The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 29 September 2009 /

Steve's excited about Michael Sim's "battlefield promotion" in the States and he thinks there'll be a winning favourite in Europe, whatever next!

The Race to Dubai wings its way back up to Scotland again this week for the Alfred Dunhill Championship, a pro-am event staged on three different courses - Kingsbarns, Carnoustie and St Andrews, where those players that make the cut play twice.

It's an absolute bore to watch for the first three days, with Sky TV having their cameras at just one of the venues. There's lots of coverage of the amateurs and the pace of play is painfully slow. On the plus side, there's eight years form to study and I think we may just see the favourite taking the prize, which is something of a change on this tour this year.

In quite scintillating form, and with two wins already in this event, although I'm far from a big fan of his, Padraig Harrington simply has to be backed.

You won't need me to tell you Pod plays links golf as well as anyone else on the planet, if not better than anyone else. Having not finished outside the top ten in any event since his failed Open defence in July, I found it impossible to leave him out, and even though he's shortened up somewhat, he still looks a very fair price.

Rory McIlroy will be a popular choice for many this week but I really can't see it at the price. When all is said and done, so far he's won one event, and he made hard work of that in the end.

I'm giving Gonzalez Fernandez-Castano another chance this week. He's won an event every year on tour and is running out of time if he's to keep up the sequence. He took a bit of a break after the birth of Gonzo junior but showed glimpses of form at last week's Vivendi Trophy.

James Kingston has always been a very good links player and indeed figured in this year's Open for a while. Now that he's won outside his native South Africa, having won the Mercedes-Benz Championship a couple of weeks ago, he may have new found confidence and his career may enjoy an Indian summer. He looked far too big at [170.0].

I've also had a few very small bets on a few huge priced outsiders who should handle the forecast poor weather.

Selections:

Padraig Harrington @ [11.0]
Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano @ [120.0]
James Kingston @ [170.0]
Stephen Dodd @ [470.0]
Paul Broadhurst @ [480.0]
Kenneth Ferrie @ [480.0]

After all the excitement of the FedEx Cup it's the start of the Fall Series on the PGA Tour, and the first event in the series is the Turning Stone Resort Championship.

Now in its third year, the event is held at the Atunyote Golf Club, which was also used for the 2006 BC Open, so there's three years worth of form to examine.

My first pick is a player I've been waiting to back on the PGA Tour for a while. Michael Sim was granted "battlefield promotion" to the Tour thanks to winning three events on the Nationwide Tour, from just 12 starts. He rewarded my faith in him at the US Open when I backed him to be the Top Australian at the US Open, though he was actually born in Aberdeen! His family emigrated down under when he was just five.

He's clearly got a bright future and if he handles the transition to the big stage we may never see [50.0] again in such a low grade event.

Mathew Goggin has struggled to get over the line, in fact he's not won on Tour yet, but he's played very well here in the last two years - 3rd last year, and 5th back in '07.

Next up is yet another Aussie, Marc Leishman, who has finished the season in some style, with a 2nd placed finish behind Tiger Woods at the BMW the highlight. He looks worth giving one more chance to at a decent price.

Another player with course form is John Rollins, who won the BC Open here in 2006. Given he recently won the Reno-Tahoe Open in fine style, he looked a very fair price to me at [55.0].

Last but not least is Woody Austin, who followed a lacklustre first round 74 with three rounds in the 60's to finish 3rd last year on his only appearance here.

Selections:

Michael Sim @ [50.0]
Mathew Goggin @ [50.0]
Marc Leishman @ [55.0]
John Rollins @ [55.0]
Woody Austin @ [65.0]

As always, I'll post an update at the halfway stage of both events on Saturday morning.

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