The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 28 July 2008 /

A little-known duo ensured The Punter made a healthy profit from his weekend's golf betting.

I didn't have a single bet on Saturday and was pleased I hadn't. Changes were plentiful at the Russian Open during round three and picking the winner was like Russian roulette and I was content to watch and wait.

It took until halfway through yesterday's final round until I made a further play when I backed Jose Manual Lara at [7.6] when he reached the turn two shorts adrift off overnight leader Mikael Lundberg. He continued to make birdies and stood in the centre of the par-five 15th fairway one shot in front and trading as short as [2.16].

But a very poor second shot led to a bogey and it looked as though his chance had gone. Then Lundberg reached the same hole and drove into the trees and again Lara traded below [3.0].

I was enjoying my second bite at the cherry and thought Lara was in with a real shout when the Swede's second shot from deep in the trees went nowhere but he showed real grit, extricating the ball with his third whack and getting up and down for a battling par. After that he went on to win a shade cosily by two shots.

I had no intention of getting involved further at the Seniors Open but I couldn't resist laying John Cook at [1.3] after he'd hit an errant drive on the 11th. His failure to win the Open at Muirfield way back in 1992 is something I remember vividly and it was that memory that drove me to click the pink button. It proved perfect timing as he made double bogey there and then bogeyed the 12th.

I did back him back a bit at [1.78] but when he lost the play-off to little known Bruce Vaughan it more than made up the Russian Open losses.

Sometimes things are just meant to be, Vaughan had suffered the loss of his mother only six weeks ago. Sadly, she was killed in a car crash after returning home from watching her son play and the tragedy surely had a bearing on his improved performance.

The Canadian Open had been badly disrupted by the weather and for the first three nights I'd turned in before the play had finished and it could have proved costly. Anthony Kim, who is just about the hottest property around at the moment, steamed through the field on Saturday and looked by far the likeliest winner yesterday.

Fortunately for me he had a decidedly off day while my in-running pick Chez Reavie , backed at [9.0], held his nerve superbly after an uneasy start.

I layed Reavie a couple of times at [1.72] and [1.2] and I also backed eventual runner-up Billy Mayfair at [50.0] to ensure a comfortable stress-free finish to the tournament.

While it was great to win on the tournament, the result has put doubts back in my mind about the new wonder-kid Kim. He must have woken up yesterday expecting to become Canadian Open Champion but he fluffed his lines big time for me.

A good week then, with my only regret being that Lara didn't find the green on the 15th which would have given me the opportunity to lay off at odds-on but that's nit-picking really. When the results are this unexpected and you've made a decent profit you can't complain, in fact I'd profited out of two players I'd barely heard of before this week!

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