St Jude Championship Betting: Major winner is your man

Golf Events / Tareq Quiroz / 04 June 2008 / 1

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TQ looks at the golf action stateside, where a host of big names tee it up at the St Jude Championship

You would be forgiven for letting thoughts drift to next week's US Open but as we all know there is plenty that can happen between now and then. Each player is different and whilst many of the top names are taking the week off to practice, others are up for the challenge that this week is posed by the St Jude Championship.

Played at the Southwind course in Memphis, Tennessee, the St Jude tournament is a long established event on the PGA Tour that has only recently been moved to its current slot of preceding the US Open. In recent years the roll of honour has not exactly been a prestigious list and this can largely be put down to a slight dwindling in the class of the field. Its new slot in the calendar however should mean an upturn in the amount of top players who play the event from now on. This is something that is evident this year with the likes of Singh, Garcia and Harrington all teeing it up this week.

The market leaders make limited appeal to me this week with my main selection coming just outside the top echelon. The man in question is Masters champion Trevor Immelman. The talented South African has had a poor run of results and injury since his Masters triumph but there were just a few signs last week that he may just be ready to strike form again. A solid performance in the Memorial suggests he is over his problems and ready to contend again. He is available at decent odds this week and is a great bet at [50.0].

With only two par fives the Southwind course sets up more for accuracy than length. Top class iron players often play well here and the other player who catches my eye this week is certainly that. The diminutive Tim Clark had a superb second place a couple of weeks ago and will count himself unlucky to be done by Mickleson's miracle shot. On a course that should suit, Clark will be a huge danger to all and he must be part of your staking plan at stand out odds of [44.0].

I am finding it a little hard to get too enthused about the tournament as a spectacle but as a betting medium it has plenty going for it. There are golfers who hit form for one week and then don't contend for a while and there are others who, once hitting form, carry it on for weeks upon end. Obviously there are different levels of this depending on what the players' normal standard is. Probably the best example of this is last week's winner Kenny Perry. Throughout his career, Perry has played well and generally won in fantastic spells. He is currently in another one of those streaks and you should not be put off by the fact he won last week, as he doesn't know how to ease off. It is the Top Five Finish market where I think he makes most appeal and you will not go too far wrong backing him at [7.0] in that market.

Whatever happens in Memphis this week it will have little effect on the market for next week's major. All the talk at the moment as usual surrounds the world number one Tiger Woods. Tiger is still recovering from knee surgery and is yet to play a round since so there has been something of a price drift in recent days. Now out to a huge looking [3.45] the time has come for you to decide, are you with him or against him? It's not an easy one.

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Peter | 04 June 2008

I'll probably be proved wrong but I'll be surprised if Immelman wins this. He is better on the longer courses ( Augusta ! ) whilst this course is a shortish par 70 where acccuracy etc will be important and is more suitable to guys like Toms who has played very well at this event in the past. Gay or Kresge could do well this week and a dark horse may be Snedeker who played well here last year and knows the course very well.

Good luck with Immelman though.