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04/09/2010 - Augusta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Englishmen Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood are knotted atop the leaderboard after Friday's second round of The Masters at Augusta National.
Poulter (68) and Westwood (69) are tied at eight-under 136.
Tiger Woods shot a two-under 70 on Friday and is tied for third place at six- under 138.
Thursday's round was Woods' first on the PGA Tour since a sex scandal last fall caused the four-time Masters champion to take a self-imposed absence from the game.
Woods came back with a fury when he posted a four-under 68, his lowest opening round at The Masters. On Friday, Woods mixed three birdies and a bogey for his 70.
"I feel good, I feel very comfortable," said Woods. "Today I hit a lot of good putts. I made my share. Conditions were so much more difficult today. As you can see the scores, guys are not tearing this place apart like they were yesterday."
On Friday, Woods tapped in a short birdie putt at the par-five second hole, but lost a shot thanks to a bogey at No. 4. He parred his next eight holes, then took advantage of the two par fives on Augusta's second nine.
At the 13th, Woods hit his drive long enough to reach the green in two, but elected to lay up due to the wind. He hit his third 20 feet short of the stick, but drained the putt for birdie.
He was five-under for the championship and missed the green with his second at the par-five 15th. Woods chipped on and made the birdie putt to get to minus- six.
Woods parred his last three to get in at 138.
Phil Mickelson, a two-time Masters champion, finished with a one-under 71 and tied Woods, K.J. Choi (71), Ricky Barnes (70) and Anthony Kim (70) at minus- six.
Mickelson nearly made a long birdie putt on the last, but it popped out of the hole.
"I gave it a little bit extra," said Mickelson, who won in 2004 and 2006. "I was fortunate it hit the hole."
Reigning PGA Champion Y.E. Yang managed an even-par 72 and is eighth at five- under 139.
First-round leader Fred Couples battled his balky back on Friday morning and bogeyed the last three holes for a three-over 75. The 50-year-old three-time winner on the Champions Tour this year is certainly still in contention at three-under 141, but admitted it was the back that did him in on Friday.
"For a while I felt like I could go from first to last," acknowledged Couples, the 1992 Masters champion. "But I kind of loosened up and I got it around."
Sixty-year-old Tom Watson, whose 67 on Thursday was his lowest round at Augusta since 1997, struggled to a two-over 74 on Friday, but matched Couples and Soren Kjeldsen (71) at minus-three.
"It was a struggle today," he admitted. "I'm disappointed that I didn't do as well as I could have today."
Poulter did about as well as anyone could have on Friday.
He broke into red figures with a birdie at the par-five second after his five- wood second landed in the middle of the green. Poulter's next birdie came from eight feet at the eighth, then it was off to the back nine where he flew up the board.
At the famous, par-three 12th, Poulter hit an eight-iron to eight feet to set up birdie. He ran his eagle putt 10 feet past the hole at the par-five 13th, but the colorful Englishman hit the comeback putt for another birdie.
Poulter hit another strong eight-iron at 16 and the result was the same as No. 12. He drained an eight-foot birdie try and was nine-under par for the championship.
Trouble loomed at the last. Poulter pulled his five-iron approach shot and left himself with seven feet for par. His putt stayed above ground and Poulter walked off with a bogey at 18.
"I'm pleased that I gave myself so many chances, and I would say it's one of best rounds of golf I've played in a while," said Poulter.
It was at this year's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship where Poulter earned his first win in the United States and first PGA Tour victory. He is the seventh-ranked golfer in the world and feels like he belongs on top of leaderboards at major championships.
"It's helped a lot to win on this side of the pond, has made a big difference, and the fact that it was a WGC has given me an extra boost," he said. "To be playing Augusta was in my dreams, and to be sitting at the top of the leaderboards was in my dreams, as well. So hopefully we can have a good weekend and be in a similar situation come Sunday night."
He will battle his fellow countrymen, starting Saturday.
Westwood flew out of the gate with a tap-in eagle at two and a curling birdie putt at No. 3. He bogeyed five, but back-to-back birdies at six and seven got him to nine-under par.
After a bogey at 10 and a birdie at 11, Westwood two-putted for a birdie at 13. He was 10-under and two clear, but that evaporated quickly. A bad drive at 14 led to a double-bogey, but he got one stroke back with another two-putt birdie at 15.
Westwood was in the lead until yet another errant drive, this time at the last. His ball went way right and Westwood turned around to the gallery as if he was distracted by something.
He pitched out, then knocked his third on to the green, but it rolled down toward the front of the green. Westwood missed the putt, made bogey and will play in Saturday's final pairing with his buddy.
"I don't think it'll be a factor at all," said Westwood of playing with his friend in round three. "If anything it'll help, but as golfers we go out there and concentrate on our own ball and not what the other guys do."
NOTES: The 36-hole cut fell at three-over 147 and defending champion Angel Cabrera birdied the last to make it on the number...Padraig Harrington, Bernhard Langer, Rory McIlory, British Open champion Stewart Cink, Paul Casey, Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk were the biggest names to miss the weekend.
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NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking.
No. 1 always seems to fit USC.
Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent.
Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory.
Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3.
"We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team."
Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time.
"Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team."
The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points.
"I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won."
Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State.
"There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?"
USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll.
"It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter."
While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls.
As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule.
But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference.
Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com.
The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road.
The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second.
The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia.
No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday.
Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee.
Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina.
Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson.
The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996.
South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20.
The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24.
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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.
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