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BMW International
A good quality field line up for this European Tour event. Westwood and Clarke may be missing, but in their place comes Els and Norman to the fray. This event has an unusual position in the schedule: it is the final qualifying event for the Ryder Cup in alternate years. With the tension of trying to qualify an impediment to good golf, this has thrown up some very unlikely winners. When the course was the venue once again for this event in 1997, Robert Karlsson won as a 80/1 shot; the following year Russell Claydon won as a 125/1 shot. Sanity was resumed last year when Monty won, though all the attention focused on Padraig Harrington who played excellent golf under pressure to hold onto the 2nd place he needed to qualify for Brookline. This event certainly moved him up a level in the world golf hierarchy.
The course itself is very flat and treeless and measuring under 7000 yards for a par-72, offers little to challenge the stroke-makers. This has invariably been a putting contest, given the widely-acclaimed greens, hence the unexpected winners. It also works against Bernhard Langer. He has won ten times in his home country, but never in this event. On the contrary, Padraig Harrington is excellent around the greens and has an excellent record in this event and on this course: he has been 3rd, 9th and 2nd in his three outings in this event, the last two on this course. He is the top-ranked and with Monty and Els in the field, represents the best value. Available at 20/1 with DAS, this represents good e/w value.
The most-heavily backed players will be Monty and Els, but of these neither represents good value at no more than 6/1 each. Instead, the 2nd outright play is on Pierre Fulke who won the Scottish PGA Championship last week. He was 11th on this course on his last visit, two years ago and is the best-ranked putter in the whole field, lying 2nd only to Lee Westwood in this year's putting average stats. Both Victor Chandler and Paddy Power offer 40/1 for Fulke and both of them pay the e/w bet on the 1st five places.
The 3rd choice is not an outsider, but at odds of 33/1 could represent a good return even if only finishing in the top-5 rather than winning. Jarmo Sandelin has re-discovered his scoring touch in the past couple of months and has the lowest scoring average of the field over that time. He may drive for show, but won two European Tour events last year on the basis of his excellent putting. He currently ranks 8th on the European Tour in putting average. The odds of 33/1 are available quite widely, though Paddy Power do offer a place return on the first five, rather than the firs four, places and that's quite an incentive to play there.
Will have matchup plays in the morning.
72-hole plays:
Padraig Harrington to beat Thomas Bjorn +105 @ Intertops [2 units]
The Dane may have been great in the Majors, but has indifferent elsewhere and
with more emphasis on the short game this week than in recent year, he is no
match for Harrington
Alastair Forsyth to beat Nick O'Hern -111 @ Ladbrokes
7th last week for Forsyth who has been showing solid form of late; not so
impressive for O'Hern who could only manage 55th last year
Per-Ulrik Johansson to beat Greg Norman -111 @ Paddy Power
Two top-10s and two top-20 finishes in his last five finishes is good golf from
the streaky Swede. He should contend again, but Norman's days of doing so are
limited, especially when playing in another continent the week before
1st-round update:
No 1st round plays, but the 72-hole plays all looking good at this early stage. Harrington leads Bjorn by two, Forsyth leads O'Hern by one and Johansson leads the event and Norman by three. Of the outright plays, Harrington and Fulke are in the top-10 while Sandelin is one shot back. Not a bad first day, but although DAS have 2nd round matchups available, there are no plays from their list for tomorrow.
2nd round update:
No 2nd round plays, but one 72-hole play is decided at the cut. Nick O'Hern missed the cut by one shot to hand victory to Alastair Forsyth who was two shots ahead at that stage. The other two worsened though. Bjorn shot 63 to take the tournament lead, but only by one shot over Harrington, while Johansson had a difficult second day and also lies one behind at the halfway stage.
3rd round plays:
Thomas Bjorn to beat Miguel Angel Martin -137 @ Easybets [2 units]
Padraig Harrington to beat Carl Suneson -154 @ DAS [3 units]
Van Phillips to beat David Park +120 @ Easybets
Jarmo Sandelin to beat Roger Wessels -125 @ DAS
3rd round update: 2-2-0 and -2.62 units
Harrington has a shocker and three units at -154 is a shocker as well 
He shoots 74 to lose to Suneson by seven. Phillips also lost to Park, by four
shots, but Bjorn did beat Martin by four and Sandelin beat Wessels by five.
Split the plays, but a losing day. Harrington's difficulties also widened his
deficit to Bjorn to six shots, while Johansson remains one shot behind Norman.
Need a decent final day. Back with plays early in the morning.
4th round plays:
Mathias Gronberg to beat Stephen Gallacher -125 @ DAS [3 units]
Ignacio Garrido to beat Justin Rose -118 @ DAS
Bernhard Langer to beat Thomas Gogele -167 @ DAS
John Senden to beat Wayne Riley -115 @ DA [3 units]
Final update: 3-1-0 and +1.55 units for the day; 6-5-0 and -3.18 units for the week
A week that only worsened after the 1st day! In the end, it was a profitable
Sunday with three of the four 18-hole plays winning. Gronberg survived a
triple-bogey at the 16th to beat Gallacher by one, Garrido beat Rose by two and
Langer beat Gogele by six. The only loss on the day was Senden by seven shots to
Riley, yet had been two ahead after seven holes, only to then go
triple-double-single bogey around the turn and that was his tournament over 
The remaining 72-hole plays both finished as losers: Harrington lost to Bjorn by
twelve, while Norman birdied three of the last four holes to tie with Johansson
and ties lose at the Euro books 
What a week!
Update on outright plays: 0-3 and -3.00 units
Sandelin was always in contention, but never found the birdies to move into
the top-4. He finished 13th, three shots back of 4th place. Harrington had had a
disastrous 3rd round and finished equally poorly down in 20th place, while Fulke
had been in the top-10 after day one only to miss the cut after day two 
