Find Me a 100 Winner: Two top prospects for the Memorial

Sony Open champ Russell Henley is a huge price this week

Paul Krishnamurty's weekly trading column takes in the Memorial Tournament, where the presence of a certain Tiger Woods means there are some very tasty prices on offer about proven top class winners...

Whichever way you look at it, the presence of Tiger Woods in a golf tournament is good news for traders. Apart from the fact that it adds significant extra liquidity, both pre-tournament and in-running, Tiger's domination of the market vastly increases the number of good players available at bigger odds. So whilst this column is usually focused on players that are either 'under the radar' or been out of form, this week it was easy to find a couple of genuinely top-class prospects that everyone knows full well about.

Take my first pick, Branden Grace. Here we have a 25 year-old who has been prolific over the past year or so, winning four Race to Dubai titles. On the evidence so far, he is the best emerging prospect from a top golfing nation that has churned out a stream of major winners in the past decade. He's in good form, reaching the World Match Play semis and following up with a top-25 at Wentworth, saving his best round for last. That resume sounds like a 50.049/1 chance at best, yet we can get a mammoth 190.0189/1 about Grace winning the Memorial Tournament. Perhaps punters are worried that he hasn't yet transferred that top-notch European form to the States, but 18th place at the Masters was a superb debut effort and 25th on last season's Memorial debut was tidy enough too. Keep backing Grace at anything like these odds and you'll do well in the long-term.

Likewise, Russell Henley was all the rage after winning his first start as a fully qualified PGA Tour player, yet is now back at odds of 300.0299/1. He'd shown enough beforehand, and bits and pieces since, to strongly suggest that Sony Open win was no fluke. Henley has particularly impressed in the short-game department and those skills are essential to succeed on this course. The fact he's making his Muirfield Village debut is a negative, but many other top-class youngsters have performed well at Muirfield Village so don't let that put you off too much.

The trading plan is to stake 2.5 units on the pair, then place a relatively unambitious lay order at 20.019/1 to bank profit, then again at 3.02/1. If either just hits the first target, we'll quadruple our money. 

Recommended bets

Back Branden Grace 1.5u @ 190.0189/1
Back Russell Henley 1u @ 300.0299/1

Place order to lay both players 10u @ 20.019/1
Place order to lay each players 20u @ 3.02/1