Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Portugal Masters preview and best bets
Ben Coley looks ahead to the Portugal Masters, where Gavin Green is one of a number of big-hitting talents in the staking plan.
Golf betting tips: Portugal Masters
2pts e.w. Andy Sullivan at 33/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1.5pts e.w. Marcel Schneider at 40/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1.5pts e.w. Matthew Jordan at 45/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Hurly Long at 50/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Gavin Green at 55/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Tapio Pulkkanen at 70/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Now in its 16th year, the Portugal Masters has become established on the DP World Tour in more ways that one. This well-attended event, played at the Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Course in the Algarve, is the last-chance saloon; the equivalent of the PGA Tour's Wyndham Championship, where futures are on the line. This is tournament golf where neither the cheque nor the trophy are what really count.
Some say that's dramatic and it's true that the reality is, whoever is unfortunate enough to finish in the dreaded 118th on the Race to Dubai will have plenty of playing opportunities next season. But full status is worth so much more and in a sport where those on the middle of the ladder are not always wealthy, where the margins between success and failure are so fine and so fickle, be sure of one thing: this counts massively to the players.
And that really is what matters. If the real world tells you that Nicolai von Dellinghausen was wrong to be so overwhelmed when he secured his card last week, and that Angel Hidalgo got carried away when he burst into tears at Valderrama, fine. I'm not sure sport is really meant for such clear-headed analysis, and I'm certain that there are dozens of players arriving in Portugal who feel like this could be the biggest week of their careers.
It certainly was for Steven Brown, who somehow saved his card by winning here in 2019, and it was at least close to that for the more decorated Lucas Bjerregaard, whose second place last year was just enough. "It’s never meant as much to me," said the player whose first win came at the same venue. "I haven’t felt comfortable all week but I did what I came here to do, even though I didn’t feel like I’d played very well. That kind of sunk in with that putt on the last."
This year's battle for cards is made even more intriguing by the fact that Ricardo Gouveia, the flag-bearer for Portuguese golf, finds himself three places and 30 or so points short of what's required. Converted to something more digestible, back-to-back top-20s leave him needing just one more of them to likely keep hold of his status, and he's got to be hopeful given that he's made all seven cuts in his home event.
That's all combined to elevate Gouveia up the betting and he'll hope the condition of the course doesn't prove his undoing. Last Friday, players received an alert that a 'final decision' had been made regarding the state of the greens from holes 10-17, which confirmed that the tournament will go ahead. That it was in any doubt is a concern and the same message admitted that 'there are still some areas in recovery', a fact punters and players alike need to consider.
Perhaps that's because of a scorching summer in Portugal and I expect we'll see a low-scoring edition providing the greens aren't too problematic. Though conditions have generally toughened down the years, this par 71 is best attacked, not least because it's often been the case that big misses off the tee have found better lies than small ones. When that's the case, do what Thomas Pieters did and blast driver wherever you can.
Pieters, Tom Lewis, Lucas Bjerregaard and Alvaro Quiros are among the big-hitters on this roll-of-honour, Laurie Canter, Brandon Stone, Lucas Herbert and Nicolas Colsaerts among the runners-up, so I'm going to go in again with GAVIN GREEN for what might be the final time this year.
Green was selected at 70/1 when he lipped out a short putt for a play-off in the Czech Masters, at almost twice that price when he got off to a bright start in Italy, and at 80s last week when somehow missing the places. It was the first time in months he'd putted poorly, yet still this enormously talented sort finished 11th.
Even putting as he did, Green would've placed had he not made two silly mistakes at the par-fives on the back-nine and while yes, this is to some extent a reflection of the player, I do maintain that he's playing the best golf of a career which promised to be something special and may yet be.
At eighth in strokes-gained approach in Mallorca he was back firing at flags as he had in Prague and now he comes to a course where he was 17th on his second visit a year ago. Tellingly, that was Green's standout performance of the year, an opening 66 the only time he was inside the top 20 after round one as he at last got a taste of being in the mix.
Now he returns having barely missed a beat since the start of autumn, certainly not when conditions have been in his favour. His is a game all about attacking, driver his preferred club, and his best form underlines this. Among it, more than one excellent performance in Prague correlates with Pieters, Lewis and Padraig Harrington, all former winners here, and his displays at Royal Greens stack up with Pieters, Lewis, George Coetzee and others.
Essentially he wants a course where it's all about stacking up birdies, and Dom Pedro is exactly that. It's why the birdie average stats have been such a good guide here, pointing not just to Pieters last year but to runner-up Nicolai Hojgaard, and not just to Coetzee in 2020 but to runner-up Laurie Canter.
Green might not stand out among the birdie average chart this year owing to a really poor run from spring into summer, but he made four eagles to go with 12 birdies in the 54-hole Czech Masters and, under the right conditions, few are as prolific.
He really might've won the Mallorca Open last week but for the way he played three par-fives and I'm more than happy to back him at this more suitable course in what looks a more winnable event.
Stick with Sulli for one more week
At the front of the market, Robert MacIntyre can get frustrated from time to time but deserves to head the betting from Jordan Smith, by some way the best DP World Tour player who hasn't won over the last five years. That fact alone is enough of a worry to be taking 16/1, and while Hojgaard is another of last week's selections who really ought to have been spying victory late on Sunday, similar prices are for braver folk than me.
Instead it's back to ANDY SULLIVAN, another regular selection lately who is worth persevering with.
Last week, Sullivan made my staking plan at 35/1, with Hojgaard a shade bigger. This week, at a course where Sullivan won by nine shots in 2015 and would've defended his title but for a dodgy putter, he's just about stayed the same whereas Hojgaard has crashed in price.
Even allowing for the Dane's enormous potential and a ceiling far higher than Sullivan's, and the fact he played the better of the two in Spain, something about their respective prices seems off to me. And it's not just that: I remain really encouraged by Sullivan's game and it goes without saying there's no need for speculation as to how well the course will suit him.
Of course, 2015 is a long time ago but Sullivan was eighth here in 2019 when leading the field in strokes-gained tee-to-green, he skipped the event in 2020 having qualified for the September US Open, and last year he arrived on the back of a withdrawal but played some solid stuff before a poor final round.
Above all else, he's just kept hinting that he's very close. At Valderrama he produced his best finish yet to take 11th place, despite putting badly. In Mallorca he finished 16th, this time gaining strokes through the bag but still not lighting up the greens in the way we know he can and, crucially, never quite getting into the tournament.
Sullivan was two-over through his first three holes last Thursday afternoon and over the course of the first round and a half, I stopped counting when he reached a dozen misses from five to 15 feet. Had those putts started to drop sooner than they did who knows where he'd have finished, but 16th did little to dissuade me from the view that he's playing well enough to win.
He also secured his status for 2023 with that performance and has now made nine cuts in 10, withdrawing from the other tournament during a spell which runs back to July. His new goal will surely be to prolong his season with starts in the lucrative two events which remain, and to do that he needs to all but win this. At the very least I'm hopeful he'll threaten to.
Long-hitter can make it a German double
Antoine Rozner was the one I wanted to be on but 20/1 is short enough even if his putter does seem to be improving, so I'll return to those birdie average charts where HURLY LONG's name stands out.
Eighth for the year, Long has been prolific throughout a fine rookie campaign which has seen him already lock up starts in the Nedbank and the DP World Tour Championship. He's not yet being talked about in Ryder Cup terms and perhaps rightly so, but he's undoubtedly one with the potential to muscle in on the argument.
For now I like the fact he's a supreme driver of the ball who got that club purring again in Mallorca, which might itself be a decent enough form guide. His approach play, so often his weakest area, has been better lately and saw him gain strokes over there, and ninth place was a welcome return to form.
Crucially, at the start of the season he finished third and second in back-to-back starts, then he bagged two top-10s in three starts in May, followed later in summer by back-to-back top-10 finishes on the PGA Tour. The signs are that he can take something and run with it, and seeing young compatriot and rival Yannik Paul win first might just add fuel to the fire ahead of his debut here.
It was notable how well supported the German players were in Mallorca last week, something Marcel Siem has referred to at certain tourist destinations before, and I expect there will be a few flags flying in Portugal. It's a great time for golf in the country, with a conveyor-belt's worth of talent waiting to join in, and Long could make it a famous fortnight for them.
Lewis is one of those seeking to salvage his status and is obviously on the shortlist having been selected on three occasions recently, but concerns about his putting have increased by the week and not even a return to his favourite tournament is sufficient to overlook them at 40/1.
Instead, perhaps MATTHEW JORDAN can emulate him in winning his first DP World Tour event here in Vilamoura.
This formerly high-class amateur has made an encouraging start to life as a professional, winning quickly on the Challenge Tour and never looking like losing his DP World Tour card, so the next step in the journey is to win and likely in an event like this one.
Jordan played here a fortnight after turning pro back in 2018 and missed the cut, but he's been 14th and fifth in two subsequent starts to confirm his suitability to the course. No wonder he likes it, as he's long off the tee and can get on the front foot, his putting more than good enough to achieve the low numbers which are required.
So far it's been his approach play that has kept him from winning but that's improved in 2022 and it's significant that both appearances here have seen all parts of his game fire. It's simply a really good fit for a player born by the coast, adept under exposed conditions, but with a powerful game best suited to a shootout.
Last week's T43 can be upgraded as he endured his worst putting display since May and before that he only narrowly failed to make the weekend at Valderrama, a course which really doesn't fit. The last couple of occasions he's played ones which we know do, he's been mid-pack in a strong Dunhill Links, and fourth when contending for the Made in HimmerLand.
Fifth place in Qatar back in March is another good pointer to this event for all conditions will be significantly easier, and I reckon there's a very strong chance his friends and family are out here with him again. That was the case when they roared in his closing birdie putt last year and with a Sun City start within reach, he can deliver for them once more.
Ross Fisher used to threaten here regularly and is another who is just outside the top-60 cut-off for the Nedbank along with Hojgaard, but I'll head up the list to another German player, MARCEL SCHNEIDER.
One quirk of this event has been how many winners from the 2011 European Amateur Team Championship, held here at Dom Pedro, that it has thrown up. From a field of 120, most of whom have since given up on dreams of a professional career, no fewer than five of them have won one of the subsequent 11 renewals of this event. Had Sullivan defended his title they'd have combined for more than half of them.
And while Schneider finished down the field, way behind the likes of Pieters and Bjerregaard, closer inspection reveals that his opening 64 was in fact the round of the week. It's a small but potentially significant pointer towards a player with so much more to like beyond that.
Schneider was on my radar last week but had withdrawn from the Andalucia Masters citing a particularly bad cold, so I wanted to take a watching brief as you don't withdraw from Valderrama with the sniffles. Clearly, that is now behind him as he made no further mention as he bagged his fourth straight top-30, and 11th in 16 starts.
This is serious form for a player who missed the cut in his first six starts in 2022 but now ranks inside the top 10 in strokes-gained total, five of the eight players ahead of him having won this year and the rest having done everything but.
Schneider is at the top of his game then and would've finished closer to compatriot Paul but for a bad putting week in Mallorca. It's a sign of how far he's come and how confident he feels that he said he 'underperformed' in finishing 23rd, and now gets to return to a course he not only knows from 2011, but from a mid-pack finish here in 2020.
Since then he's bagged a third Challenge Tour title right here in Portugal and he's flying up the birdie average rankings, now sitting inside the top 50 for the year but 15th for the last three months. He really is one of the form players on the circuit, he's got more experience here than he has at most courses, and he's produced enough good putting weeks to suggest last week can be written off.
Flying Finn ready to win
Given the introduction you'd be forgiven for asking why there are no selections who are around that top 117 cut-off, but unfortunately Renato Paratore is shorter than I'd hoped for. He's threatened here twice before, has driven the ball well when suited to a course lately, can light up the greens, and having spent this year with a lowly category will be desperate to regain the full status a player of his class should hold.
I like him for this but not at 66s generally and the same goes for big-hitting Niklas Norgaard Moller, who looks just about safe at 109th but will be keen to avoid all doubt. Unfortunately he's wobbled under pressure a couple of times this year so his blend of monster hitting and good putting is on this occasion overlooked, as can be Marcus Kinhult's latest rope-a-dope in Spain.
Joost Luiten is another class act in a predicament, he was runner-up here on debut and he's doing everything better than had been the case, but he does have a career money exemption to fall back on and ultimately isn't convincing. In other words then it's likely a storyline or two does emerge relating to cards, possibly from Lewis, but at the prices I can't find a bet to go with it.
A couple of outsiders catch the eye but I'll save them for Tuesday's Members Extra preview and instead finish off with a player I like, TAPIO PULKKANEN, who was seventh in that amateur event I mentioned.
Pulkkanen has since made all four cuts in the Portugal Masters, improving his finishing position each time, and carding 14 under-par rounds in 16. For a player occasionally prone to a wild drive and a duffed chip, clearly he has a level of comfort here.
That's also true of the correlating course in Prague, where he almost won for us last year, and he returned there to play well a couple of months ago. Since then he's finished 10th when selected at a huge price for the Dunhill Links, another event which shares some ties with this and where he'd played well before, so this horses-for-courses player has dropped plenty of hints.
Valderrama last time won't have suited – he's yet to threaten there in five starts and surely never will – and five top-30 finishes in six starts prior to that demonstrate a player performing at or close to his best.
Long off the tee, his standout performances this year have been on four of the most power-heavy courses played and this is certainly in that ballpark, plus I like the fact he's 74th on the Race to Dubai. This time last year he expressed delight at having achieved his main goal for the year, qualifying for the DP World Tour Championship, and the way he played early on there will only have whetted the appetite.
Pulkkanen, 19th in birdie average so far in 2022, is one of the better maidens on the circuit for my money and has exactly the sort of aggressive game I'm looking for. While others look over their shoulders, he can overpower the course and contend here for the first since since his amateur days, with bet365's 70/1 and the general 66/1 representing a lovely each-way bet.
Posted at 1920 BST on 24/10/22
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