US PGA Championship / Steven Rawlings / 16 August 2009 / Leave a Comment

Steve regrets not laying some of his Woods wager back, as he takes out a Korean insurance policy...

Hindsight is a marvellous thing and, with the benefit of it, I wish I'd layed a lump of my Tiger Woods bet off, when he was trading comfortably below [1.20], for plenty of money and for quite some time, but I didn't.

Woods birdied the second hole and was matched as low as [1.16] as he maintained his comfortable four shot lead and it looked as though his stress-free stroll towards lifting the Wanamaker Trophy would continue serenely on, but then he uncharacteristically three-putted the fourth.

He appeared to be playing far too conservatively and all of a sudden the pack were charging. I spent most of the evening wishing I'd been more conservative myself and that I'd layed the great man when I had the chance.

He definitely wasn't at his stunning best but he still ended the day two clear of Y E Yang and Padraig Harrington and is still trading at around the price he started day three at.

All the stats tell me not to panic and that Woods should coast to victory but both Yang and Harrington have beaten him in Sunday showdowns and won't necessarily be phased by the task in hand.

Indeed, Woods' task will be to banish any flashbacks to November 2006. I distinctly remember Yang getting the better of him in China at the HSBC Champions event way back then and Harrington collared him right at the death in the Dunlop Phoenix in Japan just a week later. And there's a warning for me there and any other Woods backers this week - he was matched at the minimum [1.01] that day!

Harrington bounced back very well yesterday, after a poor second round, he's a big threat today and will probably benefit from playing with Henrik Stenson as opposed to Tiger, but I'm not going to cover myself by backing him. I have however had a modest bet on Yang. I could well be wrong but I just can't see anyone outside the front three winning and Yang looked a very fair price at [25.0] after play last night.

He's a player I've backed plenty of times and often at a massive price, and he did me a big favour back in March when he won the Honda Classic. Overcoming a deficit of two shots to the best player to ever play the game, whilst at the same time becoming the first Asian player to win a Major make it a pretty stiff task for Yang but he was at least four points too big and I now feel as though I only need to keep my eye on Harrington tonight.

I can't help thinking that I should by now be counting my winnings and part of me wonders whether I've done the right thing in still not laying anything back on Woods but I can't believe he'll put in quite such a dull performance again today. Surely he's just toying with us, isn't he?

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