When the PGA Tour handed out cards to ten DP World Tour members at the end of last season's Race to Dubai, it was assumed that each of the ten would head out to the United States and take every opportunity available. After all, competing with the best players in the world is difficult enough as it is, without handing them a head start.

Jorge Campillo, a mild-mannered, late-blooming, straight-hitting, archetypal European Tour type, chose otherwise. Perhaps he knew that there wouldn't be any Spaniards left over there to help show him the ropes. More likely he had a nagging doubt as to how much it would suit him, and therefore chose to get warmed up in the Middle East first.

Despite the exploits of Matthieu Pavon, it's odds-on that Campillo struggles and I expect he'll end this week wondering if he ought to have delayed his flight further still. Because instead of teeing it up in Mexico, on a big, wide golf course which doesn't suit him one bit, he could've been back in Nairobi defending the title he won so impressively a year ago.

Campillo's success at Muthaiga is the best possible illustration of how this course differs from Karen, which staged this wonderful tournament in 2019 and 2021. Over there, in the southwestern corner of the Kenyan capital, is a course which can be attacked off the tee. Muthaiga, more undulating and even more twisting, for the most part cannot, even if a handful will try.

Johannes Veerman, whose form is similar at both courses, said: "This course is very tight. I cannot stress how big these trees are. You think you can take these carry lines but you can’t because these trees are 40 yards tall." And that, ultimately, is why in 2023 we ended up with a leaderboard, headed by Campillo, which featured several of the straightest drivers on the circuit.

Accuracy counts and so do short-game skills, making this what you might call an old-fashioned test. It'll be firm and, with a bit of wind in the forecast, I doubt it'll be a pushover. Muthaiga is a throwback golf course diametrically opposed to those upon which the year began out in the Middle East and I anticipate more of the same, minus a defending champion.

The top of an open market is competitive, with 10 players priced between 16s and 33s for the most part and John Catlin quickly approaching that sort of price. This is a Catlin golf course and no mistake, but having turned around his form since finishing a lowly 151st on the Race to Dubai, he was never likely to remain on my shortlist for long, given that early support following third place in Malaysia was almost guaranteed.

I do though want to take on the favourites with players from what you might call the middle tier, and I'll start with SHUBHANKAR SHARMA, my favourite bet in this event.

Sharma's missed cut last time out in Qatar and his equivalent missed cut in this event last year are sort of ideal, because both help mask an otherwise compelling profile.

Prior to rounds of 74-71 in Doha, where he's generally been poor, Sharma had been 16th in the Dubai Desert Classic and 37th in the Ras al Khaimah Championship, carding eight rounds of par or better on those two big courses which are built for the powerhouses who dominated both events.

That's not Sharma's game and long-term followers may recall that after struggling a little on these modern courses in the Middle East back in 2018, he headed out to Malaysia and an old-school Sauajana GC to capture the Maybank Championship, at the expense of none other than Campillo.

At 13th in driving accuracy last season and one of the best iron players around when firing, Sharma has the right kind of attributes to now succeed Campillo and if we rewind to 2022, we can see how well suited he is to Muthaiga. Back then, he opened 65-67 to hold the halfway lead and while a third-round 75 took him out of contention, that again just helps obscure so much of the promise.

Sharma has been accurate off the tee in both his starts here and was dynamite around the greens on debut, so he's shown all the skills required for a Kenya Open, while the fact he's won at altitude in Johannesburg and threatened to do so in Mexico is another source of encouragement, one he spoke about two years ago.

Still just 27, Sharma has plenty more to offer and he's most likely to show it at a tighter, tree-lined course like this one. Anything above 40/1 rates value and the standout 60s has to be taken.

Further up the betting, GUIDO MIGLIOZZI is the one I can't get away from.

On the one hand, the Italian isn't the most accurate and having missed the cut here in 2022, three years on from winning at Karen, it would be easy to assume that the course was the problem.

But the truth is that overdue return to Nairobi came at a terrible time. Migliozzi had gone MC-MC-67-MC to begin the year having ended the previous one in poor form, and it would be another couple of months before things started to improve.