The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 29 November 2009 / Leave a Comment

Yet more lost sleep for Steve, but he's not complaining as his pre-event picks, Italy, hang on for victory...

With just the Omega World Cup in China to concentrate on, I thought I was going to be in for a very easy week and I'd presumed I'd watch very little of the action but I've been up at 4.00am for the last three days and I've seen just about every shot. As it transpired, I would have been far better off if I hadn't bothered - I could have just switched the telly on at 8.30 this morning and enjoyed watching my pre-event picks, Italy - backed at [19.0], attempt to lift the very large trophy.

Going into the weekend it had looked to concern just three teams - Italy, Ireland and Sweden, and I'd managed to get the Swedes onside on Friday morning, at [6.2]. When they and the Italians finished round three strongly I was presented with the opportunity of getting the Irish onside too and I didn't miss the chance - I backed them with a round to go at [2.4], just to cover my stakes.

Two seconds after Eduardo Molinari's winning putt, I regretted my decisions to back the Swedes, the Irish, and to lay the Italians - as I'd done with four holes to play when they led by two, at [1.40], but it only took another second to banish such thoughts. It really is the only way to do it, yes it cost me this time but it could so easily have been a different story.

The Irish could well have drawn level at the last - Graeme McDowell left his birdie putt agonisingly short. And it was just the slightest bit too much pace on Henrik Stenson's lengthy birdie attempt, on the same hole, that kept it above ground. And had Francesco been as nervous as his elder brother playing the last, the par that they needed for the win would have been highly unlikely, but thankfully he wasn't. His drive was perfect and his bunker shot, following a dreadful approach by Eduardo, was straight out of the top drawer, and it left big bro just a three footer for the win.

The whole event had turned on the 12th when Francesco, who had missed more than his fair share of short putts earlier in the round, drained a very lengthy one for birdie. He then went on to hole another one of similar length at the very next hole.

An Italian victory had looked most unlikely early on in the round and they drifted to a double figure price when they bogeyed the 6th - whilst the Swedes were matched at just [1.95] when the Irish lads bogeyed the 2nd. They then rallied superbly, making four birdies in a row and were matched at a low of [1.21]. Rory McIlroy was far from at his best though and he needed a couple of very lucky breaks just to stay in the game. It was his errant drive that had cost them the bogey at the 2nd and he had a couple of subsequent tee-shots bounce back into play from the trees.

I felt for Robert Karlsson, who I'm pleased to see is almost back to his best. The weak link in the Swedish team was clearly Stenson and it's hard to envisage him successfully defending the Nedbank Challenge next week on what he's shown here.

I'm quite possibly biased but I really felt Italy deserved it and the final putt sparked some great scenes. It wasn't until that point that the magnitude of the achievement struck me. It was a great moment for the Molinari brothers and the sheer joy of their celebrations will stay in my memory for many a year. I hadn't gone mad on the event and I'd been cautious enough with my tactics to reduce potential profits but it's an event I'll have fond memories of for sure.

It's a much busier week coming up, with the aforementioned Nedbank Challenge, the Australian Open and the Chevron World Challenge, which will be hosted as usual by Tiger Woods, assuming he can successfully negotiate his drive. I'll preview all three on Wednesday.

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