Tucson Open

Three years ago David Duval won this event from Justin Leonard; it may be purely coincidence but in 1999 the Mercedes was moved to the Plantation course and Gabriel Hjertstedt won this event from Tommy Armour and last year Jim Carter won it from Chris DiMarco and Jean van de Velde. What a fall in the fortunes of an event and this year it hosts the Year 2000 Losers' event!

The field is weakened by the simultaneous hosting of the Mercedes Championship and by the Southern Hemisphere hosting of the World Matchplay last week, but it does offer the prospect of seeing some of last year's Buy.com hopefuls. Phil Mickelson and Lee Janzen both share the Tucson Open as their maiden Tour wins, maybe this will be the springboard for another star.

For the first time the event is split for the first two rounds between the Gold/Green course at the Omni Tucson Resort and The Gallery course, and what it is! The Resort course is a tight course with small Bermuda grass greens; the Gallery course is an open course with Bent grass greens. Very strange combination! The winner should therefore be a good putter.

Two of the three picks are indeed good putters, though maybe surprisingly all three were involved in Melbourne last week. Two of them were only involved for a short time and for the other it was a confidence-boosting week so with the time difference being beneficial, the Melbourne factor is not deemed to be too harmful this week and anyway, anyone with the credentials to play in a "World" event will look good in this field.

The three picks are Toru Taniguchi, Steve Flesch and Tim Herron. Taniguchi was a favorite pick last week and constantly delivered the goods. He is coming into this event having soundly defeated Ernie Els to finish 3rd and has been in a great run of form on the Japan Tour. This may be his first event on American soil, but his putting is as good as it gets and that should very important this week.

The other two have at least played this course. Flesch has finished 13th and 7th on his last two visits and boasts all-round stats that would be more appropriate at the Mercedes. In a weak field, he is an obvious favorite, but there are good odds on offer at this stage of the season. Tim Herron's stats would not point to him being particularly good in any field, but he is a local, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, and that may be a good reason why he has finished 4th and 20th in his last two visits. With the place bets paid on the first five places, I'm hopeful at least one of those will rise above the hopefuls this week.

Outright plays:

Toru Taniguchi to win e/w 50/1 @ Surrey

Steve Flesch to win e/w 20/1 @ Surrey

Tim Herron to win e/w 40/1 @ First Stake

72-hole plays:

Stephen Allan to beat Bradley Hughes -118 @ Centrebet
Tipping the baby-faced Allen to win this battle of the Aussies. He was outstanding in the Tour Qualifying and comes here on the crest of a wave of confidence. He will be more enthusiastic coming into this event than the regular Tour struggler Hughes

Toru Taniguchi to beat Bernhard Langer -105 @ Easybets
Langer fell at the 1st hurdle to Taniguchi's fellow countryman, Tanaka, last week and as a surprising entry for this event, I can't see him challenging this week. Taniguchi has already been tipped for great things this week

Kenny Perry to beat Franklin Langham -111 @ Ladbrokes [2 units]
Back-to-back 13th place finishes in the last two years for Perry against two very poor ones and just one top-10 for Langham in the last three years. Will make the trip back from Melbourne easier for the more consistent Perry whose more accurate game will be rewarded this week

Update:

A tournament as bizarre as the weather   As for the 72-hole plays, two of them were concluded at the cut and they were split. An extremely disappointing Taniguchi missed the cut and trailed Langer by thirteen shots, while Stephen Allan made it to the weekend and was eight shots clear of Bradley Hughes at the time. In the remaining play, Kaye trails Kelly by one.

Not too promising with the outrights, Taniguchi missed the cut, Flesch lies in 32nd place and Herron is back in 55th place having been joint 1st round leader

3rd round play:

Mark Calcavecchia to beat Grant Waite -125 @ Carib

3rd round update: 1-0-0 and +1.00 units

Calc eased to a four-shot win for a winning day and there have not been enough of them so far this year! Was looking extremely promising at one stage as Flesch stormed from nowhere to lead the tournament, but couldn't make much progress on the back and fell back to 7th - much better than 32nd overnight! Herron also had a good day to climb 35 places to 20th and after today's events, maybe a place finish is still possible.

4th round plays:

Tom Pernice to beat Jim Gallagher +100 @ DAS [2 units]

Tim Herron to beat Jerry Kelly -120 @ Carib [3 units]

Final update: 0-2-0 and -5.60 units for the day; 2-3-0 and -4.65 units for the week

Managed to turn a winning position into a losing one on the final day. Nothing new in that this year! Herron closed with a bogey-double-bogey finish to lose by three shots to Kelly, while Tom Pernice also double-bogeyed the last. With Gallagher birdying the hole, a two-shot lead with one hole to go turned into a one-shot defeat. I despair

Update on outright plays: 0-3 and -3.00 units

Herron and Flesch both made early challenges for place finishes, but both fell away on the back nine, Herron spectacularly so as he finished the last eight holes in four-over-par. He finished five shots out of a place finish in 32nd place; Flesch finished one shot out of a place finish in 9th place. Taniguchi had long since disappeared from this tournament.

Good job it's a long season!