If you think choosing one survivor out of 65 teams in this year's NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament was challenging, try experiencing what golf bettors endure on a weekly basis when they attempt to find a winner at this month's US Open. Now that's difficult. But the rewards are so great - far better than in any other sport - that many bettors feel it's worth the risk.
Of course,
The Greek Sportsbook accepts wagers on all significant golf events.
Truth be told, cashing a future book ticket on this year's college hoop tournament, like holding a winning ducat on other team sports such as the NBA, NHL, NFL and Major League Baseball, was a piece of Entenmann's compared to diagnosing the winner of an individual golf tournament.
For starters, when UConn cut down the nets in the Alamodome, April 5, it was after beating just six opponents. The remaining 58 contenders were eliminated by other schools. And you have to beat just four of your 15 rivals to win an NBA or NHL title and just three of 11 foes to hoist the Super Bowl hardware. Win three series and let other teams oust the remaining four post-season teams and you're a World Series champion.
Even other individual sports such as tennis don't challenge the bettor the way that golf does. The field at Wimbledon and the US Open consists of 128 players. To win, a player must beat seven foes. The remaining 120 opponents are sent packing by someone else.
But to win a golf tournament, your selection has to beat every player in the field, all 125-150 of them.
Even for Tiger Woods, the best player in the world, that's not always a stroll down the fairway. Woods won five of 18 starts last year, which means, on average, that Tiger wins about once in every three-and-a-half outings. That type of success rate - remarkable in a sport where even the top players can go years between victories - would mean you were awful in just about any other sports competition.
Through April, Woods had played in eight tournaments this year. He failed to win the Mercedes Championship at odds of 5/2 in January when Stuart Appleby scored at 33/1. And he was beaten in the Buick Invitational, Feb. 12-15, also at odds of 5/2, when John Daly won for the first time in nine years, registering a tremendous upset at odds of 150/1.
Oddsmakers pumped up the price on Woods to 3/1 for the following week's Nissan Open but Woods could do no better than a tie for seventh, behind 14/1 winner Mike Weir.
Strangely, in the Accenture Match Play Championship, where Woods had to defeat just six opponents in a 64-man competition, not the entire field, Woods was sent off at generous odds of 9/2. Did you bet? Well, You should have because he beat Davis Love in the final.
Woods then shipped off to the United Arab Emirates where he competed in the Dubai Desert Classic as the 5/2 favorite. However, it was his close friend, Mark O'Meara, winless since the 1998 British open and ranked an embarrassing 201st in the world, who won it all, at odds of 200/1.
Woods also failed as the 3/1 favorite to win the Bay Hill Invitational, lost as the 4/1 choice in The Players Championship and disappointed as the 4/1 favorite in the Masters.
If it's difficult to make a buck betting on Woods - given his frequency of victory rate you need at least 8/1 to enjoy a small edge - then how about longshots?
Well, they're certainly out there and while the risk is great, so is the reward. Besides O'Meara, Daly and Appleby, Jonathan Kaye won the FBR Open, Jan. 29-Feb. 1, at odds of 50/1 and Heath Slocum had the best score at the Chrysler Classic, Feb. 26-29, getting his first PGA Tour victory at odds of 80/1.
Craig Parry, a 100/1 shot, holed out from the fairway for an eagle 2 that beat Scott Verplank in the first sudden death playoff hole at the Ford Championship, Mar. 4-7. A week later, Todd Hamilton, who had toiled in Asia for more than a decade, won his first PGA Tour event, taking the Mar. 11-14 Honda Classic at odds of 100/1. Chad Campbell, 33/1; Adam Scott, 33/1; Zach Johnson, 66/1 and Stewart Cink, 25/1, also claimed victories on the PGA Tour this year.
Last season's longshot winners included two on the biggest stages, the British Open and PGA Championship, where Ben Curtis and Shaun Micheel notched respective triumphs at odds of 500/1 each.
Other big winners from 2003 include Ben Crane at 150/1 in the Players Championship; Rory Sabbatini at 80/1 in the Kemper Open; Peter Jacobsen at 150/1 in the Greater Hartford Open; and Tommy Armour III at 250/1 in the Texas Open. All told, 28 weekly winners paid off at odds of 20/1 or higher last year, 18 of them at 40/1 or better.
But how do you find these longshots? For each Slocum, Hamilton, Armour, Curtis and Micheel there are dozens of other longshots at equal or even greater odds who don't make the cut. Which one, if any of them, will win and on which particular weekend will that breakthrough occur?
Answering that question is among the most difficult but rewarding in all of sports handicapping.
