Sportsbet Blog

With his long time nemesis, Tiger Woods, sitting on the sidelines, punters have launched a huge betting plunge on Phil Mickelson for the US Open backing the five times runner up into joint favourite at $13.

Sportingbet Australia CEO Michael Sullivan said Mickelson had been backed from $16 to $13 and would take out over $1m if he won his first US Open after being the bridesmaid so often in the past.

“The plunge started with a bet of $10,000 at $16 on Tuesday and then we took a bet of $40,000 each way at $15 on Wednesday and the money has just kept coming,” Sullivan said.
“Having finished runner up five times, you would think his chances of winning the US Open would be just about gone and this looks like his best chance of finally adding one to the trophy cabinet.
“With Tiger on the sidelines, Mickelson will be the big draw card this year and punters have no doubt he is the man to beat.”
Mickelson is joint favourite with Lee Westwood at $13 but Sullivan said away from Mickelson, punters were looking for a little value.
“We have taken bets to win $50,000 on Rory McIlroy at $21, Steve Stricker at $26 and Martin Kaymer at $29,” he said.
“There has also been good money for K.J. Choi and Hunter Mahan.”
Sullivan said the best backed of the Australians had been rising star Jason Day and the experienced Robert Allenby.
“Day is the shortest of the Aussies at $41 along with Adam Scott and he has been well supported while Robert Allenby has been backed from $126 to $101 with one bet to win $37,500,” he said.

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US Open – Outright Winner
Sportingbet Australia odds
Phil Mickelson 13.00
Lee Westwood 13.00
Luke Donald 14.00
Rory McIlroy 19.00
Hunter Mahan 23.00
Steve Stricker 23.00
Dustin Johnson 26.00
Martin Kaymer 26.00
Matt Kuchar 29.00
Nick Watney 29.00
K.J. Choi 31.00
Jason Day 41.00
Adam Scott 41.00
Bubba Watson 41.00

On June the 15th the worlds best golfers will compete to take out the coverted US Open golf tournament at Bethpage State Park Golf Course in New York. The US Open is considered by many as the best golf competition on the tour, and it always attracts alot of attention from all over the world. Millions of dollars are lost every year from people betting on the outcome, so here at sportsbetblog.com.au we are going to give you some inside knowledge of the course and which of the likely contenders you can put your free bet from Sportingbet on to win 109th US Open.

Bethstate Park boasts five of the best golf courses in the world Blue, Black, Red, Green and Yellow. The 2009 US Open will be played on the Black course,the same course that caused so many problem when the tournament was last held there in 2002. On that occasion it was Tiger Woods who took home the $1,000,000 winners cheque and I am sure there will be a lot of money riding on him to do the same this year.

Tiger Woods $3.75

The Black course is renowned for its deep bunkers that surround the greens and the large oak trees that line the fairways, making accuracy rather than distance a must straight from the tee. This is where Tiger has the upper hand on probably every other golfer out there, the guy can do both. He literally has every shot in the book and also has the power to back it up. The only plus side for the rest of the field may be that Tiger has only played in five tournaments since having reconstructive knee surgery last year, failing to win any of them. The man himself also admits that he is not driving the ball anywhere near as well as he was before the surgery. Tiger is actually sitting 136th on the PGA Tour in driving accuracy percentage at 57.6 percent thats (129/224) of fairways hit. It is this that could be the great mans undoing.

Phil Mickelson $10.00

With Tigers recent injury and lack of wins it is pretty hard to believe that he is such a strong favourite. This makes Mickelson at $10 an amazing bet, he has a fantastic short game and is in great form having already won two titles this year. It is because of this that I will be putting all my money on big Phil Mickelson to put one over on Tiger and finally win the US Open after four second place finishes in 1999, 2002, 2004 and 2006.

Sergio Garcia $26.00

Sergio is a golfer with a lot of talent and he has seven PGA Tour titles and eight European titles to prove it. But despite being considered one of the best on the tour Sergio has never been able to turn it on for the major championships. He has made a slow start to 2009 failing to even make the cut in a number of tournaments, but you can never right off the man they call El Nino. At $26.00 Segio is well worth a  punt to get his first US Open title under his belt.

Stuart Appleby $81.00

Stuart Appleby is the most fancied of the Australian contingent, but the truth is that Appleby has had a pretty shocking start to the season finishing in the top ten just once from 13 tournaments. I feel that Appleby doesn’t really have what it takes to win the US Open this year, but at Sportingbet.com.au you can take a quarter of the odds, thats $20.00, that he will finish in the top five. Deffinately worth a free bet.

Some big golf and tennis events are currently underway so today I’ll take a look at who’s in with the best chance.

Golf – WGC-CA Championships

After two rounds of the WGC event in Florida, Phil Mickelson has maintained his place at the top of the leader board, firing a six under par 66 to go with his 65 from the opening round. Nick Watney is two shots back, with Kenny Perry and young Irish prodigy Rory McIlory within striking distance at ten under the card.

In his second event back after an eight month lay-off, Tiger Woods has been steady shooting 71 & 70 to leave him 10 shots off the pace. He was happy with his play, citing his flatstick as the reason his scores weren’t lower.

While Mickelson has been playing well, I don’t think the score is a true indication of his performance. He has been wayward off the tee, hitting just 50% of fairways, which is not normally good enough to win you a big tournament like this one. His low score can be attributed to his scrambling play – he has chipped in four times in two days, and has had just 42 putts so far for the week, an average he surely can’t maintain.

If you’re looking for a bet on this tournament you might think about laying Mickelson with Betfair, there’s every chance he’ll blow out if he doesn’t get his tee to green play sorted. Players to watch for in the final two rounds  include McIlroy,  Columbian Camilo Villegas and Kenny Perry.

Tennis – BNP Paribas Open, Indian Wells

The Men’s Draw

The BNP Paribas open has begun in Indian Wells, California and on the men’s side we have the world’s top four players back in the same tournament for the first time since The Australian Open.

Roger Federer is playing in his first event since that demoralizing defeat to Nadal in Melbourne, Murray has returned from a short break after withdrawing from the event in Dubai, and Nadal seems to be OK after testing his knee out in the Davis Cup tie against Serbia last week. He wiped the floor with world number three Novak Djokovic so things would appear to be fine for Nadal.

As would be expected Nadal has been installed as favourite, although there is not as much of a gap in the betting between him and Federer as I thought there would be. This could either mean that the bookies are offering too much on Nadal, ot too little on Federer.

I think it would be very hard to back Federer to win straight up after his lay-off, Murray’s health is still in question and Djokovic is yet to convince me that his form this year has reached the heights of ’08.

Which leaves the man from Majorca – Nadal

The Women’s Draw

The women’s tournament seems to be a much more open event. Dinara Safina, Elena Dementieva, Vera Zvonareva and Jelena Jankovic are all around the same in the betting, with Safina prbably being installed as the slight favourite.

From this field, Dementieva and Safina are the players with the best big tournament form so far this year and with both Williams sisters missing from this tournament, they will see this as a fantastic opportunity to claim one of the more important WTA events on the calendar.

One outsider to consider is Victoria Azarenko who had an excellent tournament win in Tennessee last month where she dropped just four games in the final against Caroline Wozniacki.

Incidentally the two finalists teamed up to claim the doubles title at the same event, so it was a good week for the pair.

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