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THE PRESIDENTS CUP UNDERWAY DOWN UNDER
Professional golfing fans worldwide eagerly await the famous Ryder Cup Competition which pits the best golfers from the European circuit against the top pros from the United States of America every two years.
A lesser known, but very similar, event takes also place biennially, this time featuring the best of the American golfers on the PGA tour against the whole rest of the world, excluding Europe. It’s called the Presidents Cup and has only been around since 1994; and has so far been dominated by the teams from the USA.
For 2019 the big event is taking place down under at the Royal Melbourne Golf Club in Melbourne, Australia. Unlike normal golf matches where the guy with the lowest score wins, both the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup tournaments use a format known as ‘match play’, which even some seasoned golf fans still have difficulty grasping.
Match play uses a format known as ‘Foresome’ aka alternate shot golf. Each hole is played by two teams of two players each, but only two balls. The players take turns shooting until the ball is sunk, and team members also take turn teeing off on alternate holes. Each hole scores a winner and a loser.
In Presidents Cup competition the ‘Foresome’ format is alternated with the ‘Fourball’ format, which once again consists of two teams of two on each hole, but this time each player plays his own ball and the lowest score among the two counts for the team on that hole. ‘Fourball is also known as ‘best ball’.
Basically match play involves pitting two players from each side and determining winners and losers after each hole is played. Each team consists of a Captain, this year Tiger Woods for the USA and Ernie Els for the International Team, who then selects 4 players, in addition to the first 8 automatic selections, plus two alternates and 3 assistants.
To date the teams from the USA have dominated the Presidents Cup competitions and with 12 or the top 24 ranked golfers in the world on the USA roster, it appears that they will be the favorites going into the matches once again in 2019. The top eight slots are won by the 8 golfers who have accumulated the most FedExCup points between the 2017 and the 2019 BMW Championships.
Tiger Woods, as team Captain, has the next four picks and well and naming the alternates and of course his assistants. This year’s Team USA consists of Brooks Koepka, Justin Thomas, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Cantlay, Xander Schauffele, Webb Simpson, Matt Kuchar and Bryson DeChambeau making up the top 8 FedExCup leaders, then Tony Finau, Gary Woodland, Rickie Fowler and Patrick Reed as the personal choices of team Captain Tiger Woods.
Captain Woods also named Fred Couples, Zach Johnson and Steve Stricker as his assistants for the tournament and Chez Reavie and Kevin Kisner as the alternates should anything happen to one of the principals.
Legendary South African golfer Ernie Els captains the International Team for 2019 and once again the top eight spots on the roster were won by the leading golfers on the International tour between August 2018 and August 2019. They are Marc Leishman, Hideki Matsuyama, Louis Oosthuizen, Adam Scott, Abraham Ancer, Li Haotong, Pan Cheng-tsung and Camaron Smith with the Captain’s selections consisting of Jason Day, Jazz Janewatananond, Justin Harding and Corey Conners.
Some of the greatest golfers on the planet will be in Melbourne for this great competition. Those lucky enough to be in the galleries will witness some truly legendary links heroes in action. But there is no purse money awarded to the winners of the Presidents Cup Tourney, no millions of dollars in prize money, no fancy sports cars given out.
Instead, all proceeds from the event will go, as they always do, to charities nominated by the players, the captains and the captains assistants. So far the Presidents Cup events have raised over $32,000,000 for charities around the world.
LSU SWEEPS SEC HONORS
Joe Burrow and his receivers worked out together over the summer down in Baton Rouge in 90+ degree heat and humidity until they stated to click like a well oiled machine. Burrow was throwing passes before his intended receiver had even made his break. It was magic. They knew that they had something special, but hardly anyone else even gave the LSU Tiger football team a passing thought before the season began.
Then the Tigers of LSU beat the Texas Longhorns in Arlington for the season opener and sports writers commented that was ‘pretty good’, and how’s about that Burrow guy, eh? But that was only the beginning for Coach Ed Orgeron and his revamped Bayou Bengals. Check out LSU with a RPO offense!
‘Coach O’ quietly put together a coaching staff that rivaled any in the land and the players bought into their programs and training, and the Tigers went on the win game after game until, on November 9th, they came up against Nick Saban and the mighty Alabama Crimson Tide, a team which LSU had not defeated since 2011.
It was the most watched college sporting event of the year, and it was a hell of a game with a total of 87 points scored and the Tigers coming out on top by a final score of 46-41. Then everyone took notice, and LSU entered the discussion for the final four to compete for the national championship.
With that same victory over Alabama, Coach Orgeron probably secured his position in Baton Rouge for years to come, and that is a good thing as Oregon is a true native of south Louisiana. A bit gruff and perhaps not always socially acceptable, but ‘Coach O’ has become one of the most beloved figures in the state of Louisiana today.
The SEC has also rewarded Coach Orgeron, who is in his third season as head coach of the Tigers, with their coveted ‘SEC Coach of the Year Award’, which takes on a special meaning considering that the honor is voted on by all the coaches in the SEC. Senior quarterback Joe Burrow also won the top honor from the leagues’ coaches with the ‘SEC Offensive Player of the Year Award’.
Burrow also finds himself in the enviable position of being the front runner in this year’s Heisman Trophy race, actually Joe is out front by quite a bit. Coach Ed Orgeron is also a likely candidate for the coveted ‘Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year Award’ as well as the ‘George Munger Coach of the Year Award’.
Along with Joe Burrow at quarterback, 5 other players on the LSU squad were named to the SEC First String Team. They include Clyde Edwards-Helaire at running back, Ja’Marr Chase at wide receiver, Lloyd Cushenberry III at center, K’Lavon Chaisson at linebacker and Grant Delpit at defensive back.
Finally, wide receiver coach and passing game coordinator Joe Brady, who has been credited to a large degree for the positive changes that have come to the offensive side of LSU football this year, was named the winner of the Frank Broyles Award, which goes to the top assistant coach in college football.
And so finally, after LSU went undefeated at 13-0 for the season and had soundly beaten a highly touted Georgia Bulldogs team by a final score of 37-10 in the SEC Championship game, and the Wisconsin Badgers had out played the then number one ranked Ohio State Buckeyes throughout the first half of their game, the CFP Committee broke down and conceded that the LSU Tigers should be the number one ranked DI college football team in the nation.
Ohio State was then relegated to the number two spot and will face number three ranked Clemson as 2.5 point underdogs in the Fiesta Bowl out in Arizona on December the 28th. This is a replay of last year’s matchup.
By virtue of their victory over the Baylor Bears and Georgia’s loss to LSU, the Oklahoma Sooners were awarded the fourth and final spot in this year’s CFP semi finals, which is also played on December the 28th in Atlanta at the Peach Bowl, when the Sooners (+13) will try to tame the number one ranked Tigers of LSU. The winners of these two semi final games will meet for the CFP National Championship on January 13th down in New Orleans.
THE NBA STARTS S
ECOND QUARTER ACTION
While it seems like this year’s NBA season has just gotten underway, in reality they have just passed the quarter pole already. Some teams are right about where they were predicted to be while others have exceeded expectations so far this NBA season, while others have fans scratching their heads in wonder.
Take for example the Golden State Warriors. They have been a dominate force in professional basketball for the past several years now under the leadership of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, but Curry has been out with a broken hand since December the 6th and won’t be back on the court until the first week in March, if everything goes well with his rehab.
Concurrently Golden State is also without the services of their other star shooting guard Klay Thompson, who went down back in late October with a knee injury and is expected to miss the remainder of the season. Without their star point guard and their star shooting guard, the Warriors have fallen all the way down into the cellar of the NBA West with a miserable record of 20 losses and only 5 victories in the entire first quarter of the season.
Over in the NBA West, the competition is turning out to be the battle for Los Angeles as both the Lakers and the Clippers, who are both playing out of the Staples Center in downtown LA, just keep on winning. The Lakers, led by LeBron James and Anthony Davis are dominating the floor early in the season and look like the team to beat for anyone having postseason aspirations.
When the New Orleans Pelicans won the NBA lottery for the draft last year and ended up with Duke All American big man Zion Williamson, oddsmakers were giving them a pretty good chance to be in competition in the NBA West this season. Then Zion went down with a torn right lateral meniscus during preseason practices and has missed all of the Pelicans games to date. Despite the outstanding efforts of Jrue Holiday and young Brandon Ingram, New Orleans is only slightly better than Golden State so far with only 6 wins to 18 losses.
The Milwakee Bucks on the other hand are blowing everyone away on a 15 game win streak that shows no sign of slowing up at all. The Bucks now sit at 21 and 3 and are currently projected to win 61 games this season. Not surprisingly, the Boston Celtics follow close behind with 17 wins and 5 losses but are projected to win only 53 times this year.
The team that no one saw coming is the Miami Heat who are cruising right alongside the Celtics with 17 wins to 6 losses. The 76ers of Philadelphia also have 17 wins as opposed to 7 losses, but everyone expected them to be near the top of the heap with Ben Simmons and company. The defending NBA Champion Toronto Raptors are still struggling a bit with 16 wins and 7 losses.
Another surprise this season finds the New York Knicks and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the basement over in the NBA East. Both teams just cannot seem to get it going this season in spite of their strong rosters.
Leading the NBA’s front running Milwaukee Bucks is MVP candidate Giannis Antetokounmpo who is averaging 31 points a game and has his team in great shape at the start of the second quarter of play. Other contenders for the Most Valuable Player on the NBA courts so far this season are the amazing Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks who is averaging nearly a 30 point triple—double and perennial all stars James Harden of the Houston Rockets and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers.
The NBA rookie of the year was expected to be a close race between Zion Williamson of the Pelicans and Ja Morant of the Memphis Grizzlies, however, with Williamson out of the action so far, Morant has little, if any, competition for the annual honor.
Obviously it is still very early in the NBA season and way too soon to make any predictions as to which team will be on top when April the 15th rolls around and it’s time once again for the annual NBA playoffs, known simply as ‘The Finals’, to begin in the spring time.
COLLEGE BOWL GAME ODDS ARE UP
Going into their Big Ten Championship game against the University of Wisconsin, the Ohio State Buckeyes were the odds on favorites to win the NCAA Football Championship, or CFP, this year. By half time all that had changed as the Badgers held a 21-7 lead over the Buckeyes who went into the game as 16.5 point favorites.
Even though Ohio State was able to come back after half time and put up 27 unanswered points to take home the victory, and the Big Ten Championship, by a final score of 34-21, the damage had been done. The weakness was exposed and shades of doubt began to creep into the minds of the committee members charged with making the decision of who shall be the number one college football team in the land.
Then the #2 ranked LSU Tigers simply dominated the Georgia Bulldogs, who came into the SEC Championship ranked #4 in the CFP standings as 7 point underdogs, but ended up losing by 27 points 37-10. LSU put up grand total of 467 yards as Heisman Trophy favorite Joe Burrow at quarterback threw for 349 yards completing 28 of 38 passes with zero picks.
The choice left to the committee was clear. LSU had the strongest resume overall and topped it off with a convincing defeat of the powerful Georgia Bulldogs while Ohio State struggled early on before asserting themselves in the second half of their game against Wisconsin.
So much so that the Tigers of LSU will now face the newly arrived #4 Oklahoma Sooners as 13 point favorites in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta on Saturday December the 28th while the Buckeyes will travel out to Glendale, Arizona to participate in the Fiesta Bowl as 2 point underdogs against Dabo Swinney’s Clemson Tigers.
Now the Clemson Tigers, led by quarterback Trevor Lawrence, are feeling a lack of respect from the CFP committee, but the Las Vegas oddsmakers are certainly giving them their due by crowning them as the favorites over the formally number one ranked Ohio State Buckeyes.
Assuming that LSU takes care of business in Atlanta and defeats the Sooners, the winners of the Ohio State-Clemson game are going to have to travel down to New Orleans and the Super Dome on January the 13th, 2020 to take on the Bayou Bengals in what amounts to being a home game for LSU in one of the loudest venues in all of football.
Before the drama of the CFP Semifinal Games get started at 4 EST, there is early action on Saturday December the 28th from Dallas as #17 Memphis takes on #10 Penn State as 7 point underdogs in the Cotton Bowl Classic on ESPN. Airing at the same time on ABC from Orlando will be a contest between the #15 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Cyclones of Iowa State University with the Irish listed as 3.5 point favorites for the Camping World Bowl.
The Orange Bowl from Miami this year will be played on Monday evening December the 30th between the #9 ranked Florida Gators and the #24 ranked Virginia Cavaliers with the Gators going in as 13.5 point favorites.
Top rated CFP games continue on New Year’s Day when #18 Minnesota plays that same #12 ranked Auburn team that defeated mighty Alabama just a few weeks ago. The Gophers will be 8 point underdogs against the Tigers of Auburn in the Outback Bowl from Tampa, Florida.
Then it’s ‘Oh how the mighty have fallen’, Alabama playing in the Citrus Bowl down in Orlando as the #13th ranked team in the land up against #14 Michigan Wolverines as 7 point favorites. This game will pit two of the best known head coaches against one another in college football as Jim Harbaugh and Nick Saban try to salvage what they can from less than stellar seasons.
Out in Pasadena, California, the Rose Bowl will feature the #6 ranked Oregon Ducks against the Badgers of Wisconsin, listed at (-2.5), who finished as the #8 ranked team in the country and represent the Big Ten since Ohio State is going on to the CFP Finals.
The final contest on New Year’s Day will be coming from New Orleans when the #5 Georgia Bulldogs take on the #7 Baylor Bears as 7.5 point favorites in the Sugar Bowl from the Super Dome down in the ‘Big Easy’.
DON’T BET ON IT
For the first time in over 36 years, the National Football League has suspended a player for gambling on sports. The then Baltimore Colts quarterback Art Schlichter was suspended by the NFL back in the early 1980’s and later became rather infamous as a lifelong compulsive gambler who got caught betting on professional football, but not on the Colts.
That whole affair was a huge black eye for the NFL as Schlichter got involved in FBI investigations as an undercover witness making a total mess of what was an otherwise promising career from the 4th overall pick in the 1982 NFL Draft. The man lost so much money gambling on sports that he was afraid that his creditors would eventually force him to shave points in an NFL game. Schlichter is currently serving 10 years in US Federal prison for stealing millions of dollars to support his gambling habit.
Now we have a new one, 36 years later. Given the amount of time that has passed since the NFL was forced to suspend a player for gambling, it would seem that the league in general took note of what happened to Schlichter and curtailed its gambling habits.
At least until Arizona Cardinal defensive back Josh Shaw sauntered into Caesars sportsbook in Las Vegas and filled out an application for a betting account a Caesars, listing ‘professional football player’ as his occupation, before placing a wager on a three team parlay that included his team, the Arizona Cardinals.
Now Mr. Shaw graduated from the University of Southern California and has played in the NFL since 2015 for four different teams. Does it seem possible that no one ever told the man that he was not allowed to wager on the NFL while playing for the National Football League?
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s office responded quickly suspending Josh Shaw for the remainder of this season and for all of the upcoming 2020 season as well. The League did acknowledge that its own investigation had uncovered no evidence that Shaw had used any inside information in making his wagers, and that no games had been compromised.
Goodell issued a statement saying, “The continued success of the NFL depends directly on each of us doing everything necessary to safeguard the integrity of the game and the reputations of all who participate in the league. At the core of this responsibility is the longstanding principle that betting on NFL games, or on any element of the game, puts at risk the integrity of the game, damages public confidence in the NFL, and is forbidden under all circumstances. If you work in the NFL in any capacity, you may not bet of NFL football”.
The big sportsbooks in Las Vegas and elsewhere have a standing agreement with the NFL to let them know if any NFL personnel are placing wagers on NFL games at any time. It was the folks at Caesars that informed Goodell’s office that Shaw had placed the parley wager, which, after all, he ended up losing.
Since 2007 the Nevada gaming regulations actually require sportsbooks in the state to ‘take reasonable steps’ to avoid accepting or paying off any wagers made by, or on behalf, of a player, official, owner, coach or other participant with the team involved with the wager.
Before releasing the news of Josh Shaw’s suspension, the League issued a league wide memo emphasizing the NFL’s gambling policy and the penalties for violating it. Shaw is in the process of appealing the suspension.
Of course football players wagering on football games has a long and colorful history. Most famously, back in 1963 both Paul Hornung of the Green Bay Packers and Alex Karras of the Detroit were banned from professional football for an entire season because of gambling of football games. However, both were back at it the next season and both ended up in the NFL Hall of Fame.
