The Professional Golfers Association (PGA) is set to launch the 2018 Masters Tournament on Thursday, with a total purse of $11 million. The event has attracted a lot of attention this year, and one Vegas sportsbook has announced that the tournament has brought a large number of bets. So large, in fact, that a new record handle for the Masters has been set.

It’s all thanks to Tiger Woods. That might seem like an exaggeration, but for the most part it’s true. Woods will make his first appearance at Augusta National since 2015. The 14-time major champion and 4-time Masters winner has always been a crowd favorite (despite his missteps) and attracts large crowds. Sportsbook manager Jeff Sherman wrote on the website The Action Network, “Any time Tiger plays, he garners so much attention from the general public that his odds are generally half of what they would be had his name not been associated with the odds. In fact, Tiger currently ranks first in ticket count and number three in money wagered for the Masters.”

The Masters Tournament is always played at the Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Georgia. This is a good thing for bettors, as it provides a great deal of established data that can be used for placing bets.  It also helps establish a number of proposition betting (prop bets) options, which have increasingly become popular with gamblers.

Even though Woods is making a return to the Masters greens this year, he’s not the favorite to win the series. That honor currently lies with Jordan Speith, winner of the 2015 Masters. Odds are currently offered at 10 to 1, followed by Dustin Johnson’s 12 to 1 odds. Woods, Justin Rose and Rory McIlroy join Johnson in a four-way tie for the second-shortest line.

A round-up from the Champions League including Liverpool fans destroying the Man City team coach on a night to forget for Pep Guardiola and Barcelona thump Roma in Spain.

Some call it their religion.

Players are Gods.

In 1982, I was taken from my slumber to watch West Germany play France in the World Cup. The style and panache of Michel Platini and Jean Tigana acting like a drug injected into my eyeballs.

The great thing about the Masters is that it’s the Super Bowl of golf at sportsbooks in that the tournament, the first major championship of the golf season, has almost a Super Bowl level of proposition bets available.

Odds courtesy of OddsShark.com

Typical PGA Tour events generally only have winner props, Top-10 finish, some head-to-head and perhaps top finishers from a country, etc.

The 82nd Masters tees off Thursday from storied Augusta National, and many of the most popular props are on Tiger Woods. The four-time Masters champion hasn’t won a green jacket since 2005, but he’s the biggest difference-maker in golf by a mile in terms of drawing television ratings and betting action.

The first round of Champions League quarter-final ties is in the books. Cristiano Ronaldo scores a majestic goal in a 3-0 win at Juventus. Bayern Munich come from behind to beat Sevilla 2-1 in Spain. 

Gianluigi Buffon compared Cristiano Ronaldo to both Pele and Diego Maradona after the Portuguese striker scored a brilliant bicycle kick to almost certainly send Real Madrid into the semi-finals of the Champions League.

In a repeat of last year’s final (where Real became the first team to successfully defend the Champions League trophy), Juventus fans were full of optimism. The Spaniards trail Barcelona by 13 points in La Liga, whereas the Italians were undefeated in their previous 25 games. But there is something about this magical competition that turns the Spaniards into Titans, and none more so than their iconic Portuguese star.

It took only three-minutes for Ronaldo to put Real ahead. Isco making room for the cross from the left, and Ronaldo drifting towards the near post to stab the ball home clinically with his right foot.