Open de France

Outright plays (1.5 units):

Justin Rose to win 14/1 e.w. @ William Hill
Going early (for me!) on prices that are unlikely to be beaten in the next day or two. Rose, Immelman and Scott head the market and Rose is favoured of these three. Scott was clearly struggling with his game at Gleneagles last week, Immelman has missed four of his last five cuts, while Rose finished 5th in the U.S. Open two weeks ago following some work with David Leadbetter. He is moving in the right direction and bears no resemblance to the player who missed the cut in this event in 1999 and 2000. As a four-time winner last year, he will be well-suited to take advantage of this weak field and notch up his first win of 2003.

Stephen Leaney to win 28/1 e.w. @ Victor Chandler
Leaney went even better than Rose at Olympia Fields and was very impressive in finishing 2nd to Jim Furyk. Le Golf National is obviously going to be set up very different to the U.S. Open, but it has not been a particularly low-scoring course in the past and there should be no problems with his Leaney's confidence in his game and his ability to compete under pressure. Too large a price considering for someone who was almost the latest major champion.

Richard Green to finish in the top-five 14/1 @ SkyBet
Would normally be wary of playing coming off a windy event, but his swing has obviously not been too greatly buffeted on Thursday and Friday - he shot 68-70 over the weekend to jump up to 10th place. It meant he recorded his third consecutive top-15 finish in four weeks. He had been the leader after two rounds of the British Masters in his previous start and then 2nd after 54 holes, but faltered in the final round, so he has been getting into contention to win. These are large odds for someone who has won in very good company (1997 Dubai Desert Classic) and is consistently on the fringes of the contention.

Matchup plays (1.5 units):

Thomas Bjorn to beat Ian Poulter -115 @ Five Dimes
Bjorn misses too many cuts, but still not as many as Poulter whom he failed behind in any European tournament in the past three months. He also leads Poulter 12-3-0 h2h over the past year, so the Dane does have a good edge and it looks likely to be decided on Friday evening.

Stephen Leaney to beat Ian Poulter -118 @ Expekt
Leaney has also failed to finish behind Poulter in any European event in the last three months and will surely follow up his U.S. Open heroics with a good performance this week. He has only missed one of his last ten cuts (Poulter has missed six) and did not suffer the winds of Gleneagles last week where Poulter shot 83-76 to miss the cut by a very long way.

Stephen Leaney to beat Jose Maria Olazabal -111 @ BetandWin
Olazabal does have a good record in this event - he won the title in 2001 at Lyon, he finished 6th on this course last year and played well here in the early 1990s. It is surprising that he has played well on this course as there is plenty of water and there is an emphasis on finding the fairway here, but his 6th place finish last year ended his purple patch of form that netted him eight top-10 finishes in the first nine starts to 2002. He would not have another top-10 finish in 2002 and this year his form and his driving should catch up with him. In his last European Tour event (Volvo PGA Championship), he hit only 46% of fairways and he will not able to afford that luxury this week.

Eduardo Romero to beat Jose Maria Olazabal -110 @ Bet365
Romero tied with Olazabal on this course last year and he is also a former winner of the French Open, but that was on this course (1991). He comes off two top-15 finishes in very strong events (Volvo PGA Championship and U.S. Open) and looks set for a good week. He will find many more fairways than Ollie and that should secure the win.

Jarrod Moseley to beat Kenneth Ferrie -125 @ Sportingbet and Sporting Odds
Ferrie is a Poulter-type player at the moment. In his last six starts, he has won once, finished 5th and missed four cuts! He did finish 3rd last year so maybe I should be wary of another career week, but he had just come off a top-10 finish in the Canaries, rather than a withdrawal after an opening 82 last week. Moseley is far steadier and has finished ahead of Ferrie in four of their last five common events.

David Gilford to beat Malcolm Mackenzie -125 @ Sportingbet and Sporting Odds
Mackenzie was certainly a shock winner of this title. It enabled him to finish inside the top-100 on the Volvo Order of Merit for the first time since 1996. Since then he has missed 19 of 33 cuts and now languishes in 170th in this year's Order of Merit. There is just no comparison between these two players and Gilford should have this match won by Friday.

Nick O'Hern to beat Soren Hansen +100 @ Victor Chandler
Hansen is so out-of-form that he missed the cut (79-78) in a European Challenge Tour event, the Danish Open, earlier this month. It was his third missed cut in four events and the other time he had finished 69th. By contrast, O'Hern has made his last 19 cuts and following two top-15 finishes on this course, there is little reason to expect his run to end this week.

1st round plays (3 units unless stated):

Trevor Immelman to beat Justin Rose -112 @ Five Dimes [4.5 units]
Jose Maria Olazabal to beat Mathias Gronberg -113 @ Five Dimes
Soren Hansen to beat Darren Fichardt -130 @ Five Dimes

1st round update: 2-1-0; +0.96 units

Immelman/Rose LOST by 3
Olazabal/Gronberg WON by 2
Hansen/Fichardt WON by 3

2nd round plays (1.5 units):

Brian Davis to beat Soren Hansen -118 @ Five Dimes
John Bickerton to beat Stephen Gallacher -105 @ Five Dimes
Stephen Leaney to beat Raphael Jacquelin -145 @ Five Dimes

2nd round update: 1-2-0; -2.25 units

Davis/Hansen WON by 9
Bickerton/Gallacher LOST by 2
Leaney/Jacquelin LOST by 2

Mid-point update:

Bjorn/Poulter Leads by 9
Leaney/Poulter Leads by 3
Leaney/Olazabal Trails by 2
Romero/Olazabal Trails by 5
Moseley/Ferrie Leads by 2
Gilford/Mackenzie WON by 9
O'Hern/Hansen WON by 2

Rose 7th
Leaney 25th
O'Hern mc

Disappointing loss on the day, but a generally good position at the cut. Two wins in the bag and the only two matchups behind are still alive and to the same player. Rose is only three shots behind the leader, Bjorn, so plenty to play for over the weekend.

No 3rd round plays.

4th round play (1.5 units):

Thomas Bjorn to beat Jose Maria Olazabal -125 @ Five Dimes

4th round update: 0-1-0; -1.88 units

Bjorn/Olazabal LOST by 2

Final update:

Matchups: 5-2-0; +4.19 units

Bjorn/Poulter WON by 4
Leaney/Poulter WON by 3
Leaney/Olazabal LOST by 1
Romero/Olazabal LOST by 10
Moseley/Ferrie WON by 4

18-holes: 3-4-0; -3.17 units

Outrights: 1-2; -1.65 units

Rose 3rd
Leaney 15th

Valiant final-day effort by Rose after he had taken himself out of the tournament on Saturday. He shot the low round of the day and his clubhouse score led for much of the afternoon. No change in the matchups over the weekend, though Leaney did get close to catching Ollie. A small loss on the event, largely due to a very poor week with the 18-hole plays.