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08/23/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - THE BARCLAYS, Ridgewood Country Club, Paramus, New Jersey - It's playoff golf.
The PGA Tour playoffs begin on Thursday with the first round of The Barclays. The top 125 on the FedEx Cup regular-season points list were eligible and there are only three who are skipping the week.
Sergio Garcia is in a needed, self-imposed exile from golf for the next two months.
Corey Pavin has Ryder Cup captaincy on his mind.
Paul Goydos withdrew on Monday without stating a reason.
Tiger Woods, despite the worst year of his professional career and probably his personal life, is in the field. He won the FedEx Cup last year, but will need to make a lot of ground starting this week.
Woods is 112th on the FedEx Cup points list and the top 100 advance next week to the Deutsche Bank Championship. A good week wouldn't kill his chances for the Ryder Cup, either.
Woods missed out on the automatic eight spots following the PGA so he'll need a pick from Pavin. Woods is "high on my list" according to Pavin, but a good week would definitely cement Woods' chances at a spot in Wales.
The top five on the FedEx Cup points list heading into the first round of the playoffs are Ernie Els, Steve Stricker, Jim Furyk, Phil Mickelson and Justin Rose.
Els and Stricker tied for second place last year along with Woods and Padraig Harrington. They finished one stroke out of what would have been an incredible playoff.
The man who emerged victorious was Heath Slocum. What made Slocum's win all the more amazing (besides trumping those future Hall of Famers) was that Slocum headed to the Barclays ranked No. 124 on the FedEx Cup points list. He vaulted up to third after the win.
Scott Piercy was the only player outside the top 125 last week at the Wyndham Championship to move his way into the Barclays field.
Golf Channel will handle the telecast on Thursday and Friday and some early- round action on the weekend. CBS takes over for the weekend broadcast of the leaders.
Next week is the Deutsche Bank Championship at the TPC Boston. Stricker won last year and remember: it's played over the Labor Day holiday in the U.S. so it starts Friday and ends Monday.
EUROPEAN TOUR
JOHNNIE WALKER CHAMPIONSHIP AT GLENEAGLES, The Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire, Scotland - While the PGA Tour begins a new chapter with the playoffs, the European Tour will end a chapter Sunday at The Gleneagles Hotel.
This is the final tournament for European players to earn one of the automatic nine spots on the Ryder Cup team. Colin Montgomerie's squad will be finalized on Sunday with the announcement of his three captain's picks.
Lee Westwood, PGA Champion Martin Kaymer, U.S. Open winner Graeme McDowell and Rory McIlroy will make the team from the World Points list.
Ian Poulter and Ross Fisher seem like safe bets as two of the five from the European Points list. Francesco Molinari, last week's Czech Open winner Peter Hanson and Miguel Angel Jimenez are in the precarious spots 7-9.
Molinari and Hanson are in the field at Gleneagles, but Jimenez is not. He's attending his nephew's wedding, so he may be in trouble for one of those automatic spots.
Paul Casey and Padraig Harrington are next in line, but are teeing it up at the PGA Tour's Barclays instead. They will have to rely on Montgomerie selecting them with a pick.
Simon Dyson, Alvaro Quiros and Ross McGowan have chances to break into the top nine. Dyson and Quiros need to win the title this week to make the team, while McGowan has to do no worse than second.
Casey and Harrington will definitely be on Monty's short list for picks come the completion of play on Sunday. Luke Donald and Justin Rose will be among those for Monty to choose from, as will Edoardo Molinari, the brother of Francesco, and Champions Tour star Bernhard Langer.
Monty stoked the fire a few weeks back when he said he'd consider Langer, who won the Senior British Open and U.S. Senior Open in back-to-back weeks.
Edoardo Molinari is in the field at Gleneagles.
Peter Hedblom captured last year's event when he held off fellow Swede Martin Erlandsson by a shot. The win was Hedblom's third European Tour title.
Golf Channel will have all four rounds.
Next week is the European Masters, won by Alexander Noren last year.
LPGA TOUR
CANADIAN WOMEN'S OPEN, St. Charles Country Club, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - It's a new venue ... sort of.
This is the first time that St. Charles Country Club will host the Canadian Women's Open, but the track hosted the defunct du Maurier Classic numerous times.
Sherri Steinhauer won the last du Maurier held at St. Charles in 1992. Juli Inkster, fresh off her disqualification for using a weighted device on her club to warm up during a delay on the 10th tee Saturday at the Safeway Classic, took the title at the du Maurier way back in 1984. Both are in the field this week.
Suzann Pettersen won last year's Canadian Women's Open at Priddis Greens Golf & Country Club in Calgary. She won by five strokes over five different women and if she can do that this week, she might move to No. 1.
The revolving door at No. 1 this year has seen Lorena Ochoa (remember her?), Jiyai Shin, Ai Miyazato and Cristie Kerr hold the perch. Miyazato is back to first after her win at the Safeway.
Kerr is second and Pettersen is third. Pettersen has never held the top spot, but a successful title defense will most likely get her that elusive No. 1 ranking.
Golf Channel has all four rounds.
The next LPGA Tour event is Sept. 10-12. It's the Arkansas Championship and it was won last year by Jiyai Shin.
CHAMPIONS TOUR
BOEING CLASSIC, TPC Snoqualmie Ridge, Snoqualmie, Washington - It's another home crowd for Freddie Couples.
After having almost the entire gallery behind him a few weeks back at the U.S. Senior Open at Sahalee in Seattle, Couples is back near his hometown this week.
He lost to Bernhard Langer on Sunday at the U.S. Senior Open, but Couples will try and put a dent in the margin Langer's built in both the money race and Charles Schwab Cup points race.
Both are in the field this week, but Langer may have quite an interesting Sunday. With the time difference between Washington and Scotland, Langer will know when he tees off Sunday if Colin Montgomerie has made him one of his captain's picks for the European Ryder Cup team.
Fred Funk is also in the field this week. He won his third major title on the Champions Tour Sunday at The Tradition.
Last year, Loren Roberts birdied his final two holes on Sunday to defeat Mark O'Meara by a single stroke. The win was Roberts' third of 2009 on the Champions Tour.
Golf Channel will carry all three rounds.
Next week is the First Tee Open at Pebble Beach, which was won last year by Jeff Sluman.
CANADIAN TOUR
CANADIAN TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP, St. Catharines Golf and Country Club, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada - For the second year in a row, St. Catharines will host the season-ending Tour Championship.
The top players from the 2010 season gather with the money title on the line. The top-two finishers on the Order of Merit after play on Sunday will be exempted into the second stage of the PGA Tour National Qualifying School.
James Love won last year's Tour Championship when he parred the first playoff hole to defeat Lucas Lee.
USGA
U.S. AMATEUR, Chambers Bay Golf Club, University Place, Washington, and The Home Course, Dupont, Washington - The 110th U.S. Amateur Championship began Monday at Chambers Bay Golf Club and The Home Course.
Both venues will be used for the two days of stroke play while Chambers Bay will host the match-play rounds. At 7,742 yards, Chambers Bay will be the longest course in USGA history. Torrey Pines Golf Club, which was the site of the 2008 U.S. Open, was previously the longest at 7.643 yards.
Last year, Byeong-Hun An became the youngest U.S. Amateur champion in history when he defeated Ben Martin, 7 & 5. At 17 years, 11 months and 13 days, An surpassed 2008 winner Danny Lee as the youngest champion.
An is back to defend his title and if successful, he would be the first to do so since Tiger Woods' three-peat from 1994-96.
After two days of stroke play to find the low 64 players, the first round of match play begins on Wednesday. The second and third rounds are scheduled for Thursday. The quarterfinals will be Friday, the semifinals on Saturday and the 36-hole final is on tap for Sunday.
Golf Channel will broadcast some action on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. NBC takes over on the weekend.
The next USGA event is mid-Septemeber and it's the USGA Men's State Team event.
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Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"
A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."
Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.
In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.
"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."
Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.
But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"
Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.
This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.
Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.
In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.
No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.
And that's all any bettor can ask for.
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NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking.
No. 1 always seems to fit USC.
Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent.
Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory.
Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3.
"We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team."
Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time.
"Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team."
The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points.
"I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won."
Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State.
"There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?"
USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll.
"It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter."
While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls.
As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule.
But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference.
Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com.
The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road.
The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second.
The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia.
No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday.
Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee.
Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina.
Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson.
The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996.
South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20.
The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24.
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