RYDER CUP 2006

The K Club, County Kildare, Ireland.

Everything favours Europe. The course has been set up to favour the European players and the greens have been made as slow as possible.

The weather certainly looks to be doing it's part, the forecast is wet and windy, with a little thunder thrown in, this morning, the winds hit 40 mph !

Most of the Europeans arrive in good form and certainly match up well with the US team, which looks to have a few weak links. Vaughn Taylor, JJ Henry, Brett Wetterich and Zach Johnson are hardly household names, even in their own homes and are hardly going to strike fear into their opponents. Several others arrive in indifferent form.

The 3 big names..... Tiger has won only 33% of his 15 pairings, losing 10, Mickleson has won just 6 of his 15 doubles, Furyk has a good singles record, but has only won one, of 11 foursome or fourball's. So in the pairs, which make up 16 of the 28 matches, the three star players have collected just 14 points out of a possible 41, around 34%. Great golfers, but are they team players ? I think not.

The simple fact is that the US side are a collection of individuals, Europe are a team. They just don't get it, in recent Ryder Cups I have heard tales of the Americans eating breakfast at 12 different tables.

I have not yet mentioned the 13th man, no, not Ian Woosnam, the non playing captain, actually he is my only concern, not sure about his man management skills, but the Irish, they will simply not let "their" men lose. 40,000 people each day, even for practice sessions, unreal.

With everything in their favour, I expect Europe to dominate the foursomes and four balls over Friday and Saturday, this has been very much the case in recent Ryder Cups. They took an 11-5 lead into Sunday two years ago and things will certainly not change under these conditions.

I am going to return to this later in the week, think it will produce some golden betting opportunities. Suggest we start with an outright bet on Europe, to my mind they should be 1.50 and they are available at 1.95 on Betfair, that is must bet material.

The fourball matches commence at 09.00 cet on Friday, will look for Europe to win that group of 4 matches and will strongly consider opposing Furyk, given his awful record, regardless of who he is paired with.

5 points Europe to win the Ryder Cup 1.95 betfair.

Good Luck.