in Thailand and she finished T22 in Evian.

She’s been in Paris all week, lapping up the fun of the opening ceremony, visiting the Swiss Olympic House and, hopefully, being inspired by watching her good friend Katie Ledecky win gold in a fourth consecutive Olympics at La Defense. Let’s not be naive: not all, but lots of golfers will be motivated by the five rings this week in one way or another. But Valenzuela is definitely primed, she has the quality to seek a podium finish, she has that sneaky French heritage and she’s also seventh for SG Approach this year.

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Pick number three is relatively simple because at 40/1 the Olympic pedigree of LYDIA KO is very tempting having won silver in Rio and bronze in Tokyo.

There’s no doubt that New Zealander and former World No. 1 has not had the year she would have hoped for after starting it with a win and play-off defeat in Florida in January and fourth in China in March (having been the 54-hole leader).

But she opened the Evian Championship with a 65 in her penultimate start and was eighth last time out. A third podium finish is well within her, as is a near miss that would count for us.

CLICK HERE to back Ko with Sky Bet

Korea’s AMY YANG had contemplated retirement last year. The 35-year-old was wondering what she had left in the tank whereupon she landed two top four finishes in the majors before winning the Tour Championship in November.

She did even better than that this summer in winning the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship by three shots and with that pinched a late spot in her country’s Olympic team. “A dream come true,” she said in Evian. “A huge honour. You’re not just playing for yourself, you’re playing for your country so I’m going to prepare really well.” As mentioned above, most of the field will be thinking exactly the same. But Yang took the idea of the Olympics being on the horizon quite seriously that week. In fact, the Olympic Museum is quite literally on the horizon at Evian, being in Lausanne – the other side of Lake Geneva – and Yang didn’t miss the opportunity of visiting.

“The entrance,” she said, when asked for her highlight, “when you walk up the stairs and the first door has the Olympic Rings, that was very … wow. That place was so cool. I got to see all the equipment from the past and the histories of every Games. It gave me even more motivation.” She’s always been a fine major performer and this major-like week is a fine opportunity to round off her career Indian summer.

CLICK HERE to back Yang with Sky Bet

Posted at 1500 BST on 05/08/24

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