Bookmaker Feeling So Guilty About Open Winnings It Is Refunding Adam Win Bets

See, out of the tragedy of Adam Scott's crushing loss comes a story of hope and punters dreams come true.

For Immediate Release...dateline Costa Rica!

Adam Scott’s Meltdown No Big Loss for Bettors: Sportsbook Refunds Those Who Picked Aussie to Win British Open

Major upset after blowing a lead won’t affect sports bettors who bet on Adam Scott to win at online sportsbook

San Jose, Costa Rica– July 23, 2012 – For Australian pro golfer Adam Scott, losing the Open Championship after leading by four strokes with just four holes to play will forever sting. But for those who put their money on him at this online sportsbook, the financial loss won’t be as painful.

SportsBettingOnline today announced that management is refunding all players who lost money betting on Adam Scott.

"With so many of the favorites including Woods not cashing, it was a good day for sportsbooks. But that wasn’t the case for those who dropped money on Scott,” stated Dave Johnson, head oddsmaker for SportsBettingOnline.ag.  “We feel it’s our duty to refund the players for taking such a bad beat. His collapse was historic and we know the bettors who had him must feel as awful as he does.”

Adam Scott virtually imploded on the green, bogeying the last four holes. He ultimately lost by one shot to Ernie Els. Odds on Scott taking the Open were listed at 45/1 at the sportsbook. That means every $100 bet would have paid $4500 had the Australian taken the title.

This is the second time in just over two months that this company has refunded sports bettors. Last month, the online sportsbook refunded everyone who lost money on the Pacquaio-Bradley boxing match after the controversial results handed Bradley the win.

Paying members cash for losing bets is fairly commonplace at SportsBettingOnline.ag. Members receive 10% cash back, every week, win or lose.

Alliss: "The R&A should not be risking their reputation over a bag of chips."

From a Daily Mirror item not posted online but told to me by my taxi driver today:

Peter Alliss has rebuked the R&A over the cost of food and drink on course--branding £7.80 for fish and chips "disgraceful." The BBC expert said: "The R&A should not be risking their reputation over a bag of chips."

For BBC viewers or even ESPN watchers, The Guardian's Martin Kelner reviews the weekend telecast and focuses on Alliss. 

I love his low growl, and his unselfconscious use of expressions like "cor lummy, chum" to punctuate a missed putt, the kind of expletive found in pre-war children's books, invariably followed by the words "he ejaculated" and a sketch of some chap with his monocle falling out. But I love Alliss most of all because he is not Dan Walker.

Dawson Clarifies Where Anchoring Discussions Stand

Doug Ferguson reports on Peter Dawson, R&A Chief Executive, speaking at today's post-Open press conference.

Dawson's comments in their entirety:

The situation is that the R&A and the USGA are ‑‑ do have this subject firmly back on the radar.  We appreciate that there is much speculation about this and that we need to clarify the position as soon as possible.  And I think you're going to see us saying something about it one way or the other in a few months rather than years.

There are still further meetings to be had, so we're just going to have to be patient I'm afraid and wait and see the outcome.  But as you know, it is under active discussion.

Q.  Could you share at least who's involved in these meetings?

PETER DAWSON:  Well, the initial determination has been that we are examining the subject from a method of stroke standpoint rather than length of putter standpoint, and that takes it into the area of the rules of play, the rules of golf, rather than the rules of equipment.  And therefore it's the rules of golf committees of the R&A and the USGA who are looking at this in detail, and then they have to make their recommendations to the boards of each organisation.

And later on...

Q.  Some would say if Adam Scott won, it would have been the lesser of the two evils, using that broom handle putter.  Is it fair to say it is anchoring more than anything, and if action is going to be taken it would be more against belly than broom handle?

PETER DAWSON:  No, anchoring is what we're looking at, method of stroke, and it's all about putting around a fixed pivot point, whether that fixed pivot point is in your belly or under your chin or on your chest.  I don't distinguish between the two.  It's a matter of stroke issue.

Golf World Monday On Lytham

My Golf World Monday item reviewing the week at Royal Lytham and St. Annes.

No matter how you felt about the course (very good) or the setup (dismal), there is no question the greenkeeping staff worked miracles to make the course as playable and good as it was considering the lovely England summer.

Just a note about the setup. This is a wonderful course which needs more width to be interesting. Moving a few tees around to compensate for the lack of wind would have helped too, and maybe not tucking every hole location or sticking them on strange spots would have been nice too. I just hope they start widening it out and turning some sheep loose on the roughs, because I can't imagine an average golfer 10 handicapper breaking 100 at Lytham as it was setup this year.

Update on 2012-07-24 19:11 by Geoff

**I see Alan Shipnuck agreed with me in his SI Confidential assessment.

Shipnuck: It was boring, defensive golf, but that's not Lytham's fault, it's the R&A's. Equipment has rendered these old links, with their fast fairways, totally obsolete. Just like the USGA's failures turned Olympic into a boring slog. Augusta National and Bethpage and Oakmont are probably the only major venues where driver must be hit, and it's the club that demands the most skill and helps identify the best player. To have guys hitting 6-irons off the tee is an incomplete examination.

And...

Shipnuck: To protect Lytham, the R&A resorted to a bunch of hokey pin placements, and that ridiculous, unplayable rough, which negates shotmaking. Links courses are supposed to be wide-open canvases that encourage shotmaking and different angles of attack, not tight, penal, claustrophobic courses that force every competitor to play from the same spot.

And...

Shipnuck: Just to hammer the point home, the speed of the fairways made Lytham play about 6,400 yards, maybe less. To actually force the modern golfer to have a few proper three-shot par-5s and hit mid- to long-irons into a handful of par-4s, a course needs to be 8,500 yards, maybe longer. I'm completely serious. The USGA and R&A have failed the game, and it is becoming increasingly obvious as one major championship venue after another forces a bastardized kind of pitch-and-putt golf.

"Els barrelled through the field like a freight train"

Oliver Brown on Ernie Els' stunning comeback both Sunday and from career struggles to win the 2012 Open Championship at Lytham and St. Annes, with a nice recap of everything Els has done to stay relevant.

Els barrelled through the field like a freight train, scattering his rivals by virtue of his brilliance under pressure and of his own superior aesthetics. Could it really have been a decade since he last hoisted the Claret Jug at Troon? It rarely seemed like it as the 42 year-old carved out a serene path to victory, exhibiting the type of sedated state associated more with the seaside donkeys that ply this section of Blackpool coast.

But no one expected this. Not even his most fervent disciples could have dared argue that he had still had it within him to win an Open from five shots back on Sunday, but perhaps they should have consulted the man himself. Els had forecast before this tournament began that “something special” could happen, and he elicited nothing more than gentle amusement among commentators.

His post round interview with ESPN's Tom Rinaldi:

"There are debates to be had about the most profound breakdowns in major championship golf and where this one ranks. Right up there with the worst of them is the general view."

Tom English on Adam Scott's collapse that he says ranks up there with the all time worst.

Maybe it's too soon, but I am having trouble with that assessment considering how much disaster loomed at Lytham and how close Scott was to winning. There was the bogey on 16 though.

His body language was still of a man in control, as his tee-shot on 16 illustrated. He ripped it down the middle and then played up on to the green. His birdie putt finished four feet away from the hole, then he missed the next one for par. Only then could you feel the tension in the air around him.

“The putt on 16,” said McDowell. “It was huge for him to miss that. I said to him when he hit his first putt, ‘good putt’. And he didn’t respond. He’d left himself a bit of a knee-knocker. That putt horseshoed on him and it was the start of a series of events that he’ll think a lot about tonight.”

“If I make the putt on 15 or 16,” said Scott, “it’s a very different position and a lot more comfortable. It’s a hard hole, 15, but a poor putt there. And then I let one slip at 16. We got to the 16th tee and we’d said (himself and Williams) that it’s six good swings from there to finish out a round. And that’s what I was 
trying to do.”

Again, a little strong in my view...James Lawton in the Independent:

It consumed Scott, it left him so hollowed out that on the final hole he simply kneeled and shook his head.

His denouement was one of the most shocking in the history of major tournament golf.

And pure class after, courtesy of ESPN:

ESPN Draws Its Best Open Saturday Rating Yet

From ESPN:

ESPN’s live telecast of The Open Championship from 9 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, July 21, earned the network’s highest metered market (overnight) rating since it started televising all four days of the championship in 2010.
 
The 3.0 rating was up 58 percent from the 1.9 rating ESPN earned for the same timeslot for last year’s Open Championship. ESPN’s early-morning (7-9 a.m.) coverage on Saturday earned a 1.2 overnight rating, up 9 percent from last year’s 1.1.

Video: 2012 Open Championship Highlights: Els!

From ESPN, up on YouTube quickly.

2012 Open Championship, Your Kneejerk Reactions

I walked with Tiger today and will be filing a story for Golf World, but obviously there was plenty to talk about: Ernie, Adam, Tiger, Lytham, flat-floored bunkers and the coverage.

Swing away!

2012 Open Final Round Comment Thread

The predicted breezes are here, whether they turn into the forecasts gusts of wind remains to be seen. Royal Lytham and St. Annes is drying out though some players finishing early have suggested the greens were slightly slower Sunday. Either way, the champion of the golfer of the year will be crowned and with such an attractive leaderboard we should have a splendid day.

The R&A's course notes:

Weather (provided on-site by the Met Office)
The southwesterly breeze has reached 13mph gusting 20mph so far this morning. It will continue to freshen this afternoon to 15 to 20mph with gusts 25 to 30mph. There remains a possibility of gusts of 35mph between 1500 and the close of play. Otherwise it will remain fine and dry today with further sunshine although cloud amounts will increase later.

Cutting Regime and Green Speeds
In view of the predicted wind speeds later today, the greens were single cut at 3.25mm. They were not rolled. The average pace this morning was 10.9 on the stimpmeter, compared to 11½  feet yesterday.

Bunkers
More of the bunkers with casual water have dried out. However, despite pumping last night and again this morning, there is still casual water in the bunker left of 15^th green, the two left of 16^th green and left of 17^th fairway.

Total Course Yardage for Round Four (tee marker settings to flagstick)
7024 yards (as compared to the full yardage of 7086)

Hole-by-Hole Information
Hole 1 – Full yardage = 205y – Today = 214
Hole 2 – Full yardage = 481y – Today = 489
Hole 3 – Full yardage = 478y – Today = 479
Hole 4 – Full yardage = 392y – Today = 392
Hole 5 – Full yardage = 219y – Today = 223
Hole 6 – Full yardage = 492y – Today = 490
Hole 7 – Full yardage = 592y – Today = 599
Back right gathering hole location

Hole 8 – Full yardage = 416y – Today = 421
Back left hole location beyond the large left hand greenside bunker

Hole 9 – Full yardage = 165y – Today = 163
Hole 10 – Full yardage = 387y – Today = 387
Hole 11 – Full yardage = 598y – Today = 605
Hole 12 – Full yardage = 198y – Today = 198
Hole 13 – Full yardage = 355y – Today = 361
Hole 14 – Full yardage = 444y – Today = 448
Hole 15 – Full yardage = 462y – Today = 465
Hole 16 – Full yardage = 336y – Today = 324
Front left hole location which will increase the possibility of eagle for those going for the green with the tee shot

Hole 17 – Full yardage = 453y – Today = 449
Hole 18 – Full yardage = 413y – Today = 417
Hole in same location as when Seve Ballesteros won in 1988

Tiger: "He sticks almost slavishly to his strategy of conservatism at all costs"

John Huggan analyzes Tiger's conservative strategy of just five drivers through three rounds and comes away impressed but also points out why it might not work with Sunday's breeze.

And this week is similar. So far, the longest club in his bag has made only five appearances, as the 14-time major champion has plotted his way around a sadly soft and almost becalmed Royal Lytham.

James Lawton in the Independent was less impressed.

It was not the scoring, which saw Scott denied an eagle by the barest margin and the Tiger always giving himself too much to do to glean a birdie, but the profound difference in their strategies.

Really, it was a gulf. Scott slugged a drive with immense power and control. The Tiger once more elected to go with an iron. Scott powered his second shot beyond the pin. Woods was well short of the green. Even after the years of crisis, the convulsions in his life and the disruptions brought by injury, it did seem like another small defeat among many.

Oliver Brown's Telegraph story was headlined, "Tiger Woods' refusal to gamble leaves him struggling to reel in leader Adam Scott."

He sticks almost slavishly to his strategy of conservatism at all costs, refusing to swap his long irons for the driver as he resisted flirtation with Lytham’s 206 bunkers, but the approach succeeded only in increasing the deficit to Scott, the more enterprising Australian.

Why did he not take a few gambles? Why would he not try to intimidate Scott with his power-hitting? The questions were left hanging in the air on Saturday night, answerable only by Woods’s apparent assumption that Scott, still a flaky performer in the type of stiff winds forecast on Sunday, could yet falter. For a man five shots off the pace, though, that seems a bold supposition.