US Masters Golf

[Donny]

Aussies doing well.

Equal leaders (with 3 others), after 2 rounds: Jason Day and Adam Scott, on 7 under.

Day 70 & 67.

Scott 69 & 68.

Leishman (72 & 72) and Smith (70 & 74) are on even par.

Woods is a stroke behind the leaders. He hit 70 & 68.

Garcia & Rose missed the cut.

[Donny]

Scott hit a third round 72 to remain 7 under but 4 strokes from the lead.

Day shot a 1 over 73 to be on 6 under.

Smith is 3 under and Leishman, -2.

Francesco Molinari leads by 2 strokes from Woods.

[K]

Tiger Woods breaks drought to win Masters at Augusta

"Tiger Woods completed one of sport's great all-time comebacks to end an 11-year major title drought at the Masters on Sunday by claiming a fifth Green Jacket."

[K]

"Tiger Woods’ remarkable Masters victory has seen three different betting agencies pay out over $1 million to punters.

William Hill, FanDuel and DraftKings are each reporting losses over the $1 million mark after Tiger shocked the sporting world at Augusta.

Tiger was a despised outsider among betting agencies heading into the Masters, sitting at 14-1 with most sportsbooks.

But punters parted with their cash in record numbers over the juicy odds, with one whacking a whopping US$85,000 on Tiger ($118,500 AU).
...

“It’s rare that someone bets that much on something like that,” said the company’s sportsbook director Nick Bogdanovich.

“It’s great to see Tiger back. It’s a painful day for William Hill — our biggest golf loss ever — but a great day for golf."

(AAP)

[K]

This, of course, is at odds with the common claim that bookies hate it when the favourites win. Surely it must depend on the pattern of betting for that event, right?

L.V. Williams (whose website tells us he is Director of the Betting Research Unit and Director of the Political Forecasting Unit at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University) hedges much more:

"So who is behaving irrationally? Is it the bookmakers or those who bet with them? And does the same apply on the betting exchanges? Anyway, do bookmakers actually lose when hot favourites win? Sometimes, but not always. The bottom line, though, is that bookmakers will on average do better when longshots win. But why? Of course, there will be fewer winners, but why is this not fully offset by the larger payouts? There are answers to this puzzle, based in the main around attitudes to risk and information misperceptions, but still no single definitive answer. That may well be because there actually is no definitive answer, but a range of them. The puzzle remains, therefore, but we are closer than ever to solving it."

[K]

"It is natural to splutter for superlatives, to strive to place Woods’s fifth Masters title into instant historical perspective. Perhaps one statistic does all the talking: Woods won 14 major championships, four of them Masters green jackets, from 1997 to 2008. The last Masters was in 2005. He had a decade of everything, and then a decade of nothing. You couldn’t make it up."

https://www.theage.com.au/sport/golf/great-tiger-of-old-stalks-the-fairways-at-augusta-again-20190415-p51efw.html

[What'sinaname]

I was there at the 16th when Woods birdied to go 14 under and win the Masters. Amazing scenes, after an eventful 15th hole which put him in the lead.

Masters is the last purely analogue sporting event in the world. No screens, no radio, no phones. You only know whats going on by watching a old manual scoreboard.

[Jezza]

Is it the greatest sporting comeback?

Remarkable effort by Tiger to win the Masters after the years of turmoil he's endured.

[What'sinaname]

the turmoil is overrated......

what happened was

1. he banged some skank....well we're all guilt of that!
2. He got old....hello!!!!
3. His back went.....well hello again....welcome to old age!!!!

So really all he did was what other golfers have done before him....learn to deal with getting older.

Once he stop tried swinging a club like a 20 year old, he started to contend!!! If that's remarkable, then I can point to a lot of golfers who have done the same: Nicklaus, Langer, Floyd, Player etc etc

[K]

He was also caught DUI.

And before all that, he had a very clean image, so the fall was greater.