The golf bettor’s remorse may be stronger than usual this week.
- Scottie Scheffler’s illness at the BMW Championship shows how little information golf bettors can have about players’ health before a tournament.
- PGA Tour players’ independent-contractor status makes standardized injury reporting more difficult.
- More injury information could give bettors greater clarity but would not eliminate bad behavior or the harassment some golfers face.
Case in point: Last Wednesday, some brave soul used Kalshi to buy 50,000 "yes" contracts on Scottie Scheffler to win the BMW Championship. The price of those contracts was 23 cents apiece, according to the prediction market operator’s website, which means it was a de facto $11,500 bet on Scheffler winning the tournament.
This was not the only wager made on him to win the tournament. There were many, many more. BetMGM, for instance, reported last Wednesday that 17.3% of tickets and 24.3% of handle were on Scheffler to win.
Then, after shooting 2-over in the first round on Thursday, Scheffler told reporters he was sick. On Sunday, after finishing T12, Scheffler said he had been dealing with hand, foot, and mouth disease.
Scottie Scheffler said he was advised to withdraw from the BMW Championship after arriving at Bellerive Country Club with hand, foot, and mouth disease.
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) August 23, 2026
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Those disclosures might have made at least a few bettors queasy. Particularly those who were flying blind about his personal health but buying the recent form Scheffler had shown while winning the week before.
“If I was smarter maybe I would have pulled out, but I was playing so good I felt like if I could knock it out quickly and just get through the first couple rounds I would still have a chance,” Scheffler said Sunday.
Nevertheless, some bettors were no doubt wondering: Why the hell didn't I get a heads-up about this? And if you bet football or basketball, yes, you typically get a bit of information about injuries. You won't get that with golf, and there is at least one big reason why.
Talk later
First and foremost, PGA Tour members are independent contractors. They have freedom to tinker with their schedules, and their medical information and status are their own to divulge or not.
In other words, the Tour isn't forcing them to cough up details about strains and sprains. At least not right now, anyway. Asked about injury reporting, the PGA Tour said in a statement to Covers that it “evaluates all rules and policies at the conclusion of each season.”
That season ends this weekend with the Tour Championship at East Lake. So you never know, but for now, it's no.
I’ve written before about how there are some relative disadvantages to being a golf bettor, such as a lack of injury reporting, and to brace yourself for bad beats. You’re a gambler; you’re gambling; sometimes you get bad luck. Bet responsibly, lose with dignity.
However, following the “Rory played Augusta before the Masters, no fair” discourse, we also had a conversation ensue about legal sports betting and golf, sparked by comments made by major champion Jordan Spieth following Wyndham Clark’s U.S. Open win.
On a handful of holes during the final round, police escorted spectators from the course who openly heckled Wyndham Clark.
— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) June 22, 2026
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Wyndham basically got an earful on Long Island. And, as Spieth saw it, some of that could be chalked up to the chalk.
“I do think that betting in golf is something that's going to have to be tackled here soon, because I don't know how much of, say, the Wyndham scenario was the fact that it was enticing to bet the field (versus) Wyndham on Sunday in a legalized betting state, and you could have had people out there that are essentially, you know, have $100 to $10,000, depending on who it is, on the field versus somebody else,” Spieth said.
Another major winner, Matt Fitzpatrick, later weighed in with more food for thought about sports betting and golf.
“I would say every golfer who's played professional golf has received abusive messages from someone because of gambling,” Fitzpatrick said.
The PGA Tour has heard these concerns and is well aware of the growth of legalized wagering, including via prediction markets that have made almost every state a “legalized betting state,” as Spieth put it.
Among other things, the Tour has put money into integrity monitoring and compliance programs. That includes a partnership with Genius Sports, which owns Covers. It also reportedly works with its official sports betting partners to curb harassment. In other words, be a jerk to golfers and your online sportsbook could ban you.
The Tour indeed has sportsbook operators as business partners and allows similar sponsorship opportunities for players. However, it has yet to enter the prediction market fray, which comes as the federally regulated exchanges face lawsuits challenging the legality of their sports event contracts, including those for golf.
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That said, could other measures benefit both golf and golf bettors? Could regular, standardized injury reporting be one? Once you get past the main obstacle - the players' independent-contractor status - there are other, more hypothetical benefits and concerns.
For example, by providing a picture of how healthy (or not) the field is for any given tournament, you could temper the expectations of the crowd watching. Oh, your golfer's not doing well this week? Ah, well, they did tell you he had a lower-body thing; maybe that’s bugging him.
It's humanizing. It's added transparency that could keep bettors from screaming about sports betting-related shenanigans when a golfer withdraws or underperforms.
A little bit of injury reporting could also tamp down any effort by outsiders to sniff out inside information. Instead of trying to glean it any which way, there's at least something available that could satisfy some of that demand for information.
There’s still some naivety to this idea. People will never be totally satisfied, and there will always be jerks and bad actors. Other leagues have injury reports, as do some college sports conferences, and it hasn't stopped bad behavior entirely.
Golf is different from other sports, too. An injury that could make a quantifiable impact in football may be greater or lesser in golf. What exactly must be reported could be up for debate.
Ultimately, no one will be totally satisfied with what happens. Even so, sports betting in some form will be here for the foreseeable future. The PGA Tour might have some interesting conversations this offseason about what to do next.
