Whilst waiting to catch a flight to Inverness for the Scottish Open, Francesco Molinari did a mini Twitter Q&A.
I happened to be watching and was slightly surprised how he answered the classic “what’s your favourite course?” question.
“Paris National and Firestone,” he replied. Really?!
It was easy to see why he said the former as he’d just finished runner-up there for the second time in three years.
Firestone, the par 70 that hosts this week’s WGC-Bridgestone Invitational, was a surprise though and I mentally filed it away for later use.
With Molinari also finishing second in Scotland a few days after his Firestone Twitter revelation, he’s stayed very much on my radar although I didn’t feel compelled to join in the gamble that saw his Open odds slashed to 33s in places.
Francesco had a decent Open (39th) given that he’d he’d missed three of his previous four cuts in the event, so now he should be able to pick up his hot form again on a course which he apparently loves.
On first glance, there’s no obvious reason why he’s such a fan given that his two Firestone finishes are ‘only’ 39th (2010) and 15th (2011) but a closer look at his round scores shows a day-two 64 last year.
Speaking in 2010 on his debut at Firestone, Molinari said: “It’s the first time I have been here and I have been looking forward to playing this course. I had heard great things about it and they were right.”
As a man not prone to over-exaggeration, that’s a pretty strong endorsement and those feelings clearly grew the following year.
At Lytham he topped the Driving Accuracy stats and was fourth in Greens In Regulation so it was only his putting which let him down.
That’s often his Achilles’ heel but he putted well in Scotland and had solid stats on Firestone’s greens in 2011 so hopefully it was just the puzzle of Lytham’s putting surfaces which he failed to solve.
Francesco is already a WGC winner having landed the HSBC Champions in 2010 and it’s worth remembering that he and runner-up Lee Westwood were nine shots clear of Luke Donald in third while sixth-placed Tiger was 12 in arrears.
Having already beaten the world’s best, Molinari is a value price at 50/1 to do so again and make Firestone his absolute favourite course on the planet.
The news during the practice rounds at Lytham was that Louis Oosthuizenwas absolutely ‘striping it’.
The South African kept on the fringes of the leaderboard throughout and seemed all set for a top-five finish until he dropped to 19th after a bogey, double bogey finish.
Still, it was a decent week and an obvious hint that Oosthuizen is close to recapturing the fantastic form he showed in the spring.
Three starts in April saw the 2010 Open champ finish third, second and first.
The third came at the Houston Open the week before the Masters and he carried that form to Augusta where he had one arm in the Green Jacket before losing to Bubba Watson in a play-off.
Despite the agony of missing out on Masters glory, Oosthuizen boarded a plane to the Far East and eased to a three-shot victory in the Malaysian Open.
That burst of high-class golf probably took it out of him a little and it was no surprise to see his results take a dip soon after.
However, he looks ready to thrive again and Firestone looks a good fit.
On debut in 2011, Oosthuizen closed 68-65 on the weekend to finish tied ninth and although he couldn’t match that last year (tied 37th), it was all money in the bank.
The 29-year-old is now very much at home on the US Tour and said his ability to handle the faster greens in America was highlighted by his vastly improved performance at Augusta where he’d previously missed all three cuts.
Get on Louis at a very decent 50/1.
The perennial question at Firestone is whether to back Tiger Woods or not.
For years, Tiger was just about invincible at Firestone and, amazingly, won here seven times in nine years between 1999 and 2009.
In the last two renewals Tiger has only finished 78th and 37th but those displays came when he was struggling with his game.
Having already banked three wins this season, the 5/1 about him securing yet another victory here is far from unfair and, as we’ve said many times on bettingzone, Tiger is best backed on courses where he’s played well before.
Some punters will go ‘all in’ on Woods this week but I prefer to hedge a little.
I’ll keep Tiger onside by having a 2pts saver while I’ll also have further bets on Molinari and Oosthuizen in the ‘without Woods’ market.
If a two-horse race does emerge, there’s a strong chance that Tiger will be one of them so landing a 40/1 payout on either Molinari or Oosthuizen even if they get beaten by Woods would be very sweet indeed.
It also opens up another each-way place if Tiger occupies a top five slot.
Source: www.sportinglife.com