The Punter's In-Play Blog: Schwartzel takes command

Charl Schwartzel on his way to a second 65 in Thailand

More rain falls on an already drenched Durban and the Nelson Mandela Championship may not even start now but there's better news for our man in Thailand, where Charl Schwartzel takes a commanding lead into the weekend...

12:30 - December 7, 2012
After another full day lost, thanks to an almighty thunderstorm yesterday evening, the Nelson Mandela Championship looks in serious danger of not even starting. The course is still very badly waterlogged and any more rain will surely spell disaster. 

The officials will look again at 3.00pm UK time today and decide if play can start as planed tomorrow morning. If they do get the go ahead, the event will probably be staged over just 36 holes and I'm hoping it gets canned. When a tournament is reduced so much it turns into a bit of a lottery and it's no surprise to see that the market leaders have drifted.

Everyone must be completely fed-up, and especially the players but at least one of them is keeping their sense of humour intact, I quite enjoyed Andres Harto's tweet this morning which read "Tied for the lead going into Saturday! Just need a good weekend to finish it off :)".

Over at the Thailand Golf Championship, my sole selection, Charl Schwartzel, backed-up yesterday's first round 65 with another one and he now leads Daniel Chopra by four strokes. After a weather delay of nearly an hour and half first thing, Schwartzel, with an afternoon tee-time, was lucky to get his round competed. His group was the last to do so and he'll enjoy his lay-in tomorrow. The players are apparently staying an hour away from the course, so coming back at the crack of dawn to finish off round two and then waiting hours to tee-off in the final group in the third round would have been far from ideal.

Schwartzel looks as though he'll take the world of beating now but if you're contemplating smashing into the generous looking price, currently around 1.501/2, compared to a best price of 1.42/5 on the High Street, I'd advise a little caution.

I've got my stakes back and a bit besides and although I'd love to see him get it done, his record when leading at halfway is far from impressive and I'm not counting my chickens. He's led or co-led ten times and won just twice! It's worth pointing out that he's never had a lead this big before though.  

Paul Krishnamurty's Australian Open bets are still looking good, with Marcus Fraser, advised before the off at 50.049/1, now leading. 

As stated, I'm hoping they just call the Nelson Mandela Championship off now and if they do, I'll take the rest of the week off and return next week with my previews for the Johor Open and the Alfred Dunhill Championship, both of which are live on Sky Sports.  

10:35 - December 6, 2012

As you can see form the above picture, the Royal Durban Golf Course, this week's venue for the Nelson Mandela Championship, is not in a good way at all. Unseasonal heavy rains have soaked the golf course in the run-up to the event and a further downpour in the early hours put pay to any action there today. Day one has been abandoned completely and the tournament will now hopefully start tomorrow. 

Talking to Sky Sports, European Tour Tournament Director Mikael Eriksson said: "The fairways are very waterlogged and the course hasn't improved as much as we hoped it would overnight and further rain early this morning has put us back another few hours.

"The forecast wasn't bad at all for today and we hoped the course might have dried out a little bit more but it hasn't actually. We tried early this morning to shorten the golf course - made a couple of par fours into par threes, one par five into a par three as well - in an attempt to start, but with the additional rain as we were trying to restart it didn't work.

"The good scenario is that we start at 0630 on Friday morning, we play the first round tomorrow, the second on Saturday, have a cut and then go from there. We are still hoping to get 72 holes in.

"The tees and greens are not a problem, they are fine, it's the fairways and rough that are bad. I'm hoping the sun is going to come out but there could be some more rain on the way this afternoon."

It's great that Mr Eriksson sounds reasonably confident but the course looks in a very bad way to me and any more rain could put the whole event in jeopardy. Four rounds is surely a big doubt now.

It's not an ideal start to the 2013 European Tour and if Gregory Havret's tweet is anything to go by the players are feeling very fed-up. "No play in Durban today, it's not even raining but course is in very bad conditions. Looooong waiting week."

At least there was live golf to watch this morning though, as Sky Sports sensibly stayed with round one of the Thailand Golf Championship, where my sole selection, Charl Schwartzel, leads after round one. 

When interviewed after his round, Schwartzel put his success down to finding fairways and having watched both Sergio Garcia and Hunter Mahan struggle to extricate themselves from the thick rough that certainly looked the case.

It appeared for much of the morning as though Sergio Garcia would end the day as Schwartzel's main challenger but he endured a poor finish, with his birdie at the 15th hole, sandwiched between a bogey at the 14th and a double-bogey at the 16th hole, the only bright spot. He ended the day on -3 and trails by four.

Thailand's Thitphun Chuayprakong, matched at 1000.0n/a before the off and still available at 65.064/1, sits in second place, one behind Schwartzel on -7, with Spain's Javi Colomo and Sweden's Daniel Chopra tied for third on -5. 

Bubba Watson, on -4, is the first of the 'names' chasing my man and he has to rate a huge danger. After a slow start, pre-event favourite and defending champ, Lee Westwood, looked to be getting into gear when he eagled the 15th, so I was quite relieved to see him bogey the last to end the day on -2.

If they were to call off the Nelson Mandela, I'd be tempted to lay my stakes back on Schwartzel at 3.02/1 and take the rest of the week off but for now I'm going to wait and see what happens. He doesn't tee-off tomorrow until 5.00am UK time, so I may get to see how he's playing on TV first. 

I haven't had a bet at the Australian Open, as the early start caught me out! I was going to follow Paul Krishnamurty in on Nick O'Hern but he trails first round leader, John Senden, by fully five shots so I've no regrets on that score but I should've followed his advice regarding Senden, who is now a heavy odds-on to secure the advised top-ten finish.

Nelson Mandela Championship Pre-Event Selections:
Tim Clark @ 21.020/1
Kristoffer Broberg @ 60.059/1
Steve Webster @ 170.0169/1
Bryce Easton @ 300.0299/1

Thailand Golf Championship Pre-Event Selection:
Charl Schwartzel @ 7.26/1

Charl Schwartzel layed back at an average of 1.625/8

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