Final update: 6-1-2 and +4.62 units for the week

A washout! No play today so Jimenez and Olazabal remain tied for a push leaving the only defeat of the week to the eventual winner, Phil Mickelson. So that makes it just one loss on each Tour this week and both times to the winner of the event; nothing like spectacular losses! Otherwise a satisfactory week, though I was convinced Jones was going to provide some nice priced winners today

4th round picks:

Not a lot of Sunday choice for once; presumably TV directives are forcing an early conclusion of the golf so they're playing in a three-ball U-format [top and bottom of leaderboard go out last on different tees; the middle goes out first]. I hate it when that happens and I'm sure the players aren't best pleased about it either! With them playing in three-balls, the Euro books and Sportodds have three-ball matchups and while I hope the info in the Members Section is useful in looking at these, I don't like to use them as official plays.

There are three picks for today. The first is the standard 'bounce-back' play. Stewart Cink jumped 32 places to gain a top-10 position after 54 holes; John Huston went nowhere fast yesterday, falling three places to 5th. Despite a difficult third round, he is not out of the tournament and we should see more uninhibited golf in this situation. Cink's history is all too common, his large 3rd round moves have been followed by over-par 4th round scores. The last example is the TPC only last week when he jumped 25 places to 19th after a 3rd round 69, but followed with a 75 to end up 33rd.

The other two plays are on one of the forgotten men of the PGA Tour, Steve Jones. He is pitted as a dog against Harrison Frazar and Phil Mickelson. Jones is no has-been; once in contention he has normally finished the job even in recent years; the problem has been getting into contention! He left himself totally out of the TPC last week with an opening 80; but came back with rounds of 70, 72 and 69 to haul himself up to 27th. This week he's carried that momentum forward with three sub-par rounds and I can't see him collapsing at all. For Harrison Frazar who has been in the top-6 after 54 holes nine times since the start of the 1998 season, more times than many would expect, he has averaged one-shot more than the average score for the whole field for the day [an 'adjusted score' of 73.0 in my terminology] and so has fell quite rapidly from the leaderboard rather than challenge for the lead. These trends are expected to continue today.

The play on Jones against Mickelson is at a very nice price. Not only is Jones playing extremely well - he is hitting 78% of greens in regulation this week to Mickelson's 63% - he is also four shots back of the lead with Mickelson holds jointly and so should feel much less pressure than Lefty who has something to prove about his Sunday temperament.

Staking plan:

John Huston to beat Stewart Cink @ -105 with GoTo or Moneyplays

Steve Jones to beat Harrison Frazar @ +100 with Bowmans or Carib

Steve Jones to beat Phil Mickelson @ +135 with Bowmans or Carib

3rd round update:

Worth the wait! 4-0-1 for the 3rd round The only tie was Kenny Perry with Harrison Frazar as both shot rounds of 70. All the others won by margins of at least four shots! For the only remaining 72-hole matchups, Jimenez and Olazabal are now tied.

Back with 4th round plays in the morning.

Update:

Well, a lot happened while we were down. Freddie Couples pulled out of the event before teeing off, his back trouble was as bad as reported but it couldn't net us a win. Lefty has shot two great scores to lie 3rd after 36 holes and Nick Price was no more than four shots behind after an uneventful 2nd round when he pitched two balls into the water at the 5th [his 14th of the day] and ran up a sextuple-bogey 10!! He missed the cut by one    Better news in the others, Calcavecchia also had a 10 in the 2nd round, on the 4th, and he missed the cut to hand victory to Chris Perry and Billy Mayfair also missed the cut to hand him victory in that matchup as well. In the sole remaining 72-hole matchup, Jimenez leads Olazabal by one. 

With a small number of players still to complete their second round, most of the Euro books who base their matchups on the two-ball pairings have thus yet to publish their lines; the exception is Stan James and there a couple of their plays that I like, though I will wait and see if better lines can be found for them. They will be posted later when they become available. The two are Steve Flesch to beat Kevin Sutherland and Chris Perry to beat Len Mattiace.

It must be quite a relief for Sutherland to make the cut; he has missed the last two, Flesch on the other hand has finished in the top-20 in five of his last six events. Confidence should be higher, plus his history is one of capitalizing on such large movements up the leaderboard at the midway point. He should be pushing for a top-10 spot, something which Sutherland has only fleetingly achieved. The same can be said for the Chris Perry, Len Mattiace matchup. Mattiace did finish 9th last week, but it was the exception than the rule; currently in 21st position it is hard to see him pushing further up the leaderboard particularly as we are not on his preferred Bermuda greens. Perry has repaid our faith in him with two winners already. He is a class player and a decent finish is long overdue.

Also going with his namesake Kenny Perry as well, though doubling up with him on two plays. The first is to beat Harrison Frazar, who may have more recent experience of being in the top-9 at this stage of the event, but as the 'leaderboard position' table shows, he is normally no longer there after the 3rd round. It is also a classic play against someone who has made a rapid rise onto the leaderboard; without the necessary experience, getting there and staying there are very different things. The same is also true for Dave Stockton; only twice has he been in the top-9 at this stage of the event since the start of 1998; the last time was 11 months ago and he shot 73. Dependable Kenny Perry will be there or thereabouts at the end of today, so it is surprising to see him as the dog in both matchups.

The final one is Phil Mickelson to beat John Huston. The starnet books have Mickelson has a huge favorite, Bowmans disagree and that means SCALP! However Mickelson is favored to beat Huston anyway and at -120 looks good value. Huston has had a disappointing season since January and his frustration was seen at the Bay Hill Classic two weeks ago when he was 4th after two rounds; he shot 75 in the 3rd and ended up 46th overall. Maybe not something as spectacular, but when you not finishing well the pressure really mounts when you get into position. That has also been the case with Mickelson and his spectacular collapses last round collapses of the past, but he looks focused this week and unless derailed early, looks a winner.

Steve Flesch to beat Kevin Sutherland @ -125 [pending]

Chris Perry to beat Len Mattiace @ -125 with Stan James [pending]

Kenny Perry to beat Harrison Frazar @ +105 with Bowmans

Kenny Perry to beat Dave Stockton @ -110 with GoTo, Moneyplays or Playersbet

Phil Mickelson to beat John Huston @ -120 with Bowmans

Final picks time. As outlined before, I'm big on Price and Duval this week and a little more surprisingly, Chris Perry. There is very little value around for Duval so he is left alone and in fact only one of the Price matchups has survived the narrowing down process: against Mickelson. Both Lefty's driving and putting are in disarray - the most important parts of the game this week - and ever since his momentous defeat of Tiger at the Buick Invitational it's all been downhill. He may have been 7th last year, but his frame of mind does not seem right for such an effort again. No such problem for Price whose closing 67 on the TPC will have him the opposite frame of mind. Decent course form - 9 of last 12 rounds under par - with an old head, like Sutton last week, can be banked upon to be trying the harder over the weekend if needed.

Sticking with the two Chris Perry plays highlighted earlier. When he last played this event, May 1998, he missed the cut for the fifth straight time in the event and for the sixth time in fourteen events for that year up to then. He was a very pale shadow of today's Chris Perry as he proved from his game's metamorphosis in September of that year. So the course form can be downplayed as being a large part poor current form and in a field as thin as this he really should perform well. Against the likes of Calcavecchia - missed cut last week and very poor and deteriorating course form since the event was moved to Duluth - and Mayfair - reasonable current form, though only visit to Sugarloaf was for two days only - he should prosper, particularly with the move over to Bentgrass greens. The slicker greens really don't either of his two opponents' unsightly putting techniques any favors.

Also sticking with one of the anti-Olazabal plays: Jimenez as a sizeable dog. This I don't understand for the reasons outlined earlier; Jimenez may have started the season slowly after a destabilizing bout of flu, though he performance in the World Matchplay was encouraging and he did play here last year - he finished 36th, Olazabal missed the cut. The open track would suit the wayward Olazabal more than most courses, but if his game and his concentration isn't there - this is putting practice according to his interviews this week - this is only down to Jimenez to deliver.

One who really should deliver is Stewart Cink. As mentioned, he loves the course so much he moved into a house next to the 14th fairway and with finishes of 5th and 2nd in the past two years here, he should like this course! Like Duval, he is a Georgia Tech graduate so he can doubly count on some local support and after top-10 finishes in two of his last three events, he will be 'up' for this event more than most. Certainly more than Freddie Couples, for whom the cold wet weather has been causing his some painful back problems. 'At least I don't have to go out again until Thursday afternoon' was Couples quip this morning as he left the course on his way for treatment for his back. Doesn't sound like the attitude of a winner!

No plays for the first round, despite the large increase in their number with Olympic's offerings. None that really offer great value and the weather appears to be rather unpredictable, probably wettest in the morning thereby making the course easier in the afternoon, but too hard to say right now.

Staking plan:

Nick Price to beat Phil Mickelson @ -138 with Victor Chandler

Chris Perry to beat Billy Mayfair @ -111 with Victor Chandler

Chris Perry to beat Mark Calcavecchia @ -110 with SIA

Miguel Angel Jimenez to neat Jose Maria Olazabal @ +110 with Centrebet

Stewart Cink to beat Fred Couples @ -125 with Victor Chandler 

The BellSouth Classic

This is the week before and nothing more. The top players that are playing here this week are acclimatizing themselves for next week's Masters. Not really for the weather, though Augusta is only two hours' drive away, but to open fairways and Bentgrass greens, the first time in six weeks. After the battering at Sawgrass, it is also a week to drive that out of your system! The likes of Duval and Price come here year after year, for the likes of Steve Elkington [once, 1988] and Justin Leonard [once, 1996] is it a rare visit, but without them the field would be very thin on quality.

The event was moved forward six weeks to April last year and the effect on the type of golfer it favored is evident from the first course compatibility table. The longer-hitters benefited from the Bermuda rough still being fairly dormant; length not accuracy will hold the advantage this week. With the abrupt change to a different type of grass on the greens, it has also been a mark of high-finishers here that they are good putters. One player who should fall into this category were he not struggling a little with the putter this year [51st in putting average] is David Duval and is record in the BellSouth is second to none. The defending champion he has a career stroke average of 69.81 [26 rounds] in this event which is the best of any player having played at least 16 rounds in this event. It is noteworthy though, that he has lead this event three times after 54 holes and failed to win it once; last year he won after lying 3rd after 54 holes.

Other players who should have a special interest in playing well this week are Stewart Cink who moved into a house on this course last year [he was 2nd last year and 5th the year before] and Scott Dunlap who is the local touring pro [top-25 finishes in last two attempts].

The Tour-Tips ratings point to Nick Price and David Duval to continue the impressive finishes of the top-two ranked in the previous two weeks. Jesper Parnevik would have been ranked second ahead of Duval had he not been a late withdrawal from this event.

The finalized matchup plays will be posted tomorrow, but for now there are a number that catch the eye. The best matchup featuring Nick Price currently on offer appears to be against Fred Couples [-140 @ WSEX] who apart from a 5th place finish in 1996 has a very poor record in this event. Another player expected to play well this week is an under-achieving Chris Perry. This may be rather surprising given that he has never made it to the weekend in five attempts in this event, but that was before his golfing re-birth last year. Against such poor quality opposition - Mark Calcavecchia -111 @ SIA and Billy Mayfair -111 VC - it's time last year's money train got out of the station!

A final one is a play against Olazabal. Last year he missed the cut here and did something quite special the week after! No current or course form to talk about and with his mind definitely on next week's event, it's question of how many to oppose him with. Jimenez +115 @ Centrebet and Norman -138 VC look the best ones so far, but hopefully there'll be more.

Back with full plays tomorrow.