Chrysler Classic of Greensboro Round Four: Love is all around

Who doesn’t love happy endings? Probably those frustrated souls that pumped more than £70,000 ($130,000) on Eric Axley at odds-on as he took a three-stroke lead into the last six or so holes. At the time it must have seemed like money for old rope. Unfortunately, the rope turned into a noose.

What these over-eager punters had forgotten as they hunted Axley’s price all the way down to 1.5 was that he had effectively run out of birdie holes, while Davis Love III still had a few up his sleeve, including three par fives.

And that is what made playing the markets such huge fun on day four. It wasn’t just Axley. A host of hotshots charged out of the blocks to shoot low numbers before Love and his playing partner Chris Couch had barely started warming up. Hunter Mahan with an 8 under lowest round of the day, Troy Matteson, Ryan Palmer, Steve Flesch, Jason Bohn all helped add money to the pot.

But how tempting to fall in with the herd after Axley had blistered his way to six under on the day by the 11th. When Love bogeyed the seventh to go three shots behind it looked a done deal. Except, of course, that Love’s cunning course design had created three killer last holes to spoil the party - a fact many punters clearly lost sight of.

Axley actually blew up first at the 14th and never recovered. By then Love was so clearly unstoppable there was only minor interest in the limp challenges of Bohn and Flesch. And let the stats show that, as with K J Choi last year, it was a hot putter that won the day, leaving Love only the 10th player since the tournament began in the 70s to hit four rounds in the 60s according to a radio report I heard.

Now that’s what I call a fairy-tale ending. Last year Love was a permanent lay - a guaranteed cash flow through the season. This year I have avoided him only because his price has mostly been too high for comfort. Someone must have suspected something here because his opening price of 32 hardly reflected a player who had failed to make the cut on the redesigned course three times out of three. I honestly can’t remember why I didn’t lay him.

The question to answer now is how much juice those thwarted hotshots have left in the tank as they trudge across America to Las Vegas to do it all again next weekend. Axley has been a revelation since his Texas Open win, while Matteson’s still 18 places south of the qualification zone.

So in the end we didn’t get a duel between Love and Couch. The man of God just failed to get going. I guess Sunday was the devil’s day after all.