Posted on 5/14/2008 1:19:01 PM

PGA Gold Betting Preview - Cink Leads AT&T Classic Odds

By BetUS Staff

Stewart Cink had a middling result both in last week’s Players Championship sports betting event and last year’s AT&T Classic, but anyone doing some online golf betting this week has already noticed that he’s pegged as the favorite to roll to the victory at TPC Sugarloaf in Duluth, Georgia.

Cink ended up in a tie for 21st place at the Players Championship last week, nine strokes behind eventual winner Sergio Garcia. And at last year’s AT&T Classic at TPC Sugarloaf, Cink finished nine strokes back of first-place Zach Johnson. Still, with a weakened field at the PGA Tour’s stop this week Cink enters play as the +1000 favorite.

Johnson won the AT&T Classic in both 2007 and 2004 (when it was called the Bell South Classic), taking last year’s tournament in a playoff. Last week didn’t go so well for Johnson – he shots rounds of 76 and 79 en route to missing the cut in the Players Championship. Still, the oddsmakers at BetUS have him pegged at +1200 for this week.

Retief Goosen managed to make the cut at the Players Championship last week, but weekend scores of 77 and 75 put him into a tie for 51st place at the end of the event. Goosen, though, won the Bell South Classic in 2002, and he sits second on the odds list for this week’s tournament at just +1100 odds (he didn’t play in this tourney last season).

Ben Crane also skipped this sports betting event last year, but he won the Bell South Classic title back in 2003. Crane ended up six strokes behind Garcia in a tie for sixth place at last week’s Players Championship, and he is tied with Hunter Mahan at +2200 to win this weekend.

David Toms and Camilo Villegas are each listed at +2500 odds to win the AT&T Classic, with Briny Baird and Kenny Perry at +3000, Ryuji Imada and Jonathan Byrd at +3300, and each of Heath Slocum, Lucas Glover, and Steve Flesch at +3500. Steve Elkington, Nick O’Hern, Steve Marino, Dean Wilson, and Charles Howell are at +4000.

Matt Kuchar and Troy Matteson finished behind Johnson and Imada in a tie for third place last year, but they’re farther down the odds list for this week – Kuchar is at +7000, and Matteson is at +5000. Scott McCarron, who won the Bell South Classic in both 1997 and 2001, is a longshot +11000 odds. Paul Goydos, who lost last week’s Players Championship in the playoff versus Garcia, is pegged at +7500 odds for this weekend.

Overseas the golfers of the European Tour will be participating in the Irish Open at Adare Manor Hotel & Golf Resort this week. Padraig Harrington won this event last season, the first time in 25 years that an Irishman has claimed that trophy. Other past winners include Thomas Bjorn (2006), Stephen Dodd (2005), Brett Rumford (2004), and Michael Campbell (2003), while Garcia picked up the victory in this event back in 1999.

After competing at TPC Sugarloaf the golfers of the PGA Tour will head to Colonial Country Club in Forth Worth, Texas for the Crowne Plaza Invitational. The tour will then take part in the Memorial Tournament and the Stanford St. Jude Championship before competing in the U.S. Open from June 12 to 15.

The European Tour will stage the BMW PGA Championship in Surrey, England next week, and then move on to Wales and Austria before many of their top golfers head stateside for the U.S. Open in mid-June.

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