The Open / Paul Krishnamurty / 17 July 2009 /

Paul Krishnamurty advises us to swerve the current odds on Tiger Woods and look for better value amongst some of the chasing pack. Plus the pick of the three-balls...

For those of us hoping for an exciting weekend's trading, with a packed, fast changing leaderboard in the true Open tradition, day one couldn't have gone better. The one obvious danger to that outcome was that Tiger Woods would run away with this major, but that eventuality now looks remote at best after the world no.1 carded a distinctly unimpressive 71 to sit seven shots off the pace.

Furthermore, with only seven of the current top-20 starting the event at less than [200.0], almost all of the pre-tournament contenders can still win. With the next couple of days threatening wind and rain, in direct contrast to Thursday's perfect conditions, scoring should be markedly worse and anyone posting a low total can expect to dramatically advance up the leaderboard. In short, this looks an ideal scenario to employ the old trading maxim, 'Back High, Lay Low'.

With that principle in mind, I wouldn't touch Tiger's price with a bargepole. He's certainly far from out of it, but I reckon he'll need to shoot a couple of shots under par tomorrow just to retain his current [6.6] market position. No easy feat on a tough links in wind and rain, especially if he repeats Thursday's wayward play.

From a trading perspective, it must make better sense to focus on players at bigger prices. Given that tightly bunched weekend leaderboard, we're likely to see several different players trading in single figures. And as we've already seen in this season's two previous majors, there are countless outsiders capable of holding their own in that high-pressure environment nowadays.

Numerous potential winners amongst today's earlier starters might just get the best of the weather, but forecasts are typically mixed and it doesn't look like being easy at any stage. So while I'd expect at least a couple of big names to set up a nice position in the morning, the later starters should still be well within striking distance by the time they tee-off. We saw on Thursday that its very possible to get a good score going through the first few holes, so I expect a few of them to shorten up quite dramatically as the prospect of the halfway lead looms large.

The pair that particularly take the eye at current prices are Camilo Villegas at [26.0] and Stewart Cink at [44.0]. Both are on -4, in a tie for 5th place, and have enough high-class form to warrant strong market respect should they make any move forward early on. Hopefully, one of them will shorten to single figures, at which stage I'll be laying back to take any risk out of the position.

A couple of 3-ball bets also appeal in the afternoon, both involving English players who should appreciate the bad weather. The aptly-named Graeme Storm looks decent value as the [3.5] outsider of three against Charl Schwartzel and Nick Watney. Unlike the Hartlepool man, neither of the latter pair are proven in wet and windy links conditions, and Schwartzel performed poorly in similar circumstances at the US Open.

At the same [3.5] odds, Richard Finch looks a cracking bet against Mark O'Meara and Rafa Echenique. 1998 champion O'Meara hit a fine 67 on day one, but is expected to fall back quickly as seniors tend to in this gruelling event. Echenique is the most in-form player, but he's very inconsistent and essentially a target golfer. In stark contrast, Finch hails from Hull and knows this type of bad weather golf intimately. Notably, he made the cut in tough conditions at Birkdale last year, and such is the poor standard of this 3-ball, even a repeat of Thursday's 73 might be enough to win.

Selections

Camilo Villegas @ [26.0]
Stewart Cink @ [44.0]
Lay back combined stake in single figures

3-Balls

12.14 Graeme Storm @ 3.5 (vs Watney, Schwartzel)
12.25 Richard Finch @ 3.5 (vs O'Meara, Echenique)

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