PGA Championship Third Round News & Notes

Golf Betting Lines

08/09/2008 - Bloomfield Hills Township, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - When the horn sounded on Thursday evening to end play for darkness, three players shared the lead.

Robert Karlsson, with three top-10s in this year's majors, and Jeev Milkha Singh of India were in the clubhouse at two-under-par 68. One player had yet to finish his round.

That was Andres Romero.

Unfortunately, the Argentine bogeyed No. 18 to fall out of the lead.

It got a lot worse for Romero in the second round.

He tallied a birdied, three bogeys, a double-bogey at 18 and a quadruple-bogey eight on the 16th. Romero shot an eight-over 78 and fell down to plus-seven for the championship, which was one shot within the cut line.

"I couldn't come back after that eight. I made a double bogey at the 18th because I was mad," Romero acknowledged through an interpreter on Saturday. "And then I was almost fighting for the lead in the tournament and suddenly I was trying to make the cut, so I was going mad the whole round the rest of the round."

Romero atoned for the hideous second round with a five-under 65 on Saturday. That is the lowest score of the championship and got Romero back into the mix at plus-two, just three off the lead.

"I played an excellent round. Almost perfect," Romero said through his interpreter. "I can't believe it, I have a chance for tomorrow and, well, I have to wait, but it's great to be here."

Romero burst on to the golf scene with an amazing run Sunday at the 2007 British Open Championship. He held the lead, but closed with a double-bogey, then a bogey at 18 to finish one shot outside the playoff between eventual champion Padraig Harrington and Sergio Garcia.

Romero parlayed his good run at the Open Championship into a victory the following week in Germany. He won the Deutsche Bank Players Championship on the European Tour by three, then posted a top 10 the very next week at the WGC-Bridgestone Invitational.

"I learned a lot after that week," said Romero, referring to the 2007 British Open. "That helped me a lot not to, I don't know, not to go down after that loss. It was a very good experience after The Open."

SO WHO'S READY FOR 36?

When people debate whether golfers are athletes, focus on Sunday's final round. At least six players will play 36 holes on what could be a truly soggy track.

Factor in this is for a major championship and Sunday sets up as a long day.

"It's going to be like college again, playing 36 in one day," said the second- round leader, J.B. Holmes. "It happens, and everybody else is going to do it, too, so just have to go out there and deal with it."

Not everyone is going to be doing it.

Romero is three off the lead and can wait until the final round before he goes out for the first time Sunday. Romero's tee time could be in the 2:00 p.m. (et) neighborhood as opposed to the 7:40 a.m. time Holmes and Charlie Wi have Sunday morning.

"Obviously the guys that finished today that played well will have a nice relaxing morning while we're out there grinding," said 2003 British Open champion Ben Curtis, who is one off the lead heading into Sunday morning. "It's going to be tough for us, but it can be done."

Curtis feels that playing 36 in one day could actually be an advantage. If someone has a sensational third round Sunday morning, that can be carried over to the final round.

Essentially, you could have one big day and win the PGA Championship.

"I'm a believer in big momentum in one day, not necessarily for three or four days at a time," said Curtis.

* Prior to Mickelson's win in 2005, the last Monday finish was Bob Tway's victory in 1986 at Inverness. The only other in the stroke-play era of the PGA Championship was Dave Stockton's 1976 win at Congressional.

* Romero's 65 in Saturday's third round matched the course record at Oakland Hills. He is the ninth player to shoot 65 at this venue and first since Tom Lehman in the third round of the 1996 U.S. Open.

* Sunday's forecast calls for some rain.

* The winner of the last 12 PGA Championships has come from the final group in the final round. Steve Elkington was tied for fifth heading into the final round in 1995 and was the last player to win without being in the final group in round four.

* All three major winners this year have come from the final pairing on Sunday.

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Betting the NFL preseason

Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."

When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules. 

The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.

The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.

“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”

The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.

“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”

The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.

“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”

Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.

“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."

So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?

“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.

Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.

Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.

Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.

“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.

Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.

The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.

“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.

Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.

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