Cabrera-Bello fires 63 to lead by 2 in Dubai
Golf Betting Lines
02/09/2012 - Dubai, United Arab Emirates (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Rafael Cabrera-Bello fired a nine-under 63 Thursday to grab a two-stroke lead after the first round of the Dubai Desert Classic.
Cabrera-Bello, whose lone tour title was at the 2009 Austrian Golf Open, birdied nine of his first 11 holes before cooling off. He parred the final seven holes.
Marcel Siem and Scott Jamieson share second place at minus-seven. Siem was in the first group off the first tee on the Majlis course at Emirates Golf Club on Thursday. He dropped his approach shot into the water on the 18th and that led to a closing bogey.
World Nos. 2 and 4, Rory McIlroy and Martin Kaymer, both shot six-under 66 and headline a group of seven players that are tied for fourth place.
Cabrera-Bello started on the back nine Thursday and got off to a quick start with birdies on the 10th and 11th. He again converted back-to-back birdie efforts from the 13th to move four-under through five holes.
The 27-year-old Spaniard continued his fine play with a birdie on the 16th. He followed that with birdies on 17 and 18 to grab a piece of the lead at minus- seven.
After Siem moved ahead with a birdie on No. 17, Cabrera-Bello converted a birdie chance on the first to again move into a tie atop the leaderboard.
Cabrera-Bello made it five in a row as he birdied the second. That gave him the outright lead at minus-nine. Surely, he had thoughts of carding the first 59 in European Tour history at that point.
"Just for a second after the birdie on No. 2, I tried to do the math on what I needed for 59. Then I told myself to stop being foolish and don't be too greedy," Cabrera-Bello admitted. "Nothing wrong happened -- there were some tough holes to come and I didn't drop a stroke."
Not only did he not drop a shot, but Cabrera-Bello parred his final seven holes.
"It's a really, really good score, but in itself it means nothing. If you want to stay grounded, you think of how many leaders of the first round win the tournament," said Cabrera-Bello. "I know I have to play really, really good just to have a chance."
Siem flew up the leaderboard with five birdies in the first 10 holes, including a chip-in birdie on the sixth. He settled in with four pars in a row from the 11th.
The German poured in three straight birdies from the 15th to soar into the lead at minus-eight. He had a chance to end at nine-under, but his approach splashed into the pond short, right of the green at the 18th. That led to a closing bogey.
"I hit it pretty solid today. I thought it was one of my best rounds of golf ever," Siem stated. "I didn't make any stupid mistakes. I had a lot of good chances and made the putts too."
Jamieson had a bogey-free round with just two birdies on his opening nine. Around the turn, he birdied the 11th, then jumped to minus-five with an eagle on the par-five 13th.
The 28-year-old Jamieson birdied 15 and 18 to join Siem at minus-seven.
McIlroy and Kaymer were joined in fourth place by Thomas Bjorn, Richard Sterne, Nicolas Colsaerts, Gregory Bourdy and Romain Wattel.
Mark O'Meara, the 2004 winner, is tied for 20th at minus-three. Defending champion Alvaro Quiros opened with a two-under 70. Fred Couples, the 1995 champ, is among a large group of players tied with Quiros.
NOTES: McIlroy, Kaymer and Wattel were the only players in the top 10 that were in the afternoon wave...Stephen Gallacher had a hole-in-one on the par- three 15th, and is tied for 20th with O'Meara and world No. 3 Lee Westwood.
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between
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2007 online football betting Preview
My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
2007 College Football Betting Preview
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
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The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
To visit this sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs. Mysportsbook.com online sportsbook accepts Visa and Mastercard credit cards.
FOOTBALL TRASH TALK
NFL Football Trash TalkTrash 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.