Round 1 play (2pts):
Vijay Singh to beat Victor Dubiosson -110 @ Five Dimes
I'm even more bemused at this line than with Sunday's Micheel/Jones line. Singh's record in the Open at St Andrews reads: 12th (1990); 6th (1995); 11th (2000); 5th (2005), and he has played in the Dunhill Links Championship four times and finished no worse than 22nd each time. Either he is being priced up as a poor putter (as the greens are so large), but his previous record at St Andrews suggests that it is not such a factor, or he is being priced up as being unfit, but he has reported in interview that his back, which had given him so much trouble at the start of the year, has been pain-free for the last two months and that can be seen from his performances: 33rd, 12th, 40th, 13th and 9th in his last five PGA Tour starts. That he missed the cut at Loch Lomond by a shot should turn out to be a blessing as he had played in nine of the last ten weeks on the PGA Tour ... again proof that he is now injury-free. What of Dubuisson? He ended 2009 as the #1 ranked player on the R&A's World Amateur Rankings, but so poor has been his 2010 form that he has now dropped to 33rd in the Rankings. He has played in three European Tour events this year, missing the cut twice and finishing 56th on the other occasion and broke par in just one round. In terms of experience on the Old Course at St Andrews, he has played in the St Andrews Link Trophy in recent years, but has never done well. I would be extremely surprised if he made the cut.
[unofficial rd1 system plays: Overton tb Lowry -111; Choi tb Ogilvy +100; Furyk tb Donald +100; Furyk tb McDowell +111; Fisher tb Poulter +100; Watson T tb Ishikawa +115; Leonard tb Davies +100; Johnson Z tb Johnson D +100; Cink tb Poulter +112; Allenby tb Schwartzel -105]
