The Betfair Prof / Leighton Vaughan Williams / 14 April 2009 / Leave a comment

Leighton Vaughan Williams takes a look back at the action from the US Masters...

The statistics told us that 17 of the last 18 winners of the US Masters golf tournament had started the fourth day in the final pairing, the exception being Zach Johnson in 2007. The final pairing this time was Kenny Perry and Angel Cabrera. Perry, at 48 years of age, was bidding to become the oldest winner of a major ever, and to supplant Jack Nicklaus as the oldest winner of the Masters. As for Angel Cabrera, he was bidding to become the first South American to win the Green Jacket, although Roberto de Vicenzo came close in 1968, shooting the lowest score but failing to fill in his card correctly.

As the final day started, Cabrera was the marginal favourite, though the Betfair odds about both were close enough to the equivalent of 5 to 2, meaning the implied odds of a victory by one of the final pairing was a little but not hugely better than evens. Clearly the market was not overly impressed by the 17 out of 18 statistic.

For students of golf history, an interesting parallel to what was to happen was provided by the man who beat Perry in the play-off of the 1996 PGA Championship, Mark Brooks. What's interesting is that the only other time I recall seeing Brooks in the play-off of a major was the time he took Retief Goosen all the way in the 2001 US Open held at Southern Hills, Tulsa. Brooks was cruising as he teed off on the seventeenth, shortening instantly from 4 to 6 into 1 to 5 when he found the green, despite being no little distance from the hole. A decent shot from Goosen and Stewart Cink later, he was out to 9 to 4, and by the time these two lined up at the eighteenth tee, Brooks was trading at 20 to 1. In the end, he lost the play-off but the point is the same, and it's a simple one. Siding with the in-running favourite in golf tournaments appears to be very much of a fast route to the poorhouse.

So let's bring the history up to date and check this contention. We are at the seventeenth hole of the 2009 US Masters and Perry's nemesis, Brooks, is nowhere to be seen. With a two-shot lead on the seventeenth, the Kentuckian is trading at as low as 1.13 on Betfair. It seems all over. Yet a couple of wayward shots later and you could back him at a shade longer than 2 to 1 to win a 3-man play-off. Soon enough Chad Campbell was backable at no longer than 1.63, after hitting a fine drive down the fairway of the first play-off hole. Meanwhile, most people had written one man off. And then, on Easter Sunday, the Angel appeared and took them by surprise!

Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams is the Director of the Political Forecasting Unit and Betting Research Unit of Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University