Ben Coley has five selections for the Mauritius Open, his final pre-tournament preview of the year, and they're headlined by Casey Jarvis.
Golf betting tips: Mauritius Open
3pts e.w. Casey Jarvis at 30/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
2pts e.w. Jayden Schaper at 28/1 (Paddy Power 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Freddy Schott at 80/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Oihan Guillamoundeguy at 225/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Renato Paratore at 400/1 (Sky Bet, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
I was tempted to begin this final tournament preview of 2024 with a bit of a moan about how we probably shouldn't be playing right up to Sunday December 22. The creepy man with the deeply inappropriate cardboard signs in Love Actually says that at Christmas you tell the truth, after all. Absolutely no doubt he lied his way through the rest of the year.
Then I realised that, as dire chance and... and... and fateful cockup would have it, here I am, late-30s, and without knowing it I've gone and spent most of my adult life... writing previews of golf tournaments like the AfrAsia Bank Mauritius Open. And... and much as it grieves me to say it, it... it might be that I, in fact, love golf tournaments at all times of year.
Bill Nighy being the star of that festive film, all things considered, it's his lead we'll follow all the way down to the island off the east coast of Africa, where typically persistent breezes and plenty of winter sunshine await those making the trip.
The notable features of the event are, to me, three-fold: the absence of some high-calibre players we might've expected to turn up, the effect that has on the quality of an undeniably shallow field, and the move back to Mont Choisy Le Golf, which hosted once before in 2022.
On the former, Louis Oosthuizen has decided not to defend his title, and if that's because the event is no longer at his course, then perhaps Dean Burmester's excuse is that he's no longer ambassador for Mont Choisy, which he was when playing here two years ago.
Their absence means the best player is Antoine Rozner, the world number 144, and for him that final notable feature, the move back to Mont Choisy, is great news. Rozner was a five-shot winner here two years ago, revenge for a play-off defeat elsewhere in 2019. He opened with a round of 62 last year and, as with so many Frenchmen, absolutely loves his time in Mauritius.
Rozner's victory came at the chief expense of Alfredo Garcia-Heredia and Julien Brun and that might give us an important clue as to what's required around a short, exposed par 72, which features four par-fives and two driveable par-fours. Typically I'd be looking towards strong drivers in the circumstances and Rozner at his best certainly counts, but one constant throughout the careers of all three men is their approach play.
All roads lead back to the de facto defending champion and I can't argue with the price. We've been stung by a couple of win-only runners-up over the last few weeks but I would've been going in again had we been able to take double-figure prices and he is by a distance the most likely winner, I'm just not mad on playing single-figure odds about golfers with their limitations, with all due respect, and who come back from a break.
Jarvis cock-up narrowly avoided
I spent a lot of last week fearing that CASEY JARVIS would make me regret not including him, as had long been the plan, for the Alfred Dunhill Championship.
Thankfully, this high-class youngster came up just shy of the places largely due to a quadruple-bogey seven during the final round, which potentially cost him the tournament in the end. Like many he wound up making six at the 18th, but despite those two holes he was only beaten by four.
Nevertheless, Jarvis was bouncing back from a couple of substandard displays, benefiting from the return to a course he loves, and I am very hopeful he'll contend this week at another he's played well before. Back in 2022, just a few months after turning pro, Jarvis was in the mix at halfway and we should expect better if a similar opportunity arises now.
The 7th hole is proving a test this week with an average score of +0.48
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) December 13, 2024
Casey Jarvis has managed to achieve back-to-back birdies on this hole 👏🏻#FortinetThreatScore | @Fortinet pic.twitter.com/e9nmJ5H0Os
At 47th in strokes-gained approach during his rookie DP World Tour campaign, Jarvis ranks among the top half-a-dozen iron players in this field and while last week's caddie-collected strokes-gained data is not to be trusted, the fact that he was inside the top 10 for both fairways and greens suggests his long-game was generally firing.
This is a considerable drop in class for one of the best of a good bunch of young South African pros, and if the putter behaves he should go well. We can even throw in a top-10 finish at Crans for a further boost as while the courses wouldn't appear similar, both feature plenty of wedges and each of Rozner, Brun and Garcia-Heredia has strong form in Switzerland.
Jarvis is much shorter now in the market but rightly so and I'd rate him the biggest danger to Rozner, for all that I am still serving as chairman of the Angel Ayora fan club. By the way, he's shortened to a similar degree but Jarvis has the course experience and every chance to make up for a missed opportunity on home soil.
While he's a confident selection, JAYDEN SCHAPER can't be following an abysmal display at Leopard Creek, but he's just about the same price for this much weaker tournament and has to be worth another chance in the circumstances.
Schaper had arrived there in good form following a top-20 finish in a strong Asian Tour event and another one in Spain two starts earlier, while he was also ninth in the Open de Espana back in September in a field featuring Jon Rahm.
If there's one course in South Africa where we probably ought to allow for the odd shocker, it might well be Leopard Creek and while 2024 hasn't exactly gone to plan, until that performance in the Alfred Dunhill he'd looked to have rediscovered his game in time for two winnable tournaments.
Thankyou @PGATOUR for the past two weeks worth of great opportunities and memories. #BlessedAndGrateful 🙏🏼 pic.twitter.com/RBuDENCzOJ
— Jayden Trey Schaper (@schaperjayden) July 23, 2024
Schaper would've been a good deal shorter had he simply skipped that event so having been ninth and sixth in two starts in Mauritius, and won an amateur title at this very course in runaway fashion, I have to give him another chance ahead of Gavin Green, whose driving and putting have dipped below their usual levels of late.
Green should enjoy attacking Mont Choisy and I'd prefer him to all others towards the head of this market, but Schaper at 20/1 and bigger is hard to resist. This is the weakest renewal of this tournament he's played so far and, like Jarvis, his course knowledge puts him at an advantage over so many.
Like Schaper, Yurav Premlall has won an amateur title on the island and his form is strong while I did contemplate the possibility that Daniel Brown's apparent dip in form says more about two big golf courses than his game. Brown was third in this a year ago and could enjoy Mont Choisy based on some strong form under exposed conditions since.
These two would be preferred to Andrea Pavan, well found in the market after an improved display at Leopard Creek. The Italian has almost always played well there so it might not be the big form clue it first appears, while his strong record in the Mauritius Open has been compiled elsewhere.
The same is true of his compatriot RENATO PARATORE but at a whopping 400/1 I can't let him go unbacked despite some of the worst form figures in the field.
Paratore was in my staking plan last year when around the 28/1 mark so to have fallen this far says much about his disastrous season, one which has seen him make just two cuts and finish no better than 40th.
Having also failed to make it through Final Stage Q-School there remain big concerns about the state of his game, yet there have been a few signs of life lately. He missed the cut by one in Korea after a strong start there, for instance, and was only two shy of the mark in the Australian Open last time when firing a second-round 69.
Big mistakes tend to undo a lot of the Italian's good work and that'll probably be true once again, but this is a lot weaker than the tournaments he's been toiling in and his record in Mauritius includes a play-off defeat in 2019 and 18th last year, along with a narrow missed cut at this course in 2022.
Space off the tee is a definite plus as wild drives have so often been his undoing, but we know this two-time DP World Tour winner has the ability to light up the greens, his approach work has been improving, and he's a dynamite chipper.
He comes back to Mauritius for another birthday celebration, the old man of my squad at 28 years of age, and while he's got plenty to worry about this time, he's just the type to pop up out of nowhere.
Ultimately Paratore is a price I just can't resist whereas OIHAN GUILLAMOUNDEGUY is one I've a sneaky level of confidence in despite being chalked up among the rags.
Siding with French players in Mauritius is almost a necessity, top-10s on this French-speaking island often littered with the tricolore, but Rozner and Martin Couvra aside this looks a weak challenge absent of some of their best DP World Tour members.
Guillamoundeguy though has definite potential and after a good albeit unspectacular Challenge Tour campaign, this low-grade event back in Mauritius could see him make up for the one poor round which cost him at Second Stage, just as it did a few times before that.
Shortly after winning by the Red Sea in Egypt and having only just turned 18, Guillamoundeguy was an excellent 27th here on his second DP World Tour start a couple of years ago and now returns having progressed through the Alps Tour to the Challenge Tour with the minimum of fuss.
He'll be one to watch on that circuit in 2025 but at massive odds, I could see him getting into the thick of things here first with that added layer of comfort enjoyed by French players in this tournament.
Guillamoundeguy is just preferred to Pierre Pineau, whose sharp short-game helped him to 11th place around Mont Choisy in 2022, the solid but unremarkable Felix Mory, and the promising but hard-to-judge Bastien Amat.
Another option might be to find a winning nationality market and back France, something to ponder if you are getting stuck into Rozner as you might not have to pay much for the rest of them combined. For my money though, it's The Scrabble Man who rates clear value at 150-plus.
Worth a(nother) Schott
Finally, German pair Marcel Schneider and FREDDY SCHOTT have both found form lately and at the prices, the more explosive, younger Schott is preferred.
Five top-30s in seven starts is very strong form for this kind of grade and I can't help but feel Schott's price lends too much weight to Qualifying School, where he was undeniably disappointing.
Prior to that I put him up at 100/1 in Korea, where Tom Kim and Ben An were the headline players and the likes of Rozner, Nicolai Hojgaard, Guido Migliozzi and Johannes Veerman helped form a strong field.
For Schott to have produced two top-20s in Australia since then and now go off at a similar price seems peculiar to me, perhaps a reflection of the fact that he finished well down the field here two years ago.
Still, he'd arrived off rounds of 82-71 at Leopard Creek and had been struggling on the Challenge Tour before that, so his form this time is considerably stronger. With a generally good record in Africa, the power to set up a few eagle chances and still plenty of potential, he's one I really like the look of in a field with few options who really appeal.
All that remains then is to say that while there will be some antepost content to come next week, now feels the right time to thank you for reading to the end. It's been a bit of a strange year, with some really poor runs and more runners-up than I can bring myself to count, but from mid-summer to November there were a handful of nice winners and, thanks to Dan Bradbury, hopefully enough to see you end the season in front.
My record, of which I am proud, is I know not perfect. It's challenging for readers to get on at the advised prices and I've tried to reflect that by settling at general odds, rather than standout ones. In an ideal world (from a golf content perspective) we'd publish previews later in the week but for every person who would prefer that, there's someone else who wants them as early as possible. There isn't a perfect formula but as ever we'd love your feedback and are open-minded about most things.
For now, back in January. Have a fantastic Christmas.
Posted at 1900 GMT on 16/12/24
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