Golf Events / Tareq Quiroz / 16 April 2008 / Leave a Comment

Tareq Quiroz has a trio of players trading at three figures to choose from

Battered and bruised, the world's elite golfers leave the magical surroundings of Augusta National and head off to South Carolina for one of the tour's established events. Despite being just one week after the Masters the Verizon Heritage has once again attracted a top class field. But who will be suffering an Augusta hangover and who will be fired up and ready to contend?

Harbour Town Golf Links is a fabulous course that will test these players to the extreme. It is a classic example of how you don't need a long course to make it difficult. At less than 7,000 yards it is one of the shortest courses on tour but if you are not on your game then this is not a track where you will be able to scrape a good score. Unforgiving is the word.

As the name of the course suggests the set-up has very much a links feel to it and in many ways does not suit the traditional PGA Tour player. The wind can play havoc with your shot selection and you only have to look through the previous winners list to see that they are virtually all established wind players. With such a strong trend I can see no good reason to oppose that philosophy this week.

Stewart Cink is just shading favouritism as a result of his recent good form and proven track record. He won here in both 2000 and 2004, so is due another success in 2008! In many respects Cink should possibly be shorter than the [17.5] that he is currently trading at, but the backers are only too well aware of his problems getting over the winning line on a Sunday. Couple that with the fact he will be drained from being in contention for much of the time last week leads me to write him off this week.

The British contingent at the Masters didn't cover themselves in glory over the weekend but one player who did catch my eye was Nick Dougherty. It was his first time at the course and I thought he played to a high standard but was understandably caught out by the idiosyncrasies of the course. Whilst many of the other Brits may feel a bit down this week I am sure Dougherty will be buoyed by his performance. This course will be no problem for the young Englishman and he is my main selection of the week at extremely tempting odds of [120.0].

The last few winners of this event have all started at very attractive odds so I would suggest that in keeping with my main selection any savers should be taken from outside the top dozen in the betting. The first one on your list should be South African Richard Sterne. With his compatriot Immelman taking all the plaudits last week Sterne finished an extremely creditable 25th. A talented player who definitely will be a serial tour winner he has to be a serious contender this week. He is currently available at [110.0] and cannot be ignored in your betting plans for this event.

In an unusual move I am going to go out there and make my third pick of the week yet another member of the European Tour! I have an overriding feeling that one of the guys from that tour will prevail this week. Sweden's Niclas Fasth is the final choice and although not in the kind of form to merit a headline pick he is certainly worth keeping on your side. This course will suit his style of play as well as anyone in the field and he is definitely going to be in my staking plan this week at odds of around [100.0].

It is a week to be on the outsiders but if you like many of the top stars are feeling a little hungover then just sit back and enjoy the action. The scenery might not be quite so picturesquely perfect as at Augusta but in many ways the views in South Carolina are equally as dramatic. If recent tournaments here are anything to go by then the climax of this event will certainly match the backdrop.

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