Charles Barkley is a legend on the basketball court. He remains an afterthought on the golf course.<\/p>\n
The former NBA MVP has the longest odds (7,500-1 at Caesars Sportsbook) at the American Century Championship, a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. It’s a bit of a surprise considering Barkley finished a career-best 58th in 2024 and 69th last year among a field of 90 participants. The over\/under on Barkley’s finish is 63.5 at Caesars Sportsbook, with lead golf trader Anthony Salleroli telling ESPN most bettors are picking Barkley to finish worse than 63rd.<\/p>\n
Former tennis player Mardy Fish and ex-NHL All-Star Joe Pavelski are the co-favorites at 3-1. Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry and Baseball Hall of Famer John Smoltz are tied for second with 7-2 odds.<\/p>\n
Smoltz, who’s finished as high as second at Tahoe, is higher on Barkley’s game than the general consensus.<\/p>\n
“He’s come so far,” Smoltz said, per ESPN. “I played with Charles 20 years ago. And where he is at now — motivated, lost weight, looks great — every year he’s got a bar that he’s trying to raise.”<\/p>\n
Barkley can prove his doubters wrong this weekend.<\/p>\n
How to watch the American Century Championship<\/p>\n
Coverage begins this afternoon at 3 p.m. ET on Peacock and NBCSN.<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on For The Win: 1 NBA legend has longest odds at American Century Championship<\/p>\n
Reporting by Wajih AlBaroudi, For The Win \/ For The Win<\/p>\n
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley is a legend on the basketball court. He remains an afterthought on the golf course. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754610,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-754609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}