The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 03 November 2009 /

Steve plumps for a plethora of players in China as he seeks out a Shanghai surprise

There's just the one event to concentrate on this week, the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, which is now in its fifth year. The tournament is now a World Golf Championship event, so it really should have attracted a stellar field, but a number of the high ranking Americans haven't bothered to make the trip - disappointing but not entirely unexpected.

Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson have made the effort though. They both make their third appearances, but it will be the first time both have played here in the same year.

Woods was runner-up to David Howell in the inaugural event in 2005 and found only Y E Yang too good a year later, whereas Lefty won here on debut in 2007 but could only finish 8th when defending last year.

If the event had been staged at a different time of day I'd have been very tempted by Woods at over [3.0], but I've decided not to endure the early starts over the first two days and I don't want a sizable bet at small odds when I won't be around to trade out.

Mickelson is dismissed after last week's poor performance in Singapore, where his putting touch on the tricky greens deserted him and he made a whopping 17 bogeys. He looks too short to me, especially given that the stat that counts around Sheshan International is Greens In Regulation and Lefty languishes right down in 126th place for that category on the PGA Tour.

Although the world's best two players grace the event, with the absence of so many top drawer Americans, there isn't actually that much strength in depth and there's quite a lot of deadwood in the field.

I nearly backed Lee Westwood, whose GIR stats are impressive, but I soon came to my senses. Yes he's just won the Portugal Masters but one swallow doth not a summer make.
I know many won't agree, but I think he has serious problems finishing off the job nowadays and I'm not prepared to trust him again just yet.

Rory McIlroy and defending champ, Sergio Garcia, ought to figure but they're both suffering with cold putters and are therefore overlooked. As are those that reached the last four of last week's Volvo World Match Play - the winner, Ross Fisher, looked absolutely shattered afterwards and all four may well be mentally and physically too tired.

While the likes of Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Henrik Stenson and Retief Goosen just don't convert enough nowadays to warrant support at their current prices.

As I'm so negative about those to the fore in the market, I've managed to find plenty of players I feel worthy of speculative support further down.
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Firstly, I'm taking another chance on Martin Kaymer, who returned from injury two weeks ago to finish runner-up at the Castello Masters, where he hit 83% of the greens in regulation. He bounced last week at the match play and didn't win a match but that was pretty understandable.

Geoff Ogilvy isn't a favourite of mine by any means but the mercurial Australian finished third here last year in his first appearance and he's already won three WGC titles - only Tiger has won more. He has a habit of popping up in the big events and for once looks fairly priced.

Paul Casey's record in this event is superb - last year's 11th being his worst effort in four attempts. He also has a great record in China, having won two events there. The massive downside is that he too is returning from injury and judging by his negative comments at last week's match play, his first start since July, he has some way to go to get back to full fitness but at the price it's worth the risk. Besides, his lay-off may have given him the opportunity to work on his putting - which wouldn't go amiss judging by his form with the flat-stick before his enforced break.

Francesco Molinari is another player who could do with improving his putting; just a small improvement in that department would surely bring much gold. He looks a great price this week all the same. His recent performance in Portugal was most impressive and whilst I recognise that he isn't the easiest player to get across the line, he's sure to pound fairways and greens all week long and he could just cause a surprise.

All my other picks are triple-figure prices, but most have already won this year, and all look very generously priced, especially if Woods and Lefty fail to shine.

Selections:

Martin Kaymer @ [50.0]
Geoff Ogilvy @ [65.0]
Paul Casey @ [70.0]
Francesco Molinari @ [85.0]
Jeev Milkha Singh @ [140.0]
Alvaro Quiros @ [150.0]
Thongchai Jaidee @ [150.0]
Soren Kjeldsen @ [160.0]
Brian Gay @ [250.0]
Richard Sterne @ [310.0]
James Kingston @ [350.0]
Daniel Vancsik @ [350.0]

I'll post an update on Friday morning, at the halfway stage.

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