The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 25 August 2009 /

Steve's looking forward to the views of New York but he's unsure who will take to the brand new Liberty National, venue for this week's PGA Tour event...

The closer we get to the finishing line in the Race to Dubai the weaker the fields are getting. This week's tournament, the Johnnie Walker Championships at Gleneagles, has another decidedly weak entry list.

That in itself makes finding selections tough enough, but when you factor in some of the almost miraculous results this year, with virtual unknowns and amateurs winning, not to mention this year's majors results, my instinct is not to steam in before the off.

Truth be told, I struggled to muster much enthusiasm for anyone, but nevertheless I have dug up a few pre-event picks.

First up is Raphael Jacquelin, who had had a couple of decent results this year, finishing runner-up in the Scottish Open as well as the Italian.

He missed the cut here last year but in the past five years his form figures read 3-11-10-28-8. He's a bit hit and miss but at [65.0] in a field this week I felt he was worth chancing.

Next up is Daniel Vancsik, who has the length to make the most of the five par fives. The generous fairways should help his inaccuracy from the tee. I'm quite surprised he's not played well here yet, maybe this is the year! His round three 67 last year before disqualification is by far his best effort to date.

My third and final pick is Stephen Dodd, who does appear to have lost his way after a decent run earlier in the season. His best performance here in the last four years is last year's 56th. Not great admittedly, but his worst finish in the four years preceding that was 29th. Speculative in the extreme but he's a very big price and at least he's won a few times!

Selections:

Raphael Jacquelin @ [65.0]
Daniel Vancsik @ [180.0]
Stephen Dodd @ [260.0]

In the States it's the first event in the FedexCup play off series, the Barclays, which does go someway to explaining the weakness of the Johnnie Walker field.

As with the event in Scotland, I'm being pretty cautious before the off, not because the field is poor, far from it, but because this week's venue, the Liberty National Golf Club in New Jersey is a new course and is being used for the very first time in competition.

It will be very interesting to watch this week, and the views of the New York skyline will be spectacular but how will it play?

We can speculate all we like and read up as much as we can, and from what I've read it has a feel of a Florida layout, a feel of a links course and that water comes into play quite often. Personally, I'm not going to try second guessing which players will be best suited before the off but I have had a few bets.

My first selection is Phil Mickelson, for two reasons. His price is massive but he will also know the course. Fortunately for Lefty he has enough cash to afford the astronomical initiation fee of $450,000. Whether he actually had to pay it I don't know, I have my doubts, but by being a member he must surely have some sort of advantage over his rivals.

My other three picks are all players that I've backed several times before this year to varying degrees of success.

Selections:

Phil Mickelson @ [30.0]
Zach Johnson @ [70.0]
Brian Gay @ [290.0]
Ben Crane @ [310.0]

I'm visiting family in Wales this week and I'm off to sample the brand new delights of Ffos Las racecourse on Friday, before travelling back early on Saturday, so I won't post an update this week until Saturday night or Sunday morning.

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