This Week in Golf - February 11th through February 14th

Golf Betting Lines

02/08/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - PGA TOUR - AT&T PEBBLE BEACH NATIONAL PRO- AM, Pebble Beach Golf Links, Monterey Peninsula Country Club Shore Course, Spyglass Hill Golf Course, Pebble Beach, California - It's one of most popular events on the schedule at one of the most storied places.

Pebble Beach, with all of the celebrities and amateurs, hosts this week's PGA Tour stop. That venue will play host to the final round after three days on three courses. The Monetery Course was added back into the mix for 2010, replacing Poppy Hills Golf Course.

Bill Murray headlines the celebrity group as always. From there, it's a host of quarterbacks and television personalities with insanely long rounds mixed in.

Last year, Dustin Johnson, who was a factor at Riviera last week, was declared the winner some 40 hours after he hit his last shot. Due to rain and wind that was strong enough to topple a 40-foot tree, play was called on Sunday. When they went out for the Monday finish, streams replaced fairways and ponds formed on greens.

For Johnson, it was his second PGA Tour victory and he became the youngest player to win the title.

This could be considered the test run for a bigger event at Pebble Beach later in 2010. The U.S. Open returns to the storied course in June with Lucas Glover the defending champion.

Maybe it'll be there when Tiger Woods comes back. In 2000, when Pebble Beach last hosted the U.S. Open, Woods won by about 45 strokes in what some consider his most impressive victory.

The Golf Channel has the action on Thursday and Friday and CBS takes over on Saturday and Sunday.

Next week there will be two events on the PGA Tour.

First is the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, won last year by Geoff Ogilvy. Some thought this would be where Tiger returned, but his caddy Stevie shot that down.

For those not lucky enough to be in the top 64 (technically 66 because of the absence of both Woods and Phil Mickelson), there's the Mayakoba Golf Classic, which was won last year by Mark Wilson.

EUROPEAN TOUR

AVANTHA MASTERS, DLF Golf and Country Club, New Delhi, India - European Tour golf heads to the second-most populated country.

Tri-sanctioned between the European Tour, Asian Tour and Professional Golf Tour of India, the Avantha Masters boasts a decent field. Darren Clarke and David Howell are on hand and the field is filled with Indian players.

Jeev Milkha Singh, Jyoti Randhawa and Shiv Kapur are the outstanding Indian players in the field.

The Golf Channel has the tape-delayed action.

DLF Golf and Country Club hosted the 2008 Johnnie Walker Classic, which was won by Mark Brown of New Zealand.

CHAMPIONS TOUR

THE ACE GROUP CLASSIC - The Quarry, Naples, Florida - After a long absence and two events in Hawaii, the Champions Tour returns and is in the continental United States.

Tom Watson and Jack Nicklaus teamed to win the Champions Skins Game and Watson trumped Champions Tour rookie Fred Couples to win the Mitsubishi Electric Championship.

Last year, Loren Roberts made a three-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole Sunday to beat Gene Jones by a stroke.

Couples is in the field this week, but the bigger name for a week anyway is Paul Azinger. The former U.S. Ryder Cup captain is debuting on the Champions Tour this week.

The Golf Channel will air all of the action.

Next week is the Allianz Championship, which Mike Goodes won in 2009.

Vbssports Golf Betting News

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<< Clippers' Kaman to replace injured Roy in All-Star Game
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Los Angeles Clippers center Chris Kaman was named the replacement for injured Portland Trail Blazers guard Brandon Roy Monday for the NBA All-Star Game to be held February 14 in Dallas. Kaman, a sevent

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Paris, France (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Eighth-seeded Elena Vesnina and Hungarian Agnes Szavay were Monday's first-round winners at the $700,000 Open GDF Suez tennis tournament. The Russian Vesnina vaulted past Romanian Alexandra Dulgheru 6

<< Stricker up to second in world rankings
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Steve Stricker's victory on Sunday at the Northern Trust Open moved the American to second in this week's world rankings. Tiger Woods remained in first, followed by Stricker, who was third last

<< Gainey stepping down as Canadiens GM
Montreal, QC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey will reportedly step down from his post, as the team has scheduled a press conference for 4 p.m. (et). According to a report by TSN Canada, assistant general

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Gainey steps down as Canadiens GM, Gauthier takes over >>
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Yankees add Thames to outfield mix >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The New York Yankees have reportedly added Marcus Thames with a one-year contract worth $900,000 if he makes the team. SI.com and the New York Post reported the signing. Thames is expected to compete

Rachel Alexandra staying loose in Big Easy >>
New Orleans, LA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Less than 12 hours after the New Orleans Saints captured Super Bowl XLIV, the other champion residing in the Big Easy took to the track for a jog. Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra took a jog aroun

Blue Bombers sign RB Marc >>
Winnipeg, MB (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Winnipeg Blue Bombers announced Monday that they have agreed to terms with running back Emmanuel Marc. Marc participated in Winnipeg's training camp in 2009 and graduated from Delaware State in

Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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