Outright plays (1.5 units):
Grace Park to win 11/1 e.w. @ Bet365 and Stan James
Just missed out as a win-only selection last week, but saw little reason to drop her from the selections this week. It took her run of consecutive top-10 finishes to seven and eleven from her last twelve starts. She deserves to win more than one title this year and given that last year she finished 1st and 2nd in the two co-sanctioned LPGA and JLPGA events last year, there are no question marks over her ability to travel. Sorenstam has only won two of her last nine starts so she is far from invincible.
Sophie Gustafson to win 25/1 e.w. @ Bet365, SkyBet, Stan James, William Hill and Paddy Power
Gustafson is one who has won recently and in terms of win ratio, she better Sorenstam in current form: three wins in her last seven starts. The first two of these were Ladies European Tour wins (she also won the Ladies Irish Open in June), but it is her win at the Samsung World Championship that has drawn most attention. Given the overwhelmingly unfavourable opinion in the media on her win, her alleged rules infringement and her relationship with the LPGA Tour Commissioner, she played extremely well to finish 13th last week in Korea. With this event being held in Japan, she is again partially shielded from the North American media and should prosper on a course on which she finished 2nd in 2000. Another win should silent the doubters.
Yuri Fudoh to win 50/1 e.w. @ SkyBet and Paddy Power
I don't understand this price. Maybe if the event was in North America, but not in Japan. Fudoh has totally dominated the Japan Ladies Tour this season. She has won five times in sixteen JLPGA Tour starts, finishing outside the top5 on only two occasions - the first (in April) was after a six-week layoff and the second (in July) was after playing in the U.S. Women's Open the previous week where she finished in the top-20. And it is not as though the JLPGA players have been also-rans in this event - last year they had two players in the top-10 and in each year from 1999 to 2001 they had four of the top-10 places. Fudoh herself was 3rd in 2000 and has been 3rd and 6th with one round to play in the last two years. She should be half these odds!
Grace Park to win 11/1 e.w. @ Bet365 and Stan James
Just missed out as a win-only selection last week, but saw little reason to drop her from the selections this week. It took her run of consecutive top-10 finishes to seven and eleven from her last twelve starts. She deserves to win more than one title this year and given that last year she finished 1st and 2nd in the two co-sanctioned LPGA and JLPGA events last year, there are no question marks over her ability to travel. Sorenstam has only won two of her last nine starts so she is far from invincible.
Sophie Gustafson to win 25/1 e.w. @ Bet365, SkyBet, Stan James, William Hill and Paddy Power
Gustafson is one who has won recently and in terms of win ratio, she better Sorenstam in current form: three wins in her last seven starts. The first two of these were Ladies European Tour wins (she also won the Ladies Irish Open in June), but it is her win at the Samsung World Championship that has drawn most attention. Given the overwhelmingly unfavourable opinion in the media on her win, her alleged rules infringement and her relationship with the LPGA Tour Commissioner, she played extremely well to finish 13th last week in Korea. With this event being held in Japan, she is again partially shielded from the North American media and should prosper on a course on which she finished 2nd in 2000. Another win should silent the doubters.
Yuri Fudoh to win 50/1 e.w. @ SkyBet and Paddy Power
I don't understand this price. Maybe if the event was in North America, but not in Japan. Fudoh has totally dominated the Japan Ladies Tour this season. She has won five times in sixteen JLPGA Tour starts, finishing outside the top5 on only two occasions - the first (in April) was after a six-week layoff and the second (in July) was after playing in the U.S. Women's Open the previous week where she finished in the top-20. And it is not as though the JLPGA players have been also-rans in this event - last year they had two players in the top-10 and in each year from 1999 to 2001 they had four of the top-10 places. Fudoh herself was 3rd in 2000 and has been 3rd and 6th with one round to play in the last two years. She should be half these odds!
