Find Me A 100 Winner / Paul Krishnamurty / 10 April 2012 /

After a Masters tournament that was so nearly very profitable Paul Krishnamurty is turning his attentions to the Malaysian Open this week in his search for that magical triple figure winner.

Regular readers please forgive me, but I must start this week's column with a complaint about some awful luck at the Masters.

As anyone who followed the trading advice will be painfully aware, it was something of a minor miracle that we didn't turn a profit from those three picks.

Fred Couples held the halfway lead and was matched, agonisingly, at [21.0], one point above our lay target. Ian Poulter was in contention on Sunday, trading around [30.0] for ages but always one more birdie away from shortening enough to get laid back. Even Kevin Na, whilst never in contention, fared well in 12th place.

Now that's out of my system, onwards to this week's Maybank Malaysian Open. The most significant angle here may lie in recognising the very different conditions between Kuala Lumpur and Augusta, or in the case of European Tour raiders who didn't qualify for the Masters, recent tournament venues in Spain and Morocco.

Whereas Augusta's greens are famously lightning-fast, here the grainy surfaces are notoriously tricky and measure just 10 on the stimp-meter. Equally significant is the extreme humidity - a big negative for those not acclimatised. Ideally then we're looking for players with experience and proven good form in the region, so it might pay to go with the players currently ranked second and third on the Asian Tour Order of Merit.

First, Marcus Fraser is well-known to Euro Tour watchers and is frankly an inexplicable price at [100.0] given his recent numbers. Fraser has plenty of form in these co-sanctioned affairs, winning the 2010 Ballantines Championship in Korea and finishing fourth, eighth and 11th in the last three such events. Indeed, the Aussie has seemed in the best form of his life over the past six months, also finishing runner-up in a classy event in his homeland and a very respectable 24th last month against elite company in the WGC-CA Championship at Doral.

Fresher than most of the market principals, Fraser seems a likelier contender than many at much shorter prices.

Secondly, Prom Meesawat looked to be one of the hottest Asian prospects when first appearing on the scene and after a miserable couple of seasons, is on the way back. Still only 27, Meesawat has been an almost permanent fixture in the top-20 of Asian Tour events over the past year, including sixth at the Avantha Masters, second in his following event and tenth last time out, again in Delhi.

Prom's performance stats suggest putting and birdie accumulation are his forte, which bodes well on a short course that needed a -16 winning total last year.

The trading plan is to back Fraser at [100.0], Meesawat at [150.0], then place two lay orders at [12.0] and [3.0]. Hitting one target would triple our initial outlay.

Recommended bets

3u Marcus Fraser @ [100.0]
2u Prom Meesawat @ [150.0]

Place order to lay 15u @ [12.0]
Place order to lay 20u @ [3.0]

Updated 2012 Stats: +54.5u

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