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Mitsui Sumitomo Visa Taiheiyo Masters
Outright plays (1.5 units):
Toshimitsu Izawa to win 10/1 e.w. @
Coral
Will gladly take double-figure odds on a player who won this event in
2000 and 2001 and can consider himself unlucky not to retain his place
in the Japan team that defends the World Cup this week. He won
back-to-back events on the Japan Tour in July following a 3rd place
finish and that was how he finished in his last event, the ABC
Championship. Simply too good for all but a few of this field, he is a
likely winner this week.
Jumbo Ozaki to win 25/1 e.w. @
Stan James
Winning is something that Jumbo has struggled to achieve in recent
seasons, though he did win the Ana Open last year. But he is far from
being uncompetitive: he has four top-10 finishes in his last six starts,
including two runners-up positions. That is also the finish he had in
this event in 1997 and 1998, plus he also finished 4th two years ago. He
is not the force he once was in Japanese golf, but he is certainly
capable of finishing in the top-5 for a place payoff.
Taichi Teshima to win 33/1 e.w. @
Stan James
Rather like Izawa, Teshima won in the late summer, but since returning
from the American Express Championship in Georgia, his form has returned
only slowly. He has now had top-15 finishes in each of his last three
starts (and improving each time) and can claim to have finished no worse
than 16th in four of his last six visits here. He shouldn't be too far
from the leaderboard on Sunday.
Final update: 0-3; -4.50 units
Izawa 9th
Ozaki 20th
Teshima 27th
Not a good weekend. Izawa and Ozaki had both been 2nd behind Ben
Curtis after 36 holes, with Ozaki effectively in 1st place as Stan James
were grading the result without Allenby and Curtis, but it was not a
good weekend.
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