This Week in Golf - August 14th through August 17th

Golf Betting Lines

08/11/2008 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - CHAMPIONS TOUR - JELD-WEN TRADITION, Crosswater Golf Club at Sunriver Resort, Bend, Oregon - The Champions Tour plays its third major in a row this week with the 20th JELD-WEN Tradition.

The Senior British Open and U.S. Senior Open were the last two events on the circuit.

Bruce Vaughan collected his first Champions Tour win with a playoff victory over John Cook at the Senior British Open. The tour returned to the United States the following week for the U.S. Senior Open and Eduardo Romero collected his second Champions Tour major victory as he beat Fred Funk by four strokes. Romero's other major title on the elder circuit was at the 2006 Tradition.

Jay Haas won the brutal Senior PGA Championship earlier this year, while Loren Roberts is the defending champion at the season's final major, the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, which is scheduled for the second weekend in October.

At last year's Tradition, Mark McNulty cruised to a five-shot win over David Edwards despite a double-bogey on his final hole. McNulty posted rounds of 70-68 on the weekend to pull away from the field.

The Crosswater Golf Club is hosting this event for the second straight year, but the tournament has been in Oregon since 2003.

There have been just two wire-to-wire winners and only four players have carded four rounds in the 60s. Just one of those four went on to win the tournament. Only three winners have had an over-par round en route to victory.

Meanwhile, eight of the 17 72-hole winners have owned at least a share of the 54-hole lead.

The Golf Channel will carry live action from 6:30 - 9:00 p.m. (et) all four days. The Champions Tour moves to Washington next week for the Boeing Classic, where Denis Watson is the defending champion.

PGA TOUR

WYNDHAM CHAMPIONSHIP, Sedgefield Country Club, Greensboro, North Carolina - The final event before the FedEx Cup Playoffs is this week as the PGA Tour heads back to North Carolina for the Wyndham Championship.

Brandt Snedeker closed with rounds of 66-63 to beat Billy Mayfair and Tim Petrovic by two strokes to capture last year's title. The win was Snedeker's first on the PGA Tour.

The victory also helped Snedeker jump to ninth on the FedEx Cup points list, meaning he qualified for all four rounds of the playoffs.

Coming off the final World Golf Championships event and the final major of the season, this week's field is missing many big names as players have four playoff events and for some, the Ryder Cup, over the next six weeks.

Only one player in the top-20 in the world is scheduled to play this week, world No. 5 Vijay Singh. This will mark Singh's seventh appearance at this event, but first since he tied for ninth in 1999. His best finish here is a tie for seventh in 1995.

The Golf Channel and CBS Sports will split coverage this weekend. The FedEx Cup Playoffs start next week with The Barclays, where Steve Stricker is the defending champion.

EUROPEAN TOUR

SAS MASTERS, Arlandastad Golf Club, Stockholm, Sweden - The European Tour returns to action with its own event for the first time in three weeks as the best players have been in the U.S. for the WGC - Bridgestone Invitational and the PGA Championship the last two weeks.

Paul Lawrie, Anders Hansen, Niclas Fasth and 2006 runner-up Robert Karlsson headline the field this week. Many top Europeans are taking this week off before beginning a big run of events that includes the Johnnie Walker Championship at Gleneagles, the Omega European Masters and the Mercedes-Benz Championship.

Just after that stretch of golf, will be the Ryder Cup for 12 of the top European players.

Mikko Ilonen closed with rounds of 67-68 last year to post six-under 274, good for a two-shot win over Christian Cevaer, Nick Dougherty, Peter Hedblom, Jean- Baptiste Gonnet and Martin Kaymer.

The win was Ilonen's second of 2007 as he had earlier won the Indonesia Open. Ilonen birdied the last, while Kaymer stumbled to a closing double-bogey to secure the win for Ilonen.

The Golf Channel with have three hours of coverage all four days this week. Next week is the KLM Open, where Ross Fisher won last year.

LPGA

CANADIAN WOMEN'S OPEN, Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club, Ottawa, Ontario - The LPGA ends its run of three straight events outside the United States this week with the Canadian Women's Open.

This event follows the Evian Masters in France and the Women's British Open in England.

Last year, women's World No. 1 Lorena Ochoa carded rounds of 65-64 in the middle two rounds for a four-stroke lead, then closed with a two-under 69 to follow up her first major championship win at the Women's British Open with a victory at the Canadian Women's Open.

Ochoa got pressured by Paula Creamer in the final round, but Creamer finished three back after closing with a 68.

Last year's tournament was contested in Edmonton, but shifts to Ottawa this week. Ottawa Hunt and Golf Club will host the event this week and will be the eighth different host venue in the past eight years.

The tournament will have three hours of coverage all four days on Canadian television, while the Golf Channel to air two-and-a-half hours of tape-delayed action on Saturday and Sunday.

The LPGA returns to the U.S. next week with the Safeway Classic, where Ochoa will again be the defending champion.

NATIONWIDE TOUR

XEROX CLASSIC, Irondequoit Country Club, Rochester, New York - Nick Flanagan capped a magical 2007 season here last year as he collected his third victory of the season to earn the Battlefield Promotion to the PGA Tour.

Earlier in the year, Flanagan won a four-man playoff at the Henrico County Open then came from behind with a seven-under 65 to win the BMW Charity Pro-Am at The Cliffs.

Flanagan closed with a seven-under 63 as James Driscoll coughed up a four-shot lead in the final six holes to give Flanagan the title. He was the first player since Jason Gore in 2003 to earn the Battlefield Promotion to the PGA Tour.

This is the fourth year of this event and the only former winner expected to compete is 2005 winner Rick Price.

The Golf Channel will broadcast two hours of play the first two days, then have three hours of action on Saturday and Sunday. The tour heads to Pennsylvania next week for the Northeast Pennsylvania Classic, where Justin Bolli won last year.

CANADIAN TOUR

DESJARDINS MONTREAL OPEN, Saint Raphael Golf Club, Montreal, Quebec - After a three-week break, the Canadian Tour returns to action this week with the Desjardins Montreal Open.

Last season, Brent Schwarzrock drained a 40-foot birdie putt on the first extra hole to fend off Byron Smith.

Schwarzrock, who was playing on a sponsor's exemption, collected his first tour title thanks in part to a 10-under 62 in the final round.

Smith was no slouch on the final day as he closed with a nine-under 63 to join Schwarzrock at 24-under 264, which easily was a new tournament scoring record. Wes Heffernan and Brock Mackenzie set the old mark of 270 in 2006.

There is no television for this event. Next week is the Jane Rogers Championship, where Smith closed with a 63 to beat Derek Gillespie by one shot last year.

Bestfootballchance Golf Betting News

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What Is the Point Spread?

What are Sports Betting Point Spreads?

In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.

Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).

If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).

Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.

How to Read Point Spreads

New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles

The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)

In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:

To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.

Numerous College Basketball teams take final big step to March Madness betting

So, what turned on the lock spigot? Well, after what felt like weeks of teams treading water and slipping back into the bubble muck, a bunch of them finally decided to say "to heck with parity" and won games that should put them into the Big Dance.

Disagree with some of these? Then here's the challenge. Take all of the "should be ins" and make a legit case that each should be ahead of the team that's a lock. Then find 10 more teams that also should be placed in the bracket ahead of that lock team. Not so easy, is it?

If you want more evidence that these locks should be good to go, check out what our research department dug up. Since the NCAA Tournament went to 64 teams in 1985, only six teams from a "big six" conference have had a record of 10-6 or better in conference play and not been selected: Colorado (2004) and Nebraska (1999) from the Big 12, Boston College and Seton Hall (both 2003) from the Big East, Indiana (2005) from the Big Ten and UCLA, which somehow went 12-6 in the Pac-10 in 1988 and still missed out. (Note: Five teams went 11-7 and didn't get in, the latest being last season's Stanford team, which had a brutal nonconference run.)

Yes, 10 conference wins doesn't always mean what it used to because of unbalanced schedules, but this season, it should be plenty good in all but the extreme cases (see: Iowa).

In a way, this is a welcome development, because this is a bubble watch, not a lock watch. We can finally be done with teams like Maryland and Virginia Tech and start really bearing down on at-large battles such as Syracuse-West Virginia and Appalachian State-Georgia Tech.

Interestingly, all the shifting of teams into lock status appears to be more administrative than impactful. The number of remaining available at-larges didn't change one iota. The only difference is that teams on the bubble now have a clearer idea of which team(s) they are competing with for those precious bids.

The Bubble Breakdown
CONFERENCE LOCKS SHOULD BE INS AT-LARGES TAKEN
(assuming no auto bid outlier)
ACC Betting Odds 6 0 5
Big East Betting Odds 5 0 4
Big Ten Betting Odds 2 2 3
Big 12 Betting Odds 3 0 2
Pac-10 Betting Odds 5 1 5
SEC Betting Odds 4 0 3
MVC Betting Odds 1 1 1
MWC Betting Odds 2 1 2
TOTAL 28 5 25

As always, I've tried to be as inclusive as possible while only including teams that would have a reasonable chance of at least being discussed if this were Selection Sunday. If your team's not on here, there's probably a good reason (or three) -- start with the RPI and SOS numbers and work your way down.

(Please remember, per selection committee criteria, that records displayed are Division I only. Next update: Feb. 28)

If you have a legitimate grievance, or just like talking bubble, send an e-mail. Polite ones with fact-based arguments have a much better chance of receiving a response. I apologize in advance if I can't get back to all of you.

Atlantic Coast Conference

Work left to do: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech

The ACC moves to six locks as BC, Va Tech and Virginia all got their 10th ACC wins, which should be more than enough this season, and Maryland rallied past North Carolina to get the final piece the Terps needed. After that? It could end there unless FSU, Ga Tech or Clemson picks things up in a hurry.

 

Work left to do:

Clemson [19-9 (5-9), RPI: 41, SOS: 42] The Tigers are closer to locking up the collapse of the year award (in a good battle with OK State) than they are to grabbing an at-large. Clemson's been very competitive, but there's no really positive way you can spin nine losses in 11 games. They now cannot get to .500 in ACC play and still must head to Virginia Tech in the season finale (after hosting Miami). Unless the Tigers win both and/or do some serious work in the ACC tourney, they very well could be left out. There are no great nonconference wins, but ODU, App State, Miss. State, South Carolina and Georgia are all respectable W's.

Florida State [18-11 (6-9), RPI: 48, SOS: 14] The Noles got thrashed at Maryland to run their losing streak to five, but then pounded NC State at home to set the table for what likely is an elimination game at Miami. You can at least make a case for the Seminoles at 7-9 in ACC play (and some work in the ACC tourney), but 6-10 is not going to cut it. Wins at Duke and over Florida will resonate, but the computer numbers remain questionable. Beyond Florida, FSU thrashed bubble buddy Providence, but there's not a ton beyond those two games that will help. They didn't show well in big-time opportunities against Pitt and Wisconsin (before the Florida win).

Georgia Tech [18-10 (6-8), RPI: 51, SOS: 46] The Jackets beat Wake on Wednesday but couldn't get it done at UVa on Saturday, which could be a crucial loss with UNC and BC (both at home) remaining and 8-8 almost a certain need for at-large consideration. A nonconference win over Memphis helps, but the RPI and SOS are not at-large quality right now; if you combine those with a sub-.500 ACC mark, that could spell NIT for GT.

For more College Basketball betting lines go to MySportsbook.com

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