Australian Open / SA Open / Hero - Recap
Well, that was a lackluster weekend. Let’s start by following the sun like our bets did and start with the Australian Open.
In Sydney, we did actually bet the winner, it was just in a matchup though. Joaquin came out on Sunday (Saturday night for us in the States) and played a great final round while everyone else cracked under the pressure. Alex Fitzpatrick was our best shot as he was 1 off the lead after his birdie on 8, but he could not find any moment or birdies. Given his talent and aspiration, it was rath disappointing.
Then we went to South African Open where we started the final round with Revetto 2 strokes off the lead, but after showing us on Saturday he was starting to play to his 500+ OWGR. That continued into Sunday, but thankfully he held on to cask Top 20. The more disappointing one to me was that I expected Bekker to play better over the weekend to get himself into contention, but he was unable to.
The biggest disappointment to me was Hennie Du Plessis who was reasonably well-situated until he shot a quadruple bogey on his final Saturday hole. That took him entirely out of the tournament.
Last, but not least, the hit and giggle in the Bahamas where Scottie was able to canter to a win. I originally didn’t expect to handicap this tournament (hence why there was no write-up), but I thought there might be some value. Well for 2 rounds, Brian the Bulldog Harman was looking decent. Then he was focused on the SEC championship game so his game fell apart and that was all she wrote for our week.
All in all, we lost 6.8 units which sucks, but this is golf betting. You have to be ready to ride the roller coaster.
Golf Schedule for the rest of 2023
I always like to set expectations so here is what to expect between now and the end of the calendar year.
Dec 4 - Alfred Dunhill Championship picks - this should be pretty obvious given it is, you know, this newsletter. While I am personally excited for the Grant Thorton on the PGA Tour, it is an entirely new event that I am not entirely sure I can handicap correctly so I might take some small shots on Discord but nothing official.
Dec 11 - Mauritius Open - the final event of the DPWT calendar
Dec 18 - 20 - Golf recap for the “year” - the reason I put that in quotes is that it is really for 15 months as my tracking is going to move to calendar years like the PGA Tour.
Dec 26 - 30 - My Thoughts on Golf Betting - Yes! An educational article! I wrote this to be part of the summer educational series but given all the unknowns around LIV / PGA / DPWT I have held on to it for a few months. Yeah, we do not know a ton more, but we know enough that 2024 is pretty well set so it is a perfect time to let it fly.
okay, let’s get to this week’s picks!
Alfred Dunhill Championship
After being split for the last 2 weeks, the DP World Tour recombines in South Africa for the 23rd edition of the Alfred Dunhill Championship. This will be the 17th playing of this tournament at Gary Player-designed Leopard Creek County Club in Malalane, South Africa. This course played to a par of 72 across 7,250 yards.
The 22nd edition saw South African Ockie Strydom (175-1) capture his 1st DPWT title when he shot -18 to top Adrian Otaegui (25-1) by 2 strokes. The 21st edition, held in 2020, found 3rd favorite Christiaan Bezuidenhout (16-1) shooting -14 to run away from Richard Bland (60-1), Sean Crocker (80-1), Adrian Meronk, and Jayden Schaper (80-1) who all finished 4 strokes back, and in the 20th edition, Spaniard Pablo Larrazabal (50-1) shot -8 to beat Joel Sjoholm by 1 stroke.
South African Charl Schwartzel has the record for winning this tournament 4 times, including his 2012 victory which set the to-par-record of -24 as he shot 264 strokes across the 4 rounds.
We are going with just under 6 units of risk this week:
Outright
0.6u Dan Bradbury 30-1
0.52u Ewen Ferguson 35-1
0.23u Andrew Johnston 80-1
0.2u Paul Waring 90-1
0.2u Aaron Cockerill 90-1
0.15u Manuel Elvira 125-1
Top 10
0.25u Dan Bradbury +325
0.25u Ewen Ferguson +325
0.125u Aaron Cockerill +800
Top 20 1
0.75u Dan Bradbury +135
0.25u Oliver Bekker +220
0.25u Andrew Johnston +275
0.25u Aaron Cockerill +325
0.25u David Ravetto +350
0.25u Manuel Elvira +375
Match-ups
0.3875u Guido Migliozzi over Marco Penge -1552
0.3625u Freddy Schott over Pieter Moolman -145
0.35u David Law over Jesper Svensson -140
0.3375u Ross Fischer over Brandon Stone -135
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds. I bet them as I write this so they are live within the 45 min or so of publication.
Good luck with all your action!
If you have been with me for a bit you will notice that this is deeper than I normally go on length but also shallower on risk. I am doing that intentionally as it seems so far on DP that we aren’t hitting many but when we hit it is longer odds so playing into that.
This one calculates to having a TON of value, but I am scared off because DPWT has been so up and down and match-ups seem to continue to struggle.