US PGA Championship / Steven Rawlings / 17 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

Steve's been on Tiger Woods since last weekend but he's far from upset by the great man's demise...

Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover, Stewart Cink and now Y E Yang - that would have been some yankee, or should I say Yangkee! Not that I'm completely shocked by this latest Major winner, I've been a fan of Yang's for some time now.

Indeed, I'd backed him in-running just two weeks ago at the Buick Open. He's been in very good form lately and although he was matched during the event at [1000.0] after a slow start, he'd started the event at around [330.0], so he wasn't a complete no-hoper. But there's no doubting it was a strange and somewhat unexpected outcome to the final Major of 2009.

Tiger Woods was simply not himself all weekend, he played too conservatively on Saturday and the putter failed him repeatedly yesterday. He missed a birdie putt from within ten feet at the 1st and that pretty much set the tone.

Having backed Woods last weekend at an average of [3.5], I was rueing not having layed him back when he traded below [1.20] during play on Saturday, but I did at least have the wherewithal to back Yang at [25.0] after the third round.

Going into yesterday's final round, I'd felt that the event was between Woods, Yang and Padraig Harrington, so when the Irishman had an unmitigated disaster on the par three 8th, making eight, I was in a very strong position, and I made that position stronger still by topping up on Yang at [9.8].

At the time the Korean had played his second shot to the right of the par 5 7th green but still looked likely to save par. He trailed Woods by a shot but was a few shots clear of the rest and his price, as it had done on Saturday night, looked way too big.

After that I placed a few small bets on all those that could possibly win at odds ranging from [80.0] about Henrik Stenson to [500.0] about Lucas Glover. With hindsight it was wasted insurance but it made for a very easy watch for the last few hours.

The market underestimated Yang, Sky's Butch Harmon definitely underestimated Yang, but fortunately I hadn't and by the time he played the 16th hole with a one shot lead over Woods he was my best result, so I layed a bit back at [1.71] to level things off. I needed have bothered.

Yang showed true grit, very reminiscent of his countryman K J Choi when he's on song, but after three-putting the 17th for bogey, while Woods was also making bogey, I did wonder whether he'd have the mental fortitude to hold his one shot advantage on the last hole.

Hold it? He extended it! Playing one of the best approach shots I've ever seen. He hit a beautiful shot that landed to within around ten feet of the hole and I was remembering that I'd backed two strokes in the Victory Margin market, but then Tiger played his approach long of the green. Woods chunked his chip and Yang stroked in his birdie putt and I was shouting on Woods to save par to collect, but he didn't.

So there we have it, the first ever Asian player to win a Major and boy did he do it in style, comfortably accounting for the world's number one by three shots, shooting a very impressive two under par 70 under the utmost pressure.

It wasn't a massive win for me by any means but it was certainly decent enough, and I really enjoyed seeing a player I've held in high regard for some time surprising just about everyone.

We're back to having two events next week and it'll be quite nice to have some golf in the day for a change. Next week's events are the KLM Open from Holland and the Wyndham Championship in the States and I'll preview both events on Wednesday.

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