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18-Hole Match Picks - PGA Tour

Tipster: Stanley

Odds: 2-Balls

 

Odds: 3-Balls

Travelers Championship
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3-1; +5.60pts  (system plays: 5-8-4)

Round 1 play (2pts):

Kenny Perry to beat Adam Scott -120 @ Bet365 [also available @ Stan James]  LOST by 1
Backing a regular in this event - this will be Perry's 24th visit to this event according to his interview - while Scott is making his course debut. But it is not simply a case of being familiar with the course, Perry has a great record here: he is the defending champion, holds the course record (61) and has finished in the top-15 in seven of his last eight visits. In terms of his current form, he has missed just one cut all year, has a 8-2-1 1st round h2h record against Scott over the last 12 months and is buoyed by having his old R7 irons back the week before Pebble Beach - to meet the 2010 groove regulations, he had switched to new irons this year, but they hadn't felt comfortable so he had his old clubs amended to meet the groove regulations. He enjoyed his golf more last week as a result, despite the unforgiving course conditions, and is relishing a return to one of his favourite courses.

[unofficial rd1 system plays: Moore tb Scott -110 (T); Toms tb Goosen +105 (W); Toms tb Moore +105 (W)]

 

Round 2 play (4pts):

Vijay Singh to beat Jason Bohn -118 @ Unibet [also available @ Extrabet]  WON by 3
Backing Vijay to continue his form from yesterday. Take away his double-bogey on the 14th hole and he would have held the sole lead. And there are good reasons for ignoring that hole - it was moments before the horn was sounded for a rain delay and to three-putt from seven feet was totally at odds with the rest of his round. He has been playing better over the past month and should beat Bohn who has a good rd1 average - he has been the first round leader in two of his last five starts - but largely struggles otherwise.

[unofficial rd2 system plays: Petrovic tb Bohn -105 (T); Petrovic tb Quinney -137 (W); Overton tb Curtis -105 (L); Rose tb Van Pelt -125 (W)]

 

Round 3 play (2pts):

Scott Verplank to beat Rickie Fowler +100 @ Bet365  WON by 2
Backing the in-form player on a course that suits. Fowler finished 2nd last time out, but he is a player who blows hot and cold - he had missed the cut in two of his previous three starts - and whereas he shot 65 yesterday, he admitted in his post-round interview that he was struggling off the tee (86th in driving distance; 99th in driving accuracy so far this week). Keeping the ball on the fairway around this short course is all-important this week and it was only a hot putter and a holed shot from the fairway on the 2nd hole that saw him make the cut. Each of his previous three rounds at River Highlands (he missed the cut last year) have been over-par. By contrast, Verplank has played here four times in the last decade and finished 17th, 4th, 21st and 9th - he is the 'fairways and greens' player most suited to this course - and with finishes of 13th, 5th, 5th and 47th (in last week's U.S. Open) in his last four starts, he is certainly playing well enough to secure a fifth straight top-25 finish here.

[unofficial rd3 system plays: Toms tb Curtis +102 (L); Sutherland tb Pavin +105 (L); Atwal tb Wetterich -105 (L); Elkington tb Chalmers +100 (T); Watson tb Curtis +100 (L); Lyle tb Ogilvie -105 (L); Mayfair tb Chalmers +125 (L); Verplank tb Perry +100 (W)]

 

Round 4 play (2pts):

Scott Verplank to beat Retief Goosen +100 @ Carib [also available @ SkyBet, Stan James and Bet365]  WON by 3
Backing Verplank for the same reasons as yesterday. He was very solid apart from a couple of holes in his 66 and now lies two shots from finishing in the top-5 for the third time in four starts. He had ranked 13th in 'Final Round Scoring Average' until playing at Pebble Beach last week distorted his average, so he should at the very least maintain his top-15 position. For Goosen, it appeared to be quite a surprise that he shot the low round of the day yesterday. He is making his course debut this week only because he missed three events through injury earlier this year and so had to meet his contractual obligations to play a certain number of events on the PGA Tour and he is finding the greens difficult because of the grain and the (slow) speed. But any momentum from yesterday's round should be difficult to maintain: he broke his finger just after the Masters, taking eight weeks to get back to the Tour, but it is still sore and he is limited to hitting 20-30 balls on the range.

[unofficial rd4 system plays: Pettersson tb Micheel +102 (T); Watson tb Barnes +110 (L)]

NOTES

There will be only one play per round - my 'best bet' - and these will typically be 2pts and cover only '2-ball' matches rather than '3-ball' matches. Where my analysis points to a particular mismatch that is not reflected in the odds, higher stakes may be advised, up to a maximum of 6pts.

Note that '2pts' represents 'to win 2pt' if the player is odds-on (negative in moneyline terms or less than 2.0 in decimal odds) and represents '2pts staked' if the player is odds-against (positive in moneyline terms or at least 2.0 in decimal odds).