Last Week and Monday's Lesson for Lewis...

Always a danger man at the start of the week but offering no real value, Louis Oosthuizen overcame a five shot deficit to triumph in the Volvo Golf Champions in Durban.

Commiserations have to go to Scott Jamieson who was on the receiving end of of this overhaul but with a win under his belt already this season and clearly playing well I am sure he will put himself in a position to win again.

Padraig Harrington managed to get into the each way places with a birdie on the 72nd hole which means a 1.25pt profit for the week!

On the note of the final round this week, one of my New Year's resolutions reared its head, and along with that a lesson...

Looking around twitter I saw the statistic that before this tournament 22 players had gone into the final round with a five shot lead and of these 22 players only two had ever not gone on to win the tournament. I then saw that Scott Jamieson was trading at 1.5 on Betfair- great value surely?! Some might even say a dead cert... (http://lewispuntingyear.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-year-ahead.html - see point 1!)

Luckily my Moneybookers account was not playing ball and I didn't manage to get the money on- and we all know what happened next. Thinking about it though, how often does the final round leader pull away from the field and increase their lead in these situations? The combination of nerves, playing more safely to conserve the lead and those behind playing more aggressively than they normally might means that it's more than likely that at some point the supposedly huge lead won't be so big after all.

When a player is trading at odds-on, rather than looking to back the supposed dead cert I am going to look to lay them with a view to trading. Even in the case that they go on to win the tournament that lead will at some point look threatened, the price will go up and there is our chance to profit! Or they could completely melt down and we just let it run! For a great guide to Betfair trading see http://www.golfbettingsystem.co.uk/Golf_Trading.htm.

Over the rest of the year I will look at incorporating some in-play trading into the mix so add me on Twitter (@LewisBryan80) to see how I get on, and let me know what you think of this... have you been burned in the past backing a short priced leader? Or even laid them only to watch the pull clear hole after hole?!

Come back tomorrow for my Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship tips!