Ben Coley bagged place profits in last week's event Down Under, and our man now has selections ranging from 33/1 to 350/1 for the Australian Open.
Golf betting tips: Australian Open
2pts e.w. Takumi Kanaya at 35/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Alejandro Canizares at 100/1 (Betfair, Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Denzel Ieremia at 150/1 (Betfair, Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Harrison Crowe at 200/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
0.5pt e.w. Derek Ackerman at 350/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
Cameron Smith was understandably delighted at having won the Australian PGA Championship for a third time, especially as the event takes place where he grew up, but the big goal remains ahead of him – to capture the Stonehaven Cup for the very first time in his career.
Doing so with victory in the Australian Open would be a fitting way to cap a remarkable year, which has seen him win the Tournament of Champions, The PLAYERS Championship, the Open Championship and then celebrate a long-awaited return home with what was in the end a dominant display in Queensland.
Backers and supporters alike now must hope that Smith hasn't peaked too soon, but that seems unlikely and he's understandably been cut from 7/2 to around the 5/2 mark. As illustrated last week it can be a waste of time to dig for serious negatives in such quality golfers and the two-course format for a historic renewal of this tournament probably isn't one of them. He has every chance.
For the first time, the Australian Open will see men and women compete in alternating groups across Victoria Golf Club and Kingston Heath, before the former stages the weekend's play. Alongside these events, the All Abilities Championship should help to underline that this wonderful sport is or at least should be for everyone. Whoever wins each of these titles, the week should be a roaring success in Melbourne.
The courses in operation give us some nice form pointers, even if some of them are dated. Smith's LIV Golf rival Ian Poulter won the Australian Masters at Victoria in 2011, Adam Scott took the title over at Kingston Heath in 2012, while the 2014 Women's Australian Open was played at Victoria and went to Aussie legend Karrie Webb. The 2016 men's World Cup, won by Denmark, is also on the list.
There are plenty more pointers buried in the internet but in terms of the courses themselves, we know what we're getting. Some consider Kingston Heath to be on a par with Royal Melbourne when it comes to the best of Australian Sandbelt golf, while Victoria follows a similar formula. Anyone lured into believing a modest scorecard yardage makes these courses vulnerable might well be beaten before they tee off.
Strategy and short-games so often work best under these conditions and that's great news for Smith, although Min Woo Lee is no less brilliant around the green at times and rates an obvious danger. As for the other class acts, my vote would go to Cam Davis, whose weekend golf in the PGA was matched only by John Parry, and who has a high-profile amateur win at Victoria to his name – not to mention one of these tucked away already.
Davis is a best of 12/1 from 16s which seems an appropriate adjustment but I'd rather cast the net a little wider now the market has been pinched, with Lucas Herbert struggling with a disc problem, Ryan Fox unappealing after such a tiring stretch, and Adam Scott having failed to build on a strong start last week.
My vote goes to TAKUMI KANAYA, who is narrowly preferred to compatriot Ryo Hisatsune after the pair finished seventh and second respectively behind Smith.
That's the second time lately that Hisatsune has outperformed his friend, having sailed through DP World Tour Qualifying School where Kanaya came up just short. But the former world amateur number one still has greater substance to his form book overall, and it includes a fine record Down Under.
Five years ago, Kanaya impressed many observers when taking advantage of an invite to finish 11th in the New South Wales Open while still an amateur, and he followed that with 19th place in the Australian Open. A year later and still in the unpaid ranks he returned to finish 17th, before leading after round one and sticking around in the top five all week in 2019.
All of this came before he finally made the leap to pro golf in 2020 and last week marked his return to Australia, as he defied a slow start to climb 85 places with three sub-70 rounds. In doing so he scrambled brilliantly, as he so often has, and Kanaya's game is one which so obviously works in Australian conditions: he's a fairways-first golfer who can be deadly on and around the greens.
Seventh in the Japan Open at the end of October, one shot behind Scott having been the halfway leader, he can be forgiven what was still a sound effort at Qualifying School, and he's more than capable of following Dan Bradbury's lead and earning status by winning.
It's something he's made look fairly straightforward on home soil and while it's been a bit of a frustrating year, one which will have taught him plenty, he ends it with his game back in tip-top shape. Victory at the expense of a handful of top Australians would come as no surprise whatsoever.
Returning to the home contingent and while they hold the aces, it's because of a small group of players. We know that the gap between the PGA of Australia and even the DP World Tour is wide, and even home advantage isn't generally enough to cover it. If we're backing one of the locals, my view is they ought to be a class act or one with that kind of potential, unless they're a monster price.
Australian golf pundits have been purring about Jeffrey Guan for some time and he arrives in excellent form, while both Connor McKinney and Hayden Hopewell made solid professional debuts last week. All three are considered and there's certainly scope for a youngster to get involved, but my hope is that it's HARRISON CROWE.
Currently the top-ranked Australian amateur owing to his recent victory in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship, Crowe won't be turning professional just yet given that in winning in Thailand he earned invites to the Masters in April as well as the Open in July.
At 21, he's just that bit more experienced than Guan and that applies to Victoria Golf Club, where he won the Australian Master of the Amateurs earlier this year having been seventh a couple of years prior. Also a two-time winner of the Victorian Amateur at the Metropolitan and Peninsula Kingswood, so much of his best golf has come in the vicinity and specifically at this week's host venue.
The likes of McKinney, Guan, Hopewell and Elvis Smylie have also featured in the Master of the Amateurs here and none got the better of Crowe, so I'm of the view that he's the best value of the potential superstars after what was a decent effort in the Australian PGA Championship.
Crowe signed off there with a bogey-free 66, one of the best rounds on Sunday, and while a high-profile tee-time on Thursday might be a worry, Scott and Davis are two relaxed, affable characters who should put him at ease. Aaron Baddeley won this as an amateur and I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that Crowe follows suit.
Victories for Abraham Ancer, Jordan Spieth, Rory McIlroy and Tim Clark confirm that the best overseas raiders have to be considered major threats, but there is an absence of star quality among them this year outside the two Japanese players mentioned, plus Rasmus Hojgaard and Adrian Meronk.
Neither of those two would look ideal types on paper though so I'll cast the net much wider to ALEJANDRO CANIZARES, who certainly is when at his best.
Canizares has some Kingston Heath form having been ninth behind Tiger Woods there in 2009, a pretty quiet year overall, and that's not the first time he's found something for a trip to Australia. Last week's T12 made it four top-15s in seven and having played in just three of what were the Triple Crown events, he's been in the mix each time.
This will be his debut in the Australian Open and he looks in good shape for it, his tour-level form reading 28-20-MC-37-12. Between the last two of those he fared well enough at Qualifying School and all of this good play has been powered by his strengths, iron play and putting, with his short and sometimes crooked driving the obvious weakness.
That formula would be very similar to Poulter and with his 40th birthday just a few weeks away, Canizares is showing that he might have something still to offer. It was only during a tough third round that he struggled last week but he was close to the lead after a sensational outward nine on Sunday, and there should be more to come.
The Spaniard is a proven winner who loves firm conditions and after a cryptic social media post last week, he's clearly feeling fortunate and positive. There's no reason he can't work his way into contention as he does fairly regularly on those rare occasions he plays short courses which draw out his strengths.
I've written a lot about the best young Australian players lately and some will want to go in again on David Micheluzzi at 50/1 from 80s, but Ryan Fox and Lydia Ko have made it a fabulous year for New Zealand golf and it could just get better still.
Fox of course has a squeak here despite my personal reservations, but don't rule out a surprise win for DENZEL IEREMIA, who plays alongside Micheluzzi and Devon Bling over the first two rounds.
That's a nod to his own potential and Ieremia has shown that he means business since returning to action, first blowing away the cobwebs in the Western Australia PGA, then featuring prominently in each of the subsequent four events.
Fifth in the WA Open was followed by seventh in the Victorian PGA, and it's only difficult third rounds in borderline brutal conditions which have halted this run of top-10s. He was fourth at halfway in Queensland only to shoot 78 on one of the most challenging days he'll face on the golf course, and last week's 75 saw him fade from fifth to 20th.
Ieremia can surely take heart from the way he responded to both these blows and it'd been a similar tale back in 2019, when he played well for three of the four rounds in five events running before everything fell into place for a top-five finish on his Australian Open debut.
Like so many promising young players from this part of the world he's struggled at times since, largely due to the pandemic but also because of a desire to try his hand overseas, but back close to home he's quickly set about reminding us all of his potential. Don't be surprised if he's on the leaderboard again.
Veterans Marcus Fraser and Cameron Percy are both former winners of the Victorian Amateur Championship – Fraser at Kingston Heath, Percy at Victoria – and the latter in particular has to be considered along with fellow PGA Tour returnee Harrison Endycott, very much at the other end of the experience scale but clearly fulfilling his own potential now.
That's not quite been true for Brett Coletta, once a player with the world at his feet, but he's back home in Melbourne and might surprise a few. His two missed cuts coming in have been by narrow margins and prior to them he'd been in excellent form, finishing second courtesy of a brilliant weekend's golf less than an hour away from here.
However, I'll finish off with a real flier on DEREK ACKERMAN, an American who came to Australia to try to get his professional career off the ground on the advice of his coach.
"He wanted me to play internationally, playing different conditions, different courses," said Ackerman, this after winning The National PGA Classic just a short drive from Victoria GC.
"I had some connections out here to make it feel like home. I came here for a family trip three years ago, got to play Royal Melbourne, played New South Wales with my dad. I love links golf, especially courses like this, because you have so many shots that you can hit. It’s not just a stock shot like some American golf courses.
"I was trying to do the Brooks Koepka path, in a sense. It’s part of the path for me."
Ackerman's first start came in the co-sanctioned Vic Open, the event which laid the path for this groundbreaking Australian Open, and he shot 67-69 to lie 14th at halfway before a poor third round saw him miss the smaller-than-usual cut.
That was a decent first try in an event won by Min Woo Lee ahead of Fox, and while it took time to build on it he was an impressive winner back in April, spending most of the week out in front. Two subsequent starts offered some promise, particularly when contending for the Western Australian Open, and so did 34th place on his return to the country last week.
Melbourne is more familiar so that ought to help, and so should the fact he's since opened up his options. Ackerman was T6 at DP World Tour Qualifying School Second Stage and after a slow start to Final Stage, he snuck through the cut and then carded a final-round 65, earning Challenge Tour status for 2023.
Alongside him there was Yanwei Liu, who so nearly hit the frame for us at as big as 500/1 in places and is now as short as 66s for this, and we've already seen a handful of players keep things rolling from Q School including the man who won it, Simon Forsstrom.
Ackerman comes with risks and unknowns but his stats for last week were strong and he's a winner nearby, as well as in minor company back home in California recently, which earns him preference over compatriot Gunner Wiebe, son of Mark, who did get his card in Spain. He's another longshot to consider at 300/1 but Ackerman has greater scope and might surprise a few.
Posted at 1120 GMT on 29/11/22
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