Golf Tidbits: Where has Stuart Appleby's game gone?

Golf Betting Lines

03/11/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Once the top-ranked Australian in the world, Stuart Appleby has plummeted in the world rankings as his winless streak stretches into its fourth season.

Appleby owns eight PGA Tour titles, including three straight wins at the winners-only Mercedes Championships, now known as the SBS Championship. The Australian ended his run of three straight wins at that event in 2006, and later that season won the Houston Open. Since then, nothing, at least in terms of wins.

Appleby had a decent 2007 with four top-10 finishes worldwide, and two top-12 finishes in the four majors. The following season, he was off to a blazing start. After missing the cut in his first start of the '08 season, Appleby reeled off six consecutive top-10s, five of which came on the PGA Tour. But following that hot start, he posted just two more top-10s the rest of 2008.

Despite making the cut in all four majors and tying for second at the WGC- Bridgestone Invitational, he was unable to break back into the winners circle.

Last year, Appleby had five times as many missed cuts (10) as top-10 finishes, (two). Two of his missed cuts were at the U.S. Open and the PGA Championship.

Things have not gotten any better this season. Appleby has started in seven PGA Tour events and made the cut just twice. Neither time did he finish in the top 60.

He will be absent from the WGC event this week, making it three in a row that he has missed after playing in 32 straight WGC events.

With all of his struggles, Appleby has plummeted to No. 151 in the world. Not only that, but there are now 13 fellow Australians ranked ahead of Appleby in the current world rankings. His star has fallen so much that he needed to use a one-time exemption to keep his PGA Tour card this season. The exemption he used stems from him being ranked in the Top 25 on the PGA Tour's career money list.

Last year was the first time since his rookie year that he finished outside the top 125 on the money list, which is the cutoff point to keep your tour card for the next season.

Appleby's poor form also cost him a spot on the International Presidents Cup team last year, after he had played the previous five teams.

His driving distance this year has fallen more than 18 yards from his peak of 300.6 yards in 2005, and his greens in regulation stats have fallen below 60- percent for the first time since he joined the PGA Tour.

Those two stats do not tell the entire story, but hitting the ball shorter and hitting fewer greens is a recipe for higher scores and poor results.

What makes his fall from grace unusual is that there is no injury to blame. Appleby has just has just lost his game. He went so far as to joke about it on his Twitter page.

After he made the cut last week at the Honda Classic, Appleby posted this on his Twitter account, "Made the cut...Stop the press."

LOOK OUT FOR THE MOLINARI BROTHERS

Francesco and Edoardo Molinari continue to set firsts on the PGA Tour, and in the golf world in general. This week, they were ranked back-to-back in the official world golf rankings.

Edoardo, the younger of the two and the 2005 U.S. Amateur champion, was ranked 47th, less than one average point ahead of Francesco.

The world golf rankings started in 1987, so it is difficult to say they are the highest-rated brothers ever. One thing is for sure, they will be the first brother combination to play at the Masters since Jumbo and Joe Ozaki in 2000.

It will be the second trip to Augusta for Edoardo, whose U.S. Amateur victory gained him a spot in the 2006 Masters field. Francesco caddied for his brother that week, when the younger Molinari played alongside defending champion Tiger Woods for the first two rounds.

In the past few months, they have established a pair of familial firsts. In November, they became the first brothers to win the Omega Mission Hills World Cup, and in February were the first brothers to qualify for a World Golf Championship event when they both competed at the Accenture Match Play Championship.

Francesco has won once on the European Tour, while Edoardo was victorious twice last season on the European Challenge Tour. However, Edoardo is off to a better start this year with a pair of fourth-place finishes.

Including the three Ozaki brothers - who combined for over 140 wins on the Japan Golf Tour - there have been other previous outstanding brother combinations in golf. Dave and Mike Hill posted over 51 professional wins, and Lanny and Bobby Wadkins had over 20 professional wins, including Lanny's victory at the 1977 PGA Championship.

Francesco and Edoardo have plenty of time to catch these "other brothers," as they are just 27 and 29 years old, respectively.

MINI-TIDBITS

- Ryo Ishikawa was one of two players ranked in the top 50 in the world to miss last week's WGC - CA Championship. His excuse? He was at his high school graduation.

- Steve Pate, a six-time winner on the PGA Tour and two-time Ryder Cupper, became the oldest winner on the Nationwide Tour when he won the Bogota Open last week. Pate will turn 49 on May 26.

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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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