Golf Events / Paul Krishnamurty / 09 December 2008 /

Australia's finest will battle it out at Royal Sydney this week, only the strong will survive says Paul Krishnamurty.

A couple of weeks ago, I argued that the Australian triple-crown events were some of the most predictable of the year for betting purposes. After the Masters and PGA, I can report that, while I've somehow managed to miss two obvious winners, the reasoning has proved sound.

The two winners so far, Rod Pampling and Geoff Ogilvy, started second and fourth in the betting respectively.

Of the 11 players to have made the top-five over the past fortnight, only one started the event at [100.0] or more. And even that wasn't entirely unpredictable, as I advised Sunday's third-placed Peter Senior in last week's Find Me a 100 Winner column.

Everything points to a repeat performance in this week's final triple-crown event, the Australian Open, not least because of the venue. Royal Sydney is widely regarded as one of the world's best, with its firm fairways, exposure to the wind, penal bunkers and slick, undulating greens providing a proper all-round test of championship golf.

As usual with the best courses, the best players tend to be favoured. When the Open was last held on this course, five of the six placed players started at no more than [30.0], with only two [100.0] chances in the top-10.

It would seem to make sense, therefore, to concentrate mainly on the 14 players currently trading at [50.0] or under. The tougher part is separating them.

After winning last week's PGA for his first title on home soil, Geoff Ogilvy starts as clear favourite in single figures. It was a little frustrating to see the 31-year-old win at Coolum, because he'd been my long-range fancy for this week's Open. He'd gone into the notebook when the event was last held at Royal Sydney in 2006, an occasion where Ogilvy was a little unlucky to finish second to John Senden's blistering finish.

Whereas I was expecting to get double figures, now he's a skinny [8.0]. Nevertheless, that is still probably at least a fair price. He's clearly superior on the world stage to most of this opposition, and has proven his credentials on tough courses before to win a US Open amongst other prestigious titles. Furthermore, several of Ogilvy's most obvious rivals have their own questions to answer.

Adam Scott will try to emulate Ogilvy's first win on home soil, but is much harder to fancy having pulled out of last week's event with a knee injury. In any case, Scott has been poor in recent months. Its also easy to oppose prolific triple-crown winners Robert Allenby and Peter Lonard, as they have performed well below their usual winter standards over the past fortnight. Allenby's lack of form may be due to the justifiable off-course distraction of his mother's grave illness, while Lonard is struggling on the greens.

Though he too hasn't performed anywhere near expectations over the past fortnight, Stuart Appleby could be worth trading across a range of markets. Nobody in this field has claimed more PGA Tour titles than eight-time winner Appleby, and though none of them came in the last year I felt he was more consistent than ever and perhaps even ready to land a first major title. Everything pointed to another strong winter campaign, and if he hadn't underperformed so far then I doubt we'd be getting anywhere near [15.0] to win the event, nor [2.5] for a top-10 finish.

The only explanation I can make for Appleby's disappointing last fortnight is that neither Huntingdale or Coolum were ideal venues, whereas Royal Sydney very much is. Besides finishing third behind Senden here in 2006, he has plenty of world-class form on tough courses with fast greens, especially in windy conditions.

Given his previous Australian Open record over the last decade; one win, twice runner-up and seven top-10s, Appleby looks a reliable selection in both the outright and top-10 markets, at [15.5] and [2.5] respectively.

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