Bradley, Steele lead Franklin Templeton Shootout

Golf Betting Lines

12/10/2011 - Naples, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - PGA Champion Keegan Bradley and Brendan Steele teamed for a 10-under 62 on Saturday to take the second-round lead of the Franklin Templeton Shootout.

Bradley and Steele, first-round co-leaders, finished at 19-under 125 and are shot clear at the Gold Course at Tiburon Golf Club.

Bradley and Steele shared Friday's lead with the Champions Tour pair of Mark Calcavecchia and Nick Price. Those two teams will be in Sunday's final group again. Calcavecchia and Price overcame a bad start with a nine-under 63 and are second at minus-18.

Bradley and Steele, both rookies, combined for three wins on the PGA Tour this year. Bradley's biggest victory came at the PGA Championship, where Steele was the third-round leader.

Calcavecchia and Price both won on the Champions Tour this season. They've combined for two British Open titles and had fun playing with their much younger peers on Saturday.

"It's enjoyable playing with those two kids," Calcavecchia said in a televised interview. "I've always enjoyed coming to play. This is fun. We're in the last group tomorrow."

Rory Sabbatini and Jhonattan Vegas fired Saturday's lowest round, a 12-under 60, and are third at minus-17.

Saturday's format was better ball. Sunday's scramble is a format that always yields low scores.

"We'll have Steeley (Steele) hit his drive down the middle and I'll swing as hard as I can," Bradley said on TV.

Bradley and Steele caught fire right before the turn with three straight birdies from the eighth. Bradley birdied 13 and 14 to get the team to 17-under par.

Steele made a nice par save at the 15th, then Bradley drained an eight-footer for birdie at 16. Steele two-putted the par-five 17th for his side's final birdie.

"It was a lot of fun," Bradley said.

Jerry Kelly and Steve Stricker paired for a seven-under 65 and are tied for fifth with Kenny Perry and Scott Stallings (62) at 15-under 129.

Charles Howell III and Justin Leonard (62), Anthony Kim and Webb Simpson (63) and Sean O'Hair and Jason Dufner (64) are tied for seventh at 14-under par.

Tournament host Greg Norman and his partner Scott McCarron shot a 10-under 62 and share 10th with Chad Campbell and Chris DiMarco, who managed a nine-under 63. The two teams came in at minus-13.

Stewart Cink and Bo Van Pelt carded a 10-under 62 and are last at 12-under par.

NOTES: Ian Poulter and Dustin Johnson won last year, but neither are in the field this week...Stricker and Kelly captured the title in 2009.

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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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