The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 06 September 2008 /

The Punter warns against looking too far down the leaderboard to find a winner in Switzerland.

The third round of the Omega European Masters tees off early today with the leaders going out at 10.45am, presumably due to impending bad weather.

The best of my original selections are on -3 but that's five shots off the leaders and I think that's too far back. I've had a couple of in running bets. Firstly, one of this mornings co leaders, defending Champion Brett Rumford, after he'd finished his second round at differing rates from [9.6] down to [8.8]. It was a bit risky to have struck the better so early yesterday as half the field still had their second rounds to complete and it looked at one point like afternoon starter Mikko Ilonen was going to take a hold of the tournament but he finished his round very poorly, bogeying four of his last five holes to trail the leaders by three.

A look back at the record books reveals that nobody has won from outside the front three after two rounds this century, so like last week in Scotland it may be wise to not scan too far down the leaderboard.

Alongside Rumford at the head of the leaderboard is 19-year-old Rory McIlroy who is bidding to become the third youngest winner ever on the European Tour but I fear for him. The commentators on TV yesterday seemed to think he'd gotten his bad round out of the way yesterday but I'm not so sure. The fact that he couldn't sleep and was watching American Football at 4.00am on Friday morning when leading the tournament is enough to set the alarm bells chiming.

Vying for favouritism is Miguel Angel Jimenez who's three shots back but I still have my reservations about him. This is his 20th concurrent appearance here and he's yet to wear the crown, both his arguably sloppy play at times and the stats already mentioned suggest he has too much on his plate.

My other in running bet is anther Spaniard, Alejandro Canizares, who could just be a bit of value at [17.5] having already won a European Tour event and only one shot off the lead.

In the US there's still a long way to go. Thanks to rain, rain and more rain there was no play at all on Thursday and there will be two rounds today to catch up. It was a slightly frustrating first round yesterday, Stephen Ames and Ben Crane both finished poorly and slipped back down the leaderboard after decent starts.

Although it's still early I've had another bet already, backing Phil Mickelson at an average of [15.0]. Yet again he's playing brilliantly and putting poorly. If, and it's a very big if, he can just get the putts to drop he'll be bang there come Sunday night.

It looks at this stage that I did the right thing to desert Vijay. He opened up with a somewhat disappointing level par round and it just might be that the bubble has burst.
The weekend is sure to be full of twists and turns and I'll review all the action on Monday.

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