Golf Events / Paul Krishnamurty / 25 November 2008 /

It's time for golf tipster Paul Krishnamurty's favourite tournaments of the year and he haws a rock solid value bet for the Sportsbet Masters.

I doubt there are many British golf fans that agree with me, but the forthcoming three-week period is my favourite spell of the golfing year.

The Sportsbet Masters kicks off the Australian triple crown tomorrow, to be followed by the Australian Open and PGA Championships. Those three events that have been more profitable than any throughout my golf punting career.

And none more so than the Masters, which has been staged at the classic old sand-belt venue of Huntingdale GC, Melbourne, since its inception in 1979. Huntingdale is a superb old-fashioned test of golf, with hard, fast conditions placing a massive premium on ball striking. Its a tough course that strongly accentuates the class difference between the best and the rest.

Year in, year out, this event is dominated by the market leaders, and normally the field finishes well strung out. None of the eight winners this century started at bigger than [34.0], and half were at single-figure odds pre-tournament. Just three players to make the top-3 in that period started at over [50.0]. In other words, a surefire strategy for profit in this event over the years has been to focus on a series of win and place bets, chosen exclusively from the relatively small contingent of world-class Australians and handful of strong overseas candidates.

And this year, the shortlist looks shorter than ever, with many of the US-based Australians opting out, including last year's winner Aaron Baddeley. Also absent are the likes of Adam Scott, Geoff Ogilvy and Nick O'Hern, all of whom have regularly played, and contended strongly, in this event. Even PGA Tour also-rans such as Matt Goggin, Nick Flanagan or Jason Day are all missing, while Huntingdale specialist Richard Green is representing his country in the Omega World Cup. In total, there are only three players from the world's top-50 in the Masters line-up, and only ten from the top-150.

Everything suggests this is a golden opportunity for course experts Robert Allenby and Peter Lonard to extend their magnificent course records. Backing this pair on home turf has proved a rock-solid strategy over the years, and once again their odds of [9.0] and [18.0] appear tremendous value in the outright market. They already have four Masters titles between them, yet despite the apparently weaker opposition have rarely been available at better odds than these.

Allenby very much boasts the best recent PGA Tour form on offer. Given his consistency in 2008 it was a surprise that he couldn't add to his four US titles. Allenby hasn't missed a single cut since the opening event back in January, finished runner-up twice and registered nine top-10 finishes. He ranks fourth in the all-important greens in regulation stats on the last year's PGA Tour form.

With numbers like that, if I didn't know Allenby better I'd assume he had the profile of a bottler, consistently failing to turn his solid golf into a win. However as he's more than proved his mettle over the years in the bottle department, its safer to assume that he's simply overdue a change of luck. Allenby has won six of these triple-crown events this century, and has rarely if ever arrived in better form. I rate him well worth a win bet at these odds, and seeing as he's made the top-10 in seven of the last ten Masters, [1.9] looks a pretty solid bet in this market too.

Lonard represents even better value. Every year, Lonard seems to come into these events under-rated by layers, who read too much into his moderate PGA Tour fortunes. His strength has always been tee to green accuracy, perfect for a hard and fast golf course of this nature and indeed for Australian venues generally. But due to his relatively weak putting, Lonard usually struggles in many of the low-scoring, target-golf affairs on the PGA Tour. In fact bearing in mind this weakness, consecutive top-20s in such events during October bodes well for his winter campaign.

Back at home, Lonard transforms into a world-class player. He's actually one ahead of Allenby, with seven triple-crown titles to his name over the years, not to mention a relentlessly consistent record of making the places.

Few bets have been as rewarding this century than to back Lonard to make the top-10 in his home country, in particular at Huntingdale. He's won the Masters twice previously, and made the top-10 on ten of his last twelve visits. That includes every one of the last seven Masters, and every time he was available to do so at bigger than even money. This year is no different, with Lonard [2.8] to make the top-10. How often can you say that - 2.8 about a bet that's won seven years in a row?

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