Byrd looking for repeat performance in Hawaii

Golf Betting Lines

01/06/2012 - Kapalua, Hawaii (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - When all the champions get together, it seems as though Jonathan Byrd shines the brightest.

Byrd, attempting to defend his title at the PGA Tour's season-opening Hyundai Tournament of Champions, began with a six-under 67 on Friday and sits alone atop the leaderboard.

His only victory of 2011 came in a playoff win over Robert Garrigus at Plantation Course at Kapalua, but Byrd is looking to make it two in a row after eight birdies and two bogeys. If he were to go on to victory, Byrd would have six PGA Tour wins in his career.

The season-opening event is four rounds like most other tournaments, except it will end Monday evening as opposed to the traditional Sunday finish. Invitations are extended only to those who won a tournament in the previous year, and, after Lucas Glover's withdrawal earlier in the day, 27 entrants teed off on Friday.

Byrd will have to keep up his hot play if he is to hold off a host of contenders, as four players share second at five-under 68. Among those is Webb Simpson, who is coming off a second-place performance in last year's FedEx Cup Playoffs.

The others include 11-time PGA Tour champ Steve Stricker, Michael Bradley and Martin Laird. PGA Champion Keegan Bradley is sixth at minus-four.

Byrd was in the final pairing with FedEx Cup champ Bill Haas, but while Haas struggled all afternoon, Byrd wasted no time.

After two opening pars, Byrd ran off six straight birdies, but it was the final three that were the most impressive.

He broke into red figures with a five-foot birdie putt at the third and followed with birdies at Nos. 4 and 5 from about the same length. The streak appeared over at the sixth, when his approach sat 28 feet away from the pin, but Byrd sank the putt to move to four-under.

Byrd, who made only 12 putts from over 25 feet in all of 2011, followed with a 26-footer at the seventh for birdie and a 29-footer for birdie at the eighth. At six-under, even the defending champion was a bit stunned.

"That's it?" Byrd said on television when informed of his 12 made putts from long distance in 2011. "It's something I practiced this offseason. I tried to improve on 10 to 25 feet after looking at the stats."

Unfortunately for Byrd, he was unable to maintain the momentum all the way through. He missed a nine-foot par putt at the ninth, and he found a greenside bunker at the par-three 11th en route to another bogey.

After dropping back to four-under, Byrd responded with an eight-foot birdie putt at the 12th. At the 16th, he made his fourth long putt of the round, draining a 29-footer for birdie to get back to six-under.

He had a chance to move two clear with a birdie at the last, but his 12-foot chance barely missed. Still, Byrd was optimistic about his play.

"I felt good out there," Byrd said on TV. "My misses were good. I only hit a few loose shots. For the most part, I'm really pleased. I gave myself a lot of opportunities and made a few putts."

K.J. Choi is in seventh at three-under 70, while D.A. Points and Bryce Molder share eighth at minus-two.

NOTES: In 2011, Brandt Jobe, Hunter Mahan, Cameron Tringale and Johnson Wagner tied for the most putts made of over 25 feet with 28. Wagner is the only one of the four in the field this week, and he shot a one-under 72...Byrd ranked 130th on that list with his 12 makes in 2011...Glover withdrew due to a knee injury suffered in a paddleboard accident earlier in the week...This is the fewest number of players in the field since the tournament moved to Kapalua in 1999.

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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."

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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