All Sports Room

The PGA Tour is back in full swing and coming off a thrilling tournament last week at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. Not only did Phil Mickelson put together a memorable 64 on Sunday to beat Charlie Wii by two strokes, but he did so playing alongside Tiger Woods.  While  Woods wont be in action this week, Mickelson will lead a powerful field in the 2012 Norther Trust Open.

The tournament is held at Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades, California. Last year Aaron Baddeley took home the trophy with a 12-under 272, edging out Vijay Singh by two shots. B

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Throughout the whole month of February Love Your Casino promotion is open to all Golden Riviera Casino members. And don’t forget that 2012 is a leap year and that means one extra day to pick up the rewards.During the promotional period members simply need to play online casino games as much as they can and collect Promotional Hearts.2 Promotional Hearts collected each week will automatically qualify members for that week’s prize draw. Collecting 8 Promotional Hearts during the whole promotional time will guarantee an extra day of promotional activity and a special Leap Year prize on Feb 29.Golden Riviera Casino is powered by Microgaming software and provides its members with over 550 game titles including online slots, roulette, blackjack, video poker and others. Mem

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Theres a strong line-up assembled at Torrey Pines Golf Club in California this week for the Farmers Insurance Open beginning on Thursday. Length is one of the main contributory factors this week as Torrey Pines South is the longest course on the PGA Tour measured at 7,698 yards. The tournament is played on the clubs north and south courses and an interesting stat is that no first time visitor has ever walked away with the title. The key in the past is to shoot low on the North course, ranked the seventh easiest on tour the last five winners have averaged 66 strokes on this track.

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The Golden Globes are awarded by Hollywood’s foreign journalists.  The journalists are not Academy members and they don’t vote on the Oscars.  The Academy Awards Nominations Polls closed on Friday 13 January so selection of nominees for the Oscars will not have been affected by the results of the Golden Globes awards ceremony held over that weekend.  However, given these caveats, the voting pattern of Academy members may nonetheless be influenced by the Golden Globes winners.

Certainly, a couple of films seem to have slipped down in the rankings for the Oscars with a poor showing at the Golden Globes.  The Help had five nominations for Golden Globes, second only to The Artist’s six, but only one winner – Octavia Spencer as Best Supporting Actress in a drama.  Moneyball also failed to perform with zero awards despite 4 nominations. The Golden Globes differs from the Oscars in that it distinguishes between films that focus on drama and those that centre around comedy/musicals.  This distinction may give a slightly misleading appearance that the Oscars will be a two horse race between The Descendants starring George Clooney and The Artist starring Jean Dujardin. 

 The Descendants won for best drama film and best drama actor whilst The Artist won for best comedy/musical film and best comedy/musical actor. This strong showing from both films has changed the betting odds offered by bookmakers who place George Clooney at a remarkable best price of 4/7 (from bookmaker Paddy Power) to win the Best Actor Oscar,  and Jean Dujardin at 15/8 (Boyle Sports).   In turn, subsequent to the Golden Globes Brad Pitt has slipped down to 12/1 for his performance in Moneyball (offered by Paddy Power) whilst Leonardo deCaprio ‘s chances for his performance in J Edgar similarly lowered to 6/1 (also from Paddy Power).In terms of Best Picture, The Artist continues to lead the betting, with Ladbrokes and Bet365 offering odds of 4/11 for a win.  The Descendants is also a strong contender with odds of 4/1 from Bet365.  Martin Scorsese’s film Hugo is offered at odds of 10/1 from Ladbrokes with Steven Spielberg’s Warhorse at 10/1 from Paddy Power.  Interestingly, in the past 45 years only 3 winners of the Golden Globes musical/comedy category have gone on to win the Best Picture award at the Oscars.  Could this be the year that The Artist, already exceptional as a silent screen film, bucks the trend?

The competition for Best Director remains fierce, as always.  The old guard of Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg have delivered terrific films this year.  Martin Scorsese is reckoned to have a good chance of a win with bookmaker William Hill amongst those offering tempting odds of 9/4.  He also won the Golden Globe award which may bolster his chances.  Steven Spielberg is at longer odds of 8/1 with Bet 365 for Warhorse.  However, Michel Hazanavicius who directed The Artist has a massive chance also with top odds of 8/11 from bookmaker Bet365, with the director of The Descendants Alexander Payne, at odds of 11/2 from the same bookmaker. 

For the category of Best Actress, Meryl Streep remains highly fancied to win the Oscar for her performance in The Iron Lady. She won the Golden Globe for best actress in a drama category and bookmaker Ladbrokes reckon that she is 8/15 in the betting odds.  Star of My Week with Marilyn, Michelle Williams also won a Golden Globe, for best actress in a musical/drama, and bookmaker Paddy Power puts her second in the ranking at odds of 5/2 for a win at the Oscars.  Viola Davis is offered at odds of 3/1 from Ladbrokes for her role in The Help, with longer odds of 14/1 for Glenn Close and 20/1 for both Tilda Swinton  and Rooney Mara (from PaddyPower) 

The 84^th Academy Awards ceremony will take place on Sunday 26 February, when you will be able to judge for yourselves how the Golden Globe awards have affected the voting of Academy members.  Ascerbic comedian Ricky Gervais, presenter of this year’s Golden Globes, reckons that the event was “just like the Oscars…without all that esteem”.  The stars rated the event higher and turned out in force, providing him with the butt of many a waspish joke.   The stakes will be enormous next month though and there will be doubtless be smiles and tears aplenty.  That’s showbiz, ain’t it…

Bookmaker free bets can be used to bet on the 2012 Oscar Awards

The New Orleans Saints travel to face the San Francisco 49ers in the Divisional Round of the NFC playoffs on Saturday, January 14th. Both teams went 13-3 this season, but San Francisco won the tiebreaker for the No. 2 seed thanks to their record against NFC opponents. That meant that New Orleans would have to play a first-round game as the No. 3 seed. Though it was not easy, the Saints would take care of the Detroit Lions at home to advance to the second round to face the 49ers.

Oddsmakers have installed a line of New Orleans -3.5 over San Francisco with a total set of 47.5 points.

New Orleans

The Saints put together an impressive 13-3 campaign this season, and they entered the playoffs as the hottest team in the league.

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