The last golf Major of the year is less than 24 hours away and my plan to buy Woods’ finishing position was placed firmly on ice when I realised he has to be bought at 38. However, I’ve decided to buy £10 of Els’s finishing position at 39 – if he putted like he did in the final round last week, he won’t make the weekend. I’ve also sold £10 of in-form Mahan and Johnson at 39, as well as Goosen at 37.

I’m not a big fan of the Carling Cup – particularly the first round stage. That said, you do get plenty of upsets and Middlesbrough looked a terrific supremacy sell at 0.5 away at Chesterfield in the live game. That said, they didn’t look such a terrific sell when 2-0 up at the break, but thankfully the hosts pulled one back in the second half to spare my blushes. I still lost £100 on the game, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

There are only a couple more Monday night Windsor evening meetings left of the season and as always, it’s paid to follow the Hannon/Hughes combination. Tonight seemed no different on paper and I stepped in and bought £10 of Invincible Ridge at 17 in the opener. The son of Invincible Spirit travelled like a dream and looked certain to win a furlong from home until Gold Pearl came late and fast to snatch the honours. I still made £80 on my investment, but I felt that £250 had got away.

Thankfully, I didn’t sell goals in the Community Shield which was a major result – you have no idea how close I was to selling £200 at 1.8 when the sides were locked at 0-0 approaching the 25 minute mark. The final score line of 3-1 would have cost me £440, so I felt like I’d backed a winner.

Amazingly, my positions in the Bridgestone Invitational were sown up before the coverage even began on Sky. Tiger Woods followed a third round 75 with a disinterested final round 77 to finish an amazing +18 and only Henrik Stenson fared worse over the four days. He finished tied for 78th and even though they say that you must never revel in other people’s misfortunes… ‘they’ should try spread betting! Tiger’s troubles had made me a cool £610. Sadly, Hansen only finished a handful of places above him in 75th place and £360 of profit was completely wiped out.

My racing bets were a complete disaster. Secret Asset and Life And Soul both made the frame in the opening two races of the Shergar Cup at Ascot which was good news as I had bought £10 of both. However, I decided to sell £10 of Bernie The Bolt in the 3.55pm race at 21 and did £290 in the process. Things weren’t much better over at Haydock, in fact, they were worse! I bought £10 of Desert Creek at 16 in the 2.20pm contest and he managed to make-up at 0 having looked the likely winner at the two furlong pole. Then, I opted to buy Breakheart rather than Hot Prospect in the 3.25pm race. I lost the full £180 on Andrew Balding’s runner and watched in dismay as Hot Prospect won without breaking sweat!

I wasn’t feeling especially confident about the first major day of football action after Norwich’s display last night. My only short term trade in the Championship was a £150 sell of Reading’s supremacy at home to Scunthorpe at 1.1. I have sold £30 of their points at 70 and fancied the draw. Well, I got lucky and the visitors took all three points with a 2-1 victory and I wrestled £315 back into the kitty. However, Burnley won which was irritating as I’ve sold their points and Bristol City got thumped and I’ve bought theirs! Anyway, there’s a long way to go…

The football season kicked-off with Norwich v Watford and I began the season exactly the way I’d hoped I wouldn’t. My £30 buy of Norwich City’s season points was looking just about as good as my £150 buy of their goal supremacy at 0.9, when Watford scored their second of the game in the 24th minute to take an early 2-0 lead. The Canaries did pull one back after the break but Graham scored his second of the game to settle the game in the 81st minute. Yes, Norwich did pull one back late on, but a 3-2 home defeat wasn’t the ideal start to the campaign. Not only had I lost £285 on the supremacy bet, I also have a long-term position that looks a trifle dodgy to say the least…. Come on Norwich, let’s be having ya!

Anyway, Tiger continues to freefall down the Bridgestone leaderboard which is some consolation. A round of 72 means he is sitting at +6 and is a mile off the pace. However, Soren Hansen took three more shots than Tiger to get round and sits on +6 too. God gives with one hand and then takes with the other!

I gave the afternoon racing action the swerve and instead held out for the Liverpool v Rabotnicki game in the evening. Now, I don’t know much about Rabotnicki… well, if truth be told, I don’t even know where they're from. Rabotnicki could be a planet somewhere out there between Mars and Pluto for all I know! Yet, what I do know, is that no team deserves to be 2.8-3.0 goal favourites in the second leg of a tie that is already won. Therefore, I opted to sell £200 at 2.8 and also bought £8 of the time of the first Liverpool goal at 33.

Sadly, N’gog gave Liverpool the lead after just 21 minutes and cost me £96 in the process. Then, when Gerrard doubled Liverpool’s advantage five minutes before the break, I was questioning my theory about no team deserving to be nearly three goal favourites when the tie is already won. Thankfully, the martians from the planet of Rabotnicki played out of the skins to keep the scoreline at 2-0 in the second half and my sell of supremacy netted me £160. Overall I made money on the game, but it was the most uncomfortable £64 I have ever won…

Over at Firestone in Ohio (I’m sure that’s where they have had loads of alien sightings which is a strange coincidence!), Tiger Woods made a bad start (round of 74) in the Bridgestone International which is good news for me and for Elin Woods - she hates him and I’ve bought £10 of his finishing position at 18. I think she’d definitely buy his finishing position every week if she knew she could! However, even though Soren Hansen (71) made a fair start, my £10 sell of his finishing position at 39 wasn’t looking amazing.