Pressel among Jamie Farr leaders

Golf Betting Lines

07/02/2009 - Sylvania, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Morgan Pressel, Laura Diaz and Song-Hee Kim each fired rounds of seven-under 64 on Thursday to share the opening-round lead of the Jamie Farr Owens Corning Classic.

Suzann Pettersen and Michelle Wie are knotted in fourth place at six-under 65 at Highland Meadows Golf Club.

Tournament officials had to be pleased to see so many familiar faces so high up on the leaderboard, considering they lost one of the biggest stars before she teed off.

Paula Creamer, last year's winner, withdrew before her round on Thursday. She injured her left thumb last week and received treatment on the injury since she withdrew in the middle of last week's Wegmans LPGA.

It was at that event less than a week ago where Pressel began the final round in second place, but a 78 on Sunday left her 11 shots behind champion Jiyai Shin.

"You just take what happened last week, especially on that back nine in terms of the weather, and move on and take what's there this week," said Pressel, the 2007 Kraft Nabisco Champion.

Pressel started on the 10th tee Thursday and collected her first birdie when she poured in a 15-footer at the 13th. She hit a spectacular seven-iron approach to tap-in range for another birdie at 16, then closed her opening nine with a five-foot birdie putt at the par-five 18th.

On her second nine, Pressel waited until the fourth hole for her first birdie. She hit an eight-iron to 10 feet and got to four-under par for the championship.

That birdie kicked off a great run for Pressel. She sank another 10-foot birdie putt at five, tapped in a short birdie effort at six and polished off her fourth birdie in a row with a 10-footer at the par-five seventh hole.

"I hit every fairway and hit every green, and gave myself birdie opportunities on every hole. You can't ask for much more than that," said Pressel. "I made a couple good 10-15 footers, and just kept giving myself chances. I just said, just keep hitting it close, and it will go in eventually."

Diaz first broke into red figures with a 25-foot birdie putt at the fourth. She lost that stroke with a bogey at the fifth after an errant drive, but got back to one-under with a 12-footer for birdie at eight.

Diaz caught fire on the back side. She kicked in a short one at 10 and rolled in a nine-foot birdie putt at the 13th. Diaz birdied her next two to get minus-five.

At the par-five 17th, Diaz laid up with her second shot and had a 56-degree wedge for her third. She holed out the chip from 38 yards and that put her into a tie for first.

"I put myself at a really good angle to the pin, and I had the whole green to work with, with nothing in my line of sight," said Diaz of her eagle at 17. "I put a new 56 in this week, just yesterday, and it checked up a little bit, then just dribbled into the hole."

Kim bogeyed the first hole, but four straight birdies from No. 4 got her to three-under par. Three more consecutive birdies after the turn pushed Kim to six-under, but a bogey at 16 dropped her two off the lead.

Kim, who has five top 10s this season, birdied her last two for her piece of the lead.

"After missing the cut last week I was a little nervous with my game, with my swing and everything," admitted Kim through a translator. "I am glad I played well today."

Shin continued her fine form with a five-under 66 on Thursday. She is tied for sixth place with Cristie Kerr, Inbee Park, Lindsey Wright, Jee Young Lee and Minea Blomqvist.

World No. 1 Lorena Ochoa, who has never won this championship, shot a four- under 67 and is part of a large group tied for 12th place.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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