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Golf Tidbits: Should we believe Finchem?Golf Betting Lines07/02/2009 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem met the media on Wednesday at Congressional Country Club, site of this week's AT&T National, and discussed many subjects. The biggest topic was drug testing. Finchem announced that one year into testing, the PGA Tour is clean. "The players took it very seriously. They got educated," Finchem stated. "We've had over 1,000 tests in the last year. The testing processes worked extremely well. The players have cooperated." Though who gets tested is anonymous unless a player talks about it, one could gather that every PGA Tour player has been tested. If you combine the 2008 and 2009 money lists, there are over 500 names but many are duplicates. The drug tests screen for a variety of drugs, but suspensions would only have been handed down for performance-enhancing drugs. A failed test for a recreational drug such as cocaine or marijuana would not result in a suspension. "I said we have had no positive tests with respect to performance-enhancing," Finchem said. "We may have had some test results that trouble us in other areas that we treat in a different bucket. But we don't publicize those. We treat those as 'conduct unbecoming.' I'm not saying this has happened or not." Should we believe Finchem that the tour is clean? I think you can read between the lines of Finchem's quote and know that the answer is no, the tour isn't clean. Obviously, as he states, there were no failed tests for PED's. But the gray area for the tour, the players and the media alike is those who may have failed tests for recreational drugs. It is easy to see why those names and results would not be published. If someone were to fail a test, that person obviously used illegal drugs. Charges could be filed, though just as it is with any member of the public, authorities would have a tough time charging said player though as it would be tough to prove in which jurisdiction the person may have taken or possessed the drugs. Finchem said the testing process has gone from random to selective. If a player hadn't been chosen randomly, the tour would then choose that player for testing. Under the current system, the tour has shifted to regular testing. "We have reason to believe that a player may be using an illegal substance or may have a substance problem and he's in a program and we want to test him, we just test him on a regular basis," said Finchem. "You've got to play by the rules." Whether players are truly playing by those rules is open to your own interpretation of Finchem's comments. BOOM OR BUST FOR GLOVER? Lucas Glover followed his first major championship win with a share of 11th place last week at the Travelers Championship. It's hard to say based on that result whether the U.S. Open victory launched Glover's career, or launched a drought. Since Tiger Woods burst onto the scene at the 1997 Masters, there have been seven multiple major winners and 19 others that have won a single major title. Three of those 19 had won major titles before Woods turned professional. Some of those 19 winners have seen their careers go into a tailspin after their major championship victory. David Duval's plummet in the world rankings is well documented, though part of that was injury-related. Since 2002, three major winners have not won another event, four if you include Glover, who is playing this week for the second time since winning the U.S. Open. Rich Beem (2002 PGA Championship), Shaun Micheel (2003 PGA Championship) and Trevor Immelman (2008 Masters) are winless since claiming those major victories. Glover, like Immelman, is young and is still gathering experience. But neither would he fall into the flash-in-the-pan category, as the win was his second on the PGA Tour and he has also played on a Presidents Cup team. It is too early to tell which direction Glover's career will go, but there are indications based on a solid follow-up performance that his first major championship win could be the first of many. MINI-TIDBITS - There are more financial woes on the horizon for the LPGA Tour. This week's 25th Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic may be the last and the organizers of the two-year-old Kapalua LPGA Classic have pulled out of their contract with financial problems. - No surprise that Tiger Woods topped the list of highest-earning American athletes with nearly $100 million earned last year. Phil Mickelson at No. 2 is a mild surprise, and Jim Furyk's name also made the top 50 at the No. 41 spot.
<< Shane Sellers returns tonight at Evangeline
Opelousas, LA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Retired jockey Shane Sellers begins his return to the races tonight (Thursday) at Evangeline Downs in Louisiana. Sellers has been away from racing for 4 1/2 years due to a serious knee injury.
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Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It's every NHL player's dream to win a Stanley Cup title, and Marian Hossa is certainly no exception. Over the past few years, Hossa's travels have taken him from Atlanta to Pittsburgh to Detroit, and desp
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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.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." 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. To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs. |
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