The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 20 March 2010 / Leave a Comment

Engrossed in the Festival, Steve's taken his eye of the ball this week, but he's still made a couple of halfway plays in Morocco...

It's been an exhausting, exhilarating and extremely enjoyable week. My evenings have been spent with my head firmly lodged in the form book and my attention has been almost entirely on the events at Prestbury Park. I love Cheltenham but it certainly takes its toll, I've done nothing but live and breathe the Festival and as a result I've barely seen any of the golf, but I'm not sure I missed much as far as my picks were concerned.

A dreadful first day at the Hassan II Golf Trophy saw all four of my picks underperform and put me seemingly out of the game and what made it even more frustrating is that a few of the leaders had been on my shortlist.

Day one in the States was better, though not by much. The worst of my four was Zach Johnson, and I'm a bit cross that I didn't heed my own advice of a few weeks ago when I put him up as a player to swerve. I'm a bit confused by Zach this year, his stats are impressive, yet he hasn't managed a single top-ten finish. Copperhead looks made for his game but yet again he's failed to shine. Sods law dictates as soon as I ignore him he'll get involved but I've got to think very carefully before backing him again in the near future.

Of my other three, Brian Gay started well but a couple of bogeys late on halted his progress, and Stephen Ames and KJ Choi both shot two under par, which left them four off the early lead.

My leftfield selection in Morocco, Julien Quesne, had a much better second round, shooting a seven under par 65 which has propelled him up into a tie for 12th and he's by some way the best of my four original picks.

It's a congested leaderboard and with low scores a given over the weekend predicting the winner from here, when I've barely seen a shot played, could be a bit ambitious but I've had a go.

Leader Rhys Davies has carried forward the form he showed in Malaysia where he narrowly failed to lead wire-to-wire. With a two shot lead he has to have an outstanding chance to break his European Tour duck but at less than [5.0], with so many experienced pros pressing him over the weekend, he doesn't strike me as value.

Second favourite, Louis Oosthuizen is yet to fulfil his immense potential with a win and he makes less appeal than Davies. All the market leaders either haven't won or do so very infrequently and of them all the most prolific are Nick Dougherty and Thomas Levet.

Nick Dougherty found form from somewhere and shot a blistering first round 66 on the harder Red Course. His second round 69 on the easier Blue Course must have been a disappointment yesterday and there must be a real doubt whether, after such a run of poor form, he can get back on track over the weekend to win, but at [16.0] I felt he was value.

I also thought Levet was value at [9.0]. He too has found form from somewhere, so there's a risk it could all crumble quite easily, but in common with Dougherty he's a multiple winner and I just fancy he's more likely to hold his nerve than some of the other contenders.

KJ Choi is now my only conceivable chance of success in the States after he matched his day one performance with another two under par 69 but that leaves him four shots off the lead held by Padraig Harrington, so fellow columnist Dan Geraghty's sitting pretty with two rounds to go as he tipped up both of them.

I haven't yet had another bet here but both Steve Stricker and last week's week wager, Carl Pettersson, were almost added to the portfolio. I thought I'd missed the boat with Stricker when he went on a birdie spree during round two, just as I was packing away the shopping and picking up, then eating a curry! I'm now caught in two minds. On the one hand I'm pleased that he finished his second round poorly as I thought I'd missed the boat, but on the other hand...It was a bit of a shaky finish and as I've written many times, I'm not wholly convinced by him in contention. That said I may well back him in running if the price is right, as it's hard to see him not contending tomorrow night.

As for Pettersson, by the time the penny dropped and I saw him as a value play at around [23.0] the price was drying up. At [20.0] he's probably priced up correctly, so for now I'm keeping the powder dry.

I've definitely neglected the day job a bit this week and I could well have made a couple of bum calls with Dougherty and Levet but time will tell. Whatever the weekend brings I'll analyze it all in Monday's De-Brief.

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