Although just a second year into its European Tour career, the Magical Kenya Open is displaying the same traits that it did as a Challenge Tour event for close to two decades.
Repeat form has been prevalent throughout the week and, as we go into, Sunday, the likes of defending champion GUIDO MIGLIOZZI,
runner-up Louis de Jager, plus Garrick Higgo and Romain Langasque have all performed, while much of the leaderboard from South African events, Qatar, Valderrama and associated 'classic' tree-lined tracks sit inside the current top 30 or so.
Tree-lined and with grainy greens, the course can get difficult if you are wayward but under calm conditions and with the ball travelling miles at altitude in Nairobi, there are opportunities to score. That's particularly true from the sixth to the 12th, a run of three par-fives and a couple of short par-fours, as Scott Hend showed today with an eagle at the sixth before he drove it to eight feet to set up a putt for another at the seventh.
With 42 eagles so far from just these seven holes, this is potentially where the event is won and lost and anyone making hay here will probably get away with playing safer down the tough stretch.
Justin Harding is now the main, possibly sole, candidate for a South African winner this week and anyone taking the loose advice offered in Ben Coley's column will be pretty pleased with themselves having secured 9/2 about a 6/4 chance.
Currently lying second in strokes-gained tee-to-green, a stat that had huge prominence through the 2019 top-10, the experienced eight-time winner also leads the eagles, birdies, par-four and par-five figures, something that will get it done in the vast majority of events, if not all.
Crucially that isn't based just on what was a fairly impressive third-round 64, a single bogey on the hardest hole on the course spoiling a delightful card. Throughout the week Harding has known what to do here to score and, as befits a player with form figures of 18th before a flying runner-up around Karen, he has every confidence he can play the course to his advantage.
Finally, there are lots of candidates for an off-the-pace top-10 but one player has a knack of closing.
It may be quite an ask from so far back in a share of 28th, but NIKLAS LEMKE has been impressing for a good period and while he hasn't caught fire so far this week he has enough in his armoury to give a good run at a big price.
Finishes of 9-11-8 through Joburg, Dubai and Qatar, after a break, read very nicely in terms of both recent and correlating form, but it is his charges on a Sunday that further boost his profile.
Last time here, in 2019, the Swede came from 39th to 12th - just a shot off a top-10 - after a best-of-the-day 64, while in recent times he has recorded his best end-of-round positions at the Alfred Dunhill, Victoria Open, and twice at Qatar, that ninth-place preceded by a burst from 21st to third in Harding's victory.
He is currently three off a payout but any of those final rounds would see him go very close and at 7/1 he looks worth the chance.
Posted at 1430 GMT on 20/03/21
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