AS IS inevitably the case before any tournament, and especially a major, the majority of pre-event analysis centres on the leading few contenders.
For this week's US Open, which like all majors offers double prizemoney in Golf Masters, it seems to be all about Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, who both have excellent records at Torrey Pines. Some bookmakers allow you to hedge your bets by backing "Big 2 v The Field" but budgetary constraints mean our managers do not have that luxury.
You can pick either Tiger or Phil and then the secret is to have your team filled out with some of the players featuring well in our value-for-money standings.
That particular list is currently headed by Richard Finch (€380 earned per €1,000 cost) but neither he nor any of our next four best-value players (Briny Baird, Simon Wakefield, Peter Lawrie and Darren Clarke) are in the US Open field. The best-value player we have in action at Torrey is Jason Bohn (€203 per €1,000 cost) followed by Oliver Wilson and Matthew Goggin (both €185 per €1,000).
It's been a wretched season for some of our Asian players, our three lowest earners and worst-value players being Prayad Marksaeng, Toru Taniguchi and Shingo Katayama. The latter two have qualified for Torrey and can be backed at 500 to 1. The really big disappointment for his 220 original employers has been the €5.5m-rated Steve Stricker, who has played in four Golf Masters tournaments and missed the cut every time. His managers now total 160 and for them, a repeat of Stricker's tied-13th finish at Oakmont last year, would be most welcome.
e-mail: golfmasters@irish-times.ie
