Golf betting tips: Preview and best bets for the Challenge de Espana
Marc Warren looks worth a speculative bet as the Challenge Tour lands in Spain, where his class could count for plenty.
Golf betting tips: Challenge de Espana
1pt e.w. Tapio Pulkkanen at 40/1 (bet365 1/4 1,2,3,4,5)
1pt e.w. Jack Senior 66/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Alfredo Garcia-Heredia at 100/1 (Coral 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Jannik de Bruyn at 100/1 (Coral 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
1pt e.w. Marc Warren at 150/1 (Coral 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6)
The Challenge Tour lands in Spain for the beginning of a curious early-summer schedule. This event is followed by the Danish Golf Challenge, then it's off to the Czech Republic, back to Spain, and then back to the Czech Republic again. Five weeks, three countries, and much more travelling than was surely necessary.
Who knows what logistical problems prevented a Spanish double-header followed by one in the Czech Republic, halving travel expenses for people on the golfing breadline, but it is at least comforting to be back on the continent and into the meat of a campaign which ends in Mallorca once more.
First up is Real Club Sevilla, a Jose-Maria Olazabal design which hosted the Spanish Amateur in 2020, eight years after the most recent Open de Espana which went to Francesco Molinari. With a couple more amateur events as well as others on the European Tour in 2004, 2008, 2009 and 2010, there's plenty for us to go at.
One angle stands out and that's a potential likeness to Le Golf National. I tend to think we, the golf betting public, can be guilty of looking for things that aren't there when it comes to course correlations, but form ties with the Open de France are so strong that they become very difficult to ignore.
In 2012, Molinari beat Alejandro Canizares, Soren Kjeldsen, and Pablo Larrazabal. Three of these four have been first or second in Paris, the other seventh. Jorge Campillo and Thorbjorn Olesen were tied fourth, which gives us a best of eighth in Campillo's case and, through Olesen, a third runner-up from just five players.
Go just another shot or two back and you've two more Le Golf National champions, Graeme Storm and Nicolas Colsaerts. There's Gareth Maybin, eighth and 10th there, and Marcus Brier, who was fifth. Among the top 11, only one player hasn't managed a similar finish in France; there were two winners, three runners-up, and 10 with top-10s.
In 2010, Alvaro Quiros beat James Morrison and Canizares, with Mark Foster, Colsaerts, Stephen Dodd and Jamie Donaldson among those close-up. When I see those names I think about the time Foster looked like winning at Le Golf National and it doesn't take much digging to find more runner-up finishes from Morrison and Dodd.
This theme runs throughout all events held at Sevilla, dating back to 2004 when Jonathan Lomas finished runner-up. Lomas, a solid pro who won once in his time on the European Tour, had a particular fondness for Le Golf National. So did back-to-back Open de France winner Jean-François Remésy, who finished just behind Lomas here.
One problem with such a line of thinking is that many Challenge Tour players haven't yet had the chance to play in Paris, but a handful have and those who enjoy it there all made some kind of appeal. I'm quite keen on backing classier players who are down in grade, anyway, and we've seen several win already this year, as well as Dave Horsey and Alex Levy demonstrate their class.
Perhaps a bigger issue is the set-up of the course. Go back a decade or so and you'll find Olazabal talking about how it needs the rough to serve up a proper challenge to modern powerhouses, and given the way the game has evolved since then, reports of that rough being inconsequential are a concern, especially as fairways are generally quite wide as it is.
Sevilla still won't be easy to overpower because there's water around and not many shortcuts to be taken, but if you're drawing parallels with Le Golf National, you want to know it's going to be a proper test. With a beautiful forecast and that limited rough in mind, the main defence might come from greens which are expected to get firm by the time the weekend rolls in.
Finn has the class to win
Expect the home contingent, headed by the hugely promising Angel Ayora, to have their say but the best bet among the more fancied players is TAPIO PULKKANEN.
The Finn does have one decent Le Golf National finish from four starts there and missed the cut on the number last September, when shooting an excellent second round.
He's one who will likely benefit from easier driving conditions as he can be erratic, and we've seen him come closest to winning on the DP World Tour at resort courses with sparse rough, first in Prague and then in Portugal.
It was a disappointing 2023 campaign but he's on the up again following four top-20 finishes in five, one of them coming back up at the top level, and a return to these parts could be just what he needs.
Pulkkanen was second on his first ever start in Spain and has since played well in virtually all the DP World Tour events he's taken part in across the country, while I do like that third place in neighbouring Portugal where players can be as aggressive as they want to be off the tee.
Sixth last time having been in the mix all week, that's four starts in five that he's been inside the top six entering Sunday, and this class act is closing in on a second Challenge Tour win. He can reward followers soon and is preferred to Martin Couvra, who is a shade overpriced at 28s and would be preferred to the even younger Ayora.
Andrew Wilson has that Le Golf National form and fond memories of Spain, where he produced a mighty effort in the Grand Final to first earn his DP World Tour card. He's playing solidly but I'd rather conditions were on the tougher side which, combined with a missed cut last time, makes him appear short enough.
JACK SENIOR's prospects certainly look no worse and he's actually one of those who hasn't had the chance to tee it up in the Open de France, an event I do happen to think he'd enjoy.
Certainly, this two-time Challenge Tour winner has a touch of class and after a really tough time of things off the course, rededicating himself over the winter break has reaped rewards with second in Delhi.
"I’ve had a tough couple of years to be honest," he said there. "I made the decision to dedicate myself fully this year and work hard, and the winter work I’ve done has obviously paid off.
"It would be great to win tomorrow but I’m just really glad that I’m fit, healthy and back playing golf."
Senior added 19th place a week later despite a slow start and then got off to a better one before fading in Abu Dhabi, so each of his last three appearances has offered plenty of promise with the rest of the campaign in mind.
Now might be the time to strike, because his record in Spain is exceptional. He has six DP World Tour top-10s in total and four of them have come in Spain, where the former US Amateur quarter-finalist appears to be especially comfortable.
Back him to show it once more and in the process validate all the hard work he's put in since appendicitis derailed his career a couple of years ago.
Veteran rates pick of the Spaniards
Like Wilson, tougher conditions would've been preferred for ALFREDO GARCIA-HEREDIA but in this instance we're compensated by the price, especially when you consider that he finished fourth here in the Open de Espana once upon a time.
Returning to the Iberian Peninsula late last year helped him rediscover his game, finishing 10th in Portugal and then ninth in Spain, and between those two came 20th at Le Golf National, where he shot an opening 65.
His DP World Tour form since then is by no means bad, having made four cuts to begin the year and then missed his last two, the first of them only narrowly, so dropping down in grade he looks a likely threat.
Garcia-Heredia has been sixth and ninth in the last two renewals of the Open de Espana, both featuring Jon Rahm, and when last playing a full Challenge Tour campaign ended the year ranked sixth, having won once and bagged four further top-fives.
Levels count in golf and for the last few years he's just looked a cut above this one, so back on home soil even the changing course conditions aren't enough to suggest three-figure prices are anything but extremely generous.
Amateur Championship runner-up Ronan Kleu has started to find his feet and who knows how much more he has to offer, while I did consider the more experienced Niklas Lemke, who has a decent record in Paris as well as in Spain and is back down a level having gone close on the DP World Tour a few times.
He's a big-hitter with some potential but I prefer the classy MARC WARREN.
Starting with that Le Golf National link, the Scot has played OK there lately, with five of his last eight rounds par or better. Down the years he has been close to the lead in France, though I wouldn't for a second argue it's his favourite course on tour.
This is more about how good he is relative to others in this field and at 43, he might still have enough to offer. It's less than a year since he placed in the Made in HimmerLand, a year more since he almost won in Sweden, and four now since he landed a 150/1 touch for us in Austria.
That came at a course he knew better than most, one where his record was decent but not spectacular, and the same goes of Sevilla having finished mid-pack on the latest of four visits.
More recently, he boasts four top-10s from his last eight Open de Espana appearances, including two of the last three, and it should go without saying that each of them was a heck of a lot stronger than this. Both top-10s came behind Rahm, after all.
Sparse rough will help, he's always capable of lighting up the greens, and after a top-20 finish last time (eighth at halfway) he's shown enough to believe he can be competitive back in Europe. Certainly, he looks overpriced and on his last trip to Spain, he shot a back-nine 29 to make the cut at Q-School.
Warren could shoot himself in the foot at any point, we know that by now, but he'd need to be completely lost to justify 150/1 quotes when playing a Challenge Tour event in Spain. I don't think he is.
I'll sign off with someone from that 2020 Spanish Amateur, runner-up JANNIK DE BRUYN.
This left-hander has lots of good form in Spain to his name, right back to a team event in which he starred a few years before taking second place having lost against Jose Luis Ballester Barrio, one of the most promising young golfers in Spain, in the final.
De Bruyn went on to lose a play-off on the Nordic Golf League at PGA Catalunya, then in 2023 won second stage Q-School in Almeria, where Ayora stayed on for third place, four shots behind him.
Back to Spain for the Final Stage event, de Bruyn birdied holes 16, 17 and 18 to theoretically earn his DP World Tour card, an enormous effort even if we know by now that it hasn't been rewarded with anywhere near as many starts as he would like.
He did make the most of one of them, however, finishing 13th behind Keita Nakajima in India, and while two efforts in the UAE weren't so promising, he shot a second-round 65 in the first of them, then missed the cut narrowly under tough conditions at Saadiyat.
De Bruyn said he couldn't wait to get to Europe, where he showed last year that he's capable of contending in this kind of company, and given those fond memories of the course I want to chance him at 80/1 and bigger.
Posted at 1750 BST on 07/05/24
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