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The Punter's picks for the Portuguese Open and Shell Houston Open

The Punter RSS / / 01 April 2009 /

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The big names are in the US but the big prices are in Europe. Read The Punter's pre-tournament selections here.

The Race to Dubai stops off in Portugal this week for the Portuguese Open at Estoril. It's an event that has a history of big priced winners so my tactic is to play a bunch of outsiders from the start.

The shortest priced of which is Steve Webster, who's finished in the top ten in his last three visits to Portugal, including a 9th place here last year. I've stuck with Siem, who didn't fail for the want of trying last week and I've also backed a smattering of old (not so) faithfuls.

It wasn't a completely deliberate plan to swerve all those at the forefront of the market; I couldn't see any value there anyway. Looking back at my records I see I backed Francesco Molinari and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano in this event last year at [85.0] and [110.0] respectfully. This year they're [21.0] and [27.0]. Have they really improved that much? I doubt it.

Selections:

Steve Webster @ [50.0]
Marcel Siem @ [85.0]
Miles Tunnicliff @ [90.0]
Markus Brier @ [100.0]
Paul Lawrie @ [110.0]
Paul Broadhurst @ [120.0]
John Bickerton @ [160.0]
Chris Wood @ [180.0]
Daniel Vancsik @ [350.0]

In the states, the Shell Houston Open has a fairly strong field, with some big names tuning up ahead of next week's Masters.

Favourite Phil Mickelson looks too short to me, even though he's previously won three times in the week before the Masters. I know he's in good form, but he's a bigger price for next week and I think he'll have a better chance of success there than he does here.

My main bet is Stuart Appleby, who won the event back in 1999, and again three years ago - the first time the event was played at the Tournament Course, Redstone. He should have won it the following year too but hit his approach shot on the last hole went into the water and the title went to Adam Scott. Given he's starting to show some form and that he clearly likes it here the [44.0] was more than fair.

I've also backed Texan Chad Campbell who was second here on his debut last year and I couldn't leave out another Texan resident, Ben Crane, who put up yet another good performance last week.

Two players in particular appear to have the right profile for this course - Charlie Hoffman and Dustin Johnson. Dustin's a recent winner and twice the price so he's made the portfolio.
Alvaro Quiros lost his way at the business end of the CA Championships the other week but I'm convinced he's going to be a big name in the game sooner rather than later so he's been backed too, as has Jeev Milkha Singh at a very generous [120.0].

Selections:

Stuart Appleby @ [44.0]
Chad Campbell @ [60.0]
Ben Crane @ [80.0]
Alvaro Quiros @ [80.0]
Dustin Johnson @ [85.0]
Jeev Milkha Singh @ [120.0]

I'll post an update on Saturday when hopefully, after a couple of losing weeks, I'll be in a better position than I've been at the halfway stage in the last fortnight.

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