US PGA Championship / Steven Rawlings / 15 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

Steve gets some European Tour players onside too, but isn't really sure why he bothered...

With no TV coverage and selections free-falling down the leaderboard, the morning's play yesterday didn't provide me with any cheer at all. Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, backed after the first round, did what he's been doing all year so far, and performed poorly from a good position, shooting five over. While my other in-running pick, Ben Crane, shot three over and Phil Mickelson shot another two over par round of 74.

By the time my main pick, Tiger Woods, who I backed last week at [3.5], teed off at 7.45pm UK time, he had drifted ever so slightly from around [1.9] out to around [1.98], and I was quite surprised that he hadn't gone the other way, as none of the morning starters had managed to reach him, but the threat of high winds and drying greens were enough to see the layers come back for more and when he bogeyed the 1st it looked as though they may have been right...but they weren't. He soon got back on track and ended up shooting a two under par 70 to stretch his lead to four.

I'd put a bet in overnight on Alvaro Quiros at [75.0] and was happy that I'd got it matched when he opened up par-birdie to tie the lead with Woods but he couldn't sustain his effort and slumped back into the pack with a four over par round of 76.

As the evening moved on several European Tour players made a move. The likes of Richard Sterne, Ross Fisher, Graeme McDowell and Martin Kaymer were all playing very well in the windy conditions, and all made promising starts to their second rounds. With the exception of McDowell, I backed all of them - Sterne at [200.0], Fisher at [44.0] and Kaymer at [70.0], but they all disappointed to varying degrees. Both Sterne and Kaymer dropped three shots after I backed them, though the German did get two of his back! And it was a slightly different story with Fisher, who went and birdied three in four holes just after I'd struck my bet and he even led briefly and was matched at as low as [9.0], but bogeys at the last two holes crudely scraped the gloss of his round.

It's quite comical really, I keep backing these players as they close up and briefly threaten, as I'd quite like some insurance on whoever's going to be scrapping it out with Tiger over the weekend, but all the time the maestro just keeps pulling out a bit extra and in all honesty, even at the prohibitive odds available now, he's probably still a fair price.

Woods' in terrific form, appears to be in cruise control, and will be very hard to beat from here. He plays with his old adversary, Vijay Singh, in round three, and that can only spur him on. I think the layers are in trouble and I'm in no rush to lay him off just yet.

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