Grace, Finch atop leaderboard at suspended Joburg Open

Golf Betting Lines

01/14/2012 - Johannesburg, South Africa (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Branden Grace and Richard Finch were atop the leaderboard Saturday when the third round of the Joburg Open was suspended due to dangerous weather.

Each day of this tournament has been marred with inclement weather, though Saturday proved to be the best of the three days at Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club. The event is now almost on track, with the final group having only four holes to play in the third round, which will resume at 12:30 a.m. (et) on Sunday.

After the first two rounds alternated over the East and West Courses, the third and final rounds are played solely on the more difficult par-72 East Course.

Grace and Finch both sit at 15-under, with Grace having three holes and Finch having four to finish on Sunday before the final round.

George Coetzee is third at 14-under with four holes to play, while Andrew Parr (64) and Dawie Van Der Walt (67) share the clubhouse lead at 12-under 203. Parr and Van Der Walt are tied with Jbe Kruger in fourth; Kruger has three holes to finish in his third round.

After the second round was completed and the cut was made at four-under 141, it was guaranteed that a new champion would be crowned on Sunday. Charl Schwartzel, the two-time defending champion, missed by one stroke and will not become the sixth European Tour player to win three straight titles at the same event.

Grace, meanwhile, has a good chance at his first European Tour title, while Finch is gunning for his third.

Finch entered the day with 12 holes to play in his second round, and he added a hole-in-one on the East Course's par-three 12th. He finished two rounds at 11-under and rode the momentum into the third round.

Finch began his third round with a 20-foot birdie putt at the first, but stumbled to a bogey at the fourth. After going birdie-bogey from the sixth, Finch chipped in for an eagle at the par-five eighth to move to 13-under.

He followed the eagle with a birdie at the ninth, and a 15-foot birdie putt at the 13th made sure he led when play was called.

Grace finished his second round on Friday and was flawless on Saturday, including a late surge that was halted by the weather. His front nine included birdies at two of the par-fives, making the turn at 12-under, and he had three consecutive birdies from the 13th to gain a share of the lead.

NOTES: A cash prize is awarded for a hole-in-one in the final round, so Finch's ace will go unrewarded...Both of Finch's victories came in 2008...There are still 27 players left to finish the third round.

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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.