In-form golf expert Ben Coley takes a speculative approach to the Omega European Masters in Switzerland.
Sporting Life's red-hot golf tipster is on a roll right now with his latest profitable preview coming at the Czech Masters, when 125/1 each-way tip Tom Lewis claimed third place. He's now made you 300 points of profit in 2017 so make sure you check out these tips for the European Masters...
Tucked into the shirt pocket of the Swiss Alps, Crans-sur-Sierre, home of the Omega European Masters, is a sight to behold. It's no wonder that Sergio Garcia now calls this place home and if you watch one event a year, it surely must be this one.
A golf course which spends half the year covered in snow might have its critics - small, upturned-saucer greens can border on the farcical, and there are many spots on the fairway which offer no direct route to the green - but those in town this week will doubtless find a state of equilibrium only the mountain air can bring.
Players who can take their eyes off the view for long enough to focus on working out their altitude-affected yardages will seek to join illustrious company. Seve Ballesteros won this title three times, his friend Jose Maria Olazabal once, while the likes of Ernie Els and Colin Montgomerie also feature on a high-class honours board in one they all want to win.
With Garcia electing not to return for another stab at an event he took in 2005, two would-be Ryder Cup players take the chance to bag some early points.
Alex Noren and Tommy Fleetwood rate two of the stars of the European Tour over the last 18 months and are hard to split, even if the layers make Noren favourite. The Swede seeks his third title here, but perhaps the edge should go to Fleetwood given that he too loves the course and, unlike newly-married Noren, doesn't have to defend.
There will be worse 12/1 shots than Fleetwood but there will be better ones too and it has been a busy year for the Southport man. He's won two elite events and might yet add a third but I'm afraid those looking for a solid bet from the top of the market have come to the wrong place. Just like the rest of them, Fleetwood isn't for me.
Matt Fitzpatrick was tempting but sounded particularly down on his game last week, whereas a more bullish Lee Westwood still has enough to prove at the odds. The 1999 winner seems sure to go well and is as solid as they come for a top-10 or top-20 bet, but it's a long time since he won and while those days are not over, at 28/1 he can be left alone.
Instead, it's an especially speculative approach from me this week, starting with general 200/1 chance Nino Bertasio.
Once a classy amateur, the 29-year-old is still working to establish himself at this level but another fairly solid season means he's in with a good chance to secure his card for 2018 with one or two decent cheques in the coming weeks.
With that goal firmly in mind, he found form last week when 14th in the Czech Masters to move to 115th in the Race To Dubai, the sort of position from which the likes of Tom Lewis and Chris Paisley have managed a big step up for us in the last fortnight.
Bertasio ranked second for bogey avoidance in the Czech Republic, his short game particularly sharp on a course which played longer than he'd like, and might just be able to build on that here in Switzerland.
The Italian has done something similar before. In the spring, he finished 14th at Wentworth - no bad pointer towards this, especially given that Noren now holds both titles - and just two starts later backed it up with 10th place in Austria. A year earlier, he followed 11th in Spain with fifth in Morocco and held his form for some time thereafter to earn his second European Tour card.
But what's particularly interesting here is the location: Switzerland. For while Bertasio represented Italy at last year's Olympics, he considers himself half Italian, half Swiss, having in fact been born in Zurich.
And while Bertasio has been close to abysmal on every start in Italy, his record in Switzerland merits attention. Not only did his first top-10 finish away from the minor tours come in the Swiss Challenge, a second-tier event, but he actually sat seventh through 54 holes here in 2010 when still an amateur. That was his first top-level event outside of Italy.
Bertasio has played the European Masters just once since and struck the ball really well to finish 29th last year, ending on a high with three birdies over the closing four holes after a nightmare seven at the 15th.
So we have a Swiss-connected player with a very solid bank of course form, who returned to form last week in unsuitable conditions, and who we know tends to string good weeks together.
He'd be a surprise winner, but perhaps not quite a shock one and there's enough in the profile to make prices in the region of 200/1 well worth taking.
Daniel Im is also a massive ousider but, for different reasons, looks no less interesting.
What you might call a global journeyman, Im has finally found a home on the European Tour having played just about everywhere bar the PGA, which might ultimately prove just beyond him.
At this level, however, he has what it takes to win. We saw as recently as the Irish Open, won by Jon Rahm, that Im is capable of sticking around under Sunday pressure and there's no reason he can't supplement that career-best form with a breakthrough victory in the near future.
Why here? Well, the main source of encouragement is that his game just looks like it will fit Crans. Im is a short hitter who bases his approach on finding fairways - he's comfortably inside the Tour's top five in that respect - and his ability to set up chances could be vital on what's his course debut.
It's very rare for a Crans winner to struggle from tee-to-green - Noren actually did last year, but the classy, confident Swede made putts when he had to - and Im's control should serve him really well, in the same way that it did the arrow-straight Richie Ramsay five years ago.
Im also has positive Switzerland form to call upon - his sole win on the Challenge Tour came near Lucerne - and he need not look far for inspiration, as one of his closest friends David Lipsky was the last surprise winner of this very tournament in 2014.
With Julian Suri winning for the US less than a fortnight ago and Im having made seven of his last eight cuts, the timing looks good for a player who has form at correlating tracks and can go really well despite lacking experience of this admittedly unique layout.
Oliver Fisher is tempting - he's got rounds of 63, 64 and 65 under his belt here and is striking the ball as well as ever right now - but I felt that odds of 125/1 probably accounted for that, so he's reluctantly left out of the staking plan.
Gregory Bourdy is a player I've always expected to pop up in the Alps and might do so after his long-game clicked in the Czech Republic, an event he really enjoys, but he's hard to catch right and has had enough chances to shine here without yet having done so.
Not that Victor Dubuisson is easy to catch right, but he does have a touch of class and gets the vote ahead of Jamie Donaldson, the pair holding what I consider to be similar credentials.
Donaldson does boast a superior course record in terms of consistency, but ultimately both he the Frenchman have a best finish of third here and at almost twice the price it has to be the latter.
The case for Dubuisson revolves around his ball-striking. Very few players in this field have hit the ball as well over the last three months and while that hasn't necessarily yielded results, perhaps a return to Crans might trigger the necessary improvement in scoring.
Dubuisson certainly caught the eye in Denmark a fortnight ago, opening with a round of 66 and playing largely controlled golf, but on his first look at Himmerland ultimately had to settle for a share of 33rd.
Still, that's a step in the right direction and for a player with two wins and 17 top-five finishes in his last 100 starts, who wasn't far off winning this event in 2013 and opened 65-67 a year later, I simply feel that 80/1 is generous and worth chancing.
I believe I'm right in saying that Dubuisson placed as a 40/1 chance in the DP World Tour Championship late last year, just after a return to form in South Africa, and this field is vastly inferior.
He is, at his best, as good as anyone here bar the Westwood of five or 10 years ago and while that alone doesn't merit a bet, the fact that he could well top the ball-striking charts does.
At a similar price, it's hard to leave out Luke Donald but that's ultimately the decision I've come to. The Englishman won this event by five shots on debut in 2004, then placed when defending, and returns for the first time since. He made the cut last time out in the US where his best finish this season is second and is not yet a spent force.
All that being said, there's no denying he was a much better golfer when last visiting Crans and a lack of control both off the tee and with his approach shots is concerning. I looked closely in the hope of finding encouragement with short irons but there's no evidence to that effect and a back-to-form putter might only take him so far.
Instead, three more seriously speculative selections, starting with China's Ashun Wu.
Just over a year ago, Wu hit the ball really well but didn't get everything out of his play in Sweden. One week later, he put the finishing touches to more long-game control when a shock winner of the Lyoness Open in Austria.
There are obvious similarities here in neighbouring Switzerland because once more, Wu hit the ball really well last time in Denmark where one or two sloppy errors cost him a much higher finish than 33rd.
Truth be told, he looked in good nick in the Paul Lawrie Match Play prior to that, too, and from a statistical perspective only Fleetwood can be called more reliable in terms of setting up birdie chances over the last six or so months in Europe.
To underline how important that is here, Scott Hend ranked second in greens on his way to second place last year. In 2015, eventual one-two Danny Willett and Fitzpatrick ranked second and first respectively. Lipsky also hit the ball well and the leader in greens hit has finished in the top six in four of the last five years.
If Wu maintains the form he showed in Denmark, he's got every chance to sit towards the top of the greens hit charts. And if he does that, there's no reason he can't stick around having impressed under pressure to win twice on the European Tour in little over two years - not something you can say about many, if any others in his price bracket.
Last week's shortlist unearthed the top three - sadly, I only put up 125/1 third Tom Lewis - so it makes sense to reveal it in full once more.
Others of note therefore included Marcus Fraser, whose Fanling and Crans form confirms what we know about the Aussie: that he needs a fairways and wedges test to be seen to best effect. It was under such conditions that he scored for us last year at a huge price in Malaysia.
Felipe Aguilar won't mind the mountain air, has previous here, hit it well last time and is another 200/1 shot with a chance which is probably better than that, while Matteo Manassero will do for many given that he too struck form in the Czech Republic and has previous here in Switzerland.
My final two, however, are Richard Bland and Romain Langasque.
Bland's greens-in-regulation figures at this course have steadily improved over time, and with it so have his results. He played well to a point in 2015 then contended throughout last year's renewal, ultimately settling for fifth.
Yes, he's still searching for that first win but this is a chance to back him under suitable conditions at a price which will reward us if he places. Besides which, I felt his effort when runner-up in Germany earlier this year was just about his best yet under pressure, particularly as he was playing alongside the Masters champion on Sunday.
A missed cut in Denmark rates only a minor concern and his previous strokeplay form - 19th in Scotland, 22nd in The Open - suggests he's playing well enough to yet again give himself a chance.
Finally, Langasque was seventh here last year, on the heels of a top-five finish in the Swiss Challenge, and is worth the smallest of plays at 300/1.
This crack amateur remains a player of huge potential and while it's been a very difficult first year on the European Tour, I wonder whether something clicked last week when a second-round 69 saw him miss the cut by just one.
If that's the case, he could yet make his 50th Tour-level start a winning one. Granted, it's unlikely but giving these talented youngsters the benefit of the doubt is a sound policy nowadays.
Remember, when Langasque impressed in the Masters as an amateur last year it was in the shadow of Bryson DeChambeau, who is already a PGA Tour winner. It will click for Langasque soon enough.
To conclude, then, these are undeniably speculative plays in an event which, truth be told, tends to go to a player who arrives bang in-form.
Sadly, I couldn't find a bet among those, so it's a case of piecing together fragments which point to the above six, in the hope that at least one of them builds on definite recent promise.
Recommended bets: European Masters
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Posted at 2045 BST on 04/09/17.
