ODDS and ENDS:
(1) - - It has felt like all season I have had a good feel with my capping, and that I have put in a proper effort week after week. I know I wasn?t struggling to come up with solid reasons for making the plays I was making, and didn?t feel like I was forcing any plays just to have action. But before last week, a season that had definitely started well had been lacking in positive results.
(2) - - I always keep a season tally, and I knew I would eventually go back and calculate my losses for the year. But I now believe I am slightly up for the season, which will certainly motivate completion of the tally process, besides putting a bounce in my step for the serious time and effort it takes for the weekly grind of always having more capping to be done.
(3) - - I have frequently noted that I have my best wagering results in the four Majors and the Players. In 2019 and 2020 I was on a run with Lowry in the Open, Morikawa in the PGA, Wolff finishing second in the U.S. Open, and DJ in the Masters. But in 2021, except for a tough loss with a very strong play on Lee Westwood(80/1) in The Players, the insights and results in the Majors were disappointing and poor.
- - Also, I have frequently noted that for whatever reason(s), I have a poor track record the week before the Majors, but some excellent results the week after the Majors, and that bit of history just got reinforced.
(4) - - I have also frequently noted that my strongest plays come from ANGLES and INFORMATION I pick up (i) while viewing the weekly golf telecasts, and (ii) tracking shot after shot on the leaderboard, and that bit of history also got reinforced with a 125/1 play on Cameron Champ being my top play for last week. While intently watching the action as Lucas Glover closed out the Deere Classic on a Sunday with the most righteous display of golf of his career (and after I sadly decided not to make an in-running play on Glover on Saturday night, even though I was confident that opportunities were there for a bunched field to make things very difficult before the leader Munoz would ever close out the championship), it was everything I saw about Champ?s play on that Sunday which had me fairly chomping at the bit to wager on him in his next outing, when he would be chomping at the bit after sitting out a Major, and after he would have been stewing in his juices for the way he pissed away opportunities at Deere.
- - Insights gleaned from viewing the telecasts had definitely been the source of some of my best plays of the season, specifically Westwood(80/1) at the Players, Janewattananond(70/1) as a playoff loser, and Detry(100/1) as a playoff loser.
(5) - - Lastly, someone wondered how I ?unearthed? a play on Stephen Dodd at 200/1, and I think the following is a fairly accurate recounting of the process:
(i) - - I was annotating my printout of players and odds for some longshots that appealed, or justified further research, and Stephen Dodd stood out as being likely value vis-a-vis the other names in his neighborhood.
(ii) - - With the big tournament in Wales going on at the same time, that is a real factor that weighs in my siding with a Welshman.
(iii) - - My only other play at that point was on Paul Broadhurst, who literally made his career by winning the Senior Open and gaining privileges on the U.S. Champions Tour. The way the tumblers in my mind were clicking, it is fair to say at that point I would have been bereft if Dodd had come through and I had not had a wager on him.
(iv) - - Also weighing on my capping was the fact that on the Champions Tour, if most of the competitors had to choose between a dodgy 4 foot putt or a dodgy chip shot, they would choose the putt when the pressure is ratcheted up. As is always the case when capping a 72 hole grind in a Champions Major, I knew the wedge game and those dodgy putting strokes would get tested (with Sunningdale being a beauty like Wentworth in that regard), and some proficiency in that regard is always valued by me. I speculated that I thought Dodd had always had a decent short game, but for sure I didn?t have enough knowledge about the state of his short game to weigh it against him.
(6) - - That?s enough. Sunday was a crazy good day. It will likely never be equaled by me in raw numbers (although my stakes these days are generally only about half of what they were back in the day when I hit Stephen Ames(150/1) at the Players and Jean van de Velde(100/1) at Madeira on the same weekend in 2006, or Lucas Glover(200/1) in the 2009 U.S. Open (and Ross Fisher e.w. at 125/1)).
- - Time to focus on my final choices for the Olympics. The one thing I know for sure is that I would be bereft if Jazz Janewattananond(125/1) came through with a big effort and I didn?t have a wager on him.
GL
