Recap - Qatar Masters
Well, our third swing on Zander Lombard was the worst of the 3 as he shared the first-round lead, then he fell off the lead during the 2nd round, but he was just a few strokes back. The 3rd round started poorly, but he was able to sort of recover, but he was never again in the mix.
My biggest frustration is that when I looked at the longer shot market I was evaluating 3 guys: Pavan, Van Dreil, and Scott Jamieson. I decided to go with the former two and then just take Jamieson in the T20 markets. Well, he finished in the Top 4 while Pavan and Van Dreil both missed the cut by some margin.
We did cash an easy winner in the head-to-head market, but I will continue to be strategic on these with limited risk until we get some good traction this year.
Kenya Open
The course:
After a 5 week stint in the Middle East, the DP World Tour took a short break while it took a trip to the African continent for the Magical Kenya Open. The Kenyan national championship is being held, as is tradition, in the greater Nairobi area at either Muthaiga Golf Club or Karen Country Club. This event was formerly part of the Challenge Tour’s rotation until 2019 when it joined the DP World Tour.
The tournament will once again return to Muthaiga Golf Club, where it has been hosted 45 times. The players will be faced with the Peter Matkovich re-designed course that plays to a par of 71 across 7,228 yards. When you are on the tee at this event it is important to make sure the fairway is clear of the group ahead and some possible indigenous interlopers as they saw at the Ladies Open two weeks ago.
This course is more of a parkland-style course, which is a bit abnormal for the DPWT and might be why you are seeing some of the top guys not play. As with a parkland-style course, this course has a fair number of trees lining the fairways that can make for tight quarters off the tee, features a large number of bunkers that are absolutely in play, and several water hazards.
A few things of note about this course:
While this course plays to a Par 71, it still has the traditional four Par-5s, which means we will have five Par-3s this week
The front 9 is far longer and more challenging than the back 9, but the back 9 has more water hazards
Anyone who has watched distance running knows that Kenya is a haven for runners as it is at elevation and this course will play significantly shorter than the listed yardage as it is around 5,000ft above sea level
As of this publishing, the weather looks quite nice. Warm and mostly dry, but with some winds in the afternoons. We should see the course playing “fast and firm”, especially on the Bentgrass greens. Given this, I think we likely see a winning score in the -12 to -14 range.
Prior results:
2023 - Jorge Campillo (35-1) won his 3rd and most recent DPWT tournament when he shot -18 to beat Masahiro Kawamura (60-1) by 2 strokes
2022 - Ashun Wu (50-1) shot -16 to beat Aaron Cockerill (150-1), Thirston Lawrence (125-1), and Hurly Long (60-1) by 4 strokes
2021 - Justin Harding (35-1) shot -21 to beat tournament favorite Kurt Kitayama (20-1) by 2 strokes1
20192 - Guido Migliozzi shot -16 to beat Adri Arnaus (20-1), Louis De Jager (50-1), and tournament favorite Justin Harding (10-1) by 1 stroke3
The 72-hole record for this tournament, when held at Muthaiga, was shot by Welshman James Lee in 1995, Dutchman Maarten Lafeber in 1999, and Englishman Less S James in 2002. All 3 men shot -19 (265 strokes). Maurice Bembridge is the only person to ever win back-to-back Kenyan Opens and also holds the record for 3 victories.
The bets:
Given the course setup, that it is at elevation, and the possibility of stiff winds in the afternoons, I think we should be focused far less on long inaccurate hitters and be looking for guys who do well in the wind, are accurate off the tee/with their irons, and good around the greens.
Look it would be easy to go back to the Thriston Lawrence bag once again, especially given his 2nd place finish here 2 years ago and while I was tempted by him and Alex Fitzpatrick, I just don’t think anyone in the 25-1 or lower slots have value this week.
I would have loved to have bet reigning champion Jorge Campillo but he is actually in the Western Hemisphere teeing it up at the Mexico Open this week (link to picks) so instead we are taking just under 6u of risk:
Outright:
0.465u Aaron Cockerill +32454
0.3u John Catlin +5000
0.275u Maximilian Kieffer +5500
0.275 Masahiro Kawamura +5500
0.24u Shubhankar Sharma +6500
0.19 Darius Van Driel +8000
Top 10 (0.25u each):
Aaron Cockerill +250
Adrian Otaegui +350
Masahiro Kawamura +400
Shubhankar Sharma +550
Top 20
0.75u Aaron Cockerill +125
0.5u Maximilian Kieffer +150
0.5u John Catlin +200
0.25u Daan Huizing +185
0.25u Shubhankar Sharma +220
0.25u Sam Bairstow +230
Match-ups
0.4u Darius Van Driel over Oliver Becker -160
0.35u Edoardo Molinari over David Ravetto -140
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Good luck with all your action!
Took place at Karen Country Club
2020 was canceled due to COVID
Took place at Karen Country Club
BetOnline has this at 33-1 and Bovada has it at 30-1 so what you are seeing here is a blended rate as BOL won’t let me bet the full amount there so this is 0.38u at BOL at 33-1 and 0.085u at Bovada at 30-1