SAN DIEGO _ Jesse Esparza, his brother Alex and buddies Steve Capps and Van Wordlaw staked out spots Saturday morning at Torrey Pines near the South Course's eighth green well before any golfers took the tee on the par-3 hole.
Esparza and crew were along the rope line, maybe 30 feet right of the flagstick.
And there they would be _ all day for the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open.
Soon enough, those around them knew why.
As much as there was going on at the other 17 holes on the South Course, this is where the real action was.
Place your bets.
There were wagers on whether a tee shot landed above or below the hole, closest to the pin or for a birdie putt. And that was just for starters. The bets were sure to get more creative as the day unfolded.
Bets were just a dollar, mostly, except when things really got out of hand and Esparza bet $5 with two guys and $20 with another that Tiger Woods wouldn't land his tee shot on the green.
"Dumbest thing I've heard all day," one spectator said.
Woods plopped it down front and center on the green.
Bye, bye $30.
"Nice doing business with you," someone said to Esparza.
Things had started off better for him. He picked up a buck on the opening group when Jimmy Walker's drive went long.
The guy who lost the dollar was not too happy about it.
"Would you tell Mr. Walker he lost me a dollar?" the guy said as Walker's caddie walked past him.
Esparza, an Escondido resident, pressed his luck with the following group, offering 5-to-1 odds to the guy standing next to him on a pair of long birdie putts facing Tony Finau and Hideki Matsuyama.
Finau promptly drained a 26-footer. Then Matsuyama followed with a 23-footer.
Esparza kept on smiling.
"Gamblers, it always comes back to you," he said. "You give out, you always come back.
Esparza enjoys the jolt that comes with having a little something on each group.
"It makes every hole fun," he said.
The PGA Tour is well aware of this. In fact, the tour has signed London-based IMG Arena to be the "official data distributor for media and betting purposes of its proprietary ShotLink system," as the Union-Tribune's Tod Leonard wrote two months ago.
IMG Arena is working with legal betting agencies on how to handle wagering on PGA Tour competition in U.S. states where it is legal. And it's targeted to happen sometime this year.
This was news to Esparza. He was definitely interested in hearing more, although he was pretty content standing alongside the eighth green.
"Both would be fun, but on site is way better than online," he said.
We shall see.
There will be plenty of ways to wager when the online system is rolled out.
One thing we've seen at the eighth hole that might not be included is wagering on which players' caddie in each threesome gets to the green first.
"That's a real good one," Esparza said.
Of course, he would think that.
Esparza was ready to put a dollar down on whether the fog would interrupt play.
"I just wanted the action," he said.
We know. We know.
