The Nedbank Golf Challenge turned out to be pretty disappointing for me from a punting perspective. While I made a few good calls such as backing Clarke to finish last my long term punt on Luke Donald was never really a runner and my biggest 18 hole match bet also came unstuck.

In Donald’s case it is fair to say I got my money down too early (way back in October) and what transpired were events in his personal life that resulted in him coming into the tournament very undercooked.

I will certainly think twice before getting involved so far in advance again but the bet that will haunt me for some time to come was Bernard Langer to beat Ian Woosman in the final round of the Seniors Challenge. Langer it is fair to say looks as good as he did in his prime while Woosie, never a light man, had packed on the pounds and gave the impression he was struggling just to finish his round on the Friday.

In post round interviews he spoke of stiffening up and in my mind there was no way this guy was going to be competitive down the stretch and when I saw 7/10 Langer to win their 2 ball I jumped in all guns blazing.

Things started off well with Langer going two shots clear and even when he dropped a couple of shots around the turn I was convinced it was only a matter of time until his opponent imploded, tumbling down the leaderboard with bogey’s and worse all over his card.

In reality Woosman started playing better and better while Langer began to wilt under the pressure and after 15 holes Woosie hit the front a position he was not to relinquish.

The result was a serious knock to the weekends punting budget and I had cause to ponder just why I had taken such a big bet? In truth I knew very little about either player’s recent form and it is fair to say that I made the decision to oppose the Welshman purely on the basis that he was carrying a few extra kilo’s around his middle. This writing off of a player based only on his appearance came back to bite me where it hurts and is perhaps proof that in punting you should be very careful to judge a book by its cover!

This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was first published on the 8th of December 2011.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and to get on his free weekly e-mail list just send a message to brent@goodforthegame.co.za titled “Best Bets”.