Dawson moves in front at Q School

Golf Betting Lines

12/04/2011 - LaQuinta, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Marco Dawson posted a four-under 68 on Sunday to move atop the leaderboard after the fifth round of PGA Tour Q School.

Dawson finished 90 holes at 17-under 343 and is three shots ahead with just one round to go in one of the most pressure-packed marathon events in professional golf.

The top 25 and ties after Monday's final round will earn PGA Tour cards for 2012. Everyone else will get some type of status on the Nationwide Tour, but that top 25 is the magic number for this massive field.

Stephen Gangluff shot a five-under 67 and is second at minus-14.

Harris English (70) and Brendon Todd (68) share third place at 13-under 347.

Will Claxton led throughout most of the first four rounds, but struggled in the fifth one. He only managed a four-over 76 and fell into a tie for fifth with former Ryder Cupper Vaughn Taylor (70), Brian Harman (68) and Jarrod Lyle (68). The group finished at minus-11.

Play rotated between the Nicklaus Tournament Course and TPC Stadium Course at PGA West throughout the six rounds. The leaders played the Stadium Course in round five and the Nicklaus Tournament Course in round six on Monday.

Dawson played great early in Sunday's fifth round. He birdied three of his first six holes to move atop the leaderboard. After seven pars around the turn, Dawson rattled off back-to-back birdies at 14 and 15.

He was at 18-under par, but a bogey at the last dropped him to 17-under par.

Dawson played the PGA Tour in years past, but he spent most of the 2011 season on the Nationwide Tour. He had three top 10s on that circuit, including a runner-up, but he made the cut in all three starts on the PGA Tour.

There are four former major champions in the field this week and none are inside the top 25.

The closest is two-time U.S. Open winner Lee Janzen, whose one-under 71 on Sunday moved him into a tie for 42nd at minus-four.

Former British Open champion and world No. 1 David Duval had a four-under 68 in round five, but he's tied for 63rd at two-under par.

Rich Beem and Shaun Micheel, both former PGA Champions, are well down the leaderboard with almost no chance of reaching the top 25 in Monday's final round.

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SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

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