Brooks Koepka survived a back 9 wobble to go wire to wire in the PGA Championships on the weekend.  I had backed the joint Tournament favourite at 11/1 and my other main bet on the weekend was Dustin Johnson also at 11/1 so I was very relaxed down the stretch, knowing that if Koepka did go belly up, Johnson would be the beneficiary. 

Given that Koepka started the final round with a 7 shot lead my main focus from a betting angle was my Top 20 bet on Lucas Bjerregaard, I had a very healthy 13/2 that he would finish inside the Top 20 but was concerned about a repeat of the US Masters where I took him at 4/1 and he ended up finishing tied for 21st.  He began the final round at Bethpage Black just inside the Top 20 and his position fluctuated from a high of 14th to a low of 25th as he dropped shots just a bit too regularly for my liking.

With a couple of holes to go it appeared that this bet would just miss out and I tweeted that it looked as though the US Masters close shave was about to repeat itself.  At that point I paused the golf to go and say goodnight to the family and when I came back I saw on my phone that I had a number of Twitter notifications.  It turns out Bjerregaard had achieved the perfect fluke when he had a hole in one on the par 3 17th and thanking the lads on Twitter for the good news I mentally banked the cash. Of course things seldom run that smoothly and he dropped a shot on the 18th to make me sweat although in the end his +3 finish was just enough to deliver the goods for a very grateful punter.   

It was one of those tournaments where everything went my way and more good news was that I had backed Dustin Johnson with BetXchange who offer a Majors money back special should your pre-tournament selection finish second or third. Couple that with some rugby profits and it was as close to a perfect weekend as you can get. They don’t happen often and when they do you just enjoy them.

Twitter: @BrentGraham

 
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 23rd of May 2019.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a  free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register