You don’t really have to do the sums. The market price of less than 1.3 says all you want to know about the likelihood of K J Choi ending up a wire-to-wire winner. It’s going to take a monumentally bad day at the office for the Korean to let this one slip.

He has been easily under par all week, he has increased his lead each round and his closest rival is a rookie untested in the heat of PGA battle. Even if Choi didn’t manage to break par, all but Tim Wilkinson would have to fire their best round of the week to beat him outright. If he shoots the 67 that I understand is his average score when leading on a Sunday, Wilkinson would have to repeat the 62 he scored on Saturday - the tournament low - to beat him outright. The rest can simply forget it.

Of course Choi is as capable of an off day as anyone. His worst last year was the Nissan Open, where he shot a three over 74 on the Sunday when he had been in 9th place, five shots off the lead. If he did something like that this time you’d even fancy the comeback kid Steve Stricker, who has quietly hauled himself nearer the top (although oddly staying seven shots off the lead after each round!).

But Choi has seemed pretty solid so far. In fact he raised his game considerably Saturday, missing just two fairways and one green. It was his putter that went a bit wonky. Seemed to me he was a bit fazed by the “ace that wasn’t” on the fourth, when his tee shot actually went into the hole and popped out again. After that his putting seemed to become less fluid almost to the end of the round.

PS: You may not have caught the end-piece from the respected columnist Hugh McIlvaney in The Sunday Times of London this weekend, but it’s well worth a read if you’re thinking of backing Tiger Woods at his current price of 20 for the grand slam this year. Few can have missed the fevered press speculation about how this year’s courses are tailor-made for the project.

Ah yes, says Mr M, but if anything like illness should cause Tiger to miss one of the majors you’re up the proverbial creek, and at that price it’s a particularly smelly one. His verdict: “Anybody who shows interest in betting at 20-1 should be barricaded into a cave until late autumn.”

And so say all of us.

PPS: Was Kenneth Ferrie a victim of the very nasty stomach bug currently ravaging Britain when he was unfortunately forced to pull out on Saturday? A pity after making the cut in such confident fashion on his debut. Seems though he has left PGA officials with an intriguing little puzzle. As I understand it normally he would simply have withdrawn and that would be that - no money. But under the new cut rules this season, what is the difference between him and the 18 unfortunates who also made the cut and are getting paid, but aren’t allowed to play on? There’s one I can tell you - Ferrie played the first two rounds four shots better than they did.

PPPS: I was unfair to Frank Lickliter yesterday. Turns out his twins were well premature, which explains why he began playing this week. Hope all’s going well with them anyway.