Tiger Woods Costs Irish Bookmaker Paddy Power $2.1 Million With PGA Loss 17/08/2009 |
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Tiger Woods’s unprecedented collapse in the final round of golf’s PGA Championship was a $2.1 million bogey for Paddy Power Plc, Ireland’s largest bookmaker.
When Woods opened a four-shot lead after the second round, Paddy Power made early payoffs to bettors who wagered on Woods to win the year’s final major tournament.
The decision backfired when Woods blew a two-shot lead yesterday and was denied his 15th major championship by South Korea’s Y.E. Yang at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota. Woods entered the final round as the 1-5 favorite, having never lost a major in 14 chances when entering the last round at least tied for the lead.
“It takes a special kind of dimwit to turn what should have been our best-ever golf result into our worst,” company spokesman Paddy Power said in an e-mail statement. “Paddy Power punters are obviously the big winners here and have made like bandits getting paid out on Tiger as a winner.”
Dublin-based Paddy Power said the loss was its worst for an early payout. The company previously said its willingness to make payments before the completion of a sports event or soccer season helped attract record numbers of bettors.
Woods had won his past 36 tournaments when holding at least a share of the lead entering the final round. He shot a 3-over- par 75 yesterday to finish three strokes behind Yang, the first Asian-born golfer to win a men’s major.
“Tiger’s good, but he could always have a bad day,” Yang, who finished 8-under par, said through an interpreter during a news conference. “I guess yesterday was one of those days.”
Before the tournament, Yang had 150-1 odds at Paddy Power to win the PGA Championship, meaning a winning $100 bet would return $15,000 plus the initial stake. Yang’s odds to win before the final round dropped to 16-1.
(Source: Bloomberg)
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