Golf expert Ben Coley previews the Italian Open, where Wentworth runner-up Rory McIlroy is a short-priced favourite.
Golf betting tips: Italian Open
1pt e.w. Nicolas Hojgaard at 80/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Gavin Green at 125/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Sean Crocker at 150/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Tom Lewis at 160/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
1pt e.w. Zander Lombard at 175/1 (Sky Bet 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
1pt e.w. Lucas Bjerregaard at 300/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
0.5pt e.w. Filippo Celli at 300/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
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Now is not the time for moaning, but last year's Italian Open was the low point of a largely fun campaign, and all because of a late field change. On Monday, I had written that strong drivers would benefit at Marco Simone, the soon-to-be Ryder Cup home, with length a potentially decisive advantage. Tommy Fleetwood made the staking plan along with a host of even more powerful types. On Tuesday, Nicolai Hojgaard got into the field as an alternate, and on Sunday he beat Fleetwood by one.
All the more frustrating was the fact I'd sided with Hojgaard on his previous start, and that his brother, Rasmus, had won the previous week. These things combined would surely have had him in the pre-tournament staking plan had he been in the field, especially as I'd noted on twitter that he'd be one to follow in the coming weeks. But he wasn't in the field, yet would go on to birdie the final hole to get the better of Fleetwood and Adrian Meronk.
The point of all this is to say that sometimes the working out is good and the result isn't, as anyone who has rushed through a GCSE maths project on deadline will know. The above is an extreme example, of course, and it does work both ways – sometimes the working out isn't so good, and the result is. Indeed had Fleetwood won it would not have been because of his driving as I had speculated, but entirely because of his putting. The right player won the tournament.
Now that I am able to mark my own homework free of schoolteachers I can say that on this occasion, the working out was sound. Marco Simone, built for the business of golf, is a modern course for the modern player. It's a stadium on grass, like Celtic Manor and Le Golf National before it. Bunkers are placed at yardages which challenge professionals and force some to sidestep them. There are a couple of those driveable, risk-reward par-fours which are always so popular.
For my money the young Dane, who almost matches Wilco Nienaber in distance terms, has won his two DP World Tour titles at the two courses most suited to him. Given his strengths and the way he attacks golf courses, it's not especially surprising that he can struggle badly when circumstances are against him, and as he continues to mature we'll continue to see mixed results.
But we might also see him prove deadly on certain courses, Marco Simone being one of them and Al Hamra, where he bullied his way to the Ras al Khaimah Championship, being another. It's massively telling that despite limited evidence, these two courses are already tied together not just through him but through a whole host of players who found that their shared blueprint spoke to them in some way.
Again, we've only had one Italian Open and few events at Al Hamra, yet Scott Jamieson, Pablo Larrazabal, Francesco Laporta, Masahiro Kawamora, Adrian Meronk and Adri Arnaus join Hojgaard in having secured top-10 finishes at both. Johannes Veerman was 12th at Al Hamra and eighth here. This is a big chunk of a relatively small group who've so much as been to both courses.
