Free golf betting tips: Preview and best bets for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship
Golf expert Ben Coley previews the first European Tour event of 2021 and predicts a big week for Martin Kaymer in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.
Golf betting tips: Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship
2pts e.w. Martin Kaymer at 33/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Justin Rose at 33/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Adri Arnaus at 66/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Danny Willett at 66/1 (1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
Rory McIlroy returns to the European Tour for the first time since 2019 to headline the field for the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, sitting a fraction in front of Justin Thomas at the top of the betting. It's not quite a duopoly, but at 6/1 and 13/2 they are commanding precisely the respect they deserve. Throw in the next three - Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick and Tommy Fleetwood - and you get close to a coin-flip conundrum: these five or the field?
Fleetwood of course is a two-time Abu Dhabi champion, albeit at bigger prices on both occasions. Tyrrell Hatton has graduated to the position of England's leader worldwide, while Matt Fitzpatrick ended a frustrating string of seconds by winning the DP World Tour Championship in December and could've won the last two renewals of this. Typically when asked if you'd take the five or other 126, you take the other 126. Here, it can't be called an easy decision.
Picking holes in players of this calibre borders on the churlish, but I would rather have seen McIlroy tee it up since Augusta in November, where a slow start cost him. Thomas has the benefit of a season-opening third in Hawaii, but lacks McIlroy's course experience and has something of a cloud hanging over him. Wherever you stand on what happened a fortnight ago, the consequences are clear: he's been dropped by a major sponsor and has faced intense criticism. How that affects him is an unknown which probably isn't accounted for in the odds.
It's the English trio who make more appeal, their prices propped up by two of the game's genuine behemoths, and my clear preference would be for Fleetwood. There is no course in the world upon which he's more comfortable, and having ended 2020 with another frustrating performance over in Dubai, it's easy to see him coming out all guns blazing, reports from practice suggesting he's ready to do so. At 14/1 - the same price he began the DP World Tour Championship and finished 10th despite being below his best - he's not dismissed lightly.
Still, this event has a habit of throwing up a minor surprise, something we saw in 2019 courtesy of Shane Lowry and again last year, when Lee Westwood held off Fitzpatrick and Victor Perez with some of the best golf of his wonderful career. Both Lowry and Westwood are of course highly-decorated players, both with stacks of world-class form before winning here, but they were not especially prominent in markets dominated by McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau and Brooks Koepka, all of whom have come up just short in the event.
In the past I've felt these players have often been caught just a little cold, McIlroy in particular, allowing Pablo Larrazazbal and Gary Stal and Robert Rock and Jamie Donaldson and Fleetwood himself to secure the biggest wins of their careers. It's not always been the case that champions have played deep into December or even in South Africa to start the year, but it is possible to conclude that the volatility brought about by absence in part explains some big-priced winners. Then again, McIlroy could so easily be a four- or five-time champion and things would look altogether different.
Go back further and MARTIN KAYMER did win this a couple of times as one of the favourites and, at 35/1, the German has to feature in the staking plan as he did on his way to eighth place last year.
Kaymer was at best a 50/1 shot and generally 40/1 then, and is only slightly shorter now, which I think fails to reflect the strides he's made since. His European Tour form has been excellent and it's underpinned by approach play of the standard which made him a double major champion - in fact, he ended 2020 as the European Tour's leader in strokes-gained approach and that underlines his progress, having been 21st in 2019.
Just as significantly, his putting is transformed (31st last season) and he talks like a man who is confident on the greens again, which is a huge turnaround. All of this helps explain a run of 8-16-13-10 to begin 2020, and four top-10 finishes in seven European Tour starts once play resumed in the summer. Added to that is 14th place in the DP World Tour Championship last time, at a course where he's yet to contend.
There can be no doubt that he's more suited to Abu Dhabi, where he's a three-time winner and could have won five, having been runner-up in 2009 and, infamously, thrown away what was briefly a 10-shot lead in 2015. It is a course which is playable from the fairway but penal away from it and his accurate, second-shot game has proven ideal whether at his world number one peak, or ranked outside the top 100 as was the case last year.
Now up to 80th, Kaymer could crack the world's top 50 with a win and that kind of leap has been something of a thread in the first big event of the year in Europe. In fact, five of the last 10 champions climbed either inside or right onto the fringes of the top 50, which represents the key to the majors and WGCs. Kaymer, whose improved play was in part triggered by missing the Open in 2019, is desperate to get back where he belongs.
Nobody gets close to Kaymer's approach play figures at this course over the last two renewals and the German was the best player in the field from tee-to-green in 2020. One year on and with those missed opportunities at the Belfry and Valderrama showing how close he's been to winning again, this seems like the right time and the right place for the drought to come to an end.
When Fleetwood won here for the first time in 2017, it came after he'd rediscovered his game at the back-end of 2016, putting together a string of excellent results and going close in Hong Kong. He's not alone, with six of the last nine winners having ended the previous year with a top 10, and all of them having been in better form than earlier in the previous campaign.
All that suggests Victor Perez is a big player having built up an excellent record in the desert, including here, with Andy Sullivan, Matt Wallace and a handful of others in the same bracket of some interest. However, it does jar a little to see JUSTIN ROSE thrown in with this bunch of very good but not (yet) world-class players, and he is surely worth chancing at 33/1.
Rose clearly struggled in 2019 when switching to Honma clubs, despite winning at Torrey Pines, and that continued into 2020. Ultimately he decided that change was needed - both in terms of clubs, and by ending a lengthy and lucrative relationship with coach Sean Foley - and his game has shown only brief glimpses of promise since he and Foley parted ways last summer.
Inconsistency through the bag has been a feature and there's no guarantee he finds the fix this year, but the Olympics are on the horizon along with a Ryder Cup in the USA, and having turned 40 in July there'll be no lacking in motivation. The Olympics in particular must be on his mind given that he won gold in Rio five years ago, but earns no right to defend his title as he would expect to in any other major golf tournament.
Moving his family back to the UK late last year (though he retains a practice base in the Bahamas, where he's spent the last couple of weeks) is possibly another small sign that Rose is looking to shake things up and get climbing the world rankings again, and like Sergio Garcia late last year and defending champion Westwood, he's classy enough to stop the bleeding.
Rose has been second, 12th and 22nd in three starts here, breaking par in 11 of his 12 rounds and generally hitting the ball brilliantly, which could be all the more important with wind forecast over the first two days. Last year's places were filled with quality ball-strikers and that's certainly the most obvious path here for all that Lowry and Larrazbal have dazzled with their short-games.
Crucially though, it's the fact he started to play better late in 2020 which gives me hope that he can defy a longer-than-ideal absence and discover a return to form. At the high-class Zozo Championship he shot three rounds of 67 for a share of 17th, he played well for three of the four rounds at Augusta to finish 23rd, and a missed cut at the RSM Classic is really not a concern given that he'd just played the Masters, and came up a single shot shy.
Back on the European Tour, where he'd have been a 10/1 shot for this not so very long ago, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Rose string good rounds together. Don't forget, for all he hasn't been playing at the standards we've come to expect, since the PGA Tour returned last summer he's been third, ninth, 14th and 17th, and those kind of performances translate very nicely to this less competitive circuit - especially the ninth, which came in the US PGA.
There's clearly a lot to be taken on trust here but I would much rather take a chance on Rose's class than hope to land on the right one of those around him, most of whom still have to prove they're up to winning a Rolex Series title like this one.
Rose disappointed a little in the last Rolex Series event he played, but he started it alongside Fitzpatrick and Hatton in the betting. In the four events he's played since, he leads Fitzpatrick 3-1 and is 2-2 with Hatton. At a course he surely prefers to Wentworth, where admittedly both outperformed him, he looks a fair bit overpriced.
Lower down, the eye is immediately drawn to some of the best maidens on tour, including Laurie Canter at 80/1. Surely the most improved player of 2020 on this side of the Atlantic, he could follow the lead of Harris English, who filled the same category in the USA and started the new year with a bang. The trouble is, this is a big-money, Rolex Series event, and all logic would suggest that maidens are going to find it hard to fend off a likely high-class group of pursuers.
That's the worry for Canter, Matthias Schwab, Thomas Detry, Sean Crocker, even Mike Lorenzo-Vera and certainly ADRI ARNAUS, but the latter is worth chancing anyway at an excellent each-way price.
This hugely talented Spaniard ended 2020 in excellent form, with three top-10 finishes across his final five starts. The two exceptions were both missed cuts, but the first of those came on his return following Covid-19, and the second just days after he admittedly blew an excellent chance to land us a nice-priced winner when sixth at Leopard Creek.
Most recently, he was part of that leaderboard logjam in the DP World Tour Championship and finished in a share of 10th, which adds to third place in the Dubai Desert Classic plus a win in the Challenge Tour Grand Final to give him an excellent record in the Middle East - it's no wonder he's chosen to base himself in Dubai, for all he spent Christmas in Spain.
Here in Abu Dhabi, Arnaus was a fine 22nd on debut as a rookie and then sat seventh at halfway last January, before a disappointing weekend. On both occasions he led the field in strokes-gained off-the-tee, prodigious driving being his biggest asset. However since then he's really improved his approach play (25th last year, 90th in 2019) and that could prove key to sticking around this time.
Arnaus defied especially poor conditions to place in the Dubai Desert Classic so the forecast breeze isn't too much of a concern and if he can take advantage of the par-fives, which hasn't always been a given, he can muscle his way in. I'm absolutely convinced that by the end of this year, he has the ability to have established himself as one of the very best players on the circuit.
Schwab and Detry are similarly talented but the latter was quiet towards the end of the season and Schwab was particularly disappointing in the mix in South Africa. That he failed to qualify for the DP World Tour Championship tells you he was a little way behind Arnaus, who has shown greater promise here and in the Middle East in general, and I will keep Schwab tucked away for something (hopefully) more suitable.
Wilco Nienabar and TOM LEWIS are two more big-hitting talents, the former freakishly so, who defied terrible starts to produce some lovely golf when last seen at the Earth Course in December. Nienaber has to be kept close now he's been given a special exemption which guarantees plenty of golf this year, but Lewis has long been a brilliant desert player and is considered the better bet this time.
Lewis was forced to miss the Golf in Dubai Championship when returning to the European Tour having tested positive for Covid-19. Reportedly asymptomatic, it must have been immensely frustrating for him and his troubles were compounded by injuring his foot, and then his caddie testing positive too, before he had to isolate again and then finally was set free to play the final event of the season.
In the circumstances, perhaps it's no wonder he opened with a round of 78 but Lewis was exceptional thereafter, shooting 68-71-66 to climb to 23rd, his score matching Fitzpatrick's and putting him tied for fourth for the final 54 holes.
There's a slight concern that Abu Dhabi's usually thicker rough might make it a less suitable test for him, but he was in generally poor form throughout his early visits here and showed what he could do when ninth in 2019, a nightmare third round costing him as he gave eight shots to Lowry and was in the end beaten by seven.
Proven in the wind and with two wins in Portugal, which tends to correlate well with golf in the Gulf, Lewis is clearly capable of competing with the very best players in this field and goes into the staking plan.
Such is the strength at the top that it was hard to get overly excited about those at bigger prices, but Joakim Lagergren, Brandon Stone, Jordan Smith and ROMAIN LANGASQUE all made some kind of appeal.
Lagergren defied a terrible start and poor putting to finish just outside the top 20 last year, and he played some of the best golf of his career - including when going close in Portugal and in Dubai - towards the end of the campaign. He has two rounds of 65 to his name at the course and might be one for the first-round leader market.
Smith is a short-game away from being one of the best players on the tour and loves it here, Stone has started to find consistency off the tee and already has a Rolex Series win to his name, while Langasque is a massive price based on the best of his form, plus his win in difficult conditions at Celtic Manor.
I put up the Frenchman for both events in Dubai late last year, only for both bets to be refunded after he tested positive for coronavirus. That means he hasn't played since early November which is a worry, but his motivation to be cherry-ripe at a course he likes is there for all to see and he's a player of abundant promise who I'm not sure should be as big a price as he is.
I don't think it's a coincidence that among the three players who were entitled to feel aggrieved to miss the Masters - Harris English, Viktor Hovland and Daniel Berger, all ranked high enough to qualify except for the fact the field had been locked - two have won in the four subsequent PGA Tour events.
Another unfortunate absentee, Joaquin Niemann, has produced some of the best golf of his career since. At this altogether different level, Langasque may feel similarly hard done by and he's played really well on both starts here, finishing just outside the top 30 on both occasions despite being hamstrung by the putter.
For a European Tour rookie who had not long turned professional I thought his effort in 2017 was a mighty one, ranking fourth for total driving and fifth in accuracy and ball-striking in a high-class field. Then, in 2020, he was ninth tee-to-green - a ranking based on top-class ball-striking - only to be 62nd in putting and therefore restricted to 34th.
Since then he's won tenaciously, held his own in a stateside major and caught the eye on both starts in Cyprus. It is far from ideal he hasn't been out since but that's factored into the price and he can upstage Antoine Rozner, Lorenzo Vera and Victor Dubuisson, the last of whom is interesting enough in his own right despite an even longer break.
Finally, I'm drawn to DANNY WILLETT at around the 66/1 mark and he completes the staking plan.
Looking again at champions here and they've often been classy, proven players who ended the previous season either bang in-form or hinting at better to come, and Willett would fit the bill in some respects.
Granted, his form figures (25-MC-30-32) don't leap off the page but he was 11th at halfway in the Masters after a second-round 66, 13th after rounds of 67-67 to begin the Golf in Dubai Championship, and inside the top 10 after both 36 and 54 holes in the DP World Tour Championship.
Wins in that event and the Dubai Desert Classic showcase how dangerous he is in the Middle East and he's also the type of player to pop up at big prices and land the best events on the circuit - something he did in 2018 and 2019 with victories in Dubai and at Wentworth.
Towards the end of last year, it was notable that Robert Rock was waxing lyrical about Willett's swing and while yet to justify that faith on the golf course, a couple of weeks with his coach, the aforementioned Sean Foley, may have him ready to begin 2021 with a bang.
Willett's form here is mixed but he was eighth on debut, fired a second-round 63 in 2014 and has been close enough on a handful of other occasions, and at 69th in the world might be ready to relaunch his own Ryder Cup bid with another big title.
Posted at 2000 GMT on 18/01/21
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