Yi downs Pressel in Jamie Farr playoff

Golf Betting Lines

07/05/2009 - Sylvania, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Eunjung Yi birdied the first playoff hole Sunday to defeat Morgan Pressel and win the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic.

Yi managed just an even-par 71 in the final round and Pressel caught her with a four-under 67. They ended at 18-under-par 266.

The duo headed back to the 18th hole at Highland Meadows Golf Club and both found the short grass off the tee. Both players laid up in the fairway, then Pressel knocked her approach to 25 feet on the fringe.

Yi dropped her third 14 feet below the hole. Pressel missed her birdie putt left and tapped in for par. Yi ran her 14-footer into the center of the cup for birdie and her first tour title.

"On 18, I was very nervous," admitted Yi, who earned $210,000 for the win.

The win also gets Yi into next week's U.S. Women's Open.

"I'm in! Good for me," Yi gushed when told she was in the Open.

Song-Hee Kim, who needed to birdie 18 to get into the playoff, three-putted for bogey at the last to drop into a share of third place at 16-under-par 268. Kim closed with a two-under 69 to end alongside Michelle Wie (64) and Seon-Hwa Lee (67). The 64 for Wie was a career-best round on the LPGA Tour.

Yi looked as though she was going to put away the tournament right from the start. She rolled in back-to-back birdie efforts from the second to move to 20-under, where she led by five strokes.

The Korean parred five in a row from the fourth before tripping to a bogey on the ninth. Suddenly, Yi's lead was just two after she parred the 10th.

Pressel, who was playing one group ahead of Yi, opened with seven straight pars. She then drained three consecutive birdie chances to jump to 17-under and within two of Yi.

However, Pressel fell four back with bogeys on 13 and 14. Her deficit was back to two after she made a seven-foot birdie putt on 16 and Yi tripped to a bogey on the same hole.

Pressel, who lost the 2005 U.S. Women's Open when Birdie Kim holed out for birdie from a bunker on the 72nd hole, nearly stole this title in equally as dramatic fashion.

The 21-year-old holed out for eagle on the par-five 17th to join Yi in the lead at minus-18. Pressel two-putted for par on the par-five closing hole, then waited to see what Yi would do.

"I still can't believe that shot went in on 17," Pressel admitted. "They were pretty pathetic bogeys. I just had this flare right going in the middle of my round there and I corrected it the last couple of holes and was able to hang in there."

Yi two-putted for par on the 17th to remain tied for the lead. She had a lengthy look at birdie on 18, but two-putted for par to force the playoff.

Kim, who was in the final group with Yi, missed a birdie putt from inside 15 feet, then missed the comebacker as well to end in a share of third instead of making it into the playoff.

Suzann Pettersen and Yani Tseng both closed with three-under 68s to share sixth at 15-under-par 269.

Women's world No. 1 Lorena Ochoa also closed with a 68 and was joined in eighth place at minus-14 by Lindsey Wright (65), Mikaela Parmlid (69) and Nicole Castrale (67).

InBee Park, who will defend her title at the U.S. Women's Open next week, ended in a tie for 25th at 10-under-par 274 after a final-round 69.

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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting

NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.


That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.

A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."

It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.

The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.

So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."

Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.

Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.

Seriously.

The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.

The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.

Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."

The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your Sportsbook accepts MasterCard needs.

Big 12 Conference betting odds

Work left to do: Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Kansas State

Texas joins Texas A&M and Kansas as locks after getting league win No. 11. Texas Tech greatly helped its own hopes and crippled OK State's with the two-point win Saturday. Is K-State the last reasonable hopeful? Could be an elimination match in Stillwater on Tuesday, at least for the Cowboys.

Work left to do:

Texas Tech [18-11 (7-7), RPI: 44, SOS: 12] A critical two-point win over OK State leaves the Red Raiders with Baylor and at Iowa State left. Get both and the Red Raiders likely are good to go. Get one and there could be some interesting comparisons with a K-State team that could finish two or three games "ahead" of them in the standings but doesn't have any of the quality wins Texas Tech has. Not a lot in nonconference play (against Arkansas in Little Rock being the best win, by far) to lean on.

Oklahoma State [18-9 (5-8), RPI: 50, SOS: 35] Still without a road win, the Cowboys now need to win two on the road just to get to .500 in conference play. It's hard to recall a team (OK, other than Clemson) falling so precipitously from lock status to almost certainly out of the NCAAs at this point. There are wins to be had in the last three, including a very big home game against K-State on Tuesday, but this team is reeling. Can you tell the pressure to win is getting to them with the way the final possession played out at Texas Tech? There are some good nonconference performances to lean on, specifically beating Missouri State and Syracuse on neutral floors and Pitt in OK City, but if the Pokes don't right this very, very soon, that won't be enough.

Kansas State [20-9 (9-5), RPI: 56, SOS: 96] It pays to be in the Big 12 North. The nine league wins are Colorado (twice), Missouri (twice), Iowa State (twice), Baylor, Nebraska and (a good one against) Texas. That helps explain the middling computer profile. The win over USC is nice, but the nonconference leaves a lot to be desired. The game at OK State in Stillwater on Tuesday is huge, as it could KO the Cowboys and leave K-State with a home date against Oklahoma with which to work.