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It's the final day of the 2008 British Open Sunday and odds were still available on this very tight event coming into the AM hours.
Your leaderboard looked like this after Saturday's play:
1 18 +2 G NORMAN
T2 18 +4 P HARRINGTON
T2 18 +4 K CHOI
4 18 +5 S WAKEFIELD
T5 18 +7 B CURTIS
T5 18 +7 R FISHER
T5 18 +7 A KIM
T5 18 +7 A NOREN
Greg Norman? Who's that?
Yeah it's a name we've associated with the game of golf for years and this long shot 66/1 odds just the other day at Sportingbet could actually end up winning the Open.
Greg Norman regained the lead in The Open at Royal Birkdale on 212 despite dropping two shots to par on a turbulent day that saw the top section of the leaderboard constantly changing. He took over from overnight leader K J Choi of Korea who finished the day with a 75 to share second place with Padraig Harrington two shots behind.
Norman finished with a flourish, with a birdie at the 17th and a finely judged pitch into the last green that rolled inches past the hole. It is 15 years since the 53-year-old Australian last won the Championship and last night he declared that he was going out today to enjoy himself. It might not have seemed that way when he dropped two shots in the opening three holes, but by the finish he had a broad smile.
"I'll be honest, I walked to the first tee nervous this morning," he admitted. "And that was in the top three hardest rounds I've ever played in given the circumstances. It's so hard to start the ball 60, 80 yards off your target line. As soon as it gets above the dunes it's at the mercy of the elements."
He had 7/2 odds after Day 3.
But get this - an injured Padraig Harrington is very much in the hunt at number two on the leaderboard. Harrington is the reigning British Open champion and Gambling911.com readers might recall how this Irishman caused national bookmakers like Paddy Power to lose significant amounts of money during the 3rd quarter of last year.
It may happen again as Harrington opened with 22/1 odds of winning. Those odds were shorter than where he opened last year but more bets were likely to have been placed on Harrington as a result of his winning. Harrington was at 5/2 odds heading into the final day at Sportingbet.
Odds are also strong that Asian gamblers have been backing one of their own heavily - that would be Korea's 37-year-old K J Choi. If he were to win the 2008 British Open, Choi would be the first Asian golfer to do so. His odds were at 4/1 heading into the final day.
A relative unknown, England's Simon Wakefield, ranked joint-250th in the world and finds himself right in the thick of things going into the final day.
"I might not sleep a lot tonight," admitted Wakefield, after revealing that even before today's round he had felt nervous over his breakfast. "It's obviously very unfamiliar territory for me this week.
"I've been in the lead going into the final round of a tournament before, so I'm familiar with the position... but obviously not this position in a Major Championship."
Wakefield was still a 22/1 long shot to win the 2008 British Open heading into Sunday.
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Alistair Prescott, Gambling911.com
