The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 02 September 2008 /

A rare stress-free weekend for the punter as Havret triumphs at Gleneagles.

The final day at Gleneagles panned out pretty much as I'd hoped. My in-running pick Gregory Havret played out a very solid final round to deservedly collect the title.

It hadn't been a cakewalk by any means, Graeme Storm proved to be the sternest challenger and actually touched odds on at one point but in the end the Frenchman was the deserved victor.

For a change I'd had a relaxing end to a tournament as I'd also backed Storm during the final round a few times, at an average of [7.6], and in the end he would have been a slightly better result, but I was cheering on Havret.

He'd led from day one, had the distraction over the weekend of playing with back peddlers Rock and Wall and despite a shaky last hole had been pretty solid all weekend. I won't think twice about backing him again. Having impressed when he claimed Lefty's scalp at Loch Lomand last year, this win took him up another notch in my reckoning.

It was a rather unusual last two days at the Deutsche Bank Championship starting on Sunday night when I added to my outright picks of Singh at [17.0] and Crane at [330.0] with bets on Ernie Els at an average of [48.0] and Furyk at [75.0], massive prices given their prospective positions in the field at the time. The big prices offered up by the layers was almost certainly due to someone or someones believing the event was finishing on Sunday night. Although they didn't come to fruition this year its worth remembering for next year. Furyk was matched as high as [330.0], only five off the lead with more than a round to go!

So going into last night's final round I was pretty well armed and hoping that the leading trio of Weir, Villegas and Garcia would falter.

Of my posse Crane and Furyk started poorly, while Singh and Els hit the ground running, but the fastest starter of all was Sergio Garcia, who birdied three of the first four holes to trade under [3.0]. But the Spaniard stalled after that and the way was left clear for Weir and Singh to fight it out. By the time both had played the 12th hole the fight had turned into a walkover.

Singh played immaculate golf, making some quite remarkable putts, destroying the field and winning at a stroll. Having looked like the event would be similar to last week's tight tense affair it turned out to be something of a damp squib but I wasn't complaining. I layed some of my Singh bet back at varying rates from [1.5] down to [1.03], just for a stress free finish.

In winning yesterday Vijay became only the second player over forty to win three times in a season, the other being Kenny Perry, who also did it this year.

A couple of things to come out of the weekend; Crane is worth following, I think. And yet again Westwood and Garcia are worth opposing when in the mix. Indeed Garcia and Singh spent a lot of the weekend on the same score and whenever they were Garcia was always the shorter in the market which given Singh was going for his third win in a month and Sergio has only one win in three years was somewhat baffling to me.

Anyway, it's nice to get back on track with a really good weekend but there's no time to rest on my laurels and I'm off to get my nose back in the form book ready for this weeks events.

I'll preview the Omega European Masters and the BMW Championship tomorrow.

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