Telecom Italia Open


Back Gregory Havret to win 1.25 pts @ 110 at Betfair
Two main reasons for thinking he may show up this week. Firstly, he's playing pretty well this season - he started the final round last week in tied 7th after middle rounds of 63 and 69 and only a closing 75 took him down to 27th. He also had a tied 9th in the Algarve three weeks before and only lost in a play-off in South Africa in January. Both his GIR and Putting Average stats are comparing very favourably with past seasons and he looks on an upward curve again after losing his way the last two years. Secondly, the psychological angle - his only European Tour win came here in Italy in 2001 and then he may also be spurred on by his fellow countryman's win last week. All in all, a pretty decent scenario for a player trading at over 100/1.

Back Brett Rumford to win 0.75 pts @ 110 at Betfair
Again, this player is a winner and has good recent form figures to his name. Also like Havret, his GIR stats are well up on the last two years, and this is almost certainly the reason for his higher finishes. He did manage to win last year but afterwards struggled for consistency, shooting a good number of decent individual rounds to show up prominently on leaderboards, but all too often failing to string even three good rounds together. However, this year he is doing better with a record of 9th/MC/54th/8th/27th/25th/8th and, despite not knowing whether his lack of play recently is a negative or not, I can't see that this price isn't a touch of value.

Back Darren Fichardt to win 0.75 pts @ 130 at Betfair (or 125/1 with Sportingbet / Sporting Odds)
Another player coming off a break and it is admittedly just wishful thinking that he'll be fit and ready to go. But then, Fichardt seems to have been forgotten by the layers due to the absence and he's undoubtedly good enough to take a hand here if coming back in the kind of form he showed during his great run in the South African events earlier this year, which included a win, beating Nick Price into second place in the Data-Dimension Pro-Am. Showed plenty of bottle when winning his second European Tour event last season in Qatar and is obviously a confident individual as he's stated his intention to make it on the US Tour. I'd have him in at half these odds myself, and I feel a player with his ability deserves support at this price.

Back Soren Kjeldsen to win 1.25 pts @ 130 at Betfair
Kjeldsen had a tremendous start to last season when he started consistently bettering the many top thirty finishes he had accumulated, and he finally clinched a victory in the high-class Diageo Championship in June. That victory came after 7 top 20s in his first 15 events of the season (3 top tens) and it looked to be the springboard for him to become one of the leading lights in Europe. It certainly didn't work out that way, though, and he never broke into the top fifteen in his remaining 11 events. Again, it's been a struggle in 2004 but I'm banking here that his finishes of 28th and 27th the last two weeks is a sign of something just around the corner. In form, he'd be around a quarter of these odds and I feel there is a chance this price could end up looking massive come the weekend.

Back Fredrik Andersson to win 0.5 pts @ 160 at Betfair
Bet him at 125/1 last week and I don't see much reason to desert him at bigger odds in only a slightly better event. Many of the market leaders have doubts surrounding them coming back from the US and, on a brand new course again, there would be too much guesswork involved for me to support any of them at their current odds. Better I feel to stick with the small stakes at the big odds and with Andersson currently having a run of 25th/9th/16th going, I'll hope he can better his 9th place in Havret's 2001 Italian Open.


Sunday morning update:
The tournament has been reduced to 54 holes now. All five players have made the cut with the best of them being Havret currently T3rd, Rumford T16th and Fichardt T32nd with still 9 holes of his penultimate round to play. He'd need a monumental effort to get involved and, realistically, Havret carries our hopes. But some hopes they are too as he obviously likes the low-scoring events (all three of his career top 3s have seen him shoot -20 or better) and is certainly not afraid to go birdie-crazy. The leader Cabrera has to cope with coming off a 63 in trying to protect his lead and, although you have to say he has played absolutely brilliantly, that won't be easy. I'm sure Havret is capable of a similar score today as he hit a third-round 64 in the Dunhill this year, and also a second-round 63 last week in Seville to go with his opening 64 here. His putter was colder yesterday, I only caught about 6 holes on TV and he missed at least 3 very makeable putts, but often a hot putting round follows an average one so I feel he is not beat yet. Have to put some lays up in case his price becomes 'layable' - this is the only problem with a page like this, all recommendations obviously have to be done before play ... I can only hope I am putting the right prices up here and trust we end up happy with the outcome. It doesn't help things that there are a couple of big names involved as they invariably take a big chunk of the market and the lesser names, like Havret, are often trading an falsely-high prices ... these are precisely the ones we have to try and lay. Still, if he hits the front and loses we'll make some profit and even if he wins and all the following lays are matched, we'll come out around 50 pts in front (as we will if his price hits 1.4 and he still loses). Best of luck!
Lay Havret:
5 pts @ 7
5 pts @ 5
5 pts @ 3
10 pts @ 2
10 pts @ 1.6
20 pts @ 1.4


Sunday evening update:
OK, dramatic stuff with Havret, amazingly like Cevaer last week, making two eagles in his final round ... the luck is with us at present. Two holes left for him and he is level with McDowell, who has four left including a par five but one I'm not sure is reachable in the wet conditions. Levet is on that par five too and is one behind. Of the lays put up, the 15 pts at 3 and above have been taken so we're already in profit ... 10.5 pts as it stands, but looking at 73 pts if Havret was successful and we cancelled the as yet unmatched lays. The decision is whether to take some more profit immediately or rethink the strategy for tomorrow. I'm wary of the good fortune we've had lately and it has to run out sometime ... therefore I'll take another 10 pts @ 4.1 and that would leave us, at this stage, +20 pts if he fails or +42 pts if he's successful. Then, in case his price goes really low but he ends up missing out, I'll go for another 15 pts @ 1.3 to cover any potential heartbreak scenarios. So, the plan of attack is:
1) Cancel unmatched lays
2) Lay Havret 10 pts @ 4.1
3) Lay Havret 15 pts @ 1.3
It's so hard to try and do the right thing in these situations!


Final Summary:
Well played Havret, just couldn't eek out that extra birdie needed to join the playoff. But a final round 65 was a fine effort and he's surely one to follow when playing easy courses, some fantastic iron play and not afraid to roll putt after putt in. Glad I adjusted the strategy last night to make another 10 points, made the anti-climax a little more bearable.

Total staked: 4.5
Total laid: 25 .... Profit 20.5 pts