GM at the bookies

The GM betting slips do not make pretty reading, with hopes now resting on some extraordinarily long-priced runners and riders. Here s hoping you followed Paul Krishnamurty and not us.

Anthony Wall at 100/1. With all due respect to the Englishman, I am afraid this shows just how far GM s anti-tipster Neil Tappin has fallen. The greatest deputy editor in the history of the world he may be, the worst betting expert in the planet he certainly is.

However, it s sad to say but he is in very good company here at the GM station. So far, between the eight of us we have laid cash on 22 players and as I peer up at the extended leaderboard just four of them are in the top-20. Not good numbers.

Starting at the top, the man in charge laid out his intentions early in the week by going very deep on Hunter Mahan and not being shy to tell all and sundry. An 80 in round one has left Mr Harris a little under whelmed, although not quite as distressed as one of his close allies, who having rung his friend for some top tips, had to reflect last night that his four picks were a combined 40 over par. Oh dear.

With Senor Tappin on at least half the field, our token Scot Fergus Bisset stubbornly backing anyone sounding vaguely north of the border and newbie Alex Narey adamant that Korean KJ Choi is an expert in true links conditions, the chances of anyone enjoying a beer or two on us on Sunday night are looking very slim. But it s not a complete disaster, we have learnt one or two things. The principal lesson came last night when after a long, hot curry and just a few libations of the amber nectar variety, Sky Bet got a surge of activity from the GM house. Not big and certainly not clever.

Fresh from my rather impressive betting success at the Masters (if I haven t told you about that you must have been on a very long holiday) I was the most bullish last night and decided in my infinite Stella fuelled wisdom to put most of my life-savings on the slightly goofy Trinidadian/Canadian Stephen Ames. Whoops.

The saddest thing of all about our collective financial idiocy is that we have no excuse our very own real gambling guru Paul Krishnamurty is over 400 points up for this season so far and has provided all of us with a brilliantly detailed guide.

Here s hoping that you were more intelligent than us (no comments), oh and let s all pray Canada brings it home on Sunday please.