General / Craig Dutton / 19 November 2007 /

Craig Dutton takes a retrospective look at 1.19 Robert Karlsson's disastrous last round and what we can learn from it

Before anything else, just a quick word about Bill Elliot's thought-provoking blog of golf's freefall into a cash chase. The game can be extremely lucrative at the top level, and it is inevitable that the cream of the world's players will endeavour to reap the rewards of their talent as extensively as they can. As a bettor, it does douse my flame a little. I sometimes question whether all professional golfers crave the win as much as I want them to. I know if I were a golfer, a few million dollars up three months into a season campaign, the drive to consistently put 100% in would quickly subside, especially if I'd entered a poor performance in my first eighteen holes. Perhaps that says more about me as a person than any professional golfer, and I hope that's the case.

Whilst many bodies in sport and from the ABB have lobbied against the advent of betting exchanges, in-running markets create great interest and drama in fields that may otherwise remain stagnant. How many runners have been backed at 1.01 this year and gone on to lose? It's a rhetorical question, because only a mutant abacus could count. Whilst Robert Karlsson didn't quite reach 1.01, he was trading at 1.19 to win the Hong Kong Open, a tournament he went on to lose to Spanish Miguel Angel Jimenez. His price had remained relatively solid through the day's play, a strong round, only approaching turbulent waters on the final hole. Nonetheless, this was by no means a masterclass. Karlsson was not the player of rounds 1 to 3, which was almost certainly attributable to nerves.

He may have bottled it. I long criticised Lee Westwood for the same thing, before he went on to close out a final day advantage, but it is a trait the majority of players succumb to. Scoring so superbly for four consecutive days is just so difficult that players both world-class and amateur must allow the element of self-doubt to creep into their game. If all golfers were machines, betting in-play would be easy. But it isn't, and it is important to bear in mind that for a player to be value at 1.01, it would take a truly insurmountable lead. Not a maybe insurmountable, or a possibly doable lead, but a completely number-crunching lead. I can't emphasise enough, without shouting and wailing crude gestures via the medium of blog.

Golf is just not a sport to be backing players in-running at long odds on. It is the pick-n-mix section of betting exchanges - fruity, long odds; boring old humbugs that have been hanging around for twenty years. At 1.01, all players are like a Curly-Wurly. Big, powerful, attractive to all - but just as likely to melt in the sun, leaving you with chocolatey hands and a foot in your mouth. If anyone can decipher that labyrinth of metaphors, a job at Scotland Yard awaits you. It's just so easy to get carried away with these 1.01 boys. And now I'm hungry too.

Have you ever backed a player at 1.01, and can any player truly represent value at that price? When have you had your fingers burned/melted on?

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