The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 27 June 2009 /

Plenty of frustration from his opening gambits but a couple of well timed in-running bets gives the Punter hope of a decent week.

Things are going quite well at the BMW International in Germany. Two of my four initial picks have missed the cut and John Bickerton looks too far back to figure but Thomas Levet's bang in contention, on nine under par and just three shots behind halfway leader Retief Goosen. But the best move I've made there so far was backing Soren Kjeldsen before he started his second round at [29.0].

Kjeldsen was the first player to jump out at me when I went through the field and he had a very similar profile to Levet. Like the Frenchman, he's been playing well this year, already has a win under his belt and has very solid course form, but he'd been off since finishing third at Wentworth and I knew he'd withdrawn from the US Open. A quick look at his website, the intriguingly named www.sorenkjeldsen.com revealed he'd had a bad dose of flu, followed by an ear infection, and it completely put me off.

He shot four under on day one, four behind Goosen, but it showed he was obviously feeling better. After shooting seven under par yesterday he trails the Goose by just one and I'm glad I took the plunge.

I may well add to my portfolio with Miguel Angel Jimenez and or Thongchai Jaidee, depending on how they start round three, as I quite fancy Goosen to relinquish his lead over the weekend and think there could well be some value elsewhere.

In the States it's been a far more frustrating couple of days. Having backed Kenny Perry a couple of times this year I'd obviously looked at him for this week but felt he was a shade too short. So it was a bit frustrating to see him streak ahead on Thursday, playing some fantastic golf and even threatening a magical 59. In the end he came up a couple of shots short, but it was still a great round. On top of that, all my picks started well and finished poorly on day one and that theme continued yesterday.

At the end of what had been a promising first round, Vijay Singh dropped a shot on his final hole, which saw him finish on four under par, leaving him five off Perry's lead, but a lacklustre level par second round yesterday has seen him drop just too far back.

While Zach Johnson had a much better second round going, despite missing plenty of short putts, until he got to the 17th. Seven under par and just four off the lead, he looked in prime position for a weekend charge but a double bogey stopped him dead in his tracks and he now has a mountain to climb.

Of my other two picks, Ben Crane has withdrawn and Matt Bettencourt, after a scintillating start to day two, getting to four under for the day and seven under for the tournament after just five holes, went AWOL and now faces a battle just to make the cut.

It's far from all bad though. After the morning starters had finished, and seeing that Perry had given the field half a chance by following up his 61 with a far more sensible 68, I set about looking for a likely closer from the afternoon starters. I looked at Hunter Mahan, Brian Gay and Anthony Kim, and when the latter birdied his third hole I managed to scramble aboard at an average of [24.0].

Kim missed a number of short putts after that but his game is clearly back in some sort of order and by the time the hooter went for bad weather, with five holes left to play, he'd gotten to eight under par, three back of Perry.

So I'm going into the weekend with only Levet having a realistic chance of winning from my original selections but I have to be happy with Kjeldsen and Kim. As far as in running bets go, they've both done well so far and I'm pretty pleased with my position.

With two of the game's elder statesmen bidding to make all and win wire-to-wire, and having gotten a few players in contention, it promises to be an intriguing couple of days.

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