No Baseball, No Problem. Golf, Football and Streakers, Oh My

I must say, while today is truly a sports wasteland with no action to be found, it provides me a wonderful opportunity to gloat about absolutely nailing the All-Star game last evening. All the way down to the final score (4-3, AL). While I'll be the first to admit that hitting a final MLB score right on the nose is an exercise in immense luck and good fortune, it doesn't take away from the satisfaction you feel when you do it. OK. Enough with the back pats. We have an entire second half of a baseball season during which to make you large bags with $ painted on the outside.

Editor's Note: With the W in the All-Star game, we head into the second half with a 61-55 record and a BAT (Bank Account Tracker) of +$31.

With no baseball in sight for at least another 30 hours or so, we'll turn today's discussion to a few other sports that the Absolute Locks fancies, namely golf and football.

138th Open Championship

The best golfers in the world have gathered in Turnberry, Scotland eager to get on the tee and battle for the Claret Jug. From Vegas' perspective, you'd think that Tiger was teeing it up all by himself and only has to stay alive until Sunday to take home the trophy. While that might be the way some of these tournament, especially majors, seem to play out, I'm not ready to render the next four days of golf meaningless. In fact, I'm betting we see a non-Tiger hoist the Jug on Sunday afternoon. My guess is that your 2009 Open Champion will come from one of three golfers. However, before we get to those predictions, let's take a quick look at the tournament favorites according to men smarter than me:

Tiger Woods +200
Field +1000 (I'm not sure who this guy Field is but he must be good)
Sergio Garcia +2200

That's right, Tiger is a more than 10x bigger favorite than any other one golfer that will play at Turnberry. Christ, he's a 5x favorite over nearly the entire field (not including the 23 top players based on Vegas odds). That is just an obnoxious line for an event of this type. Don't get me wrong, I realize just how good Tiger is. In fact, I consider myself a fan who often finds himself pulling for the guy. However, when it comes to making dough, you have to find the angles and, more importantly, the best risk/reward profile. With that in mind, I present the three gentlemen from whom I believe the 138th Open Champion will emerge. This list is in no particular order:

Jim Furyk (+2700)
Jeff Ogilvy (+4500)
Ian Poulter (+2700)

Hope you all enjoy the event and tune in on Sunday afternoon to see if any of the Absolute Locks' picks take home the title.



NFL Team Over/Under Challenge

If you are anything like me, then it is never too early to start talking football. Whether it is getting ready for college gridiron and its opening weekend 63 point spreads or gearing up for a fantasy draft, the good ole pigskin is never far from my mind. Since we're looking squarely down the barrel of a non-sport day, I figured this would be a nice opportunity to start dedicating some space to American Football. In order to get everyone focused on the upcoming NFL season, I've decided to launch a contest of sorts among the loyal readers of Absolute Locks. Hopefully, you'll be intrigued enough to participate. If not, then you'll at least be able to follow along and mock the losers.

Here's what we'll do. The Venetian in Las Vegas came out with its over/under lines for each team for the upcoming season. Essentially, the sports book establishes a number of games they expect each team to win during the 16-game season. From there, you can bet that the team will win more (over) or less (under) than that number. I'll include the numbers for all 32 teams below. Our contest will call for people to submit an entry that includes 3 teams that they like to hit the over and 3 teams that they like to hit the under. We'll post everyone's selections and track the progress throughout the season. Don't get too excited, the only prize is the valuable admiration of those foes that you vanquish along the way. If you want to participate, be sure to send me your entries at tbrons@vidallc.com by the end of next week (Friday, July 24). Good luck. Here are the official lines that we'll be running the contest from:

Patriots - 12
Steelers - 11
Colts - 10.5
Giants - 10.5
Chargers - 10.5
Cowboys - 9.5
Eagles - 9
Cardinals - 9
Packers - 8.5
Saints - 8.5
Ravens - 8.5
Vikings - 8.5
Titans - 8.5
Panthers - 8.5
Jaguars - 8
Jets - 8
Texans - 8
Dolphins - 8
Redskins - 8
Bears - 8
Falcons - 8
Bills - 7.5
Seahawks - 7.5
Broncos - 7.5
49ers - 7
Browns - 6.5
Buccaneers - 6.5
Chiefs - 5.5
Bengals - 5.5
Raiders - 5.5
Rams - 5
Lions - 5