Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Singapore Classic preview and best bets
The DP World Tour returns to action in Singapore, and our golf expert Ben Coley fancies the returning Paul Casey to steal the show.
Golf betting tips: Singapore Classic
3pts e.w. Paul Casey at 16/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1.5pts e.w. Keita Nakajima at 45/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Alejandro del Rey at 55/1 (Unibet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Niklas Norgaard at 66/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Kiradech Aphibarnrat at 100/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
0.5pt e.w. Marco Penge at 175/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
Somebody somewhere has got the cheque book out to secure some big-name additions to the Singapore Classic field, with the event retaining its place on the schedule following last year's shock victory for Ockie Strydom.
In comes Shane Lowry, back in excellent form of late, and joining him on the flight from Florida is Matthieu Pavon, who has quickly become the poster boy for the 'strategic alignment' which helped him complete a fast-track move from habitual nearly-man to conqueror of Torrey Pines.
But it's PAUL CASEY, playing in his first DP World Tour event since joining LIV Golf, who stands out at the top of the betting and I think he merits a place alongside Lowry at around the 10/1 mark.
Grading players who have been taking part in pre-paid 54-hole events, for which strokes-gained breakdowns are not available, is not easy – but results often speak for themselves, and those of his counterparts and of Casey himself suggest that he's well up to winning this.
Last time out the former UNICEF ambassador lost a play-off on the Saudi-funded tour in Hong Kong which featured Cam Smith and the winner, Abraham Ancer, while he'd earlier been fifth behind Dustin Johnson and the great Talor Gooch in Las Vegas.
Right now, few players on that circuit are hitting the ball as well as Casey, who has ranked 4-10-3-1 for greens in regulation so far this year and is driving the ball seemingly as well as ever, and I think bookmakers are underestimating him by quite a bit.
For context, he's won four of his last 40 events on this tour, all of them deeper than this, and is operating at about a one-in-12 strike-rate over two decades. Whatever your thoughts on where Keith Pelley has taken the European Tour, there can be absolutely no denying it is not as strong as it was when Casey played events on it regularly.
Even versus this event last year, Ryan Fox, Sami Valimaki, Alex Bjork, Robert MacIntyre and Jorge Campillo are all absent, playing instead in the Valspar Championship, and each of them would've helped strengthen the field had the new agreement not been in place.
Casey meanwhile last played the Dubai Desert Classic as a 25/1 chance alongside Rory McIlroy, Viktor Hovland, Collin Morikawa, Tommy Fleetwood, Adam Scott and Tyrrell Hatton, so by no means have bookmakers been defensive in putting him in at 16/1 here.
There's little evidence that he's regressed significantly since that title defence ended in a share of 12th, some indication that his putting has improved, and certainly he's a vastly experienced campaigner in this part of the world.
The course should suit, as last year's leaderboard was packed with strong drivers, and without overdoing the LIV freshness angle, the fact is that both Lowry and Pavon have played three events in a row out in the US.
Lowry's form has been good whereas Pavon has gone through a bit of a reality check, but the former is generally one to take on at short prices even when he hasn't had to fly halfway around the world.
Casey, whose last two appearances have been in Asia, and who has had plenty of practise on paspalum grass of late, looks an outstanding candidate. And if you need further encouragement, cast your mind back to December, when LIV players swept the board in low-grade events like this one.
Put simply the gap between him and the progressive Tom McKibbin in the betting is too narrow, for all that I will keep saying that the Northern Irishman will soon be considered the best player on this circuit. For now though, he's not in Casey's league, and the veteran can underline that fact by proving hard to beat.
Nakajima ready to shine again
I felt those at 20-33/1 were generally priced about right with the potential exception of Sebastian Soderberg, who I do think remains a little underrated. The issue for him, as well as some others, is that he's been off for a month and while he was second in Abu Dhabi after a longer break, this time he faces more players who are razor-sharp.
Soderberg does spend a lot of his downtime in Thailand so conditions shouldn't be an issue, and he is in generally better form than when missing the cut on his debut here last year, but I can just about pass him over in favour of KEITA NAKAJIMA.
This former world amateur number one was sent off at 18/1 for the event in Bahrain last month, when I put up Soderberg at 30/1, so it was a bit of a surprise to see him pushed out to as big as 50s in a place.
That's all because he's seemingly failed to build on fourth place at Al Hamra, yet he missed the cut by one after a bright start in Bahrain, then was bang in the mix at halfway in Qatar, before missing the cut in the SDC Championship where he shot 80 in round one.
Clearly, that was a disappointing effort but links golf in South Africa is not an experience he'd been through before and I think we ought to take a generous view of it, especially as he did rally with a respectable 72 on Friday.
Nakajima has bags of potential and is bracketed with Zander Lombard (25/1) and Ewen Ferguson (33/1) by DataGolf, so now that he's back under more familiar conditions, I've no hesitation in taking a chance on the Japanese youngster whose future probably lies on the PGA Tour.
He's been second in the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship here in Singapore before winning that event in Dubai, also won gold at the Asian Games in Indonesia and played a few times in Malaysia, so again that trip to South Africa probably took him out of his comfort zone whereas this returns him to it.
There were some experienced campaigners made to look silly by St Francis Links and I would think Nakajima is better judged on the promise he showed in the Middle East, particularly when it was calmer at Al Hamra. With conditions seemingly set fair in Singapore, he would by no means be a surprising champion.
I've been keen to keep on the right side of Bernd Wiesberger, a winner in China and Korea, but he too has been absent since the beginning of February and I'm inclined to side with a couple of genuine powerhouses instead.
First up is the promising ALEJANDRO DEL REY, who contended here last year and eventually settled for third place, still his best result on the DP World Tour.
Also fifth at Blair Atholl, it's pretty clear where we're best siding with this pocket powerhouse, and that's when distance counts for plenty. The Classic Course here at Laguna National is known as 'The Beast' and there was certainly enough evidence of an advantage for the big drivers last year.
Granted, conditions were very wet underfoot but it's rare that you'll see bounce in the fairways out here in Singapore, especially on receptive paspalum grass, so I doubt things will have changed much even if the weather has been better ahead of this second edition.
Should that prove the case then del Rey, who has made all five cuts so far this year, should slip right back into things at a course far more suited to his game than Muthaiga last time, before which he'd shown promise in Dubai, Bahrain and Qatar, and even at times despite finishing down the field in the Ras al Khaimah.
One of the very best drivers in the field, he's shown enough promise in all other departments to believe that it might just be a matter of finding the right course. This one fits the bill, and perhaps he can join fellow Arizona Sun Devil, Casey, on the leaderboard.
The other out-and-out bomber I like is NIKLAS NORGAARD, who you may see listed as Niklas Norgaard Moller or Niklas Moller with some bookmakers.
This giant Dane is a serious talent and he showed plenty of promise when 38th last year, ranking 10th in strokes-gained off-the-tee and 12th in approach play, his short-game keeping him from the top 10 if those numbers are to be believed.
He is though a very capable putter on his day and we saw improvements in that regard last time out, when yet again his prodigious driving was the backbone of a top-30 finish in South Africa which represented a bounce-back from the previous week's missed cut.
Like Nakajima, Norgaard had a nightmare at St Francis Links but he's evidence that we shouldn't dwell on that, and having been 27th and 29th either side, plus eighth in Bahrain and 34th at Al Hamra, his form book has a solid look to it since a bad putting week confined him to near-last in Dubai.
Ultimately, he's played eight times this season and comfortably made the cut in seven of them, and while I do understand why some find him a little frustrating, prices around the 66/1 mark continue to appeal under the right set of circumstances.
Like del Rey, I think this is one of the four or five best courses for Norgaard on the entire schedule, so while we'll need some improvements under the gun if he's to win, he looks a likely contender.
Another feel-good story from popular Thai?
It's not taken much for top Challenge Tour graduate Jesper Svensson to drift down the betting and he too should enjoy this test, but I'll scan slightly further to the sleeping giant that is KIRADECH APHIBARNRAT.
Whether or not he draws inspiration from Matteo Manassero's fairy-tale win in South Africa, this popular Thai is playing really well right now, with finishes of 13th, 23rd and 14th since a low-key start to the year in the Middle East.
The first of these improved displays came in Malaysia, scene of his first DP World Tour win once upon a time, and then Aphibarnrat ranked second in strokes-gained tee-to-green only to putt poorly on his way to a top-25 finish in Kenya at the end of February.
Back from a short break in Macau last week, he was eighth at halfway and closed with a round of 64 for 14th, one behind Carlos Ortiz on a leaderboard which also featured Lucas Herbert, Patrick Reed and Jason Kokrak.
It's the first time in almost seven years that Aphibarnrat has rattled off a sequence of three top-25 finishes and I'm not sure his price reflects this improvement, possibly because he was a modest 49th here last year.
How much we should read into strokes-gained data that says he was the sixth-best player from tee-to-green I'm really not sure, but he did hit his share of greens and there's been an uptick in that department again lately.
One way or another it was a performance good enough to see him backed off the boards back on home soil the next week and I'm very happy to take a chance on this undoubted talent at 66/1 and bigger.
Finally, the eye is drawn to another pair of big-hitters, Freddy Schott and MARCO PENGE, winners of Q-School and the Challenge Tour money list respectively.
Schott's current form looks a bit stronger but Penge has missed four cuts by a single shot this year and is playing much better than his results imply.
He began the season contending twice in South Africa and this super-long driver could well return to that sort of form having endured a frustrating but in some ways encouraging couple of months since then.
Posted at 1700 GMT on 18/03/24
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