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Bradbury can emulate Bez and Sterne
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Has big-hitting Crocker found his touch on the greens?
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This week's PGA Tour event, the Hero World Challenge, is a limited field event with only 20 in the field and 18 of them are trading at less than 100/1.
As highlighted in the preview, I like the chances of the favourite, Jon Rahm, and the title tends to go to a fancied runner so it doesn't look the ideal tournament for this particular column.
I'm a big fan of Tiger Woods' late replacement, Sepp Straka, who's the biggest outsider in the field and the Austrian won't mind how blustery it gets in the Bahamas. And a European has won the last three editions of the event so he has plenty going for him.
He also won't feel any pressure having got into the event at the last minute and I can see him performing better than his odds suggest but I'm happy to leave the event alone.
I haven't really looked at the Australian Open, which Matt Cooper has previewed here, so that only leaves the South African Open, where I quite like a pair of players at a triple-figure price...
Bradbury a big price to go back-to-back
It's never easy to know just how good a new face on the DP World Tour is going to be but judging by his deeply impressive wire-to-wire win at the Joburg Open last week, Wakefield's Dan Bradbury is better than the market is suggesting here.
Last week's victory came in only his third event on the DP World Tour, but it didn't come entirely out of the blue given he'd sat third at halfway way in his penultimate start in the Open de España.
It's obviously a huge ask for him to go in again, which is why he's drifted to 120.0119/1 on the exchange, but if he did win on Sunday, he wouldn't be setting a precedent.
Christiaan Bezuidenhout won the South African Open a week after winning the Alfred Dunhill Championship two years ago and Richard Sterne also won this event in his next start after winning the Alfred Dunhill Championship back in 2008 and being bang in form has been key in this event.
The two winners before Bez, Brand Grace, and Louis Oosthuizen, had both finished third in their previous starts before winning and Branden Stone won the tournament in January 2015 having won the Cape Town Open at the end of 2014.
And after Andy Sullivan got off the mark on the DP World Tour in this event in 2015, he won the tournament Bradbury won last week, the Joburg Open, less than two months later.
I've not gone back any further as there's enough evidence there already to suggest Bradbury should definitely be shorter than he is.
Back 2u Dan Bradbury @ 110.0109/1
Place order to lay 10u @ 10.09/1 & 10u @ 2.35/4
Big hitting Crocker over-priced at lengthy venue
As highlighted in the preview, this week's venue, at the Blair Atholl Golf & Equestrian Estate, is the third longest course in the world so it makes sense to have a big hitter in the team and very few hit it further than the Zimbabwe-born American, Sean Crocker.
The 26-year-old has been under a bit of a cloud since he got off the mark on the DP World Tour in the Hero Open in July but that's been largely down to a cold putter.
Crocker ranked 10th for Strokes gained Putting last time out, when finishing 37th in the Nedbank Challenge and that was quite a noticeable performance given he gained almost four strokes with the flatstick. That was the first time he'd putted nicely since he'd won in Scotland and a repeat of that may see him contend on a course that should suit.
Crocker already has form in South Africa as he finished runner-up in the Alfred Dunhill two years ago and 150.0149/1 is a bit of an insult for a promising player with a win already under the belt.
Back 2u Sean Crocker @ 150.0149/1
Place order to lay 10u @ 10.09/1 & 10u @ 2.35/4
STEVE'S 2022 FIND ME A 100 WINNER P/L
Staked: 251 units
Returned: 100 units
P/L: -151 units
*You can follow me on Twitter @SteveThePunter