Qatar Masters

A short trip from Dubai, but as last year and just as in the Honda Classic, the 'name' players take this week off. No Tiger, Harrington, Monty, Westwood or Clarke, but at least last week's victor, Thomas Bjorn, makes an appearance. With a very poor record in this event and coming off last week's titanic battle with Woods, he is best left alone at very short odds. Much will depend on the weather conditions. The local wind, the 'Shamal' does blow every day, but last year it was rather fierce and it blew an unexpected Rolf Muntz into the winners' circle. Early indications are that the winds will not be as fierce this year and a more predictable winner such as Paul Lawrie (1999) or Andrew Coltart (1998) should ensue.

The course has been used for the duration of this event's three-year history and it is testimony to the lavishness of wealth in the area. Water features rather prominently for a desert course, but its most famous feature is the huge rock in the middle of the 16th fairway. Not even Tiger & his rent-a-navvies could deem this one a moveable object! The course does not play long and it has been the shot-makers with good greens in regulation stats that have played well here. It has also been the case that good wind players perform well here.

On that basis, the three selections for this week are Paul McGinley, Paul Lawrie and Angel Cabrera. All are excellent wind players. McGinley should have secured a place finish last week but came to grief on the 9th hole on Sunday. No prizes, but he only dropped shots on two holes all week and that is a very good sign of a player in form! Decent course form with a 7th place finish last year, preceded by 16th and 21st, and the game to suit - his strength is from his irons down to his chipping and not his driver.

The same is true of Paul Lawrie, though he is a little longer off the tee. With a game fine-tuned in windy North-East Scotland he triumphed in this event as well as at Carnoustie in 1999. Finally free of the groin strain that hampered his golf last year, he made a solid return to competitive golf with a 21st position last week, but a return to the scene of his first 72-hole professional victory was always foremost in his mind. I expect a little of the Lawrie of old this week.

The 3rd pick, Angel Cabrera, like all the Argentineans, is excellent in wind. He has a low ball flight and tremendous length off the tee. With the fairways being on the generous side this week, he should not be too heavily penalized and does have excellent greens in regulation stats as well. Like Lawrie, he opened his campaign in Dubai last week where he finished 9th, though it should have been much lower - his final round 72 denied us a 72-hole matchup win! He has played here in each of the three stagings and has a respectable record, but his game has moved to a much higher level in the past 18 months and he is a challenger almost every week.

Outright plays:

Paul McGinley to win 33/1 e.w. @ Easybets

Paul Lawrie to win 33/1 e.w. @ Surrey

Angel Cabrera to win 22/1 e.w. @ William Hill [5 places @ 1/5 odds option]

72-hole plays:

Warren Bennett to beat Hennie Otto -118 @ Easybets [3 units]
Bennett followed up his 2nd in Singapore with four rounds of 70 or less last week and come to this event in decent shape. Otto missed the cut last year at 16-over-par and boasts some of the worst greens in regulation stats on view this week. Might also take a week or two to make the transition from golf in Southern Africa to the full European Tour

Paul McGinley to beat Andrew Coltart -105 @ Easybets [3 units]
Coltart won this event in 1998, but has performed worse every time since: 28th two years ago and a missed cut last year. He has not threatened a leaderboard or finished in the top-20 yet this year, so looks very opposable with top pick, McGinley

Trevor Immelman to beat Justin Rose -120 @ Victor Chandler [2 units]
We opposed Rose last week and should have won. He made the cut on the mark and finished 76th - it was only Poulter's last round (lack of) effort that cost us. This week he is opposed with the highly-rated Immelman who had finished in the top-10 three times in the last three weeks, including South African Tour events. He made the cut in 1999 as an amateur, something that Rose has failed to do in his two attempts here so far. In fact, the only worry about this play is that this will be Immelman's 9th straight event. He is young, so hopefully the fatigue will set in next week!

Patrik Sjoland to beat Justin Rose -111 @ William Hill [2 units]
Consistency has not been a feature of Sjoland's game since the 1st half of the 1999 season, but there is no doubting his talent and he has shown that to good effect on this course. His record here reads 2nd, 11th, 19th. He should be able to pick up his game on his return to a favorite course and will probably only need to make the cut to win this matchup.

Adding:

Paul McGinley to beat Brian Davis -110 @ BlueSq [2 units]
No doubting Davis' form this season - 7th, 16th and 6th so far - and he did finish 5th last year, but the 'Shamal' did blow and it threw up some very unexpected leaders. For a player whose game is centered around his putter rather than his iron-play, maybe the 53rd place finish the year before is more reflective of his suitability to this course. Opposed with the headline pick on that basis.

Jarrod Moseley to beat Justin Rose -111 @ Paddy Power [2 units]
Continuing the anti-Rose theme this week. Moseley has no course form, but had a couple of top-10 finishes in Australia last month when the European Tour rolled into town and finished a respectable 33rd place last week. Making the cut will be the important factor in this matchup.

Jarmo Sandelin to beat Justin Rose -111 @ Simon Bold
Completing this week's theme! Sandelin fell away last weekend - he is prone to that - after a bright start, but it was his opening event of the year. He has made the cut on both his visits to Doha and will make good use of the generous fairways this week. A two-time winner on the European Tour and a Ryder Cup player, he is by far the better player.

Update:

Five of the seven matchups are decided at the cut and the most important result of all was that Justin Rose was one of those not to progress to the weekend. It meant a seven-shot win for Immelman, a four-shot win for Moseley, a two-shot win for Sjoland, but sadly Sandelin was one shot the wrong side of Rose after 36 holes. The major disappointment though was Bennett's resignation in his game on the back nine which caused to miss a number of very short putts. He eventually missed the cut by one shot and lost to Otto by one shot and this was one of the 3-unit plays of the week.

Two matches remain and both feature Paul McGinley. He leads Coltart by two in the other 3-unit play and is tied with Brian Davis. The outrights look quite promising with McGinley and Lawrie in 8th place, five shots behind the leader, and Cabrera in 4th place, two shots better off.

Have waited and waited for the Intertops lines on the 3rd round 2-balls - they don't have the tie as a separate bet - but it looks as if they are not being offered, so ...

3rd round plays:

Angel Cabrera to beat Elliot Boult -154 @ Centrebet [2 units]

Dean Robertson to beat Markus Brier -138 @ Surrey

Robert Karlsson to beat Olivier Edmond -125 @ Surrey [2 units]

Carl Pettersson to beat Van Phillips +100 @ DAS [2 units]

3rd round update: 3-0-1 and +5.00 units

Good day with no losers and an outright pick gaining top spot on the leaderboard! Easy five-shot wins for Cabrera and Robertson, though Karlsson regained his nerve just in time to record a one-shot win over Edmond. In the other play, both Pettersson and Phillips were poor and so a dead-heat tie was a fair result.

In the two remaining 72-hole plays, McGinley opened up a one-shot lead over Davis and extended his lead over Coltart to six shots. He didn't manage to improve on his overnight 8th place though and now stands in 11th place. Both of the other two selections have held the lead though today. Lawrie surged to a two-shot lead at the top of the leaderboard after five birdies in six holes around the turn, but two shots dropped at the close dropped him to down to 6th. No such problems for Cabrera who is now tied with Karlsson at the top of the leaderboard.

Rather than delay naming the 4th round plays until Intertops & DAS release lines, these are provisional plays based on the early lines available. They include the 'ties lose' element, so the final plays will be named when Intertops & DAS offer their lines.

Provisionally, 4th round plays:

Jean-Francois Remesy to beat Elliot Boult +110 @ Easybets

Craig Hainline to beat Trevor Immelman +162 @ Easybets [2 units]

Final 4th round plays:

Jean-Francois Remesy to beat Elliot Boult +100 @ Intertops

Craig Hainline to beat Trevor Immelman +162 @ Easybets [2 units]

Final update: 1-1-0 and +2.24 units for the day; 9-3-1 and +13.59 units for the week

That's more like it! The 'Shamal' created havoc on the final day and it caused a major problem with the outright plays, but not with the matchups. Immelman closed with a couple of birdies, but Hainline still had enough of a lead to win by one for a very nice win, while Remesy found the conditions too frustrating and collapsed to a ten-shot loss. The two remaining 72-hole plays were both winners: McGinley beat Coltart by six and Davis by four.

To add some irony to the week, with the 3-unit play on Bennett faulting because he missed the cut by one-shot and so finished one-shot behind Otto after 36 holes, Otto got himself disqualified at the weekend   Most books grade this a loss as Otto did play more holes, but a disqualified player is a loser in any matchup at Olympic. There are no golf rules posted at the Easybets site, so maybe, just maybe they might concur with Olympic. The longest shot of the week, but we won't know until they grade it.

Update on outright plays: 0-3 and -3.00 units

Disaster in the desert storm! Cabrera had been joint overnight leader but was completely blown off the course in the opening holes and from then on never looked capable of lifting his game to challenge again. Frustratingly he finished 6th, one position out of a place win. Frustrating is something that Lawrie certainly was today: he broke his putter on the 5th tee by hitting an ice box with it   From 6th overnight he inevitably fell to 27th. McGinley completes the trio going backwards on the final day as he finished 13th.