Buick Invitational

It has been well-documented that this is an event for Californians: the last four and seven of the last nine winners had had a local Californian connection. Somewhat less highlighted is the fact that five of the last seven winners have won Majors and of the two that remain, one is Phil Mickelson, the defending champion and the best current player yet to win a Major. After the distractions of 'giggle golf', this is a welcome return to sanity and an ability to concentrate. One feature remains from last week though: a multi-course format. Three of the four rounds will be played at the South Course and one at the North Course at Torrey Pines. Note, there is a big difference in difficulty between these two courses and that should open up some profitable opportunities for the first two days

With the longer South Course only marginally above 7,000 yards, there are no great benefits to power as the par-fives are generally reachable to the players. With just one water hazard on either course, this is quite a contrast to Pebble Beach, but again the Bentgrass greens are smaller than the Tour average and the good greens in regulation and scramble players play well in this event. None more so than Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson who both played this many times as a junior.

Tiger won six different times in four different age groups in the Junior World Championships at Torrey and his record as a pro reads: 3rd, 1st and 2nd. He does look irresistible this week at 2/1, but this was the event that broke his eleven consecutive wins record last year when he was a much stronger favorite. Will most likely win, but no real value in that price. This was the scene of Mickelson's maiden Tour appearance as a 17-year-old amateur in 1988 and his maiden Tour win in 1993. He followed that with 3rd in 1994, 2nd in 1996 and a win last year, but other than that, his record here is not that good. Even if he were not to suffer a reaction from his failure to hole a putt under pressure last week, then his day in hospital yesterday because of food poisoning should undermine his standing as 2nd favorite. According to his manager, "Phil is hopeful to completely recover in time to play in this week's Buick Invitational but is day-to-day, as per his doctor's orders.'' He has already withdrawn from the pro-am on Wednesday and from my capping list for this week.

Instead the three picks will be Davis Love, Tom Lehman and Chris Perry. At least I have one local in there! It was a long wait for Love's victory and hopefully he can now be a more predictable golfer without the shackles. It is noteworthy that he asked for a late entry after having won the AT&T so presumably his appetite has been whetted again and he returns to a course on which he has prospered. Over the past ten seasons, only Tiger Woods and Tom Lehman have a lower scoring average than Love. He won this event in 1996 and finished 3rd in 1998 and 4th last year. Has a definite chance of winning this event.

Lehman does have the 2nd best scoring record on this course in the 1990s, though maybe it should be remembered that he has not played here since 1996. But the fact that he has returned shows his renewed confidence after finishes of 9th, 26th, 2nd and 7th this season before last week's event. Last week's missed cut can be ignored - he shot 68 around Spyglass in the opening round only to become undone in a horror stretch around Pebble Beach. Amateurs & the ability to refocus come to mind! Should be a strong challenger for a place finish.

Finally, Chris Perry is much too good a player to be 66/1. He was 4th two years ago and looked to be slowly climbing back to his former level two weeks ago when finishing 13th in the Phoenix Open. He is not one to take many breaks, his ratio of top-5 finishes to events entered rose last year from 4 in 30 to 2 in 9 after taking a week off. A reasonable chance of a top-5 place finish.

Outright plays:

Davis Love to win 16/1 e.w @ First Stake

Tom Lehman to win 28/1 e.w. @ Victor Chandler

Chris Perry to win 66/1 e.w. @ Surrey

72-hole plays:

Lee Janzen to beat John Daly -150 @ Moneyplays [2 units]
Looking to oppose Daly last week after the way he missed the cut. Does not have a good record here having missed the cut twice in last three visits, whereas Janzen has had finishes of 2nd and 22nd in the same time

Steve Jones to beat John Daly -118 @ Easybets [2 units]
Indifferent start to the year from Jones, but again looking to oppose Daly this week. He missed the cut last year, but this is a course on which good putters prosper and it is Jones' strongest part of his game

Jim Furyk to beat Mike Weir -120 @ Victor Chandler
Both in decent form, but looking for Furyk to return to the form that brought him the Sony Open last month, while Weir's Sunday collapse may lead to a hangover this week

1st round plays:

David Toms to beat Kirk Triplett -125 @ Five Dimes [2 units]

Chris Perry to beat Hal Sutton -120 @ Five Dimes or Moneyplays [2 units]

Lee Janzen to beat John Daly -150 @ Moneyplays [3 units]

Steve Stricker to beat Steve Lowery -130 @ Five Dimes [3 units]

Loren Roberts to beat Hal Sutton -125 @ Five Dimes [2 units]

Jose Maria Olazabal to beat Bernhard Langer -122 @ Five Dimes

The North course generally plays about a shot easier than the South and that's the angle here. Nice to see 20-cent 18-hole lines at Five Dimes as well

1st round update: 3-3-0 and -2.90 units

Frustrating day as a result of not doing my homework! The results first: Toms lost to Triplett by one, Perry beat Sutton by five, Janzen beat Daly by two, Stricker lost to Lowery by one, Roberts double-bogeyed the par-5 last to lose to Sutton by one and Olazabal beat Langer by three.

All the losses were by a single shot and one should have been the other way around, but basically this was a day of poor capping. Having become too caught up in the First Stake affair, I failed to read that they had toughened up the North Course, lengthening it in particular. The basis on which these plays were made was false. In actual fact, the North Course played harder yesterday: it averaged 70.85 shots compared to 70.75 for the South Course and this differential increases to 0.48 shots once account is taken [using the Sagarin index] of the difference in quality of player across the two courses

A bad day that should have been avoided. As a result there are no plays for the 2nd round. At least the other plays look to be making amends. In the 72-hole matches, Daly trails Janzen by two and Jones by four, though Furyk does trail Weir by five. Even better position in the outrights: Love is 2nd, Perry is 4th and Lehman is 15th after day one. Will spend today cheering these players on!

Mid-point update:

No 2nd round plays, but two of the three 72-hole plays are decided at the cut and they are both losers Janzen misses the cut to lose by three to Daly and Furyk does the same to lose to Weir by eleven. In the remaining play, Jones only leads Daly by one.

Could be a week to forget the matchups and cheer home the outright plays though. Love leads the event with Mickelson, while Lehman is still in contention in 10th place and even Perry in 37th place is only four shots out of a place finish.

With this week's outright plays having both the leader and another one placed in TWO other events as well, you just know that the weekend can only get worse from this point in!!

3rd round plays:

Mark Hensby to beat Jeff Brehaut -110 @ Moneyplays [2 units]

Hal Sutton to beat Brad Faxon -105 @ Five Dimes

Skip Kendall to beat Bernhard Langer -120 @ Five Dimes [3 units]

Tom Lehman to beat Jose Maria Olazabal -120 @ Moneyplays

Jean van de Velde to beat Frank Nobilo +105 @ Sportfanatik

3rd round update: 1-1-3 and -2.60 units

Rarely get as many ties as this week, just as well yesterday's three resulted in pushes. Hensby, Sutton and Velde all tied. Lehman did beat Olazabal, but in the 3-unit play, Langer was in very impressive form and inflicted a five-shot defeat of Kendall who had dropped four shots at the start of his round. In the remaining play, Jones and Daly are now tied and if they remain so after 72 holes, then ties lose at Easybets and it's been that type of week!

4th round plays, having narrowed them down to five:

Doug Barron to beat Cameron Beckman -115 @ Five Dimes [3 units]

Chris Perry to beat Brad Faxon +110 @ Carib [3 units]

Fred Funk to beat Frank Nobilo +100 @ Sportfanatik [2 units]

Shigeki Maruyama to beat Paul Stankowski -125 @ GoTo Casino [3 units]

Shigeki Maruyama to beat Esteban Toledo -133 @ DAS [3 units]

Final update: 3-2-0 and +3.85 units; 8-8-3 and -3.85 units for the week

Good day to close, though four wins from five did look possible for most of the round. In the end Funk fell to a one-shot defeat to Nobilo in the close play. Not so tight in the other four: Barron lost by eight, but Perry won by four and Maruyama beat both opponents by ten. In the remaining 72-hole play, Jones secured a three-shot win over Daly.

Update on outright plays: 1-2 and -0.50

The hat-trick is complete! Started the weekend with the leader in three tournaments and finish the weekend with three 2nd places   Love was the only to play great golf in the playoff bar one shot and that was enough to lose in an otherwise shambolic playoff. Lehman briefly challenged for a place finish, but ended in 13th place, while Perry finished down in 42nd place. I thought the week couldn't get more frustrating after the First Stake fiasco. How wrong I was