Golf Events / Tareq Quiroz / 04 February 2009 /

Mickelson has a history of bouncing back from a missed cut with victory the following week, Tareq Quiroz is backing the big man to do it again.

For the first time this year I really felt as though the season exploded to life with last week's tournaments. There were great finishes to both big tour events and plenty of trading opportunities for those of you who were just waiting for players to falter from what looked like simple winning position. As it happened I thought that Rory McIlroy and Kenny Perry both fully deserved their victories and I would be astonished if both of them didn't add more trophies to their respective cabinets in the coming months. There is no European Tour event this week but we have a cracker in the US with a return to the scene of last year's dramatic US Open win for Tiger Woods.

The Course
By now we are all very familiar with this week's host course Torrey Pines. This fantastic track is the setting for the well established Buick Invitational. In recent years the event has become nothing short of a Tiger Woods benefit. The great man has won this tournament the last four years and six times in total. I think it is fair to say everyone in the field this week is rather pleased they don't have him to beat for this year's event.

At over 7,500 yards Torrey Pines is a truly formidable test. Since its redesign in 2001 it is a very demanding layout that can be set up to be very difficult indeed, as witnessed last year when it hosted the US Open. I don't expect it to play quite that hard this week but you will still need to be right on your game if you are to challenge. Look for someone who has already played this year as all aspects of the winner's game will have to be fully tuned.

The Favourite
The market at the moment would have you believe that it is going to be pretty tight for the favourite's berth. I don't think there will be much in it, but Phil Mickelson should go off as the jolly. Doubts over Phil emanate from a very poor effort last week when he missed the cut. If you fancy him this week you have to put that to one side and believe that he was just using that time to tune up for an attack on a course he loves. Despite Tiger's domination around here, Mickelson still has three tournament wins in this event and as a local resident he will be desperate to triumph in front of his home fans. Phil does have a record of having missed a cut and won the following week so don't let that distract you too much. At current odds of [12.5] he is easily my main pick of the week.

The Next Best Bets
This field is not exactly full of in-form players and that is making it pretty tricky to fancy hardly anyone in the top echelons of the market. Harrington doesn't interest me, Donald has shown some signs of a return to form but not enough to be priced at [23.0] and Rory Sabbatini is just fifth favourite by default. For the real value you have to scroll a little further down where you will come across a few likely candidates. The main one for me is Ryan Moore. Aside from his rather bizarre clothing ensemble last week he showed decent signs of form and I am confident he will be up there challenging for lots of titles this year. At current odds of [90.0] he is a stand out pick this week.

The Massive Outsider
The more I delve into the recesses of this field the more I am disturbed by its lack of depth for such a quality tournament. There are huge amounts of three figured players and I can safely say that virtually all of them are more than deserving of that tag. There are plenty who may have one or two decent rounds but as far as winning goes I just can't see any real challengers. There is one glimmer of light however in the form of George McNeill. This rather unfashionable player has really caught my eye over the last couple of seasons. He is making great progress and do not be surprised to see him on the winner's rostrum at a big price this year. He is trading at around [150.0] for this one and is worth a small investment in the Winner market and also the top-five Finish market.

Interesting Info
Torrey Pines South Course was ranked as the third hardest course on the PGA Tour last year. Despite the difficult search for likely winners there are in fact 12 major winners lining up this week. Rather unusually for such a long running prestigious tournament there are only two players in the field who have won this event before. Of course that is largely down to the fact that Tiger has won here six times!

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