Kemper Insurance Open

Famous for its first-time winners, the Kemper Open is not particularly high on most players' agendas this week; at least not since the event moved from the Congressional Country Club in 1987. Only two of the top-25 on the world rankings tee it up this week, though the most notable of these is Phil Mickelson. Surely, in this worst field of the year, Mickelson can win a tournament? Having blown final leads in two of his last three events, Coral Eurobet are offering an interesting prop, called 'Phil the choker?'. Blunt!

With the move north to Maryland after a couple of months in the South, it is not surprising that this event throws up surprising winners (Rich Beem won in 1999 @ 500/1). The conditions will be somewhat different to recent weeks. It is a return home though for Fred Funk who is local pro and has his own fan club 'Funk's Punks'. He is yet to win this event and has contributed to this event's history of people avoiding victory at all costs ... cue Phil Mickelson   The course is short and requires accuracy over power. With the Bentgrass greens being small, a feature of winners here has been good scrambling ability.

The outright selections this week are Scott Hoch, Kirk Triplett and Brian Gay. With the reasons for Hoch pre-tournament withdrawal last week still unclear, this is rather a gamble that he is not injured. If fit, then he should have a very good chance this week. He has finished in the top-10 in six of his last ten starts here and comes into the event in great form with the Greater Greensboro Open title under his belt. Incidentally, he ranks 3rd behind two players absent this week (Price and Woods), so if fit, he should go very close.

Triplett's game fits the bill this week also. A short hitter, but with good accuracy and decent putting stats he should be able to at least match his 10th place finish of last year. There is evidence that his game is improving after a difficult start to the year; he finished 6th at the Masters, was 15th last week and was in the top-half of the leaderboard in each event in between. Could be one to grind Mickelson down.

Brian Gay's form of late has been worthy of note. In the last three weeks he has scored in the 60s in eleven of those twelve rounds and the other one was a 70! He finished 5th at the Byron Nelson and 2nd last week and should be at a lower price with this weakened field. Just as with the other two selections, accuracy is the hallmark of his game and he ranks 3rd in putting average as well. He closed with a 64 last year (one shot outside the course record) to finish 20th and on current form, such a finishing position would be a major disappointment this year!

Outright plays:

Scott Hoch to win 20/1 e.w. @ Bet247

Kirk Triplett to win 40/1 e.w. @ Surrey, Victor Chandler or Bet247

Brian Gay to win 40/1 e.w. @ Victor Chandler or Bet247

72-hole plays:

Stephen Ames to beat Robert Gamez -111 @ Simon Bold [2 units]
Dependable Ames has missed the cut in just one of his last fourteen starts. By contrast, Gamez has missed the cut here in both of the last two years and in 20 of his last 30 events and is easily opposed

Kirk Triplett to beat Stuart Appleby +110 @ Sportfanatik
Appleby has a great record on this course and hence he is the favorite in this matchup. But his current form is very poor: he has just one top-25 finish in his last 13 events

Charles Howell to beat Aaron Baddeley -111 @ UKBetting
Baddeley may have finished 19th in the Benson & Hedges two weeks ago in England, but he continues to struggle on the PGA Tour having missed four of his previous five cuts and finished 61st in the other. Howell is also prone to missing cuts, but at least he has had two top-10 finishes in his last four events

Brett Quigley to beat Aaron Baddeley -111 @ Simon Bold [2 units]
No course form to boast about, but in the past month Quigley has won a Buy.com Tour event and finished 2nd and 5th in two PGA Tour events. On any PGA Tour course, Baddeley cannot compete with that

Jim Carter to beat John Daly -111 @ Simon Bold
Not quite the easy money of previous years, but opposing Daly is always profitable. His record in this event is poor and he comes off a missed cut in the Byron Nelson having played in Macau the week before. Carter has been steady of late making his last five cuts and that's all we require this week

Fred Funk to beat Tim Herron -110 @ Stanley
Funk has disappointed in front of his home crowd in recent years, but his game has been steady of late. This is more a play against Herron who, bar the 11th place finish at the Byron Nelson, has been struggling to make cuts of late

Steve Lowery to beat Tim Herron -111 @ UKBetting
Three top-10 finishes and just one missed cut all year indicates that Lowery is in decent shape to relive some of the form that took him to 2nd here last year. Against a struggling Herron, a top-30 finish should be enough

Chris Perry to beat Tim Herron -115 @ Intertops [2 units]
Perry has struggled since returning back from injury and he missed the cut last week, but before that break he appeared to be rediscovering his form of 1999 and this is simply a statement of belief that he is too good a player to carry on missing cuts

1st round plays:

Fred Funk to beat Robert Allenby -105 @ Moneyplays

Chris Perry to beat Stephen Ames -105 @ Five Dimes or Moneyplays

Steve Flesch to beat Paul Stankowski -125 @ Five Dimes or Moneyplays

Steve Flesch to beat Esteban Toledo -145 @ Five Dimes

Lee Janzen to beat Billy Mayfair -115 @ Carib

1st round update: 4-1-0 and +2.95 units

Good start to the week with only Funk losing from today's matches: he lost by two to Allenby. The winners were Perry over Ames by seven, Flesch over Stankowski by three and over Toledo by two, and Janzen over Mayfair by two. The 72-hole matches stand 3-5-0 after 18 holes: Ames/Gamez 3 down; Triplett/Appleby 4 down; Howell/Baddeley 1 down; Quigley/Baddeley 1 up; Carter/Daly 1 up; Funk/Herron 2 down; Lowery/Herron 1 up; and Perry/Herron 3 down. With both Hoch and Triplett very much in contention, there have been worse starts to the week!

2nd round plays:

Stephen Ames to beat Chris Perry +100 @ Five Dimes [2 units]

Stephen Ames to beat Mike Sposa -103 @ Five Dimes [3 units]

Steve Lowery to beat Stuart Appleby +110 @ Sportfanatik

Kirk Triplett to beat Stuart Appleby +105 @ Five Dimes

Brian Watts to beat Brett Quigley +105 @ Five Dimes

2nd round update: 2-1-0 and +1.15 units

Triplett dropped five shots in his last four holes to crash out of the tournament and hand a five-shot victory to a fading Appleby, but at least Lowery beat him by three shots. In the other play, Watts beat Quigley in a low-scoring match. As for the rest, Ames didn't come out for the 2nd round, presumably he couldn't face the 6th hole again - he had a 10 there in the first round - but surely he would have beaten Perry who withdrew after being 5-over-par for his round after 10 holes!

Ames and Perry's withdrawals hit two of the eight 72-hole plays and they were two of the stronger plays as well! Perry would have lost to Herron, but Gamez finished at 12-over-par, surely Ames could have broken 76 in the 2nd round to win that one! Two of the other plays were decided at the cut: Triplett's collapse meant a nine-shot loss to Appleby, but Carter beat Daly by seven shots. The other plays stand 3-1-0 so at least we may yet break even on these plays: Howell and Quigley both lead Baddeley by five, Funk trails Herron by three and Lowery leads Herron by one. Triplett missed the cut, so the sole remaining outright play is on Hoch who currently lies 31st, but only five shots out of the lead.

3rd round plays:

Phil Mickelson to beat Stuart Appleby -175 @ Moneyplays

Phil Mickelson -1.5 strokes to beat Chris DiMarco -110 @ WSEX

Scott Hoch to beat Tom Pernice -150 @ Moneyplays

Frank Nobilo to beat Gary Nicklaus -110 @ Moneyplays

Final update: 2-2-0 and -0.85 units for the 3rd round; 11-9-0 and -0.48 units for the week

Was undone by capping Mickelson for a Saturday round when he played it on a Sunday ... and you don't want to touch Mickelson on a Sunday! He lost his 3rd round match by two to Appleby and by four to DiMarco. At least the other two won: Hoch by four over Pernice and Nobilo by one over Nicklaus. The attempt to play 36 holes on one day meant no 4th round matchups were available and with the remaining two 72-hole plays losing, it was not the most profitable of weeks. Herron inflicted defeats on Funk and Lowery by four and six shots respectively.

Update on outright plays: 0-2 and -2.00 units

Hoch had got himself into the race in the 3rd round, but was never going to post a serious early total in the 4th. He eventually finished in 6th place, just one place outside a return on the investment! Of the rest, Triplett missed the cut and Gay didn't play. All in all, an uninteresting week on the PGA Tour.