I know next to nothing about golf, but I'm pretty sure this is nuts.
Mostly, I think it proves how silly it would be to bet on Tiger to win this week- or any week for that matter. He was +125 earlier this week. You have to win 45% of the time for those to be good odds.
Apparently, 75% of SportsNation (which is a slightly different demographic than the betting public, but probably close enough) thinks Tiger has over a 50% chance of winning, and would take him at EV, and probably even worse odds. I would actually love to know how much action the books get on Tiger, compared to other golfers. It is inevitably not close.
Regardless of the price, a lot of money is going to come in on Woods. Given this, there's no way they are going to offer fair odds- why would they?- and a line with a positive expected value is completely out of the question. There's no way the books think he will win anywhere near 45% of the time. Despite my lack of golf knowledge, I'm pretty sure one of the dumbest things you can do in sports wagering is bet on Tiger Woods.
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It's pretty much the worst bet I can imagine other than some of those CBB futures The Greek is offering right now.
When I bet my outrights at 5 Dimes they hardly adjusted the lines at all even though I had well over a 5figure stake on the 3 I took.
It's like they don't care as long as you are willing to take someone other than Tiger.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if Vegas thinks Tiger can win 45% of the time.
So far in '08 he has won 80% (3/5), with an average finish of 2nd. In 2007 he won 43.75% (7/16), with an average finish on about 5.
In his last 10 tournaments, he has won 7, with two 2nd places and a 5th.
(all this info compiled from Wikipedia, naturally.)
So yes, his lines are completely ridiculous, but if there is one athlete in the history of sport who can command those odds it's tiger.
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