Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Jonsson Workwear Open preview and best bets
Casey Jarvis can make home comforts count in the Jonsson Workwear Open, where Ben Coley looks to follow up last year's 100/1 winning selection.
Golf betting tips: Jonsson Workwear Open
1pt e.w. Marcus Armitage at 70/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Richie Ramsay at 70/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Casey Jarvis at 90/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Julien Brun at 100/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Deon Germishuys at 100/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Dale Whitnell at 200/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Had I been paying attention at the time, the low-key release of the 2024 Race to Dubai programme might've brought about an unwanted dose of off-season apprehension, even if that off-season lasted no more than 72 hours.
Because while for the most part there were few surprises in terms of tournament names and locations, four of the very easiest courses to profile disappeared. Out went Marco Simone, where we've had a winner and several places. Out went Albatross, where we've twice had the nearest of near-misses. Out went Dom Pedro, where we've had the one-two and the two-three. And out went Steyn City, where we and many others had the 100/1 winner last year.
Along with Al Hamra, these make up perhaps the five most driver-friendly courses on the schedule. Or else they did. And Al Hamra, home of the Ras al Khaimah Championship, has been and gone already. After a few frustrating Sundays on the DP World Tour so far this year, including the latest one where Dan Brown was never at the races, I would very much like to have these courses back right now please.
Instead, Nick Bachem will defend his Jonsson Workwear Open title at Glendower, which would otherwise have represented a welcome return to the schedule. This old-fashioned course, long on the scorecard but shortened by altitude, last hosted the SA Open in 2018, when Chris Paisley beat Branden Grace and in doing so succeeded Graeme Storm, who overcame Rory McIlroy to capture the same title after a play-off.
It is very different to Steyn City. Glendower is classical and tree-lined and, in general, a good deal more difficult than that wide-open field. There are few cheap birdies to be found and much greater peril lurking, and in general the profile of contenders has been more to do with tidiness than brawn. Arrow-straight Storm, master scrambler Paisley and all-rounder Andy Sullivan suggest that players like Bachem won't have things all their own way, which in terms of finding the winner is a great shame.
As ever, form in South Africa still merits close attention given the climate and the grasses, but if there's one course that is worth a glance it might be Eichenried, home of the BMW International Open. Storm, Paisley, Sullivan, Brandon Stone and Morten Orum Madsen, the last five winners of SA Opens at Glendower, all have form at that mid-difficulty, traditional golf course, and that certainly piques my interest.
Jordan Smith, third behind Storm and McIlroy, also has that Eichenried form but he's gone badly off the boil, so the strongest options at the head of the betting look to be Thriston Lawrence and Tom McKibbin. The latter is on the way to becoming the best player on the circuit while Lawrence is the benchmark in these events, played beautifully last weekend, and is the reigning BMW International Open champion.
The negatives are that McKibbin makes his course debut, which wasn't the case last week nor when selected on his two previous starts, and with another couple of points off his price I'm happy looking elsewhere. As for Lawrence, his record here is poor and while he's improved enormously since last playing at Glendower, I have to say I do feel he's had things fall in his lap an awful lot. That's not his problem but I do think it slightly inflates his standing and short prices are hard to stomach.
Go on my (Jarvis) cocker...
So it's a speculative staking plan for me this week, headed by CASEY JARVIS, a youngster with a very bright future but perhaps capable of winning a title like this already.
Jarvis has been considered one of the best South African prospects for years now, having captured both the SA Amateur and SA Strokeplay titles in 2020, and gone on to collect the Freddie Tait Cup for the leading amateur in the SA Open on his way to top spot in the world rankings.
It won't have surprise anyone that he breezed through the Challenge Tour last year, winning at a fiddly, parkland course in Austria, and nor would it have surprised anyone to see his best golf up at DP World Tour level coming under familiar conditions on home soil.
Having been in the mix at halfway at Blair Atholl in the SA Open he went on to be seventh at Leopard Creek, and a return to South Africa did the trick last week as he produced four solid rounds for 12th place at St Francis Links.
It's true that he does like that course but Jarvis won the African Amateur at Glendower by a mighty eight shots and knows it very well, having grown up close by and played it many times as a junior golfer.
This will be his first start here as a professional but on the back of a solid return to form by the coast, returning inland to play in front of friends and family might just see him take another step forward and contend at the weekend.
I did wonder whether Jayden Schaper might improve for a return to this sort of course having been buffeted around in the breeze over the past few weeks, but he's been running up some big numbers and at 40/1, I'd rather take Dan Bradbury and hope that he uses his six-iron to putt with.
Bradbury's tee-to-green game has been superb for some time now, he's already won in South Africa and returned to contend a couple more times, but he's quietly developed some of the very worst putting numbers on the DP World Tour. Until something changes he's hard to side with even in this company.
Putting problems have occasionally held back MARCUS ARMITAGE but he does often back up a good performance, so last week's top-five could be significant even if it did come under contrasting conditions.
When Armitage won the European Open back in 2021 he'd been eighth the week before and this is fairly common for him. He'd gone 10-4 during the spring of the same year and his next six top-10s all came soon after a show of promise, albeit second place in the Dunhill Links last October was from out of the blue.
He'd played pretty well in Kenya before a top-five in the SDC Championship and, as usual, his iron play has been excellent. The difference last week was the putter and while there's a nagging concern that those slow, links greens won't prove much of a guide, in general down the years he's putted better than his baseline here in South Africa.
That's partly why he has such a strong record here, contending to some extent on six of his last 15 visits and famously sealing an Open spot via third place in the SA Open at Randpark. His record at Glendower doesn't look so good, but he missed the cut narrowly on his first go, then showed a bit of promise on his first start of the year in 2018.
Returning this time with some good golf behind him, I think it's the right sort of course for such a solid ball-striker like him, someone comfortable working the ball both ways, and at 66/1 or thereabouts he's a classy player with the ability to win an event like this.
So is RICHIE RAMSAY and I want to stick with him despite a quiet week at St Francis Links.
Ramsay did finish on the front foot, coming home in 32 on Sunday, and at first in fairways and greens, we don't need to dwell too long on some slightly flawed strokes-gained numbers (caddie-collected data) to know that he was in full control of his ball.
We know he's comfortable playing links golf but Ramsay's first pro win came in South Africa at Pearl Valley, a parkland course, and he ought to have won at the Belfry in 2022. Having been 13th at Eichenried last year and bagged top-fives at Le Golf National, his form ties in quite nicely with the likes of Sullivan, Paisley, Stone and Storm.
Ramsay hasn't missed a cut in an age now and is a proper, old-fashioned ball-striker who should enjoy the challenge presented by Glendower, so having finished strongly on his St Francis debut I'm happy sticking with him at a few points bigger for this eminently winnable event.
Have some fun with 100/1 Brun
Jacques Kruyswijk and JC Ritchie are two strong-hitting locals with form at the course and Ritchie in particular made some appeal at 80/1. He showed how well he was playing with a string of nice results on the Challenge Tour last month and while coming unstuck last week, that was a difficult test and possibly not the sort he'd really want.
Ritchie's putting will remain a worry and having put up Schaper and Thomas Aiken at 40/1 and 250/1 respectively before Christmas, backing the latter at 66/1 is hard enough to do. He was disappointing under the gun on the Challenge Tour recently and while Aiken is playing his best golf in years, ending a decade-long drought will be a tall order.
Instead I'll take a chance on JULIEN BRUN, a player of definite upside in this kind of company.
Brun hadn't shown a great deal to begin the year but for the most part those big, modern courses in the Middle East work against one of the shortest hitters on the circuit.
It therefore wasn't a big surprise to see him step forward on a course which asked a different set of questions last week and while those strokes-gained figures do have to be taken with a pinch of salt, it was interesting to see that he appeared to have a quiet week with the putter.
Typically a strength of his, that gives us natural scope for further improvement and at eighth in driving accuracy, and with his irons typically excellent, Brun appears to be getting it all together – something he hinted at on Instagram a couple of weeks ago.
We know French golf is flying thanks to Matthieu Pavon, David Ravetto and now Victor Perez, and Brun can do his bit at Glendower, as he's a very similar player to some of those who contended when the SA Open last came here.
His compatriot Clement Sordet is closer than he may look and has won in South Africa before, while I did look twice at Matthias Schwab, who also loves it down here. Schwab almost won at Eichenried in 2019 so if that correlation does work out, he's one who could pop up at a big price for all that stringing rounds together remains an issue.
Daniel van Tonder (course winner) and DEON GERMISHUYS are two other members of the home contingent who merit respect and I'm keen to side with the latter.
He played very poorly last Friday to miss the cut, but that took his record at St Francis Links to MC-MC-MC and is therefore possible to overlook.
Do so and you'll find a player who was ninth in Kenya, and whose debut here in 2020, which followed a missed cut, saw him improve as the week went on to finish sixth behind van Tonder.
With George Coetzee (miss you, GC) second that was a strong renewal of the Sunshine Tour Championship and Germishuys returns having improved since, playing well for parts of his debut DP World Tour season even if he fell short of keeping his card.
A tidy player who was ninth at a tight, fiddly course in Japan and 15th in the Soudal Open before finishing a best of third in the Netherlands, he went on to qualify for the US Open where he wasn't disgraced despite a missed cut.
Germishuys isn't in the Jarvis or Schaper bracket but at 24 there's more to come, and if you can look beyond one round at a course he doesn't like, his each-way prospects look strong.
Finally, I want to chance DALE WHITNELL on his return to action.
Last year's winner of the Scandinavian Mixed returned to something approaching that level with a string of decent efforts either side of Christmas, including 17th at Blair Atholl and 23rd at Al Hamra, while he was inside the top 20 through three rounds of the Dubai Desert Classic.
These are all strong form-lines in this grade and they came at courses which are really too much about driving for Whitnell to be seen to best effect, and I reckon he'd have turned up here at half the odds had this event taken place at the end of January.
Instead our last look at him was a missed cut in Bahrain but not only did that course allow for a wild slugger like Dylan Frittelli to get away with aggression off the tee, but Whitnell picked up a bug early in the week which might have affected his performance.
Refreshed following a return home to Florida, hopefully he can produce the form shown this time last year, when 12th in Singapore, ninth in Thailand, then 32nd in the SDC Championship, all of which would give him a chance in this weaker field.
Fundamentally I think it's a course he'll like, one which won't place him at an immediate disadvantage off the tee, and he's shown flashes of form at Eichenried for another small boost to his chances.
Posted at 1700 GMT on 04/03/24
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