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The Punter's Masters Diary: And then there were eight...

The Punter RSS / / 10 April 2010 /

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Poulter and Westwood – Will there be an English winner of the 2010 Masters?

Poulter and Westwood – Will there be an English winner of the 2010 Masters?

“It looks highly likely that one of the top eight will go on to win, and I’ve got four of them on my side so I really ought to be feeling good about myself, but I’ve got a nasty feeling that Westwood and Poulter could well inspire each other”

It's halftime at Augusta and an English duo sit proudly atop of the leaderboard, but patriotism is the last thing on the Punter's mind....

With tricky pin positions and a swirling ever present wind, nobody bettered 68 around Augusta National yesterday and there hasn't been an awful lot of change at the top of the leaderboard. Of the top 11 after day one there has been just one change of personnel, with one of my picks, Nick Watney, dropping out of contention, being replaced by Soren Kjeldsen.

English duo Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood now lead on -8, with a bunch of five players - Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, KJ Choi, Anthony Kim and Ricky Barnes all two shots back on -6. YE Yang is a further shot back on -5 and I can't see anyone else getting involved.

Old-timers, Freddy Couples and Tom Watson slipped down the leaderboard yesterday - shooting 75 and 74 respectfully, and on -3 in a tie for 9th, they're alongside Kjeldsen, but I think those three have too much to do now.

After I'd posted my update early on Friday morning I took more time to consider my next move. Having backed Woods, Mickelson, Choi, Yang, and Watney before the event started, I'd had a tremendous start and was in a very strong position. I hadn't meddled at all on day one and after much deliberation I decided that the best course of action for day two was to again leave well alone, and I think on balance, only just, that was probably the right thing to do....

I must confess that at times during yesterday's play I was cursing my luck a bit. I was of the opinion that the big dangers to my five were Poulter, Kim and Westwood (in that order) so it was a bit galling to see all three do so well, but it could have been a whole lot worse. Westwood had a real chance to put daylight between him and the field but a double bogey at the 14th slowed him up and he and Poulter both mercifully bogeyed the last.

It looks highly likely that one of the top eight will go on to win, and I've got four of them on my side so I really ought to be feeling good about myself, but I've got a nasty feeling that Westwood and Poulter could well inspire each other later, though obviously I really hope I'm wrong.

I'll post another update tomorrow when hopefully I can report on an English collapse of monumental proportions. I'm really sorry, but when it comes to making money, patriotism is just about the first thing to go out of the window.

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