PGA Tour suspends rule that led to Furyk DQ

Golf Betting Lines

08/31/2010 - Ponte Vedra Beach, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The PGA Tour has suspended the rule that led to Jim Furyk's disqualification from The Barclays last week.

Furyk was kept from the first playoffs event in New Jersey because he overslept Wednesday and missed his tee time for the tournament's pro-am.

The rule -- controversial and unpopular among players -- will be suspended for the remainder of the 2010 season.

If a player is late for his pro-am time, it "will be handled as a matter of unbecoming conduct," the tour said in a release.

"Such player will be required to participate in the remainder of the pro-am round and may be required to perform additional sponsor activity," the release said. "A player who misses his pro-am obligation in its entirety will still be ruled ineligible for the tournament unless he has been excused in accordance with the provisions of the regulations."

The rule that disqualified Furyk says that any player missing a pro-am time, except for injury or family emergency, is ineligible to play in that week's event.

Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has asked for a review of the current rules governing pro-ams with the aim of ensuring players honor their obligations without placing them at risk of disqualification.

The tour said the matter will be discussed at the policy board meeting in November.

Tour player Joe Ogilvie, who was on the policy board when the pro-am rule was created, said on his Twitter feed last week that the regulation was "a mistake."

Ogilvie said punishment for missing a pro-am should be a day spent with sponsors on the player's dime, not disqualification.

Sportsboook Golf Betting News

<< Bent joins Wolverhampton on loan
Wolverhampton, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Wolverhampton signed striker Marcus Bent from Birmingham on Tuesday on a four-month loan deal. Bent, 32, spent parts of last season on loan at Middlesbrough and Queens Park Rangers. Wolverhampton a

<< What's eating the slumping Cardinals?
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tony La Russa hasn't managed many poor teams during his tenure with the St. Louis Cardinals. In fact, the Cardinals have missed the playoffs only six times since La Russa took over the ballclub back in 1996, a pretty solid

<< Birmingham signs Beausejour, Hleb, Jiranek
Birmingham, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Birmingham signed three players on the final day of the transfer window on Tuesday, adding Jean Beausejour, Alexander Hleb and Martin Jiranek. Chile international Beausejour was acquired from Club Amer

<< Quail Hollow gets 2017 PGA Championship
Charlotte, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte has been awarded the 2017 PGA Championship. The course, featuring one of the toughest three-hole finishes in golf, has hosted a popular PGA Tour event since 2003. I

<< Jags place rookie D'Anthony Smith on IR
Jacksonville, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Jacksonville Jaguars placed rookie defensive tackle D'Anthony Smith on injured reserve Tuesday. Smith, a third-round pick out of Louisiana Tech, will miss the entire 2010 season because of an A

Stoke re-signs Diao to two-year deal >>
Stoke-on-Trent, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Stoke City re-signed midfielder Salif Diao on Tuesday, two months after the Senegal international's previous contract expired. Diao, 33, rejected Stoke's initial offer earlier this summer, bu

Canada loses to France at Worlds >>
Izmir, Turkey (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Nicolas Batum scored 24 points to power France to a 68-63 win over Canada at the 2010 FIBA World Championship. Batum, who plays for the Portland Trail Blazers, made 8-of-14 shots and grabbed seve

Bucs part ways with Derrick Ward >>
Tampa, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have released running back Derrick Ward, who spent just one unsuccessful season with the club after signing as a free agent in the spring of 2009. Ward had a breakout 2008 campaign w

Sunderland shells out record fee for Gyan >>
Sunderland, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sunderland signed Ghana striker Asamoah Gyan for a club-record transfer fee of nearly $20 million on Tuesday and gave him a four-year contract. Sunderland acquired the 24-year-old Gyan from French clu

Jankovic advances in New York >>
Flushing Meadows, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic was among Tuesday's opening-round winners at the 2010 U.S. Open. The fourth-seeded Jankovic went the distance to sneak past Romanian Simona Halep 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 at

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.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.