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08/09/2008 - Bloomfield Hills Township, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Paul Azinger was always going to be a different Ryder Cup captain than most.
In his Ryder Cup career, which only spanned four Ryder Cups, Azinger got into legendary confrontations with the famed "Spanish Armada" of Seve Ballesteros and Jose Maria Olazabal, and refused to back down to the man leading the other side against him in a month, Nick Faldo.
So it shouldn't come as a surprise that Azinger is imposing his will as the leader of the American Ryder Cup team.
When he took the job, Azinger got the PGA of America to totally revamp the selection process for the U.S. team. The Europeans always have a one-year qualifying window, thus, got the hottest players.
The U.S. always had a two-year period, with more emphasis on the second year and majors. Azinger told them to cram that system. He said to make it money- based and only count the majors from the prior season. The year of the Ryder Cup is when it should count, therefore you get the best players.
Tom Lehman, who led his American compatriots to slaughter at The K Club two years ago, tweaked the system. Azinger blew it up.
PGA of America agreed to Azinger's demands.
Azinger wanted four picks, not the traditional two. He also didn't want to have to use them the Monday after the PGA Championship. It didn't make sense to him to pick guys almost a month before the competition
So the PGA of America agreed. Now Azinger won't make his four picks until September 2nd, almost three weeks after the eight automatic players make the team. The U.S. players now have what has become essentially a three-week try out.
Perhaps more important than the three-week try out is that Azinger will make these four picks 17 days before the first ball is struck at Valhalla. Talk about getting the hottest guys before the tournament.
If three Americans win in the three weeks leading up to the picks, they will probably make Azinger's team. He said as much on Wednesday.
"I'm going to look at who is hot. If somebody wins Greensboro (next week's Wyndham Championship), he's going to get a really good look from me," Azinger said.
Azinger has pulled no punches with his prospective team as well. All you've heard all year is that Kenny Perry wanted to make the Ryder Cup team in his home state of Kentucky. He eliminated majors off his schedule to try and earn more points to make this team.
Azinger was strategically quoted as saying he only wanted winners on his team. Perry hoisted three trophies this year.
If Jim Furyk, Anthony Kim and Phil Mickelson are looking for a rah-rah guy, they are going to be in for a rude awakening. Azinger is a cancer survivor and a dogged competitor, but inspiring?
"If they need to be inspired by me, then they are hurting," Azinger said on Saturday after a third-round, six-over 76. "I mean, if I'm an inspiration, I'm happy to be that. I think that they are going to be really motivated and they are going to be inspired to play well, and it's not really the captain's responsibility to do that."
Azinger will get them to Valhalla, but he's practical enough to know that his guys have to sink the putts. He can't do that for them. All Azinger can do is put what he believes is the best team on the course.
Azinger will have done that come September 19th thanks to imposing his will for what's best for the United States Ryder Cup team.
<< Blumenherst, Munoz to battle for U.S. Women's Amateur crown
Eugene, OR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Amanda Blumenherst didn't lead until the back
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the finals at the 108th U.S. Women's Amateur at Eugene Country Club.
Azahara M
<< Browns terminate CB Baxter's contract
Berea, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cleveland Browns put Gary Baxter's comeback
on hold when they terminated the cornerback's contract on Saturday.
Baxter, 29, joined the Browns in 2005 as a free agent from Baltimore, but he
played in just
<< Lakers agree to terms with Chinese guard
Los Angeles, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Los Angeles Lakers agreed to terms on
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<< Bodine captures first truck pole of the season
Lebanon, TN (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Todd Bodine won the pole for Saturday's Toyota
Tundra 200 at the Nashville Superspeedway. The No.30 Germain Racing Toyota
driver rounded the 1.333-mile concrete oval in 30.244 seconds (158.669
m.p.h.)
Reds place Votto on bereavement list >>
Cincinnati, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Cincinnati Reds placed first baseman
Joey Votto on the bereavement list on Saturday and selected the contract of
infielder Adam Rosales from Triple-A Louisville.
The 24-year-old Votto is eligibl
Barrett goal leads TFC to improbable win at Colorado >>
Commerce City, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Colorado Rapids had all the
advantages heading into their Major League Soccer fixture vs. Toronto FC on
Saturday at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.
The Rapids were playing at home, had a w
French horse captures Arlington Million XXVI >>
Arlington Heights, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - European invader Spirit One went
wire-to-wire to win Saturday's 26th running of the Arlington Million at
Arlington Park. The victory in the 1 1/4 mile grass race, part of the "Win
and Yo
Inclement weather ends Saturday at PGA >>
Bloomfield Hills Township, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Inclement weather at Oakland
Hills forced the suspension of play for the day Saturday during the third
round of the PGA Championship.
J.B. Holmes stayed atop the leaderboard, but has not teed
Two playoff teams from 2007 take center stage on the NFL Network Sunday night in a Week 2 NFL betting match-up when the (0-1) New England Patriots betting head south to Florida for a contest with the (1-0) Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
New England HC Bill Belichick couldn’t care less about the way his team plays in the preseason. With a chance to tie last week’s game with the Baltimore Ravens betting, He elected to go for the two-point conversion and outright victory. The conversion failed, and the Pats ended up falling to the Ravens by a 16-15 final count.
New England rolled off twelve unanswered points to give it a chance at securing the victory, but it never threatened to cover the 3.5-point spread. NFL bettors saw this one coming, as they bet the Ravens down from +6 to +3.5 as the week progressed. QB Tom Brady didn’t take part in the Patriots first preseason clash, but could see action this weekend.
His three replacements all put up embarrassing numbers. They went a combined 17 for 33, and threw three interceptions and no touchdowns. The New England defense was encouraging, as they held the Ravens to 2/12 third down conversions and surrendered just ten first downs. That ‘D’ should be bolstered with the addition of former Bucs and Denver Broncos betting safety John Lynch, who could make his Patriots debut on Sunday against his former mates.
HC Jon Gruden had to be impressed with the way his Bucs played on both sides of the ball in their dominating 17-6 victory over the Miami Dolphins in Week 1’s NFL pre-season betting action. Bucs bettors were quite happy with the effort, as they made a mockery of the fact that they were underdogs in the game.
The logjam at the quarterback position didn’t get any easier to separate for Gruden, as all four of his QBs had positive experiences in the first exhibition of 2008. The four combined to complete 28 of their 40 passes for 204 yards and a touchdown, and that was without starting QB Jeff Garcia in the lineup.
RB Michael Bennett had 19 carries and four receptions, totaling 90 yards and a touchdown. Expect to see more of Bennett, Kenneth Darby, and Earnest Graham, as they all compete for playing time with Warrick Dunn in the backfield this season. Defensively, the Bucs recorded four sacks and held the Fins offense in check all day.
First round draft pick Aqib Talib was impressive in the secondary, recording a tackle and two pass defenses in his debut. Don’t be surprised to see Talib in the starting lineup opposite Ronde Barber for the Bucs in ’08.
The betting trends suggest that NFL bettors should be backing the Bucs in this intra-conference exhibition.
These two teams hooked up last year in Tampa Bay, with the Bucs winning that game 13-10. The Buccaneers have only lost one preseason game at home dating back to the beginning of the ’05 preseason. The Patriots have had a mixed bag of results in their recent exhibitions. They have gone 2-2 ATS and SU each of the last three years.
New England currently sits as modest 1-point favorites in this preseason showdown with the ‘total’ now sitting at 34.5.
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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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