David John has gone with some big-priced selections for the ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf at Royal Melbourne.
This week's ISPS Handa World Cup of Golf is a bit of a curate's egg.
We have a team competition, an individual prize and some of the runners having played - and won - at the course in the Talisker Masters.
The splendid Royal Melbourne layout gets its second airing in as many weeks and hosts Australia are the hot favourites at 6/4 with the currently unbeatable Adam Scott and Jason Day carrying the hopes of the nation.
Scott is two from two in his bid for the Australian golfing Triple Crown while this will be an emotional week for Day after tragically losing members of his family in the typhoon that devastated the Philippines.
I am going to swerve the market leaders along with the United States (6/1), who have won this event 24 times and finished runner-up on nine further occasions.
They are led by Matt Kuchar, who blew his chance of beating Scott last week with a costly double bogey on the final hole and he will team up with the relatively unsung Kevin Streelman.
So it is further down the list we head and Japan look to have a sporting shot at glory at 40/1.
Hideto Tanihara and Ryo Ishikawa tee it up for them and the pair could not arrive in better form having finished first and second in their homeland at the Taiheiyo Masters.
That is fairly strong selling point in itself but a couple of other factors added into the mix do make them interesting at the price.
Firstly, Ishikawa has shown winning form on the course when playing in the 2011 Presidents Cup where he took the scalp of Bubba Watson in convincing fashion in the singles.
He should be on extremely good terms with himself in general as well having secured his PGA Tour card for 2014 and the made an excellent start to the campaign with a second place already on the board in Las Vegas.
He is 50/1 for the individual prize but I might just take a chance on his partner Tanihara at 175s in that market.
He has played in this event before back in 2007 at Mission Hills but the link that I particular like was his impressive T5 in the Open Championship at Hoylake in 2006.
That shows he will be able to cope on a sandbelt course and looks worth a punt that he can make his presence felt on the leaderboard.
Japan won this back in 2002 when it was staged in Mexico and funnily enough their next best effort came in 1988 - at no other than Royal Melbourne - which may or may be nothing more than a huge coincidence.
Whatever the relevance, I am keen on their prospects.
My other pick for the team event is Spain at 22s as Miguel Angel Jimenez and Rafa Cabrera-Bello go for glory.
The redoubtable Jimenez will turn 50 on January 5 but remains a legend on the main European circuit as he claimed another top 10 in the Dubai Tour World Championship.
He knows what it takes to contend in this as well having finished runner-up twice with Pablo Larrazabal and Sergio Garcia and I fully expect him and Cabrera-Bello to give it a really decent shot.
The latter has good memories from Melbourne having played his first event as a rookie on the European Tour in 2007 in the city (at Huntingdale) and spoke in the build-up of how much he is looking forward to going back.
He has finished the 2013 season in decent form and I expect the pair to be thereabouts.
My final bets on the tournament involve New Zealand and firstly Tim Wilkinson at a big price for individual glory at 200/1.
The left-hander caught the eye last week in Mexico at the OHL Classic with a T10 and is just the sort of player to potentially fly under the radar.
A delve back into the archives reveals a solid record in Australia with a couple top 20s already in Melbourne so it does not take a great stretch of the imagination to see him potentially going well in familiar surroundings.
The Kiwis' line-up is completed by Mike Hendry and at 150/1, the duo could outplay those odds on a course where their countrymen have done quite well previously in events like the Heineken Classic.
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