Ben Coley was aboard the winner on the DP World Tour last Sunday and follows a similar path, albeit at a shorter price, in search of the champion in Denmark.
3pts Romain Langasque to win the Danish Golf Championship at 13/5 (General)
0.5pt treble Olesen, Goth-Rasmussen & Sullivan to win their three-balls at 16/1 (BoyleSports, Sky Bet)
Lucas Bjerregaard's resurgence could well skip a stage on Sunday, when he goes in pursuit of a popular home win in the Danish Golf Championship.
Three months ago, Bjerregaard was a 200/1 shot for the Danish Golf Challenge and it's on the Challenge Tour where he's since found form, yet at 36th in the season-long points race, he still has a lot to do in order to return to where he belongs.
All that can be taken care of with one round of golf, however, because winning on home soil would earn him his full DP World Tour playing rights from next week, let alone next year. Combine that with the likely bigger goal of winning his home open and the leader has a lot to deal with.
Bjerregaard is a proven winner who has taken down Tiger Woods in the WGC Match Play and competed in major championships so perhaps he'll prove up to the task. Still, I won't be alone in fearing for him. Having your technique tested under intense pressure is the biggest challenge in the game and for Bjerregaard, who was driving the ball off the planet only a year ago, an early wobble could send things spiralling.
The other side of this argument is that were Bjerregaard to have chosen a scenario in which to test his rebuilt swing, this might've been it. He's going to be roared on by the locals, you could see it as a free hit, and virtually all the big names have faltered, with an amateur and a couple more Challenge Tour players part of the chasing pack.
With ROMAIN LANGASQUE still stuck on one win and that four years ago now, Bjerregaard could feasibly get away with a few mistakes and still win this, but it's high time the Frenchman doubled his tally and I think he can do that.
The timing is interesting as it's in fact four years to the week since he captured the Wales Open and Langasque must surely be further spurred on by David Ravetto's victory in Prague, itself on the heels of a fabulous Olympic Games in Paris.
I'm sure a few of the French contingent had mixed feelings watching the golf there, knowing they could've been part of it, and in the fortnight since then we've seen several of them step up and produce some of their best golf of the year.
Langasque has been contending regularly anyway and was an excellent third in the Scottish Open before the break in the schedule, from which he returned with an eye-catching performance in Prague.
Lucas Bjerregaard will take a two-shot lead into the final round on home soil 🇩🇰#DanishGolf
— DP World Tour (@DPWorldTour) August 24, 2024
Stepping up on that here, his only real mistakes during a long Saturday's play were three-putts both times he played the par-five 14th, but he did well to hang on over the difficult closing stretch in round three to earn a place in the final group alongside two Danes. Nobody in the field hit the ball better than he did.
With the other an amateur, Jacob Skov Olesen, there could be plenty of nerves here and Langasque really ought to be best equipped to handle them having been involved in the finishes in Scotland, Belgium, India and Germany already this year.
Scotland aside he hasn't got everything right but these circumstances are in his favour and at 5/2 and upwards, he's the bet.
If Bjerregaard and Olesen do struggle in their respective bids to succeed Rasmus Hojgaard, an off-the-pace winner in the mould of last year's champion is possible. Perhaps the current leading score, 12-under, will be enough to take this title and with seven-under rounds out there, that would bring all of the top 20 into it.
This may sound like wishful thinking after a disastrous end for a couple of my selections, both Andy Sullivan and Joe Dean playing the final eight holes in three-over having been right in the mix, but five of the top nine don't have DP World Tour cards, another is set to lose his unless something improves, and it may be possible to pass a lot of players on Sunday.
The way Adrien Saddier fought back from a miserable start to round three raises hopes that he could be the one to do so but his compatriot Frederic Lacroix looks the obvious danger from outside the final group, particularly having ended Saturday's third round with three birdies over those difficult closing five holes.
That said, Langasque is a pretty confident selection at the price and I see no reason to add a second. When he did triumph at Celtic Manor, there were a whole host of maidens on a generally weak leaderboard. Here, the threat comes from the fact that we've so many Danes in the mix, but they're playing for more than this trophy on Sunday and it might be too big an ask.
At the time of writing, very few three-ball prices are available, but ANDY SULLIVAN is of most interest and should be quoted by all major firms at some stage on Saturday evening.
Sullivan is grouped with David Ravetto and Christofer Blomstrand, who both won last week. That could mean they're running on empty and Sullivan played better than he scored on Saturday, his putter going cold at just the wrong time midway through the round.
For an outsider, consider Challenge Tour winner JONATHAN GOTH-RASMUSSEN, who plays with Eddie Pepperell and Brandon Robinson Thompson. He's shot successive 68s after a slow start to the event and could upstage two better-known partners.
Finally, THORBJORN OLESEN can progress past David Horsey and Jannik de Bruyn, whom he was miles behind after round one but is now level with. He should end the tournament on the front foot as he prepares for another crack at the British Masters.
The treble pays 16/1 with BoyleSports and Sky Bet at the time of writing (note: Paddy Power later added at 18/1).
Posted at 1845 BST on 24/08/24
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