By Charles Jay
This reporter, for one, was one of those golf bettors who felt that after winning the PGA Championship in 2010, Martin Kaymer was ready to take over the world of golf, or at least be the guy who could consistently challenge people like perennial Tiger Woods in the major tournaments. Indeed, he ascended to the #1 ranking in the world in February of 2011 after reaching the finals of the Accenture Match Play Championship, a distinction he held for two months. And the HSBC Champions title, a World Golf Championship event, didn’t hurt his reputation either, especially as he had fashioned the biggest comeback in the annals of the WGC to win.
But as VietBet customers saw, after that, it went dry for him for the most part, especially in the majors, where he finished outside of the Top 30 in eight of nine attempts, including two cuts.
But he didn’t disappear altogether; top ten finishes in the Bridgestone Invitational and HSBC in 2013 made sure of that. But he failed to make the top twenty on the European Order of Merit for two years in a row, and there was a lot less talk about him being a guy who could ascend to the level of the sports’ elite.
Then Kaymer went and won the Players Championship in a wire-to-wire performance that featured a front nine of 29 on the first day, marking the first time anybody had ever shot a sub-30 nine holes (front or back) at the Players.
Now he’s setting records again, but on an even bigger stage.
Kaymer has completely scorched everybody at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, shooting consecutive 65s to set a record for this prestigious event for the best 36-hole score. He is also the first player to shoot back-to-back 65s in the first two rounds of a major. At the moment, he is listed as -150 to win the tournament in U.S. Open betting at VietBet.
No one is all that close to him; recent Byron Nelson winner Brandon Todd (+2200), a North Carolinian with some local knowledge but who had not played Pinehurst #2 before, is -4, which puts him six shots back. Most of the “usual suspects” are eight strokes or further from the lead. We include in this group Keegan Bradley (+3000), the former PGA champ, and Dustin Johnson (+2800), who is still seeking his first major victory.
Many of the other capable performers can’t be counted out, but they have a lot of ground to make up, including world #2 Henrik Stenson (at +1530 the second favorite at VietBet) at -2; Matt Kuchar (+4000), young phenom Jordan Spieth (+3000) and former U.S. Open champion Rory McIlroy (+2000) at -1, and world #1 Adam Scott and Rickie Fowler – resplendent in knickers as he honors Payne Stewart’s memory – at even par. Phil Mickelson is three over par, and is 13 strokes back, as well as a very distant 150/1 to win the tournament.
If Kaymer is finally finding himself, it has the potential to present a Tiger-like nightmare for the rest of this field in many events to come, particularly since he is now an official member of the PGA Tour.
There are some big names who won’t be there for the weekend. The likes of Jason Dufner (last year’s PGA champ), Luke Donald, Charl Schwartzel, Bubba Watson (the Masters champ), Angel Cabrera, Lucas Glover and Lee Westwood, among others, missed the cut.
For Hunter Mahan, it must have been excruciating. On the 18th hole (he played the back nine first), his caddy, John Wood, identified his ball wrongly, and instead Mahan wound up hitting playing partner Jamie Donaldson’s ball. That brought a two-stroke penalty, and Mahan wound up missing the cut by a single shot.
It will be nearly impossible for Kaymer (favored by -140 over Todd for third round play at VietBet) to duplicate what he has done so far, and maybe that gives some feint hope to Todd, Brandt Snedeker and others who are closest to him. Kaymer has birdied ALL of the Par 5’s, and has even birdied one of the Par 5’s that was re-established as a Par 4 (as happens in every U.S. Open).
Want to bet against him? You’ll get +130 in the U.S. Open odds if anyone else beats him.
Bets of luck with that.
US Open Golf betting action is absolutely sensational at VietBet, with more propositions than you can find anywhere else. You can have more action going than the players themselves!
