Golf betting tips: Preview and best bets for the ISPS Handa World Invitational
The ISPS Handa World Invitational takes centre stage on the European Tour this week, and Ben Coley has six speculative selections.
Golf betting tips: ISPS Handa World Invitational
1pt e.w. Sihwan Kim at 70/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Ashley Chesters at 80/1 (William Hill, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Oliver Farr at 100/1 (William Hill, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Alejandro Canizares at 150/1 (Unibet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Richard McEvoy at 175/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Ricardo Santos at 250/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
While the Olympic Games is going on in Tokyo, the ISPS Handa World Invitational gets the call-up to feature on the European Tour for the very first time. Shapeshifting is very much the name of the game on this tour, these days, so stay with me: it's at Galgorm Castle, which hosted the Irish Open last year, but this is strictly speaking the Northern Ireland Open, which also took place here last year, except on the Challenge Tour, although it's now back under the title used in 2019. Oh, and one round takes place at Massereene.
The reason for two courses and the name is that this is another event in which men and women compete on equal terms, albeit not against each other as was the case in Sweden a month and a half ago. No, these are events running in concertina, with alternate tee-times throughout the week. It's a fabulous initiative which among other things will tell young girls who want to be the next Steph Meadow that they can pursue a future in a sport not always known for forward thinking. If you're moaning about it, be quiet for a bit.
Massereene is a very short course which looks there for the taking even if the fairways are narrow and greens small, but three days at Galgorm Castle should help to keep a lid on scoring. Perhaps the rough won't be quite as juicy nor the weather as cool and damp as it was last October, when John Catlin stole the Irish Open from Aaron Rai, but it should still ensure that a measure of accuracy is needed. That's usually been the way here.
I certainly find it interesting that Catlin and Rai filled the first two places, because they are very similar. Both are relentless in their finding of fairways, and you might say conservative with approaches which are often from further back than average, hence strong greens-in-regulation numbers, small misses, and good scrambling stats, too. Summed up they are sensible, strategic players who are at their best when the aggressive skills of more modern golfers don't overwhelm everything they do well.
Rai's first win came in Hong Kong, his second in Scotland, both through this precise approach and the fact he got up and down when he had to. That victory at the Renaissance was achieved under tough conditions, just one week after he lost here, in fact. As for Catlin, his breakthrough came at the tight, tricky Valderrama, where you simply cannot just thump it. He followed up here with a closing 64, and then defied more tough conditions in this year's Austrian Open.
Who is the best bet for the ISPS Handa World Invitational?
Looking at these courses at the very least could lead us to players who are wired the same way, and while that's no guarantee of success, it looks a logical path through what is not a strong field on the men's side of things. Where does it lead? Directly to ASHLEY CHESTERS, who rates the best bet.
Chesters is the most accurate driver on the European Tour, without question. He tops this year's statistics, he topped last year's statistics, and he topped 2019's statistics. Through that accuracy he's above-average when it comes to hitting greens, and in turn gets up and down more than most. He is the epitome of a steady, unspectacular player whose skills might've earned him more money a decade or two ago.
His form at Valderrama includes fourth and 12th, he's been 14th in the Hong Kong Open at Fanling, and seventh at Diamond in Austria, scene of Catlin's remarkable play-off victory over Max Kieffer, the German who, if you go back the other way, is very fond of Valderrama himself.
It's all very neat, possibly too neat, so while Massereene is an unknown to some degree, Chesters should be effective at Galgorm Castle where 54 of the 72 holes are played. That's exactly what he was in 2017, when the event was called something else and was even more experimental in format, and while missing the cut last year, 79-67 is eye-catching in a different way. Besides, he was in terrible form.
This time he's in the sort of grade which should give him the opportunity to at last win a title as a professional, and he might just have found the form required to do it. After a run of missed cuts in far stronger fields, he finished 18th at Celtic Manor, ranking first in fairways, 11th in greens and 18th in scrambling, and gaining strokes to good degrees everywhere bar off the tee.
Here at Galgorm Castle, it's significant that the leaders in fairways last year all gained strokes off the tee. Put another way, there was real value in hitting the fairway, which isn't always the case — just last week, Chesters hit more fairways than anyone in Wales, but lost strokes. That's admittedly a simplistic example, but what seems clear is that he'll be far more advantaged if playing the way he usually plays at a course like this.
He is a rare contender, so confidence can never be particularly high, but this is a seriously bad field. With the greatest of respect to them, he's alongside Paul Peterson, Dimitrios Papadatos, Daniel Gavins and Craig Howie in the market, a collection of Challenge Tour players. It really does look like a great chance to get competitive.
If you're in a hurry to watch the boxing or desperate to see if there's any more of that 3x3 basketball on Eurosport, feel free to depart at this point, because the case made for Chesters is basically repeated throughout my selections.
Next is SIHWAN KIM, who could extend the winning run of US golfers at this course to three if building on a progressive set of form figures.
Kim's sequence at the moment reads 61-37-23-10, and it's notable that excellent scrambling (15th or better in each, fourth last week) has powered these four cuts he's made. So too has finding fairways, as he's ranked 11th, seventh and 17th over the course of the last three, so at a lower level he boasts similar skills to last year's one-two.
Ninth at Diamond is one of his better efforts at this level, but he also shot 66 to be second after round one of his debut at the fearsome Valderrama, eventually finishing a respectable 26th. As for Hong Kong, he's made three cuts in four there including when 20th behind Rai, Chesters just a couple of spots in front of him.
The stumbling block is that he's not yet performed well at Galgorm Castle, however to say he was out of form coming into his three missed cuts would be a gross understatement. He was playing pretty hopeless stuff, and it would've been a surprise were that to have changed even at a course which I think suits him.
In fact the one time he turned up with his game in decent order he did comfortably make the cut and hang around not too far down the leaderboard, so with the wind in his sails this time, expectations should be higher.
OLIVER FARR is next and behind Chesters, he'd be the one I'm most excited about.
Although yet to win on the European Tour, Farr is a three-time Challenge Tour champion and always under tricky conditions, a comment which applies to his EuroPro wins, too.
He comes here in really quite nice form, finishing 23rd and 14th among his last three starts and playing better than the bare result in Scotland, where he was 11th at halfway in a Rolex Series event. Farr stumbled on Saturday but fought back well for 59th place.
Also prominent in Sweden after the first round, his missed cuts either side in Germany were both narrow and he's plainly in better form than when 39th here last year, another event in which three of his four rounds were good enough to be competitive only for a third-round 76 to undo much of that good work.
Again we've Valderrama form — he actually contended on his sole visit but faded to 22nd under the huge pressure of playing for his card — as well as Diamond, where he's been seventh, while among his Challenge Tour wins came a narrow defeat of former Galgorm Castle winner Jack Senior, under really tough conditions.
Second only to Chesters in driving accuracy, above-average in scrambling, his approach play improved and the putter getting better through each of his last five starts, Farr gets to drop into this hybrid grade where he's more than capable of winning and he'll have been buoyed no doubt by Stuart Manley's victory in Austria a fortnight ago.
Andy Sullivan is a very worthy favourite but taking single-figures on the European Tour doesn't come easily, and it's no coincidence that the two who've obliged so far in 2021 were Dustin Johnson and Viktor Hovland. No player here is prolific, Sullivan and Justin Harding included, and the latter has to get over a play-off defeat for good measure.
Laurie Canter, who is yet to win, does nevertheless tempt me at 22/1. He was good here last year, it's the sort of parkland course he likes, and he's the same price as when up against Matt Wallace, Sam Horsfield, Harding and Rai in a far more competitive Cazoo Open last week. There, he defied an awful start to restore credibility and if his short-game is above-average then the breakthrough could come.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) his approach play was really poor and he'll need it to fire, so I can cast him aside along with Wil Besseling, who has form at Valderrama and Diamond and is playing well, but surely isn't a viable betting proposition at 33/1.
Then there's Santiago Tarrio Ben, who is in red-hot form on the Challenge Tour. The issue I have is that not only does he climb ever so slightly in grade, but he's played 12 of the last 13 weeks, and he might even be a little miffed to miss out on an Olympics call-up having for a time at the weekend believed he'd be replacing Jon Rahm.
As such I'll speculate that rather than Tarrio Ben or Adrian Otaegui, perhaps ALEJANDRO CANIZARES can be the one to give us back-to-back Spanish winners.
At his best, the 38-year-old finds fairways and scrambles well, occasionally lighting up the greens, and he's certainly capable of quality approach play as we saw when he was seventh at Diamond earlier in the year.
Seven-from-seven in cuts made at Valderrama and eighth on his very first try at Fanling, he's in the same sort of mould as Rai and Catlin, and there have been one or two signs both this season and last that he's capable of adding to a pair of European Tour wins earlier in his career. Both came in runaway fashion on largely tree-lined courses under conditions which others in the field found difficult, and the same goes for a pair of play-off defeats, too.
Canizares played perfectly well for 35th place here in October, ranking ninth in approach play, and it could be significant that this aspect of his game has kept on firing for so much of this year. Last week he ranked 33rd, he'd have been far higher if making the cut in Ireland, he was 30th in Germany, and in two rounds in Sweden he gained a mighty six strokes.
It's easy now, but compatriot Nacho Elvira's approach work was similarly eye-catching before his overdue breakthrough and Canizares, who was 10th through 54 holes but faded to 25th at a course where he'd previously missed seven cuts in seven visits, looks to be close to another big performance.
Bryden MacPherson did everything well apart from around the greens last week and is tempting now he's shaken off some rust. Once a promising amateur, the Aussie has come alive back home over the last nine months and following wins for Lucas Herbert and Minwoo Lee, not to mention Minjee Lee on Sunday, he's of note at 80/1.
However at twice the price, RICHARD MCEVOY looks better value for all that the 42-year-old has no secrets.
Again we come back to Hong Kong, having shot 62 on his first look at Fanling and always loved it there, and Diamond, where he boasts two top-five finishes. Valderrama hasn't been quite so kind but he did finish 29th there a couple of years ago and hasn't had many chances.
Last week, he shot 68-66 over the middle rounds at Celtic Manor, where he ranked second in driving accuracy, and from the first on Friday through to the 13th on Sunday dropped just one shot. Then came a rather calamitous end, which perhaps masks the fact he played really well for a good chunk of the tournament.
McEvoy was looking at a potential top-10 finish until dropping four shots in five and though he'd been on a lengthy run of missed cuts before that, in Ireland, Germany, Denmark and a couple of times elsewhere, he missed by one shot or two.
This is certainly his time of year, having won back-to-back titles at the end of July in 2018, and once more in July on the Challenge Tour, while 20 years ago he won the Irish Amateur at another parkland course.
McEvoy made the cut here last year and was 17th in 2014 so he's shown enough in playing all eight rounds across two visits to suggest Galgorm Castle fits, and if he can be as tidy he was for the vast majority of a better event in Wales, he can make odds of around the 150/1 mark appear pretty generous.
Steven Brown is another with certain formlines I like while back towards the top of the market, Eddie Pepperell is the player I find hardest to leave out. He's missed three cuts in a row but in better company, and his trademark approach play remains in decent shape. Doubtless having been working hard up at Archerfield, he could add to a good overall record in Britain and Ireland and has a touch of class for a 40/1 shot in this grade.
However I'll end a speculative preview with 250/1 shot RICARDO SANTOS, a three-time Challenge Tour winner including when last he played at that level in 2019.
Given the current pick of the crop are all much shorter prices, Santos perhaps isn't being given the respect he deserves having been 10th in the rankings that year before returning to the European Tour, where he's gone close to winning in the past.
That's largely because he is what he is at 38, but weekend rounds of 65-69 for 14th place in Wales give him a platform and it's a solid one given that he was 20th off the tee, 37th in approaches, 21st around the green and 26th in putting.
His iron play has in fact been good for a long time now, including when 28th despite a slow start at Diamond where he's made the cut on all six visits. Fifteenth on his debut at Fanling, where he shot two rounds of 65, is another encouraging form line and the fact compatriot Ricardo Gouveia won on the Challenge Tour last week doesn't hurt.
Posted at 1000 BST on 27/07/21
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