\nEben Novy-Williams, Bloomberg \u00b7 February 6, 2015 at 12:00 am
\n\tBookmark and Share
\n\tThe most-supported golfer in both the number of bets laid and the total value of wagers, Woods\u2019s failure to win a U.S. PGA Tour title since August 2013 and a career-worst round of 82 last week have turned a large profit for sports books.<\/p>\n
\tWith odds that bookmakers say would be as much as three times longer if not for Woods\u2019s name and prior success, public support shows no signs of fading, even as the 14-time major champion\u2019s play has gone from bad to worse.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI wish there were five more of him out there,\u201d said Jeff Sherman, assistant manager at the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook.<\/p>\n
\tWoods, 39, shot his worst round as a professional Jan. 30 to miss the cut at the Phoenix Open by 13 strokes. He withdrew yesterday after 12 holes at Torrey Pines, where he\u2019s won eight times. Woods blamed his latest back problems on a fog delay that postponed the start of his round by more than two hours.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt just never loosened back up again, and when we went back out it just got progressively tighter,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cIt\u2019s frustrating that it started shutting down like that. I was ready to go. I had a good warmup session the first time around. Then we stood out here and I got cold.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe SuperBook opened Woods\u2019s title odds this week at 50-1, which was quickly bet down to 40-1. Sherman said Woods attracted five times more support than the next closest competitor.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cHe\u2019s still a betting favorite no matter what odds are posted \u2014 whether it\u2019s 50-1 or 2-1,\u201d Jimmy Vaccaro, sports book manager at Las Vegas\u2019 South Point Casino, said in a telephone interview. \u201cEven though he can\u2019t hit it two feet anymore, for the time being anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBet Down<\/p>\n
\tAt Sportsbook.ag, Woods opened at 45-1, his longest ever odds at the website. Matt James, a spokesman for the book, said he was priced shorter than his true odds in anticipation of overwhelming support.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cSure enough, within the first 12 hours we attracted enough action to make him a large loser in our book,\u201d James said in an e-mail. \u201cWe immediately cut his odds to 30-1.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tBefore Woods joined the PGA Tour in 1996, the favorite at a major tournament would often have odds of about 12-1. At the height of Woods\u2019s dominance, he would sometimes tee off at 2-1.<\/p>\n
\tAction was so heavy on Woods \u2014 who won 11 major tournaments from 1999-2006 and held the world No. 1 ranking for more than 85 percent of those weeks \u2014 that sports books developed lucrative-looking \u201cTiger vs. the field\u201d proposition bets to try and even out the money.<\/p>\n
\tWoods arrived at Torrey Pines having missed consecutive cuts for the first time as a professional. He hasn\u2019t won a major since the 2008 U.S. Open, 17 months before he crashed his SUV during an argument with wife, an incident that led to his admission of extra-marital affairs, divorce and a stint in rehab.<\/p>\n
\tMcIlroy\u2019s Odds<\/p>\n
\tSherman said that if any other golfer was playing at Woods\u2019s current level, he\u2019d have been at 150-1 this week. If world No. 1 Rory McIlroy was Woods, Sherman said, he\u2019d be 5-2 to win the Masters Tournament in April, rather than the 9-2 odds the Northern Irishman currently has to capture the only major that has eluded him.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThat name just attracts the money,\u201d Sherman said of Woods.<\/p>\n
\tVaccaro and Sherman compared Woods to the Chicago Cubs. Bettors religiously wager on the Major League Baseball team\u2019s title odds, even though the Cubs haven\u2019t won a playoff game in 11 seasons and last won a World Series in 1908.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cPeople would bet the Cubs all the time, no matter what,\u201d Vaccaro said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been chasing that for over 100 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe same will apply to Woods \u201cfor a long time,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThey grab onto these icons and they go down with the ship to some degree,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
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Eben Novy-Williams, Bloomberg \u00b7 February 6, 2015 at 12:00 am Bookmark and Share The most-supported golfer in both the number of bets laid and the total value of wagers, Woods\u2019s failure to win a U.S. PGA Tour title since August…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}