Nabisco Championship

Will post proper preview tomorrow morning, but the Starnet books (e.g. Sportfanatik) have Karrie Webb -135 against Laura Davies   It was -125 one hour ago and it will rise. Webb is the defending champion, has finished 3rd & 7th the two years before, while Davies' record at the same time has been 35th, 70th and 3rd. She is in poor form, publicly contemplating retirement a couple of weeks ago and was successfully opposed with Dottie Pepper last week. She missed the cut. Get on it early! A 3-unit play!

The first Major of the year and once again it is widely expected to be a two-horse race between Karrie Webb and Annika Sorenstam. So far this year, Sorenstam has won every one of these matches and in the process has not finished lower than 2nd in any tournament and shot 59 last week to become the first person to do so on the LPGA Tour. Webb has some catching up to do this week and it is rather unfortunate that such an important event should coincide with the TPC which will dominate the media coverage yet again.

This will be the 30th Nabisco Championship, and since its inception in 1972 the tournament has been played on the Dinah Shore Tournament Course at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage, Calif. The tournament holds the LPGA title for having the greatest longevity on the same course, and it's the third oldest on the LPGA Tour behind the U.S. Women's Open and the McDonald's LPGA Championship. The course was stretched to over 6,500 yards last year to make it the longest course in the history of the LPGA Majors, but this has not particularly been an event for long-hitters, rather players with good greens in regulation and putting stats. Befitting of any Major, it is the ball-strikers and not the power-players who play well here. The other common feature of past champions here is that they have all been seasoned veterans, again befitting of a Major championship. 

As far as the slug-out between Webb and Sorenstam is concerned, my play is on Sorenstam. Webb started the season with a new caddie and it has been a difficult process for her. She has won only once, in her native Australia, and while she can boast a string of top-10 finishes, she has not been consistently contending. This will be her 4th straight tournament, spanning two continents, and she admits on the LPGA.com site that she is tired. "I think that the effects of the last two years have caught up with me and after this week I am going to take the next five weeks off. I think that my body, both physically and mentally, is just very run down." By this stage last year she had played three less tournaments and "was already on quite a roll coming into the first major". She won by ten shots and dominated the event, but this year has been very different so far.

Sorenstam is commonly cited to not have a great record here, having finished no higher than 7th in six attempts, yet here scoring average is the 3rd best of the field in that time (71.71). Only Webb (70.60, 20 rounds) and Pepper (71.64, 52 rounds) are better. And then there is the "roll" that she is on and it was that roll that propelled Webb to victory last year. She tops the greens in regulation and putting average stats and is in the top-10 in both driving length and accuracy. She may not repeat the 59 of last week, but she is a much stronger candidate to pick up this Major than Webb.

The other two picks are Meg Mallon and Rosie Jones. If Sorenstam has the 3rd best long-term scoring average on this course, she is closely followed by Mallon (71.81, 42 rounds) and with a finishes of 2nd and 3rd in the last two years here it is clear that is not just form of years gone by. She is now selective in the events that she plays and warmed up for this event last week after a seven-week break with a 17th place finish last week with the scores improving each round. Focused for this event and with the course she has, she could certainly secure another place finish.

The third pick, Rosie Jones, is very much in the same vein. A consistent performer on this course, she has also been selective in the events that she has played this year and finished strongly for a 7th place finish last week. Also focused for this event, she could challenge for a place finish much more strongly than her current odds suggest.

Outright plays:

Annika Sorenstam to win 4/1 @ William Hill  

Meg Mallon to win 25/1 e.w. @ Surrey

Rosie Jones to win 50/1 e.w. @ William Hill [5 places options] 

72-hole plays:

Meg Mallon to beat Sophie Gustafson -110 @ Surrey  
Gustafson has only played in this event once in the last three years and she finished 79th on that occasion. The big-hitting Swede's game is not suited to this course, she is currently ranked #132 in driving accuracy and that will be her downfall this week. Already picked for an outright play, Mellon's aptitude for this course will see her through

Lorie Kane to beat Sophie Gustafson -111 @ Simon Bold [2 units]
Kane would have been an outright pick had she been granted the same odds as Mallon, but instead she is selected as a double play against Gustafson. Kane may not have the best of records at Mission Hills, but it it is still solid and she comes here off two top-10 finishes and victory in the Takefuji Classic. Unlike Gustafson, she ranks in the top-20 in driving accuracy, greens in regulation & putting average which will be the important stats this week

Rosie Jones to beat Maria Hjorth -111 @ Simon Bold [3 units]
Almost as strong a play as Webb over Davies! Hjorth comes here off a missed cut at the Standard Ping Register and off a missed cut last year. Jones is inside the top-10 in the Tour stats for driving accuracy, greens in regulation and putting average; Hjorth is outside the top-100 in two and 87th in the other!

Rosie Jones to beat Michelle McGann -110 @ Surrey
McGann may have come here off two top-10 finishes in the last two weeks, but this is not a course on which she has prospered; she even missed the cut last year. And again, there is a striking difference in the Tour stats for each player that will be important this week: top-10 for Jones as stated above; 115th in driving accuracy and 68th in putting average for McGann. You can't win Majors with that game!

Mid-point update:

Just one match decided at the cut and the rest are extremely tight. Jones recorded a seven-shot win over McGann when the latter missed the cut, but the other four have just one shot splitting them and the right way for the two heaviest plays. Webb trails Davies by one, as does Jones to Hjorth, but Mallon and Kane have one-shot leads over their opponents.

Still some work to be done on the outrights. Best-placed is Sorenstam in 3rd, but the play on her was win-only. Mallon and Jones are not too far behind in a congested leaderboard in 17th and 31st.

Final update: 2-3-0 and -2.66 units

Very disappointing result as some of Simon Bold's matchups were so weak! Webb did record a three-shot win over Davies in one of the 3-unit plays, but in the other, a two-shot lead for Jones was squandered over the final four holes and she ended one shot behind Hjorth   Gustafson finished 7th and inflicted an eight-shot defeat to Mallon and an eleven-shot defeat to Kane.

Update on outright plays: 1-2 and +2.00 units

Mallon and Jones may have disappointed and both finished down in 28th place, but the decision to back a short-price on Sorenstam was vindicated. She won the event by three shots