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Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open golf betting guide

Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Paul Krishnamurty
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Anthony Kim is one the big guns teeing it up at this week's Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open

If there is one tournament anywhere in the world which should carry a health warning for punters, it would basically be any event played at Summerlin GC, Nevada. Summerlin has hosted a variety of PGA Tour fixtures over the years, with this sponsor taking over in 2008. This century, only two of the nine champions started at less than 100/1, including some completely unfathomable characters such as Marc Turnesa, Wes Short and Andre Stolz.

The reason for these shocks is simple; it is for all intents and purposes a putting contest. Since reverting to a 72-hole event in 2004, (previously it was played over 90 on three different courses), the highest winning total is a mere -22. Given this characteristic, it's probably no surprise that the one top-class player with a great tournament record is this week's favourite, Jim Furyk, whose last 11 visits have yielded ten top-25s, including four top-4s and two wins. Does that make him a good value bet at 12/1? Probably not when considering that Jim hasn't won anywhere for over two years, but he definitely starts as the man to beat.

Basically though, it would take a brave man to take short prices here, and for that reason I'm immediately disregarding all of the players who contested last week's Presidents Cup; a list that includes Anthony Kim, Hunter Mahan and Tim Clark.

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In fact, I was highly tempted to ignore anyone under 50/1, but as he comes here fresh and off two decent results, RORY SABBATINI just sneaks into the staking plan at 33/1. As I've written before, target golf is Rory's forte, and though he couldn't quite deliver for us a fortnight ago at Atunyote, he wasn't beaten far in 12th place. Earlier this century, Sabbatini looked like he was building a course specialist's record, registering three consecutive top-10s between 2001 and 2003 including second on the first of those occasions. He's also often performed well at the back-end of the season.

The other obvious candidate is Nick Watney, who might have considered himself a little unlucky not to have made the Presidents Cup side. Watney finished sixth on his course debut in 2005; an effort that reads particularly well given the vast strides made since. The only thing that kept him out of the staking plan was my desire to keep sub-50/1 chances to a minimum.