Golf Tidbits: So I was wrong about Phil & Tiger
Golf Betting Lines
02/14/2012 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Was it just two weeks ago that some writer asked whether Tiger or Phil was closer to winning?
And didn't said writer come to the conclusion that Tiger was closer?
Guilty as charged!
I'm sure Phil Mickelson didn't use my column as motivation on Sunday at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. All he needed for that was to look at his playing partner, Tiger Woods.
According to the PGA Tour, Sunday marked just the 10th time they were paired together in the final round at a tour event. Tiger had the early advantage in those 10, but Phil now owns that match-up.
Sunday was the fifth consecutive time Mickelson shot lower than Woods when they were paired together. Wait, WHAT?
Mickelson has out-Tigered Tiger!
The par-three 12th was all you needed to see to know that Mickelson was going to best Woods on this day. Woods, who was five strokes back at the time, holed a bunker shot for birdie.
Mickelson, who also missed the green, hit a poor chip to 30 feet. Everyone thought there would be a two-, maybe three-shot swing.
WRONG!
Mickelson buried the par putt and was four clear of Woods, and two strokes ahead over Charlie Wi.
Mickelson followed with birdies on the next two holes. If the tournament wasn't over then, it was at the 16th.
Lefty again looked to be in trouble as he could only hit a bunker shot to 38 feet. Ho-hum, he dropped that par putt right in the hole, too.
So, for the first time in four starts in 2012, Mickelson put together a tournament with four sub-par rounds. It helped that he finished in the top 15 in greens in regulation, putts per round and putts per green in regulation.
Mickelson clearly relished the chance to play with Woods in the final round.
"I just seem more focused," he said. "I know that his level of play is so much greater when he's playing his best than anybody else's, that it just forces me to focus on my game more intently, and hit more precise shots."
Mickelson was more focused than ever in the final round, and you could tell how comfortable he was on the greens. He seemed to take less time over his putts and it paid off. Mickelson needed just 26 putts in the final round, the fewest of the week.
As Mickelson was putting together his finest final round in years, Woods looked like the Mickelson of old. Known for having a tremendous short game, Mickelson misses more short putts than any world-class player.
That was Woods on Sunday. He missed at least three putts from three feet or closer. They might not have been straight-in putts, but, still, the Tiger of old never missed those putts.
"I didn't hit the ball that bad. But I made nothing today. You saw that," Woods said. "I don't know how many three-putts I had, but I had a lot."
So Mickelson is back to his winning ways, and Woods is still searching for that right formula. How soon he finds it will be determined by how often he plays, and we got that answer on Tuesday when he announced he will play three straight PGA Tour event starting with next week's Match Play Championship.
One thing that I thought of while listening to Mickelson after Sunday's final round was the Ryder Cup. I know it was crazy when Hal Sutton paired the two together in 2004, but it is far less crazy now.
Mickelson said this of Woods after his win, "I am inspired playing with him. I think most people are, but he seems to bring out the best in me and the last four or five years, I've played some of my best golf playing with him and I really enjoy it."
I'll leave the pairings to captain Davis Love III, but why not give it a try in a fourball session?
LPGA IS IN GOOD HANDS
People have raved about the job Michael Whan has done in his 13 months as the LPGA Tour commissioner, and rightly so. Not only is the tour in good hands with him, but also with its young talent.
Tennis and gymnastics are two sports in which teenagers tend to excel. It's time to add golf to that list.
Whan made the correct move by allowing Lexi Thompson, 17, to play full time on tour a year earlier than the tour's 18-year-old minimum. While Thompson gets plenty of headlines, she isn't the only teenage star on the LPGA.
Jessica Korda, 18, went to LPGA Q School in 2010 to gain her tour card. She finished second there to earn her card for last year. The 2011 season wasn't Korda's best as she had just one top-20 finish and missed the cut in two of the three majors she competed in.
She has quickly turned her play around this year. Korda won a six-way playoff at the Women's Australian Open. The six were among only nine players who finished 72 holes under par in tough conditions at Royal Melbourne.
If the conditions weren't tough enough, the five players Korda faced in the playoff were plenty tough. Among those five were three major champions and last year's U.S. Women's Open runner-up, Hee Kyung Seo.
Korda took them all down with a birdie on the second extra hole.
Thompson and Korda, just to name two, are among those who will carry the LPGA Tour for years to come. As good as that sounds, how about this? Women's world No. 1 Yani Tseng just turned 23 three weeks ago.
It'll be hard to mess things up with that kind of young talent.
MINI-TIDBITS
- To further my point above about the good hands the LPGA Tour is in, the top 10 in the women's world rankings average just under 26 years old and only two of the 10 are in their 30s.
- Kyle Stanley made a remarkable comeback last week, winning the Waste Management Phoenix Open after blowing the Farmers Insurance Open the week before. He took the win from Spencer Levin in Phoenix, but Levin rebounded well himself. A week after a closing 75 dropped him into third place, Levin had four sub-par rounds en route to a share of ninth place at Pebble Beach.
Manchester, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Carlos Tevez returned to Manchester City on Tuesday, months after leaving the club following a dispute with coach Roberto Mancini. Tevez and Mancini were involved in a dispute in September, when T
<< Leafs put Gunnarsson on IR
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Carl Gunnarsson on injured reserve and recalled defenseman Keith Aulie from
the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League.
Gunnarsson has an ankle injury
<< Rangers enters administration, docked 10 points
Glasgow, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Scottish Premier League champions Rangers
entered administration Tuesday, which automatically penalized the storied club
10 points, and essentially handed the title to rival Celtic.
Rangers needed to ente
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Madrid, Spain (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Atletico Madrid revealed Tuesday that
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Europa League tie against Lazio as the two players are still recovering from
injurie
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Winnipeg, MB (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Winnipeg Blue Bombers have re-signed
offensive lineman Steve Morley.
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Jupiter, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tiger Woods announced on his web site Tuesday that he will play the next three PGA Tour events, starting next week. First up is the World Golf Championships - Accenture Match Play Championship, a tournament
Lions sign DB Shell >>
Vancouver, BC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The British Columbia Lions signed defensive
back Lin-J Shell on Tuesday.
Shell has spent the last three seasons with the Toronto Argonauts (2009-2011),
racking up 222 tackles and seven interceptions in 53 g
Red Wings' run bolstered by shootout >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - If American author Stephen King is looking
for a setting in his next horror novel, he should base it on Joe Louis Arena.
That's because no other venue in the NHL is currently as ominous.
The Detroit Red
Olympiacos tops Rubin to open Europa last 32 >>
Moscow, Russia (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - David Fuster scored and Roy Carroll saved a
penalty as Olympiacos kicked off the Europa League round of 32 on Tuesday with
a 1-0 win over Rubin at Luzhniki Stadium.
Fuster scored the lone goal in the 72nd m
Top Shelf: Blue Jackets can't keep Nash forever >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - With the NHL's trade deadline less than
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Betting Football
NFL Football Betting OnlineIs there such a thing as a trap game in the NFL?
I once asked that question to Pete Korner, who at the time was office manager and a senior linesmaker for Las Vegas Sports Consultants.
Korner almost ripped my head off. There is no such thing as a trap game, he loudly berated me. It’s a myth. The numbers are made using power ratings, he said.
There are trap games, though. They just might not be what you think. The perception is of a good team, say Philadelphia, laying a small number against New Orleans.
Using the highly-respected power ranking from The Gold Sheet, you’d find the Eagles with a power rating of 4 and the Saints at 8. When you factor the game being played in New Orleans, you could see why the line opened so short at less than a field goal.
For some, this makes it enticing to take the Eagles. That’s not a real trap game, though.
A real trap game, says professional gambler Dave Malinsky, is thinking you’re getting value betting a bad team, which brings us to the Oakland Raiders-Denver Broncos matchup.
The Raiders are +15 in this long-standing division rivalry. Denver is on a short week having dispatched Baltimore Monday. However, the Raiders haven’t covered the spread their last 10 games.
Many bettors don’t trust the Raiders to give a full effort. Few think much of Art Shell and his Oakland’s coaching staff.
So oddsmakers have to do something to make Oakland attractive if they hope to get equal action.
Now Malinsky is a value shopper. But he won’t touch the Raiders even getting more than two touchdowns.
“I try to eliminate the undisciplined, unfocused teams because they’re the ones most likely to suffer the bad beats,” he said.
Near the top of Malinsky’s list of stay-away teams is the Miami Dolphins, who have yet to cover a spread this season.
“Whatever you think of Nick Saban, you have to look at the penalties and turnovers,” Malinsky said.
It’s easy to point out the Dolphins failed to get the money this past week against New England because Olindo Mare missed a field goal and had another field goal blocked. But even though the Dolphins outgained the Patriots, 283-213, they committed eight penalties.
Bad teams not only cost themselves victories, but pointspread covers as well. The Arizona Cardinals and Green Bay Packers are two more examples.
The Cardinals couldn’t have been in a better position this past Sunday, up 14-0 at home against a mediocre Kansas City Chiefs squad. But they couldn’t hold it. The Packers got a push against St. Louis, but also could have won losing by three when Brett Favre fumbled at the St. Louis 11-yard line with 44 seconds left.
“The Packers were in a position to beat Philadelphia, too,” Malinsky said. “But they couldn’t even cover double digits.
“These teams just make mistakes and it costs you … they always will look good from a value standpoint. They really will. But that’s the trap.”
Houston and Tennessee rank among the six-worst teams. Malinsky wouldn’t be afraid to take either of these teams, however, if the price were high enough.
The Texans are bad, Malinsky said, but they have some discipline. The Titans showed they could not only come up with an outstanding game plan, but execute it as well, losing by one to the Colts on the road as an 18 ?-point underdog this past Sunday.
“Jeff Fisher is a worker,” Malinsky said of the Titans coach. “I’m not sure how hard Art Shell wants to work when he gets out of bed.”
Fisher, though, could be out as Tennessee coach after this season. Is he still worth backing in the right spot, with the right price, as a lame duck coach?
“It’s in his nature to keep working hard and not worry about any possible lame duck status,” Malinsky said. “He’s coaching for his resume.”
Note: Monday night game will be picked Monday. Lines used are from football betting lines.
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