Melbourne Cup Winner 2009

Last Saturday, I saw the Australian debut of this year's Melbourne Cup winner.

Speed Gifted's first experience of an Australian race meeting was fittingly at Flemington. This son of Montjeu (sounds familar?) formerly trained by Luca Cumani and now looked after by a bloke who knows a thing or two about the cup, Lee Freedman, put in the most dazzling sprint since Pebbles won the Breeders Cup.

Starting at the luxurious odds of 20/1 in a modest Melbourne event despite being placed in a UK Gp3 race last year, he sat wide 6 furlongs out until he suddenly went whooska leaving everything paddling in his wake.

I don't think we'll get the 80/1 we got about Bauer last year, but holy moly. What a run!

Tiger? He can't win...

What happpened there? Apart from another donation going to my bookie's new Bentley fund.

To the relief of all and sundry, Eldrich's taking the week off this week along with, well virtually everyone you've ever heard of from the PGA Tour. The Valero Texas Open is like a golfing equivalent of Life on Mars with both Corey Pavin and David Duval (David Duval?) both on the leaderboard chasing Justin Leonard and Paul Goydos. Leonard is astonishingly bad value at less than 4/1 with 54 to go on a course where birdies are swarming around. Not for us thanks.

It's a lottery wit 54 to go but have to have a few dollars on Jarrod Lyle at the ridiculous odds of 1000/1. An old favourite of ours, Jarrod was 4 under after ten holes, three off the lead when I left home this morning. All day I've been planning to have a few quid on at, say 40/1 as I thought he'd be the smokey, a few shots off the lead. Taking a quadruple bogey at his 11th hole then two more coming home means he's 9 shots back. 1000/1! Ridiculous.

As is Nathan Green at 830/1. Three birdies and three bogeys make level today, but this is his sort of track. And at those odds...

You can get huge odds about Nick O'Hern as well. Not for me ta.

Big punting weekend again. Looking out for Extra Zero at Flemington plus Sarerra in Singapore. I'm also told that Hey Elvis is laid out for the Straddy. Go careful out there...

Still good value at half the price!

Tiger Woods was 7/1 yesterday. If only we'd tipped more on. He's still great value to win at 3/1 (even if that's the price he was at when the tournament started).

If you really want overnight value for your bets, Perry is still 100+, but perhaps just too far off the lead. We'll keep our fingers crossed that the 300/1 about Danny Chopra comes good.

Good to see Poulter hang in there today but worryingly for punters he topped the scrambling stats whilst Cejka leads having topped the straight driving stats, hitting 88% of fairways (all bar one in simple english). I'm not sure he'll be doing that come Sunday. He's not won in the US before and I don't think a 4 shot lead is material here where doubles and worse are commonplace. And that's just at the island par three 17th.

Anybody with money in their accounts should take the 3/1 about Tiger to win. It's almost stealing...

This is what they want

Love tournaments like this. 7/1 the field at half way and already we've seen people shoot 7 under yet the leader is just a few shots ahead. I'm going to ignore Cjeka. I'd say he's a bit of an Adam Scott. Likewise Poulter and Stenson. Not because i don't think the Europeans can win, but they just don't offer any value. To labour the point, you can get 8/1 about Tiger still and he's far from out of it.

But, of course, I've gone wider. And why not, when you can get 100/1 about Geoff Ogilvy, 400/1 about Vijay and a similar price about Danny Chopra who shot 7 under today. They, like Tim Clark and Ernie Else are just irresistible at the odds.

Geoff Ogilvy had a mare today. Four bogeys and a double matched with six birdies. He's great value at 100/1. Get on, live a little. Just pray they don't decide the play off with a penalty shoot out.

A whole new ball game

I first played golf on a 9 hole course on holiday in Ireland with my Mum and Dad. I was 12 years old. having watched Trevino, Jacklin et al on Shell's World of Golf, I was hooked. The rest is boring history but suffice to say that through my job I've probably read more tips on instruction than is healthy, even for a golf nut.

One thing I've learned is that the correct grip is essential. Like stance, posture, the right clubs and a good mental game. Essential. And whichever guru you turn to, books, tired old golf magazines, even my friends at the Golf Magic forum, they all agree on one thing. Overlapping, Vardon, Interlocking, all grips are ok.

Except the baseball grip.

The "baseball" or ten finger grip is uniformly despised by golf's literati. Like Jim Furyk's swing or Angel Cabrera's belly putter, it's not what a proper golfer uses. Although, those two blokes aren't exactly doing it tough...

At the range on Sunday, after a hopeless medal round the day before, I switched back to the baseball grip in sheer desperation. Suddenly it all made sense again. Irons hit crisper, 5 wood nailed into kingdom come and glory of glories...it works for those tricky shots around the green that make grown men weep.

So this week, I've been nipping into the back room every so often and swinging a club with a baseball grip. I'll have a hit at the range on Friday or Saturday and then St Michaels had better look out. Wish me luck...