2009 Golf Timetable
The golf action is beginning to hot-up, with at least one tournament to get stuck into each week. See our 2009 calendar and mark your favourite events. Read Preview
US Open Betting | US Open Odds
The US Open Championship is held each June, scheduled such that the final round is always played on the 3rd Sunday of that month. One of the four major golf championships, the US Open is staged at a variety of courses, usually set up in such a way that low scoring is very difficult and there is a premium on accurate driving.
About the US Open
Tournament history
The winner in that opening year was 21 year-old Horace Rawlins an English professional who worked at the host course. He received $150 in prize money and a gold medal for the win.
In the early days a lot of English pro players came over to the United States to compete in the event, but as American players began to dominate the tournament the US Open developed into a significant world golf championship. The first Native American to win the event was John J McDermott back in 1911.
Since then the championship began to rise in profile and capture golf fans across the world with spectator tickets being sold for the first time in 1922, and the boom in interest saw the PGA introduce qualifying rounds in 1924.
The format has changed many times with the USGA increasing the championship to 72 holes in 1898 over 2 days, then in 1926 it was changed to 18 holes on the first two days then 36 on the final day, until 1965 saw further amendments to the current format of four 18 hole rounds over four days.
Player domination
Over the years the tournament has seen some great players dominate the US Open with Ben Hogan winning it four times between 1948-53, and Jack Nicklaus doing the same claiming four titles between 1962 -80.
In recent years Retief Gooson and Tiger Woods have been the most successful players winning the US Open five times between them in the last 10 years. Ernie Els is just behind them with one win and a runners-up position; while 2006 US Masters champion Phil Mickelson is still looking for his first win in the event after falling just short on three occasions over the last decade.
Last year's competition is best remembered for Tiger Woods overcoming his painful knee injury to see off fellow American Rocco Mediate on the first hole of a sudden-death play-off. After landing his third US Open title the world number one became just the second man, along with Jack Nicklaus, to win each of the golfing majors at least three times.
Betting
This year’s tournament is to be held at Bethpage State Park, Long Island New York. Betting on the event has become increasingly popular over the last 10 years with the wide range of markets that the bookmakers now offer including outright winner, top 5/10 finish, make/miss the cut, top US player, hole-in-one, match bets and many more. With the mixture of old champions taking on some new young pretenders the tournament is currently at the most competitive it's been for years.
After last year’s win, Tiger Woods, took some time out to get his knee seen to, and is now back raring to defend his title. The reigning champ had a shaky start back from his break, but a rallying tied sixth finish in the US Masters back in April indicated that Woods is not far off returning to winning major form. This was further backed up last week when he recovered from a four shot final day deficit to win the Memorial at Muirfield Village and with that the bookmakers have seen a flood of money for Woods to win US Open title number four in 2009.