Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Magical Kenya Open preview and best bets
Shubhankar Sharma can win the Magical Kenya Open according to golf expert Ben Coley, who has four each-way selections.
Golf betting tips: Magical Kenya Open
2pts e.w. Guido Migliozzi at 45/1 (Sky Bet, Unibet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
2pts e.w. Shubhankar Sharma at 60/1 (Sky Bet, William Hill 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1.5pts e.w. Masahiro Kawamura at 50/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1.5pts e.w. Nacho Elvira at 50/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
When the PGA Tour handed out cards to ten DP World Tour members at the end of last season's Race to Dubai, it was assumed that each of the ten would head out to the United States and take every opportunity available. After all, competing with the best players in the world is difficult enough as it is, without handing them a head start.
Jorge Campillo, a mild-mannered, late-blooming, straight-hitting, archetypal European Tour type, chose otherwise. Perhaps he knew that there wouldn't be any Spaniards left over there to help show him the ropes. More likely he had a nagging doubt as to how much it would suit him, and therefore chose to get warmed up in the Middle East first.
Despite the exploits of Matthieu Pavon, it's odds-on that Campillo struggles and I expect he'll end this week wondering if he ought to have delayed his flight further still. Because instead of teeing it up in Mexico, on a big, wide golf course which doesn't suit him one bit, he could've been back in Nairobi defending the title he won so impressively a year ago.
Campillo's success at Muthaiga is the best possible illustration of how this course differs from Karen, which staged this wonderful tournament in 2019 and 2021. Over there, in the southwestern corner of the Kenyan capital, is a course which can be attacked off the tee. Muthaiga, more undulating and even more twisting, for the most part cannot, even if a handful will try.
Johannes Veerman, whose form is similar at both courses, said: "This course is very tight. I cannot stress how big these trees are. You think you can take these carry lines but you can’t because these trees are 40 yards tall." And that, ultimately, is why in 2023 we ended up with a leaderboard, headed by Campillo, which featured several of the straightest drivers on the circuit.
Accuracy counts and so do short-game skills, making this what you might call an old-fashioned test. It'll be firm and, with a bit of wind in the forecast, I doubt it'll be a pushover. Muthaiga is a throwback golf course diametrically opposed to those upon which the year began out in the Middle East and I anticipate more of the same, minus a defending champion.
The top of an open market is competitive, with 10 players priced between 16s and 33s for the most part and John Catlin quickly approaching that sort of price. This is a Catlin golf course and no mistake, but having turned around his form since finishing a lowly 151st on the Race to Dubai, he was never likely to remain on my shortlist for long, given that early support following third place in Malaysia was almost guaranteed.
I do though want to take on the favourites with players from what you might call the middle tier, and I'll start with SHUBHANKAR SHARMA, my favourite bet in this event.
Sharma's missed cut last time out in Qatar and his equivalent missed cut in this event last year are sort of ideal, because both help mask an otherwise compelling profile.
Prior to rounds of 74-71 in Doha, where he's generally been poor, Sharma had been 16th in the Dubai Desert Classic and 37th in the Ras al Khaimah Championship, carding eight rounds of par or better on those two big courses which are built for the powerhouses who dominated both events.
That's not Sharma's game and long-term followers may recall that after struggling a little on these modern courses in the Middle East back in 2018, he headed out to Malaysia and an old-school Sauajana GC to capture the Maybank Championship, at the expense of none other than Campillo.
At 13th in driving accuracy last season and one of the best iron players around when firing, Sharma has the right kind of attributes to now succeed Campillo and if we rewind to 2022, we can see how well suited he is to Muthaiga. Back then, he opened 65-67 to hold the halfway lead and while a third-round 75 took him out of contention, that again just helps obscure so much of the promise.
Sharma has been accurate off the tee in both his starts here and was dynamite around the greens on debut, so he's shown all the skills required for a Kenya Open, while the fact he's won at altitude in Johannesburg and threatened to do so in Mexico is another source of encouragement, one he spoke about two years ago.
Still just 27, Sharma has plenty more to offer and he's most likely to show it at a tighter, tree-lined course like this one. Anything above 40/1 rates value and the standout 60s has to be taken.
Further up the betting, GUIDO MIGLIOZZI is the one I can't get away from.
On the one hand, the Italian isn't the most accurate and having missed the cut here in 2022, three years on from winning at Karen, it would be easy to assume that the course was the problem.
But the truth is that overdue return to Nairobi came at a terrible time. Migliozzi had gone MC-MC-67-MC to begin the year having ended the previous one in poor form, and it would be another couple of months before things started to improve.
This time around he's in much better nick and while he's not built on finishes of 13th and 25th in Dubai in three subsequent starts, that's largely down to his short-game suddenly misfiring. Off the tee he's been pretty solid, while his iron play in Qatar was as good as it has been since he won the Open de France.
Migliozzi's putter comes and goes but he can be very effective with it and the same goes for his scrambling, hence an up-and-down profile which comes with one big selling point: his ability to close things out when a chance does come along.
That could be worth a lot in this sort of company and while Muthaiga remains a bit of unknown, there's a major source of encouragement to be found in his strong Crans record, which includes rounds of 61 and 63 there last year.
Crans, a fiddly course at high altitude, has correlated particularly well with this golf course. Lorenzo Gagli won here and lost a play-off there, Campillo has been fourth in Switzerland, his predecessor Ashun Wu has two top-10s, Muthaiga runner-up Adrien Saddier led late on at Crans, and past Kenya Open winners Gary Boyd and Robert Dinwiddie both contended there.
Go back further and Ricardo Gonzalez, similar in style and profile to Migliozzi, won at both courses, and the latter will be a big danger if hitting it as well as he did in Qatar last time out.
Hat-trick for Japan or same again for Spain?
As you can probably tell I'm more interested in signs of encouragement than bare results given the contrast between this event and those which have preceded it, but MASAHIRO KAWAMURA ticks both boxes.
The Japanese was seventh in the Dubai Desert Classic, a spectacular effort after three months off, and after a couple of quieter weeks was back in good form in Qatar last time, hanging around the top 20 all week long before settling for 16th.
It was on the back of a similar performance that he finished second here last year, gamely nipping at Campillo's heels, and as one of the most accurate drivers on the DP World Tour it's become very clear what sort of golf course he really wants.
Kawamura was the first-round leader at Crans last year, eventually finishing eighth, and he'd been ninth there in 2022. He's also been eighth at Valderrama, third at Galgorm Castle (where Muthaiga leader Ewen Ferguson went on to win) and contended over at Karen, where he was right in the mix at halfway three years ago.
Sixth under tough conditions in a Trophee Hassan II won by Campillo at the very beginning of his DP World Tour career, he's an obvious course fit and one who is bound to feed off successive Japanese winners, Hideki Matsuyama having triumphed soon after Rikuya Hoshino's breakthrough in Doha.
Connor Syme and Alex Fitzpatrick both contended at Crans last year and are respected, but Aaron Cockerill is the only player ahead of Migliozzi in the betting who tempted me. He's got one of the best short-games in the field, has arguably never been better, and the Canadian flag has also been flying high of late.
But I'll speculate that we might get successive Spanish winners, with NACHO ELVIRA boasting equally strong claims.
Like Sharma, you have to dig a little deeper to unearth his course form as he was the halfway leader here last year before fading at the weekend, when his form to begin 2023 read 67-MC-MC-MC-MC.
This time around he's gone 28-41-16-MC-13, showing distinct promise at Al Hamra and again in Doha, and while the latter is one of his favourite courses he simply looks like he's playing as consistently well as he has for some years.
Elvira's approach play has improved throughout each of his last four starts and saw him rank sixth last time, while around the green there might be nobody better at the moment. He's ranked inside the top 25 in that department in eight of his previous nine starts dating back to October last year.
These skills, approach play and scrambling, are bound to be important and with driver his weakest club, it's a definite positive that he comes to a course which will play short and won't demand too many. That's also true of HimmerLand, where he so nearly won in July.
With four top-20s at Crans to his name, and having spent so many years playing golf in Madrid, Elvira is comfortable at altitude and can be the latest to underline that course correlation.
Speaking of poor drivers, Julien Brun helps to demonstrate that such a weakness isn't a barrier to success here, having finished 13th and seventh in his last two visits. I'm a fan of his and it's a great time for French golf, but the bottom line is that he was bang in-form ahead of both those results and isn't at the moment.
By contrast, diminutive Dutch duo Daan Huizing and Darius van Driel have arguably never been better and the latter certainly has plenty to recommend him, albeit I felt the prices on offer were short enough given his limitations.
Van Driel has excellent course form having gone 12-MC-11 here, while he also has two top-10 finishes at Karen which means he has four top-15s from seven starts in Kenya, where his accuracy and short-game skills can shine.
For a player who has spent much of his career on the periphery that's an eye-catching return and the altitude factor surely has something to do with it, because his two wins on the Challenge Tour came in Switzerland and Austria, latterly at more than 3,000ft above sea level.
That came at Adamstal, a fiddly course where Brun, Gagli, Ferguson and Oliver Bekker have all contended, and the man who succeeded van Driel was Calum Hill, who has an excellent record across both courses in Nairobi.
But at a general 66/1 and no bigger than 80s, I found it impossible to side with a player whose only chance to win at this level came in the 2020 Austrian Open, the first event back following the pandemic shutdown and about as weak a field as you'll see.
That course form of van Driel's has him alongside superior players in the betting, even if he has stepped it up a notch since finishing fourth at Q School, so he has to be left out of the staking plan. Perhaps back him for a three-ball or two if prices emerge.
Horsey may need the run
Sebastian Garcia is a player I flirted with at 300/1 a few weeks ago and he's playing as well as he ever has, so his short-game could carry him a long way. He's one of a few Spaniards who made some appeal, including last year's pick Angel Hidalgo and course contender Santiago Tarrio, both of whom are accurate drivers.
At massive odds, this is a good place for Dave Horsey to return on a medical extension. He showed up better in Australia, where firm conditions suited, and his last top-10 finish came here in 2022, nevertheless it's a big ask to contend against players who ought to be sharper than he is.
Jamie Donaldson is another veteran with the game for the course and Julian Suri is doing a lot of things right away from the spotlight of tour golf, but I'll be sticking to a quartet of well-fancied selections for an event which is always fun to watch.
Posted at 1700 GMT on 19/02/24
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