The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 27 October 2008 /

Laying a short-priced leader can pay, as Steve discovered this weekend.

Saturday was an all round pants day.

My big hope in the Castello Masters, Alvaro Quiros, had a shocker. Having played well for a few weeks and winning the week before a bounce at some point was always a possibility.

His third round 76 was ten shots worse than leader Sergio Garcia's, who despite a wobble just after the turn, sprinted clear to take a four shot lead into the final round.

As I'd suggested I may do on Saturday, I got stuck into Garcia. Laying him at various rates from [1.86] down to [1.18] throughout Saturday and by the time play ended I'd layed him at an average of [1.5] and he was trading at around [1.22]. Not particularly good business.

There was no comfort at the Frys.com where my in-running bet, Arron Oberholser, limped round in one over par to slump from first to a tie for eighth, four shots of the pace.

In Spain yesterday, I couldn't really see Garcia getting beat but when Peter Hedblom birdied the first four holes and the Spaniard missed a par putt on the 6th hole they were suddenly tied. But as he'd done on Saturday after his wobble, he kicked on again with two quick birdies.

I layed Garcia again after ten holes, this time at [1.13]. How anyone could back him at that price with only a two shot lead and eight holes to play is beyond my comprehension.

After that it was a tight, cagey run of holes with the two players matching scores exactly, both making pars at every hole and birdies at the 13th and 16th holes.

Then it all ended on the 17th, after decent drives from both, Garcia hit a poor approach which found a greenside bunker but he played a magnificent up and down while Hedblom three putted from the fringe, after his birdie putt had momentarily looked destined for the hole. Still, at least he'd kept it competitive; it really could have been a dull final day without his early charge.

So a comfy par at the last for Sergio sealed my fate and all that was left to do was to wipe the egg of my face. It was a loss but hardly the end of the world, I've profited from laying Garcia in the mix in the past so I can't complain.

I minded the loss even less when he dedicated his win to Seve and said how he'd been in his thoughts all week.

In America, with a round to go it was a very confusing picture with the usually unreliable Kevin Sutherland leading by a shot from George McNeil, with a rag-tag bunch of players two and three shots back.

I considered a wager on McNeil but eventually sided with a modest play on Woody Austin at [13.5] and just in case, Y E Yang at [160.0]. The Korean was five shots back but having backed him at [500.0] last week I couldn't leave him out.

It wasn't long before I realised that all I'd succeeded in doing with my additional bets was spend more cash. None of my men did anything to get within sight of the lead and Sutherland put some daylight between himself and the field when he birdied three holes on the spin from the 6th.

He then hit a very loose shot on the par five 11th hole but still made par after a favourable drop, thanks to the proximity of a rabbit hole. But he'd shown a weakness and as he played the next hole I layed him at [1.20], surely too short for someone who hadn't ever won a strokeplay event and whose only win was the 2002 Matchplay, 181 events ago!

To Sutherland's credit the suspected collapse never happened and I got lucky as another journeyman, Cameron Beckman, finished with a flourish to set up a play-off.
Languishing at 176th on the money list, Beckman's one and only win had been seven years ago and he'd been matched at [1000.0]!

So the play off was like Grimsby meeting Rotherham in the cup final, an impossible clash to call and given that Sutherland was trading at significantly shorter than Beckman for reasons unbeknown to me I just let it ride and was thankful that I did.

After matching pars at the first play-off hole Sutherland finally cracked and made a pigs ear of the second while Beckman secured the win with a simple par.

It was a win, not a massive one but it took the sting nicely out of the Sergio result and meant only a marginal loss on the week, which I was more than happy with.

I'll preview next week's events, the Volvo Masters and the Ginn sur Mer Classic, on Wednesday.

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