Pity the poor fools that enter the US Open next year. If you think Torrey Pines was difficult this year you ain’t seen nothing yet. “It’s going to be one of the hardest Opens we’ll ever face,” declared Tiger Woods after finally pummelling the south course into submission Sunday. By his assessment, hitting fairways will take a minor miracle, the rough will be extra tough, and at the end there’ll be at least some of the devilish domed greens so beloved of the USGA. It’ll make the past week’s efforts look like a stroll in the park, which is what ...

A bit of reality crept into the markets overnight as punters grasped that this is no foregone conclusion. As Sunday dawned the price of Tiger Woods, which had gone as low as 1.68 during Saturday’s play, slipped back over evens. Some think that is still generous given that the world’s Number One Golfer is not exactly stamping his authority on the south course. I still think that, barring a freak round, the players around him aren’t very frightening. I’d still keep an eye on Troy Matteson, since he matched Tiger Saturday, and word on the fairways is that Nick Watney could ...

With most of my picks lying bloodied and battered below the cut line, it’s time to run up the white flag and surrender to the force of Tiger Woods. He’s been doing it again, playing with backers and layers alike, never quite doing enough one way or the other to give a clear message. As I suggested, he had a tougher time Friday, let down as usual by his putting. Trouble is, it wasn’t quite tough enough and those on the north course failed to take full advantage. So although I am in profit on my lay with his current price ...

Curses. The eagle landed to stuff my goose - well almost. An honourable draw was declared between layers and backers of Tiger Woods after day one. His price has moved in marginally from about 2.6 to 2.2, but only after skidding out to 4 at one point Thursday after his faltering start. Oh to have been able to work the in-play market. Even so, with Tiger seven shots off the lead and just a hole to go things looked manageable - then in goes his second eagle of the day. Drat! The maestro is sporting a mean driver that placed him sixth ...

Today a new name enters the pantheon of the world’s greatest optimists: one Rupert Adams, a spokesman for the UK bookmakers William Hill, who declared Wednesday: “As always Tiger is the one we need to get beaten and we will be hoping for a genuine Tiger slump this year.” Mr Adams would at this time like to quash rumours that he is a distant relative of King Canute. But you can understand his frustration, if not sympathise (he’s a bookie for heaven’s sake!). There’s been a veritable tsunami of money on Tiger Woods to win his 2007 debut. By my simple ...

I think the PGA Tour should invest in wind machines. When it’s one of those boringly flat days with the also-rans trailing home dutifully behind Tiger Woods, they should switch them on and give us all some fun. What a whacky day Sunday was - the Twilight Zone as one commentator dubbed it - and, if you knew what you were about, lucrative. You could just tell it was going to be one of those swings and roundabouts affairs market layers love. You know something’s amiss when a competition starts the day with the leader on 20 under and the ...

They were like lemmings in their desperation to get on before the price went even lower. Down and down it went as the chaotic scramble gathered pace through evens and beyond. Even a bogey didn’t deter our intrepid punters. ‘Better value!’, they cried as the price momentarily turned up and they piled in with more wads of cash. Fortunately for them, this time Justin Rose stopped short of implosion, leaving them staring over the precipice, but still in one piece. The herd mentality strikes again. Your man is five shots ahead of the pack with a round and a half to ...

Justin Rose must be quietly smiling to himself as his American rivals whinge on about the awful, English-like weather. They all went to Palm Springs for a sun tan and must see this tournament as a celestial conspiracy to gift Rose the win. He has tried to remind them he’s a resident of sunny Florida these days, but no one’s listening. Still, the weather has possibly played at least a small part in Justin’s good fortune, and it seems like it’s going to do so again Saturday. Rose is off at the Classic course on the day when forecasts suggest the ...

This is where the Hope Classic starts to do your head in. You’ve got over the shock of starting a day early, but now you have to resist the urge to think its the halfway stage and there’s just two rounds to go. Get back to normal Friday thinking fast! So you can admire the great(ish) rounds that put Scott Verplank and Justin Rose atop the leaderboard - and then speculate wildly about who’s going to catch them up. Verplank, tied for second here last year, is not a favourite of many punters because he’s previously failed to nail things down ...

Heard the one about Justin Rose’s hole in one on a par five? For a while the PGA Tour’s infamous Shotlink scoring system was trying to convince us it was so. I doubt anyone was fooled by that, but there were plenty who got their fingers burned when Shotlink showed Robert Allenby way ahead of the pack at 12 under, courtesy of two phantom eagles. It was so convincing, bookies hurriedly cut his price to less than 4 - one poor soul reported scrambling to get on at 3.75. Ouch! Now what have I always told you children? Unless you’ve got money ...

I suspect there’s a few people hoping Justin Rose puts me to the sword this week along with 127 of his fellow golfers at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. They probably won’t believe that I hope he does well. C’mon, he’s English. And I can still remember him wowing the world as an amateur long before Tadd Fujikawa put Michelle Wie to shame. The market thinks he’s rarely had a better chance: second favourite when nine others are higher than him in the world rankings says so. There’s been a buzz about the newly married Rose (can’t think what happened ...

“That guy would have closed this tournament and won it.” That was Charles Howell III Sunday on the difference between him and Tiger Woods (when he wasn’t repeating “This one hurts” like a mantra). At least Howell has the consolation that this was not really his type of course. It was Luke Donald’s type of course, yet the Englishman never looked a winner after Sunday’s opening hole. This was not the round of someone with pretensions to mixing it at the top. Not only was Donald’s putting again lacklustre, but his usually immaculate iron play went awry as well - just 61% ...

Unless someone seriously raises their game among the chasing pack, this is a three horse race. Okay, this is wobbly Sunday and with the capricious wind playing its’s part our leaders don’t inspire great confidence. But surely one of them can take the top score to at least 14 under. Anyone bold enough to launch a serious charge is going to have to put himself at the mercy of the wind, which heavily subdued scoring Saturday. So is it feasible to expect Ted Purdy and Steve Stricker to fire five under just to get in a playoff? They haven’t managed a ...

I wonder how boned up on Shakespeare Michelle Wie is. If so she might have thought appropriate the line from Julius Caesar about the unkindest cut of all as Tadd Fujikawa punctured her press conference with his celebrations Friday. Not that she wasn’t generous in her congratulations for the 16 year-old local hero making it through to the weekend, the youngest to do so for 50 years. But after all her exertions to make a mark in the men’s game, to be so totally upstaged in this manner must leave an especially bitter taste. It is now being heavily suggested ...

Golf, like football (of the non-helmeted variety) can be a game of two halves, as a few leading lights discovered at Waialae Thursday. J B Holmes turned a few tipsters’ faces red as he stuttered to six over after 8. It looked as if he was on the way to sparing Michelle Wie’s blushes as she slid to yet another embarrassing eight over. Maybe his caddie gave him a big kick at that point because suddenly Jaybee was sinking birdies like nobody’s business and he ended up all square. That still leaves his stats a mess and a lot of ...

What a difference a year makes. Last January you couldn’t see the news for the Wies as the world’s press, but especially ESPN, gorged themselves on every miniscule scrap of information about the “teen phenom". This year Michelle Wie-loving hacks are so desperate for our attention they’re regurgitating week-old stories about what Stuart Appleby thinks. It isn’t working, mostly because someone almost old enough to be her grandfather has blazed his way into the headlines instead. Wouldn’t it be sod’s law that Michelle finally achieves her stated ambition to make the cut when everyone’s just about stopped caring? So come ...

Be afraid, be very afraid. Vijay Singh is back to his best and raring to take this season apart. With the opener under his belt he is now promising to come out more aggressively from this coming week and “open up a little bit more". A radio commentator put his finger on it. “Vijay seems very different. Nothing seems to bother him.” Singh’s victory at Kapalua was clinical. He followed a cautious game plan Sunday that put the pressure on his rivals and ended with the tournament’s only bogey-free round. You’ll probably hear a few “what if” mumbles about the almost ...

Luke Donald must be a bit miffed - one of only three players to fire three sub-par rounds and still he’s six shots off the lead. It certainly looks too big a gap to make up Sunday in these conditions. For my money only Adam Scott and Trevor Immelman have a prayer unless there’s an inexplicable collapse by Vijay Singh. Sure, he gave away a three-shot lead last September in the final round of the Deutsche Bank, but that was to Tiger Woods. A price of about 1.5 strikes me as an exceptionally fair, if unappetising reflection of Singh’s current ...

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And they don’t come much tougher than Vijay Singh. We know he never stops practising, but it looks as though he put in an extra effort over Christmas to get himself both mentally and physically in shape for the new season. Vijay hardly looked in danger of a bogey until the last Friday and his recovery shot from the rough there doesn’t just speak of a player on top form but one who has his mind sharply focussed on the task in hand. It could come down to stamina. By all ...

Ouch! I’d forgotten just how big the time difference is between Hawaii and l’ill ole England. Surely only the bravest or most desperate golf punter stays up all night to follow the great and good around Kapalua? So by the time I awoke Friday morning the wind had scattered the contestants every which way. It looks as usual as if there’s going to be little let-up on that front at least until Sunday, when it might moderate a bit. It is providing an interesting lesson for those who haven’t come up against it before. The toughest conditions since Muirfield in 2002 ...

Happy new year everyone, although the ‘new’ part could do with some scrutiny by trading standards officers. Same old Tiger Woods missing in action - sorry but getting your wife pregnant is not an excuse - and same young Michelle Wie trying to get too much action. Mind you, it wouldn’t surprise me to see her actually make the cut next week simply to spite Stuart Appleby. And, of course, same old Stuart Appleby plotting to refill his bank account on the wide open fairways of the Kapalua resort’s Plantation course. So, will he do it? There’s every reason to suppose ...