How to lose gracefully

Golf Betting Lines

05/18/2009 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - More than ever, a professional athlete's public personality is directly under his own control.

We do not get to choose, nor do we have the chance to ignore, those athletes we see on a regular basis on the television sets in our own homes or from the sidelines at the game.

Yet so many athletes choose to ignore these opportunities to display qualities that might make them more palatable -- tact, humility, grace -- in favor of disagreeable behavior that makes us roll our eyes, or worse, curse their names.

In the game of golf, there isn't much a player like Sergio Garcia could learn from James Driscoll.

Driscoll would be no help, for example, trying to teach Garcia how to drive the ball. No one in the world does that better than the Spaniard.

And it would be folly for Driscoll to attempt to teach Garcia how to win a tournament. He's never done that anywhere bigger than the Nationwide Tour.

What Driscoll could teach Garcia, however, is how to lose gracefully.

On Sunday, Driscoll, a no-name 31-year-old grinder from Brookline, Mass., came within one hole of winning the Texas Open, one of the oldest tournaments on the PGA Tour.

Firing a 62 in the final round, Driscoll came face-to-face with defending champion Zach Johnson in a playoff, losing on the first extra hole at La Cantera when Johnson rolled in a 10-footer for birdie.

Johnson, the 2007 Masters champion, was among the biggest names in the field.

Driscoll, who hadn't made a cut in three months, was not.

Because he came from so far behind in the final round, Driscoll waited nearly two hours for Johnson to finish. It was an unfortunate variable not in his control.

The layoff didn't appear to make Driscoll rusty in the playoff -- he hit the fairway and green in regulation -- and he didn't use it to make excuses, though that opportunity certainly presented itself.

After all, Johnson's position as the third-round leader afforded him a spot in the final group, which allowed him to tap in for a closing par and head directly back to the 18th tee.

Driscoll had been loitering for the same amount of time it takes to play six or seven holes.

"That didn't really affect me," Driscoll said in a post-round interview. "I spent like a half-hour on the range just staying loose. So it's definitely nice to finish off your round, sign your card and go back out, kind of like playing just a 19th hole, you know. But I felt fine.

"On that tee shot I felt fine, and I did not feel like it affected me at all."

On the loss, Driscoll said: "When you're that close, it's hard not to feel a little disappointed. But [Johnson] birdied the first playoff hole. He deserves it."

You'll rarely hear Garcia offering the same sentiments.

In 2007, after Garcia lost a thrilling playoff to Padraig Harrington at the 2007 British Open, with both Europeans chasing their first major championship, the temperamental Spaniard found every matter of excuse for his misfortune.

The Carnoustie grounds crew that delayed his approach to No. 18 "seemed to take a long time to rake two bunkers," Garcia lamented.

Talk about variables not in his control.

And the ball that looked like it was going in, only to hit the flag stick and carom away?

"You know what's the saddest thing about it?" Garcia asked. "It's not the first time. It's not the first time, unfortunately. I don't know. I'm playing against a lot of guys out there, more than the field."

Garcia couldn't keep his mouth shut at this year's Masters, either. Stopped by the Golf Channel after he closed with a 74 in the final round to finish 13 shots back, he let loose on Augusta National.

"I don't like it, to tell you the truth. I don't think it's fair, and it's just too tricky," said Garcia. "Even when it's dry, you still get mud balls in the middle of the fairway. It's just too much of a guessing game."

He was asked what he would like to see changed.

"I don't care. They can do whatever they want," Garcia responded. "It's not my problem. I just come here and play, and then go home."

Garcia later apologized for the comments, but the damage was done.

Is it unfair to compare Driscoll's situation -- chasing a win at the Texas Open -- with Garcia's? No, because both players were chasing firsts: Driscoll his first PGA Tour win and Garcia his first major championship.

Garcia isn't the only professional athlete who lacks the discipline to think before he speaks. And it might not be fair to single him out. But public outbursts have open consequences.

Somebody get him a Brookline phone book.

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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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