US PGA Championship / Steven Rawlings / 11 August 2009 /

The Punter takes a look at the First Round Leader market and doesn't scan too far down the list to find his pick...

When looking at the 1st Round Leader market it's tempting to just look for someone with a nice early tee-time at a really big price and hope for the best. After all, scanning through the last few years one sees that some pretty low profile players have topped the leaderboard after day one. Last year Robert Karlsson and Jeev Milkha Singh led the field and in 2007 it was Graeme Storm, so if you fancy a big priced player from the European Tour, don't be put off.

Three players interest me towards the front of the market though, and first up is Steve Stricker. While he's never led this event after day one he's often prominent early on in events and he was my pick for this market at the US Open, but he was handicapped by the draw and never really had an earthly there. He has an afternoon start time on Thursday though and that's enough to put me off.

Phil Mickelson, who appeared to play quite poorly last week, has led this event twice after round one in the last seven years, and I wouldn't be totally put off by last weeks effort. He too has an afternoon tee-time but I may back him anyway if he gets much bigger.

Someone else who's made the early running in this event twice is Tiger Woods. He led in 1998 after round one, before slumping to a tie for 12th, and also did so in 2000 before going on to win, beating Bob May in a play-off.

I know he's had a few slow starts lately and he's been a traders dream but at the double figure price he's currently available at, coming off two straight wins, having a morning tee-time and looking to ensure that 2009 is not a majorless year, he looks a very fair price to me.

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