The Punter's De-Brief: Charlie Beljan's fairytale a nightmare result

Charlie Beljan with his first PGA Tour trophy

It's been a bad week for our man as even his footie team winning turns out to be bad news! Read his account of yesterday's trading and his thoughts on what we've learnt for next year here...

Matteo Manassero edged out Louis Oosthuizen at the third playoff hole to win the Barclays Singapore Open but the big story this week was stateside, where Charlie Beljan stretched the old 'beware the injured golfer' adage to the absolute limit when he overcame an exaggerated heat rate, shortness of breath and a night in hospital to comfortably win the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals Open.

My Bets
My day yesterday started poorly, brightened up briefly but then nosedived miserably. 

I'd backed Adam Scott before the off and Thomas Bjorn in-running in Singapore and when I went to bed on Saturday night the pair were first and second in the betting but by the time I got up their chances of victory were long gone.

Away from the golf, I cheered heartily when Edin Dzeko snatched a late winner against Spurs for my beloved Man City but even that transpired to be bad news. I'd had four cross doubles on either side to be leading at halftime - draw fulltime in the two live Sky matches so when Liverpool came from 1-0 down at half time to draw with Chelsea in the second match, the goal I'd been so pleased to see go in had actually cost me a small fortune. Oh well, maybe I'd have a good night on the golf I thought...

And when Brian Gay, who I'd backed before the off at 160.0159/1, birdied both the 3rd and 4th holes from in excess of 30 feet to get within one of the lead, I thought it might be day after all. He was matched at 5.04/1 but I didn't lay anything off and so when he bogeyed two of the next three holes I was kicking my greedy self.  And then to make matters a whole deal worse, I layed Beljan at an average of 1.454/9 after he'd birdied the 9th.

I'd written in both my preview and the In-Play Blog how poor the record of third round leaders was at Disney and although Beljan had plenty in hand, I felt there was definitely potential for a late wobble. A double-bogey at the easy 13th hinted at the disaster I was hoping for but to his credit, Beljan knuckled down and birdied the next hole and three pars and a bogey at the last was enough to secure victory. 

Don't think about tweeting him your congratulations though, he's quite sensibly deleted his account. I tried to endear myself to Mr Beljan, after all, it was a fantastic story, but given his gutsy victory had condemned me to a very poor week, I was struggling to warm to him and it's fair to say that reading this story didn't help much either.

What have we learnt for next year?
With the future of both this week's events in doubt it's maybe an exercise in futility to look forward to next year but in the hope they go ahead I have. It's a sign of the times that both are looking for new sponsors and with the world economy in the state it's in, things aren't likely to get any better anytime soon, which makes Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano's decision not to defend his title in Singapore because the promoters wouldn't pay for his flights and accommodation, all the more sadder. 

If they do get a new sponsor in Singapore they might decide to move it forward in the calendar. The monsoon season is just starting over there at this time of the year and after lengthy delays on the first two days, they were lucky to get the event finished. If and when it does get the green light, it may be worth looking at the form of the Maybank Malaysian Open. This year's playoff in Singapore was fought out by the last two winners in Malaysia.   

Driving was again not particularly important, Manny was ranked 6th for driving Distance (and he's a renowned short-hitter!) but only 23rd for Driving Accuracy. Putting was again key. I'd written in the preview that the last three winners had been ranked in the top-five for Putting Average, and that's now the last four - the Italian topped the PA stats, and Louis was ranked 5th. An ability to putt on grainy greens is absolutely imperative. 

Adam Scott maybe worth another try next year, he had a torrid week with the putter but still managed another top-five finish.

Although I came a cropper taking on the leader in Florida last night, I'd do so again and fancy this year was a bit of a one-off. Beljan made a number of lengthy putts when it mattered and the fact that nobody put any real pressure on him helped him no end. He was far from convincing, which given the magnitude of the situation wasn't a surprise, and I felt afterwards that I'd struck the right wager but got the wrong result.

There appears to be a bit of a correlation between the Old White TPC at White Sulphur Springs (home of the Greenbrier Classic) and this venue. Beljan's third in that event was by some distance his best performance of the year prior to this week and a number of players have played well at both venues.

In the preview, I wrote that over the last 15 years, 11 winners have led the field for birdies made.  Three winners ranked second and the other third! It's not about avoiding bogeys, it's all about making birdies, and lots of them. Not surprisingly, the key stat for this event is putting - nine of the last 10 winners have ranked in the top-10 for Putts Per Round and that you need to make a score around Palm. 

Those trends have stood up again this year; Beljan made more birdies than anyone else this week and shot an eight under-par 64 around Palm.

The PGA Tour season may be over but there's still plenty of golf going on. The likes of Luke Donald, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, Nicolas Colsaerts and Thorbjorn Olesen are playing in Japan, Ian Poulter, Adam Scott and Graeme McDowell are featuring down-under at the Australian Masters and there are two events on the European Tour! Rory McIlroy will be a short-priced favourite to defend his Hong Kong Open title and there are some star names attempting to win the South Africa Open. I'll be back later in the week with previews for the last named tournaments.