Ben Coley's golf betting tips: British Challenge preview and best bets
Ben Coley previews the British Challenge, where young star Casey Jarvis looks a value bet but experience is generally favoured.
Golf betting tips: British Challenge
1pt e.w. Casey Jarvis at 60/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Robin Roussel at 70/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Jonathan Caldwell at 100/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Dave Horsey at 125/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
0.5pt e.w. Richard McEvoy at 275/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
0.5pt e.w. Oliver Farr at 300/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
With the DP World Tour taking its mid-summer break, much to the supposed aggravation of some who are totally unaffected by it, several firms have stepped up to offer Challenge Tour prices nice and early this week. The power of Niall Horan, whose Modest! Golf Management hosts the British Challenge, knows no bounds.
Back on the schedule in 2021, this event moved to St Mellion last October where Euan Walker birdied the last two holes to win on a tough and dramatic Sunday. October conditions played their part but this course is straightforwardly difficult, fairways being so hard to hit and the punishment for missing them quite severe. There's very little given away cheaply and that final round threw up just a single eagle.
Early leader Steven Tiley spoke about how well suited he was to this Jack Nicklaus design because of how straight he hits it, and the fact that very often players were forced to lay-up to the same spots on par-fives.
Matthew Baldwin, who contended and has since gone on to win at another Nicklaus design on the big tour, said: "You just have to plot your way around this course without being too aggressive because you have to take some spin off your approach shots. I like the set up and it seems to reward straight sensible golf, so it is good for me."
Behind Walker, the likes of John Parry, Adrien Saddier and Simon Forsstrom all support the idea that finding fairways is vital, or at the very least avoiding disaster off the tee. Sharp short-games will also be necessary as greens are difficult to hit, even if they'll have been softened by rain during what was a wet July.
A combination of the look and feel of this course and the leaderboard it produced suggests that we have a couple of good recent form guides on this circuit, namely the Euram Bank Open and the event at Golf PGA France du Vaudreuil which was won by straight-hitting Darren Fichardt, and has been won by Tiley in the past.
Adamstal is where Walker has finished third and second in two starts and he was fifth at Vaudreuil this summer, too, so there's a good chance that scouring these leaderboards might help find the winner. Above all else, when looking at the head of the betting I would say this course is far more Matteo Manassero than it is Wilco Nienaber.
Go on my cocker...
Manassero has to be respected as does Fichardt, but CASEY JARVIS was a front-running winner at Adamstal (Walker a clear second) and rates excellent value to double his tally.
Jarvis is in fact the leader on the Road to Mallorca having been the first player to pass a thousand points, which should mean he's a shoo-in for DP World Tour status next season.
This young South African is a massive talent, that much is clear, and while you'd think a lack of experience might be a handicap around these quirkier courses, he spoke about his clear plan of attack at Adamstal, which was all about strategy off the tee. He'll look to employ something similar here.
Granted, he's played once since and missed the cut, but that's forced his price out to around the 66/1 mark and as arguably the most promising player in this field, he looks excellent value.
His position atop the season-long points standings reflects the fact that he's also been second in the Czech Republic and Denmark, plus at home in an event co-sanctioned by the Sunshine Tour, so he's been very close on a number of occasions.
Inconsistency is part of the package at the age of 20, but there's huge upside too and at 50/1 and upwards he has to be backed. We could be talking about a genuine star here and I'm not sure I'd have him at this price anywhere on the Challenge Tour.
Further up the betting, Ashley Chesters is pound-for-pound the most accurate driver on any tour in the world and having been in the mix regularly of late, he has to be respected along with a class-dropping Renato Paratore, who is a very different player but often benefits from tight courses that force him to rein it in.
Paratore has made five of his last six DP World Tour cuts, missing the other by a single shot, and could be the latest Italian to win at this level during what's been a golden year for them. He's got a dynamite short-game, is a winner at the undulating and tricky Close House, and came alive at this time last year. Of those priced below 50/1, he's the one I fear the most having driven it better lately.
Narrow preference though is for in-form ROBIN ROUSSEL at twice the price of Paratore.
Seven top-six finishes including a win from his last 30 or so Challenge Tour starts underline that Roussel is a class act at this level, something we've seen again recently with fifth place in Italy, fourth at Adamstal, and then a decent effort last week when he felt his putter was ice cold.
That club is often a strength and Roussel is an accurate driver, ranking 36th for fairways hit on the DP World Tour last year. Up at that level he wasn't far off the top 10 when Paratore won at Close House, while he has some Nicklaus form courtesy of 26th at Hanbury Manor, too.
His win back in 2019 came during a hot run of form, similar to that which he's produced lately, and his performance at Adamstal offers real encouragement that he'll take to St Mellion at the first time of asking. There aren't many players in the field with positive memories of the course, almost none who know it really well, and he looks a good fit.
One man who has been here practising recently is Rhys Enoch, who is based in Cornwall. But for a double-bogey at the 18th hole on Sunday he'd have finished second, but while he does know this course well – he was runner-up in an amateur event behind Sam Hutsby some 15 years ago – Enoch is a powerful driver who might not be all that well suited to it despite a Nicklaus win in Slovakia.
Horsey can go well fresh
Hutsby is a better course fit but at a bigger price I'm inclined to chance DAVE HORSEY, who comes here looking to prepare himself for the return of the DP World Tour in a fortnight.
Horsey has largely struggled this year, missing the cut in seven of his eight starts while battling neck issues, but he's taken time out to remedy the latter and it's notable that his best effort came in the Soudal Open, won by Forsstrom. He played well there last year too and it makes sense as he's always been about accuracy from the tee, ranking 25th last season and 13th in 2021.
While the form book shows only big numbers in four starts since, one of those was the US Open, another at the massive Green Eagle, so he's not necessarily had opportunities under his conditions. When he did, in a US Open qualifier at Walton Heath, he shot rounds of 70 and 65 to finish second, suggesting his game isn't totally lost.
Go back through his form book and you'll see plenty of good Nicklaus form, too. He won in Russia at Tseleevo, was seventh at Gut Larchenhof, 13th at London GC and 14th at Gleneagles, and the first-named in particular was always a good layout for the straightest hitters around.
That's certainly true of St Mellion so while this is a bit of a fact-finding mission for Horsey, he surely wouldn't be here were his neck a big worry. Dropping to Challenge Tour level for the first time since topping the standings in 2008, I think bookmakers are taking a bit of a chance around here with three-figure prices.
Young Finnish players Matias Honkala and Oliver Lindell both have a fondness for Adamstal and are interesting. The former is in better shape generally, but Lindell was 30th here when out of sorts last October and, having missed the cut by one last week, caught the eye. Six-over early on on Ireland, he was six-under over the final 30 or so holes and doesn't look far away.
Experience is generally preferred however and JONATHAN CALDWELL, a former EuroPro regular with winning form in England, might be able to put his to use.
Caldwell won in Sweden for us a couple of summers ago at a course where straight hitting was vital, and after a slow start to his Challenge Tour campaign he found conditions to his liking once more when leading through 54 holes at Vaudreuil.
Though fading there, he was a good 26th in Italy a week later, missed the cut under really tough conditions in Germany, then played solidly in Ireland last week to hang around inside the top 10 following a second-round 66.
That's three good performances in four for this former Walker Cup player whose strengths are finding fairways and holing putts. Eighth at Close House in the summer of 2020, it wouldn't surprise me were he to build on his first top-10 finish of the year at what should be a suitable course.
Craig Howie is another with the game for this course in theory and he could go well while Rikard Karlberg has bits and pieces of strong Nicklaus form, but I'm sticking with the idea that the Vaudreuil Golf Challenge could hold the key and will chance two experienced players at massive odds.
Farr from a no-hoper
First, OLIVER FARR was runner-up to Fichardt there and while it's been a feast-or-famine year, 200/1 and upwards is too big to turn down.
Three top-sixes and nine missed cuts make up his last dozen starts, although like Horsey there's also some hidden qualifying form as he wasn't far behind last week's winner Brandon Robinson Thompson when sealing a place in the Open.
At 16th in driving accuracy and ninth in scrambling on the DP World Tour last year, Farr has the right formula for this course and he knows it better than some, having also taken part in that amateur event won by Hutsby many moons ago.
He's played well enough in two appearances at Mount Juliet to provide some Nicklaus form and has a couple of top-10s in England on the main circuit, while it should be noted that he's won three Challenge Tour events from around a hundred starts and typically when conditions were tough.
Farr could bomb out but he started well enough last week and this time last year put together a really strong run of form at a higher level than this. He's well worth the risk.
RICHARD MCEVOY is about as straight as they come off the tee and he was fifth in France, behind Fichardt and Farr and alongside St Mellion winner, Walker.
Since then he's gone MC-MC-39, but the first of the three was in Denmark on the DP World Tour where, for the second time running, his approach play was of a very decent standard.
Hamstrung by his lack of power at that level, McEvoy might not be down in grade at this particular course and while 39th in Ireland was not spectacular, Friday's 63 certainly was and suggests he remains in the sort of form that saw him hit the frame at Vaudreuil.
McEvoy has won two of his last 20 Challenge Tour starts and he'd been 33rd a week prior to the last of them, which came at Vaudreuil in 2018. A similar preparation might just have set him up for another run at the title at what looks to be a similar course.
Sam Bairstow and Albin Bergstrom are younger players with bright futures who've shown something recently, but while happy to chance the potentially top-class Jarvis, the general rule here is that experience and accuracy are far more valuable than is so often the case.
Posted at 1200 BST on 01/08/23
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