Trio leads Rex Hospital Open

Golf Betting Lines

06/08/2007 - Raleigh, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Tom Carter, Kyle Thompson and Michael Letzig all fired rounds of seven-under-par 64 on Thursday and are tied for the first- round lead of the Rex Hospital Open.

Rick Price, Tee McCabe and Ron Whittaker are knotted in fourth place at minus- six at the TPC at Wakefield Plantation.

Carter collected his first birdie of the round at the par-four second when his 15-footer found the bottom of the cup. He added another birdie at the fourth from eight feet, then caught a little fire later in his opening nine.

At the par-five sixth, Carter missed the green with his second shot, but chipped to eight feet. He rolled in the birdie putt and made it two in a row when his nine-iron tee ball stopped 10 feet from the stick at seven.

Things went downhill quickly for Carter. He failed to get up and down from a bunker for par at the eighth, then drove into a hazard at the ninth. That led to another bogey and he made the turn at two-under 33.

Carter parred his first three holes on the back side, then rattled off three birdies in a row from the 13th, all from the six-foot range. He tapped in a short birdie putt at the 17th and reached seven-under par with a five-foot birdie putt on the par-five last.

"I made everything today," admitted Carter, who won three times in 2003, but has struggled since. "Today was one of those days where everything clicked for me. This type of round is definitely a confidence builder."

Thompson started on the back nine Thursday and promptly birdied the 10th. He added birdies at the 12th, 14th and 18th to make the turn at four-under par.

He flew out of the gate on the second nine with a birdie at the first and a 40-foot birdie putt at the second. Thompson birdied the seventh, bogeyed eight and birdied nine to join Carter in the lead.

"It was one of those days," said Thompson. "It was a really easy seven-under. I never really struggled for any pars. I hit it good and putted good. I hit a lot of greens and fairways and made a lot of putts in the 10-15-foot range."

Letzig was the only one of the co-leaders to tee off in the afternoon and tallied his first birdie at the par-four fourth. He collected back-to-back birdies at nine and 10, then finished strong.

He birdied 13 and 14 to get to five-under par for the championship. Letzig, currently 20th on the Nationwide Tour money list, birdied 16 and 18 to join the group in first.

Scott Gump, Elliot Gealy and Jon Turcott are tied in seventh place at five- under-par 66. Phil Tataurangi, Mario Tiziani, Marc Turnesa, Kris Blanks, Brett Bingham and Tony Parrish share 10th place at minus-four.

Brenden Pappas has a chance to become the first player in Nationwide Tour history to successfully defend a title. He started off in decent shape with a one-under-par 70 and is tied for 43rd place.

Wnorthernlight Golf Betting News

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash 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.