Sometimes, things look obvious.
Garcia - could make it two in a row.
Hands up who took the 80/1 Sky Bet offered about Sergio Garcia winning on a course he grew up on and Luke Donald doing what world number ones should do?
Both hands up if you had a yankee on the pair plus Yani Tseng winning in her native Taiwan and KJ Choi winning KJ Choi's tournament!
My hands are down, and although thoughts of a yankee might have been fanciful, Sergio's victory was particularly hard to swallow from a betting perspective.
When he threatened in the Crowne Plaza Invitational and then the Byron Nelson Classic, I was asked by several people 'is he back and is he worth backing?'.
My response? Wait for Castellon. And then, the Castello Masters arrives, we see 8/1, and it becomes easier to argue against than for.
I'm not going to make the same mistake twice - take 6/1 about Sergio Garcia winning the Andalucia Masters and have a decent win only bet.
As I wrote 12 months ago, there's a clear formula for finding winners at Valderrama and that is to focus on ball-strikers.
At around the 7,000-yard mark, this classic Robert Trent Jones design does not require length and as a result bombers have held absolutely no advantage whatsoever since the turn of the millenium.
Only one of the nine winners of this event since 2001, including under its former guise as the Volvo Masters, ranked inside the top-10 for driving distance during the week.
Contrastingly, only one of them was outside the top-22 in greens hit, with the average rank coming in at 13.44 thanks to six being well inside the top-10.
Furthermore, the last three men to lift the trophy were T11 or better in greens hit during their previous European Tour start and when we throw in the fact that winners clock in at an average of 7.66 in putts per greens hit, it's clear what sort of player we're looking for - a ball-striker who is putting well.
We also need that player to be in form. Such is the tight nature of the 1997 Ryder Cup venue that it's virtually impossible to arrive out of sync and walk away with the trophy.
Every winner since Colin Montgomerie and Bernhard Langer shared the title in 2001 had finished inside the top-20 in one of their previous two European Tour starts, with seven of them having been inside the top-10.
Finally, with the exception of Jeev Milkha Singh who made his competitive debut here a winning one in 2006, every winner had course form to call upon.
Graeme McDowell, Justin Rose and Ian Poulter in particular had threatened to win this very event before doing so, and that leads me back to the headline tip.
Sergio has played this event at Valderrama eight times and only once has he finished outside the top-10. That remarkable run includes three second-place finishes, a fourth, two sevenths and a 10th.
We know he's a ball-striker. Garcia is second on the European Tour in greens in regulation and led the field in Castellon, hitting almost 90% of greens during the week.
He also led the field in putting and while that's in part thanks to his in-depth knowledge of the course, it represents renewed confidence with the flat-stick, confidence that he should be able to carry forward.
What convinces me further is Sergio's remarkable record after winning a European Tour event.
His breakthrough success came in the Irish Open back in 1999 - six days later he tied for second at Loch Lomond behind the best player in Europe at the time, Colin Montgomerie.
Later that year he won again in the German Masters, following it up with a share of fifth in his next start.
In 2002 he won the Spanish Open before jetting off for a spell in the States, returning to take eighth in the Open Championship on his next European start.
Two years down the line he won the Mallorca Classic before finishing second here, while in 2005 he won the Omega European Masters and went on to take second back in Mallorca.
And after winning the Castello Masters in 2008 he was second on Thursday, Friday and Saturday here before eventually finishing fourth behind wire-to-wire winner Soren Kjeldsen.
Already the argument is strong.
Throw in the fact that Sergio has said he has to keep the momentum going to win more Ryder Cup points, and the fact that he needs to win this to get into the final WGC event of the season, and you have a cast-iron case for backing the most talented player in this field.
I appreciate it's hard to win twice on the trot and this may be a case of closing the gate after the horse has bolted, but there's no way I'm ignoring Garcia on a course that is perfect for him - he did, after all, just win a tournament by 11 shots.
To my mind he's a 9/2 chance at best this week and at nearly twice that we're getting on.
With a decent win bet in the bag, I'm turning next to a player who has yet to break through and win what would surely be the first of many European Tour events, Joost Luiten.
The Dutchman arrives in form, with his last six European Tour finishes reading 15-6-3-9-29-11.
He probably should've won when finishing third in the Austrian Open, but the pressure of breaking his duck ultimately proved a little too much.
Not everyone is Tom Lewis, though. Some need to throw one away to win one and it may just be that supremely talented Joost is one of these players.
He certainly fits the bill in every other sense.
Luiten sits 12th in the season-long greens in regulation statistics and has been inside the top-25 for greens hit in each of his last three European Tour starts. Not only that, he was seventh for fairways hit in Castellon and that sort of formula works really well here.
Proof of that arrived in no uncertain terms last year, when despite having no previous course experience to call upon Luiten finished in a share of fifth.
Given that he's also been boosted recently by qualifying for the World Cup with compatriot Robert-Jan Derksen, it's perfectly reasonable to expect Luiten to at least equal that effort and at 28/1 he makes solid each-way appeal.
My formulaic approach to this event threw up a good shortlist, among whom course debutant Richie Ramsay - one of the best ball-strikers on the Tour - is certainly worth keeping an eye on.
Anthony Wall caught the eye last week and his record here is very strong so watch out for a top-20 finish from him, while the fact that Pablo Larrazabal shot 66 at the first attempt here last year bodes well for his future in the event.
However, I'm going to side with another European Tour maiden for my final selection in Jamie Donaldson.
The Welshman has finished inside the top-10 on four of his last six starts in Europe and each of his last three.
What's really encouraging about his form is that he'd never previously finished inside the top-10 in the European Masters and yet managed third, and he'd never been inside the top-30 in the Portugal Masters before finishing eighth.
His greens in regulation rankings through those three events read 13-6-28, while he's currently 26th in the season-long statistics, which goes to show that he's a very solid ball-striker whose game should suit the course.
Last year's 33rd may not seem particularly impressive but it was a step forward from his debut tie for 47th in 2003, a fine effort considering he started the week with a round of 81.
We've seen already this season that Donaldson is playing some of the best golf of his life, and he told a Twitter follower recently that the key to success is taking time off so let's take his mini-break as a positive pointer.
When asked whether he'd win soon his response was "Def playing well enough", and at 40/1 a modest each-way bet returns fantastic profits if he wins and covers the staking plan if he places - get on with Ladbrokes and take advantage of their six-places offer.
golf365.com