golf players championship , page-9

Big Tournament big formguide, from bettingzone. I have backed Bill Haas his last couple of starts, I can't believe he has picked him this week. What to do now? Mosewell throw him as well..







The aptly-titled Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass again hosts the PGA Tour's flagship event, the Players Championship.

It's a course and a contest which demands excellence. The layout, whose 17th hole is among the most famous in world golf, requires precision both of mind and body and whoever emerges on top will have demonstrated a combination of patience and exceptional technical ability.

1pt e.w. Bill Haas at 100/1 (sportingbet 1/4 1,2,3,4,5,6) - ignore last week's missed cut and price looks massive.
1pt e.w. David Toms at 125/1 (Coral 1/4 1,2,3,4,5) - three top-10 finishes in last four starts and just needs to putt better to contend again.
1pt e.w. Brandt Snedeker at 45/1 (General 1/4 1,2,3,4,5,6) - 12th on debut here and all the stats point to a big performance.
1pt e.w. Steve Stricker at 66/1 (General 1/4 1,2,3,4,5) - light schedule suiting him and can land career highlight.
0.5pt e.w. Chris Stroud at 250/1 (General 1/4 1,2,3,4,5,6) - fine form here and sixth on similar-enough course recently.
All our best betsRecord So Far
Although a par 72, Pete Dye's layout is relatively short at 7,215 yards and history suggests that, contrary to the logical assumption, taking advantage of the par-fives really isn't all that important.

Instead, it's those who can cope with the testing par-fours who tend to emerge on top and to do so a player will typically need to eliminate errors. Driving accuracy is a big plus in that regard, as is an ability to scramble par when missing what are small targets.

Wet weather in Jacksonville led to some concerns that the course would play particularly soft and therefore long this week, but world-class drainage systems should ensure that, with a dry forecast, firm and fast remains the order of the week.

Even if the weather does again turn during this most turbulent of seasons, the advantage bombers gain will likely be negated when they find rough which can get very testing when wet. In short, driver will be the least-used club in most bags this week and it's precision which will prove key to success.

Going back to the earlier point about par-fours brings me nicely to what could well be the key statistic this week: par-four performance.

The last two years have seen the winner rank second for the week and the top par-four performer finish runner-up, in 2010 Tim Clark won the event because he played the par fours best, a year earlier champion Henrik Stenson was tied second, and in 2008 Sergio Garcia's success again saw him lead the field.

Other performance areas of note include the very much intertwined scrambling and bogey avoidance, along with driving accuracy and greens in regulation.

In terms of trends, winners of the event since it was switched to its current spot on the calendar have averaged 5.5 previous visits to Sawgrass and while few had achieved significant success, all had made the cut in the year prior to their win.

So, the basic formula involves course experience, par-four excellence, ideally a player who made the cut here last year and certainly one who is patient enough to last the distance.

Top of my list is Bill Haas, who is surely overpriced at 100/1 with sportingbet and 80s generally.

This time last week, the 2011 FedEx Cup winner was around 33/1 for the Quail Hollow Championship, and I really don't think a missed cut there should mean we write him off immediately particularly given the state of the course and the conditions faced.

Prior to it, Haas had made nine cuts in a row, logging five top-10 finishes and earning enough to sit inside the top 20 on this season's money list. He's done so by sticking to the things he does best, that is driving the ball with both length and accuracy, hitting a lot of greens (ninth this season) and dominating the par-fours.

Indeed, over the last three months nobody on tour has played the fours better than Haas, who is 20-under par for them this season. To put that into context, only 13 players are under par, and he's 77 shots ahead of the man propping up those standings.

Throw in the fact that he ranks 10th in scrambling and you have a complete game, one which is required to tame a course as tough as this one.

Haas has experience of tackling similar layouts successfully, chiefly thanks to his victory in the TOUR Championship two seasons back and last year's win at Riviera. He also has the patience required for the challenge.

In terms of his performances here, this will be Bill's seventh visit, and last year's tie for 25th was a personal best. It came on the back of two missed cuts and a run of disappointing finishes since his Riviera win the previous February.

All that is keeping Haas out of the winners' circle at the moment is his performance on par-fives, but that shouldn't be too much of a factor this week and at the price he's begging to be backed.

Next on my list is David Toms, another at a three-figure price who could do some damage.

The case for Toms is pretty simple. After paying his dues with multiple visits to the venue which together yielded limited results, Toms has really figured it out. Over the last four years he's finished ninth (2009), second (2011) and 10th (2012), with a sole missed cut in 2010 coming when he was out of form.

It's hard to argue that he's firing on all cyclinders in 2013, but a closing 67 for 13th in the Masters offered promise and he played well for two of the four rounds in New Orleans last time, when a very solid six-under for the par-fours.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that it's the putter which has been holding him back, but already this season we've seen various players turn things around on the greens out of nowhere and more often than not they find it easier to do so when the focus is on patience and pars and not making 25 birdies.

Toms ranks sixth in driving accuracy and 14th in par-four performance, while the fact he's 25th in scrambling despite struggles with the putter suggests that he's sharp around the greens, too.

We all know that he has some unfinished business here having lost a play-off to KJ Choi in 2011 and at the price, the player with the most solid bank of recent Sawgrass form is well worth a bet.

From here things get a little trickier.

At the head of the market, I'm intrigued to find out how Adam Scott performs in his first start as a major champion. He really does have the tools to become an even more regular winner than he already is, and with nine PGA Tour victories in just over 200 starts so far he's prolific enough as things stand.

He was 15th here last year and won the event in 2004, while we know he can produce after a break as Scott has adopted a very light schedule for a couple of years now. However, at the price I'm just about willing to pass him over.

Instead, the two I like are Luke Donald and Garcia, but with the former no bigger than 20s and the latter perhaps not 100 per cent fit, I feel compelled to widen the search.

And so I'm prepared to overlook a couple of the supposed key trends and side with Brandt Snedeker at 45/1.

Snedeker has missed his last four cuts at Sawgrass, which explains why there was some 66/1 on offer on Monday, but a share of 12th on his course debut means we have some evidence that the layout suits.

That certainly should be the case for a player who excels on and around the greens and whose ball-striking has improved enormously over the last 18 months, something which has enabled him to truly establish himself as a top-class player.

It's that improvement tee to green which I feel can facilitate a strong week for Snedeker, who is a winner at the Pete Dye-designed Harbour Town as well as on the small greens of Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines.

We know from that trio of victories plus last season's Open Championship effort that he's an astute wind player, always a benefit at Sawgrass despite the generally tree-lined profile of the course, so on paper he has absolutely nothing to fear from the venue.

Snedeker currently leads the PGA Tour in bogey avoidance, ranks 10th in both driving accuracy and greens in regulation, third in par-four performance and scrambling, and leads by a long way in proximity to the hole from the rough.

Essentially, he comes out head and shoulders the most likely winner from a statistical perspective and while clearly things aren't as simple as that, I can't help but feel the layers have underestimated a player who was going off at 16/1 not so long ago and with good reason.

In terms of his recent form, a share of sixth at the Masters confirmed that previous rib troubles are a thing of the past and I thought he did perfectly well at Harbour Town just days later, given that he wound up disappointed with the way events transpired at Augusta.

I see no reason to expect the upward curve produced by Snedeker over the last year and a half to level off now and I've every hope that he can put some poor efforts here behind him.

I'm also prepared to forgive Steve Stricker for missing the cut here last year.

In 2011, he finished 12th and I've a feeling that his new minimalist schedule will reap rewards, perhaps with a significant success here at Sawgrass in an event he probably feels is a good target, given previous comments that the majors may be beyond him.

Like Snedeker, Stricker is virtually peerless around the greens and at 14th in driving accuracy and second in greens this season (provisional rankings as he hasn't played enough qualifying events), he's clearly dialled in from distance too.

Stricker would also be sixth in par-four performance had he played enough events to gain an official ranking and so many of his stats mirror those of Matt Kuchar, who came of age in this event last year and is also a fine scrambler, particularly from sand.

He's played just five events this season, placing three times, and we know from his past achievements that Stricker is one of those players capable of picking up where he left off despite taking a break.

When in contention here two years ago Stricker said that he'd learned to be patient and make par his friend, and were it not for a missed cut last year I'd have been happy to take something in the region of 33/1.

Fortunately, that missed cut has seen some firms stick him up at 66s and I expect him to outperform those quotes.

Finally, I've kept a few pence aside for a modest bet on Chris Stroud.

Stroud doesn't have a wealth of experience at the course, but already in three starts he's been 10th and 12th.

He puts that down to the course reminding him of those he grew up playing, and that familiarity could well see him go closer than quotes of 250/1 imply.

What makes me believe he could produce the goods again this year having failed to do so in 2012 is that he ranks inside the top 10 on the PGA Tour in scrambling and, crucially, finished sixth at Harbour Town in the RBC Heritage a couple of weeks ago.

That performance on perhaps Pete Dye's second most famous track bodes well, as does a share of 13th in the Honda Classic on another extremely tough layout, and at the price a small bet looks worthwhile.

Preview posted at 1325 BST on 07/05/2013.



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