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Golf Betting Lines

St. Andrews, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - World No. 1 and defending champion Tiger Woods will play with three-time Open champion Nick Faldo in the opening round of the 135th British Open Championship that tees off Thursday at Royal Liverpool Golf Club. Woods, whose two British Open crowns have come at St. Andrews, will be playing for just the third time since the Masters and the death of his father, Earl, earlier this spring.

 

Faldo and Woods will be joined in their group by Japan's Shingo Katayama when they tee off Thursday at 9:09 a.m. (et).

 

Ernie Els, the 2002 Open champion, will play with Luke Donald and U.S. Amateur champion Edoardo Molinari at 2:58 a.m. Former U.S. Open winner Jim Furyk will follow Els and is grouped with Rod Pampling and Greg Owen.

 

Eight-time Order of Merit winner Colin Montgomerie, who finished second to Woods at St. Andrews last year, is grouped with Stuart Appleby and former Open champion John Daly.

 

Newly crowned U.S. Open champion Geoff Ogilvy will be joined on the first tee at 8:20 a.m. Thursday by Carl Pettersson and Chris DiMarco. Two groups later, world No. 6 Adam Scott will play with British Amateur winner Julien Guerrier and world No. 13 Henrik Stenson.

 

World No. 4 Retief Goosen, a two-time U.S. Open winner, tees off three groups after Woods on Thursday at 9:42 a.m. Goosen will play with reigning European Tour Rookie of the Year Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano and five-time British Open champion Tom Watson, who claimed his second Senior British Open crown last year.

 

Across the pond, John Senden earned his first PGA Tour victory at the John Deere Classic by saving par from a bunker at the 72nd hole. The Australian moved up 36 positions in the rankings to 78th.

 

Ahead of this week's British Open, little changed in the top 20.

 

Luke Donald moved up a spot to 11th, dropping David Toms to 12th. They were trailed by Colin Montgomerie, Jose Maria Olazabal, Trevor Immelman, Henrik Stenson, Tim Clark and Padraig Harrington.

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El Duque expected to throw Tuesday

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- New York Mets pitcher Orlando Hernandez, sidelined at spring training because of arthritis in his neck, is expected to resume throwing on Tuesday.

Hernandez received a cortisone shot Thursday after leaving camp and returning to New York to have his neck examined. The 41-year-old right-hander is penciled in as the team's No. 2 starter behind Tom Glavine.

El Duque's health is a major issue for the Mets, who won the NL East in 2007 and came within one victory of the World Series. Their aging and unsettled rotation is a big question mark this year.

MySportsbook.com has the Mets as -110 favorites to repeat as NL East champions odds. 

Hernandez went 11-11 with a 4.66 ERA last season, including 9-7 with a 4.09 ERA in 20 starts after the Mets acquired him from Arizona in late May. But he missed the playoffs because of a torn calf muscle.

New York already is without Pedro Martinez, out until at least midseason following rotator cuff surgery. Among those competing for starting jobs are prospects Mike Pelfrey, Philip Humber and Jason Vargas, plus veterans Chan Ho Park, Jorge Sosa and Aaron Sele.

Notes: Mets manager Willie Randolph is excited about two new utility players he could have on his bench: Damion Easley and David Newhan. ''Their value is really all over the place,'' Randolph said. Easley can play anywhere in the infield and could be used as an emergency outfielder, though Randolph said he would prefer to keep the veteran in the infield. Newhan, meanwhile, can play second base, third or any outfield position for the Mets. ''I love versatility,'' Randolph said. ''I love guys that can give me options when I need them to step in.''

Additional baseball lines and World Series odds can be found at: www.MySportsbook.com

To visit this online sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com - this sportsbook accepts credit cards.

FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.