Ben Coley's golf betting tips: British Masters preview and best bets
Justin Rose can justify favouritism and his status as the star name in the field at this week's Betfred British Masters according to Ben Coley.
Golf betting tips: Betfred British Masters
5pts win Justin Rose at 10/1 (General - 11/1 available in places)
2pts e.w. Robert MacIntyre at 35/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Marcus Armitage at 125/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. J.C. Ritchie at 200/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
1pt e.w. Jamie Donaldson at 300/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)
It'll be a big week for the farmhands of Montana as Sir Nick Faldo departs his 125-acre ranch to host the Betfred British Masters where, along with the boost brought by a knight of the realm, there's a bumper prize fund on offer.
£3million is still quite a bit less than $20million mind you so it's to JUSTIN ROSE's credit that he chose to skip the Travelers Championship and freshen up for a summer back home, starting at the Belfry's Brabazon Course where he's firmly the man to beat.
Rose stumbled out of the blocks at the US Open last time but a second-round 68 confirmed his game remains in the sort of shape which had previously seen him string together a run of top-25s from the Masters through to the Canadian Open, where he was sent off 16/1 and Adrian Meronk could be backed at 50s.
My view is that this kind of PGA Tour form is still badly underestimated in the betting and as it was powered by quality iron play, very much the number one requirement this week, Rose must surely be the man to beat. He deserves to be priced as a strong favourite in a field which lacks star power, where Meronk is now just three points bigger in the betting.
Yes, Min Woo Lee is bang in-form and theoretically boasts a superior record at the course, but it's been built in a couple of ho-hum renewals of this event. By contrast, Rose was playing among the best in Europe back at the beginning of the century and his missed cuts are of no relevance. One of them came days after he'd won in Japan, another when he was wet behind the ears and searching for form.
Lee also has to fly in from Connecticut whereas Rose returned to England following the US Open and with in-form Meronk also playing for the fourth week in succession, Rose's edge extends beyond class, strike-rate and home advantage to a likely freshness edge over two of the four players who populate the top of the market.
The other is Jordan Smith, who continued to flush it as he outperformed Rose at Los Angeles Country Club, and he's my idea of the danger man. However, two wins in six years, one of them when gifted the title in Germany after Alex Levy missed a two-foot putt, is not a strike-rate which suggests 16/1 offers value given the three quality operators who are priced shorter still.
Of the quartet it's Rose who holds the aces and I'm not sure he's ever played in a weaker event on home soil. Winner of the British Masters in 2002 and a regular contender at Wentworth, this looks a massive opportunity to all but seal his Ryder Cup return and I'd expected him to be priced at close to the 6/1 mark.
Accordingly, we have to break ranks despite generous each-way terms and back him win-only to stamp his class on the tournament.
Don't duck Donaldson at massive odds
Journalism school teaches you to get to the point, or so I read on twitter, but apologies nevertheless for interfering with the metre of these previews. With Rose's case argued, we can return to it to establish just what it is that we're looking for this week, besides the winner.
Firstly, that point about approach play. It is the glue that sticks Thorbjorn Olesen, Sebastian Soderberg and Richie Ramsay together, last year's contenders, each of whom traded odds-on during that thrilling finish which saw Olesen roll in two stunning putts to win by one.
It's also the staple of Justin Walters' game, the South African veteran who has two top-three finishes in three Brabazon starts, just as it is 2021 hero Richard Bland and two of my selections who featured in the final couple of groups at big prices that week, Edoardo Molinari and Eddie Pepperell.
Many of these names have cropped up at Valderrama along with Martin Kaymer, who perhaps should've won at both courses in the pandemic autumn of 2020. Crans-sur-Sierre, home of the European Masters, is no less visible through Soderberg and Ramsay, both former winners there, and Rasmus Hojgaard, who has done the double.
One name that crops up all over these leaderboards is that of JAMIE DONALDSON, and the veteran rates the best bet among the outsiders, such that he's promoted to second mention.
Donaldson has four top-10s in Switzerland where he continued to play well on his last visit in 2021, while he had every chance at Valderrama when 10th in 2020, was fourth there in 2017, and again played well last October to finish 28th, one of his best five finishes of the season.
Another of the five came here when he finished eighth, and that performance reads better still when you consider that he'd managed a best of 40th in seven starts dating back to Abu Dhabi in January. Out of nowhere, he found his game and it's remarkable how often he can still do that when playing either at home, or at a course he loves.
Donaldson went on to be 20th in Ireland and sixth in Scotland, earning an Open Championship start in the process, while his other best performance of the campaign came when sixth in France, Le Golf National being a course at which he's contended many times previously.
Here in England he has five top-15s in eight starts since 2020 and is on a run of 3-2-8-MC at the moment, going close to winning at Wentworth during this stretch, so on the back of a field-leading display of approach work in Germany he looks to have found a return to form at just the right time.
Donaldson missed April and May and took a while to find his form in June, but his second-round 67 despite a closing bogey six was much more like it and he continued to produce some solid golf throughout the weekend, particularly late on Sunday.
Olesen showed last year that it's possible to win this title without driving the ball well and if Donaldson's iron play remains of a high standard, as it was in this event last May, then another big run at a big price is well within his capabilities.
The sponsors offer the standout 300/1 and 10 places at the time of writing. That of course is likely to disappear sharpish but anything 200/1 and upwards makes the Welshman the best of the each-way bets.
Third time lucky for MacIntyre
Moving back up the market and there are reasons to oppose a number of the big names. Yannik Paul and Rasmus Hojgaard both withdrew in Germany, where Joost Luiten blew a golden opportunity which he'll do well to recover from so quickly, and Alex Bjork remains likely to find a way to get beaten.
Victor Perez will have departed with a spring in his step after a fine salvage operation following a nightmarish start but the one I took out of it was ROBERT MACINTYRE, who looks a good fit for the Brabazon.
MacIntyre contended here when sent off favourite in 2021, eventually settling for eighth, and he'd have been in the mix again last year but for producing a rotten week with the putter which meant that he could only finish 36th despite a top-10 display from tee-to-green.
Having sided with him then I do want to give him another chance at a bigger price and that's partly because he left Germany content that he'd played better than he'd scored in finishing 18th, by some way his best effort yet in three visits to Munich.
MacIntyre told The Scotsman's Martin Dempster that he didn't mind if his bad luck came early in an important run, one which will determine his Ryder Cup prospects, and across this event, Denmark next week, the Scottish Open and the Open itself, he'll hope to do enough to achieve his long-held goal.
As ever he's left no stone unturned and that means going back to old coach Davie Burns and caddie Greg Milne. MacIntyre had worked with both for a long time prior to making changes in 2020 (caddie) and 2022 (coach) so there shouldn't be any excuses even in the short-term.
What's interesting about those previous tweaks is that he won in Cyprus not long after the caddie switch, then in Italy within two months of changing coaches, so no doubt he'll be hoping for a similar shot in the arm during another massive summer in his young career.
MacIntyre's approach play and putting both look to be in a good place and that's likely key to winning the British Masters, an event in which he was also second at Hillside in 2019. At 33/1, he rates an excellent each-way play as his ceiling is so much higher than a number of rivals high up the betting.
Ramsay looks rock-solid as he bids to find the ultimate response to his final-hole mistake which cost him the title 12 months ago. The accurate Scot has an excellent game for this course, arrives in form and is a must for the shortlist, but I wouldn't want to go below 50/1 so at that price with four or five firms, he has to be left out.
With Richard Mansell the same sort of price for this as he was in Germany I'll go further down the market to find MARCUS ARMITAGE, who might just benefit from having skipped last week's event.
Prior to missing the cut by a single shot at a new course in the Scandinavian Mixed, it appeared as though The Bullet had begun to fire once more: from Italy to the European Open he went 9-28-29-22, his trademark approach play back on-song and the putter behaving itself for the most part.
Based on that form it's a surprise that he's priced up at three-figures here, having been seventh in 2020 and then sat second through 54 holes in 2022. Three back of the lead, Armitage closed within one after a birdie at the first, but thereafter limped home to finish 27th.
Contending twice in three starts at the Brabazon tells you his game is a good fit for a course he knows very well and so it should be, as Armitage is at his best when birdies aren't all that easy to come by and when his iron play can really flourish.
A good putting week is all it takes for him to have a look at winning this should he continue to hit quality approaches, which he did in Sweden, and with the flat-stick firing on all bar one of his recent starts there seems every chance that he's in the mix here once more.
Julien Guerrier's improved strokes-gained approach numbers are hugely eye-catching and he's on the shortlist along with Edoardo Molinari, a real fan of the course who contended last week and will continue to do so such is the quality of his long-game. As far as his chances of winning go, he'll need to turn things around with the putter.
That club kept John Catlin out of the top 10 in Sweden recently but 21st place there was a nice step in the right direction and the American's three DP World Tour wins all came at tricky, tree-lined courses which in some way correlate with this one: Valderrama, Galgorm Castle, and Diamond GC.
His approach work was much better in Sweden and as if to demonstrate that this is a golfer who needs very specific conditions in order to thrive, his 11th place at Valderrama last year came out of the blue just as 15th place in Kenya did earlier in 2023, but I wanted slightly more from the price.
Thriston Lawrence's victory was part of a fantastic weekend for South African golf as Christo Lamprecht took the Amateur Championship, and my eye was drawn to several of their compatriots.
Hennie Du Plessis is hitting the ball really well, Jayden Schaper is surely going to hang around all week soon enough and Wilco Nienaber's long-game stats in Germany were the best of his career, but it's JC RITCHIE who looks to have sneaked in below the radar.
Ritchie has been far more prolific than Du Plessis back home and while he's struggling badly on the greens at the moment, that had been the case a year ago before he arrived here and ranked slightly above-average on his way to eighth place.
Fourth in strokes-gained approach for the week, he returns having just produced an almost identical figure to rank second in Germany, and his long-game is certainly in a good enough place to have a good go at winning an event like this despite massive prices.
Most likely is that Ritchie's short-game issues continue but he was at least better on Sunday and there are few in this field who look to be hitting the ball as well as he is. Given his immediate liking for the Brabazon last year, that's enough to justify a speculative punt on the putter coming good.
Posted at 2000 BST on 26/06/23
Safer gambling
We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.
If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline / GamCare on 0808 8020 133.
Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org and gamblingtherapy.org.