US Open. 7 points David Toms to beat Sergio Garcia @ 1.82 with Unibet (tie no bet).
lost 7 points 6 points David Howell to beat Sergio Garcia at 10/11 with Ladbrokes. won 5.45 points Howell leads to the European OOM by a big margin and is developing into a genuinely world class player. He is making his mark on the US tour despite playing mostly in Europe. His problem has been round 3 scoring, perhaps he mentally drifts off after making a cut, but his terrible Rd3 scoring has cost him top 5 finishes and perhaps a win. The Players Championship – finished 38th with a Rd 3 round 81. The Masters – finished 19th with a Rd3 76. The Memorial, finished 48th with a Rd3 83 and last week he was 13th with a Rd3 73. It is this bad round feature of his game that is holding him back, but is game is in very good shape and he now sits 24th in the all round ranking on the US tour. If he can play at 100% for 4 rounds and not just 3, he will have a high finish. Garcia is having a lean season and his game is not in good shape. US Open courses are penal in every respect, you need to be accurate and have a great short game and preferably be able to hit a mile as well. Garcia recent form shows him ranked 103rd for driving distance, 158th for driving accuracy, 120th for total accuracy 180th for scrambling and 96th for putting average. On a very testing course like this, he could find life very difficult. To add to his troubles he had to withdraw from last weeks Barclays Classic with a back strain, so his fitness remains in doubt. 5 points Jose Maria Olazabal to beat Sergio Garcia @ evens with SportingOdds. won 5 points Yes, you can see the picture, I have it in for Garcia this week! Olazabal is enjoying a real revival in his career and the fact that he can now use his driver and expect to hit the fairways must be a large part of that revival. He was hopeless of the tee not so long ago but now finds over 67% of fairways from the tee. He is still very accurate from fairway to greens and currently has a total accuracy rating of 9th on the US tour. He is currently averaging 1.68 putts per hole, the number1 putter on tour. Five top 15 finishes in his last 7 events shows that his form is very good, and while a repeat of his 3rd in the Masters may be asking too much, he should get the better of his struggling fellow Spaniard. 1 point e/w David Toms @ 33/1 with Jenningsbet.com lost 2 points With this brutal course set to punish any weaknesses in a players game it makes sense to side with players who have a strong all round game, who should be able to grind out a modest score in each round. No one is going to rip this course to pieces and any round under par will be one of the better of the day. Toms fits the bill being rated 2nd on the all round rankings. Mickelson is 1st, but at best odds of 15/2 Mickelson makes little appeal as a value bet. Toms recent form and course form is solid and he is a major winner already, so question marks over his bottle are greatly exaggerated. Aa St. Omer Open.
Perhaps the
lowest quality field you will see on the European
Tour this year, it really is a Challenger Tour event
in all but name. The course is a short, hilly parkland course, unlike most courses on the European Tour, so course form is important as it is not to everyone's liking. Hepworth has great form figures here since the course was revamped in 2002, 4/4/6. The was 7th in Morocco 2 weeks ago, so if he can play as well here as he di there, he must have a decent chance. US Open – Update. The half way point has been reached and historically the list of likely winners can be found by looking those players at the top of the leader board. A very obvious place to look of course, but with US Open course being so difficult to shoot lower scores in, catching up even a handful of shots over 2 rounds is extremely difficult. In run of the mill tour events, especially on the easier courses, someone can shoot a 61 a come out of the pack to win, but no one is going to that at Winged foot. It is a matter for those at the top to grid out pars and not to make double bogeys. The odd bogey is inevitable and players who can take a set back on the chin and just try and par the next will do well. In the last 10 years the winner has always been in the top 6 after rd2, so we should be looking at Stricker, Montgomerie, Ferrie, Ogilvy, Furyk and Harrington to find the likely winner. And what an interesting little puzzle it is. Steve Stricker, if you have a good memory you may remember him winning the WGC Matchplay in 2001 to add to 2 other Tour wins in 1996. He lost his tour card last year and the best days of his career appears to be behind him. Certainly he would not have been on many peoples radar when searching for the likely winner. The reason why he is leading is simple, he is hitting it straight off the tees, finding the fairways and sinking his putts. His in-running stats are DA 7TH, GIT 6th and Putting Average 5th, excellent stuff. His only ‘weakness’ is lack of distance off the tee, but this is a course that rewards accuracy over everything else and we have seen a lot of the big hitters either backing their bags or keeping the big dog in the bag. Stricker may be a player with a bright future behind him, but if he keeps playing like he is, he will win. Montgomerie, well what will Monty do today? I noticed yesterday the (rather beer fuelled) crowd was starting to heckle him and in turn he was pointing at people telling them to keep still etc., very much the grumpy old git that the yanks hate. There is always the chance that he will simply flip his lid and shoot a cricket score, and his game has not been in great shape recently. His strength is his accuracy, but the putter is a big worry. Sadly for Monty his biggest problem is himself. If he can keep the ugly monster under lock and key for 2 more rounds, he could win, but his track record in that department is not good. The dark side usually wins out and he starts to huff and puff, lets the shoulders drop and mentally losses the plot. He deserves a major, and it would be great to see him win, but it is hard to see the American crowd giving anything other than a very rough ride. Geoff Ogilvy is a player on the up and has good recent form in majors (28TH US Open ’05, 5th Open ‘05, 6th USPGA ’05, 16th Masters ‘06). Like Stricker he has won the WGC Matchplay , this year back in February. He is playing well in 2006 with 8 top 20’s in total. He has solid all round game but his in running DA 58TH and GIR 51st are a worry and I suspect he will find enough trouble to end up with another high Major finish, but not a win. Kenny Ferrie is another surprise name up so high on the leader board. A very talented player with 2 European tour wins, but he did blow a 5 stroke lead to finish second in the Dunhill Links last year. His in-running stats show him 1st for all round ranking, and that what you need to win US Opens, but does he really believe he can do it? He has history against him, no debutant has won the US Open since 1913 and no European has won this since 1970. I can’t see him as the winner. Jim Furyk will be many peoples idea of the winner as he so good at hitting fairways and greens. However his GIR stats this week are not great so far (68th) and he has been relaying on his scrambling abilities to stay in contention. I am not a huge fan of Furyk as he very consistent player who rarely wins, certainly not as often as he should, but he has won a US Open before (2003) and was 6th here in the 1997 USPGA, and he is unlikely to be far off the winning score come Sunday. Padraig Harrington has the curse of the Europeans to overcome but is a player who looks ready to win and loves the challenge of a very hard course. He plays his best golf in America and with domestic matters settled after his fathers long illness and death in 2005, his game is now back in good shape. He knocked in some great putts yesterday and looked a very happy bunny. In-running stats show him 2nd in the all round ranking and 1st for driving accuracy. I see Harrington as a leading contender. To me it looks like Stricker, Furyk or Harrington. Harrington and Furyk are on the same score but Harrington is twice the price and looks a much better value bet. Stricker is hard to fancy because it is such a long time since he was a top class player and it is very probable that he will get very nervous the longer he is in contention. He certainly has the game, but has he got the bottle? 17/2 best price looks a bit short to me even if the RD2 leaders have won 5 of the last 10 US Opens. 5 points e/w Padraig Harrington to win the US Open @ 10/1, generally available. lost 10 points |
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