Qatar Masters - Recap
The feast or famine DP World Tour turns famine once again as we come very close to completely striking out.
Things looked promising for most of the tournament with Bobby Mac well in contention and Crocker sniffing around as well, but is was not to be.
Pair that with basically picking the wrong half of our card to back (e.g., using Langasque for Top 10 and big Top 20 bet instead of Bobby Mac) and we end up losing 4.7u on the week.
McKibbin was our loan bright spot this week as he cashed Top 20. I guess you could count Paul Waring as a bright spot as he didn’t cost us any money (LOL) as he had the common courtesy to withdraw before the tournament started.
Nedbank Golf Challenge
The DP World Tour heads south from the Middle East to South Africa this week for the Nedbank Golf Challenge which represents the penultimate tournament for the DP World Tour season.
This limited-field event of 66 men will be traveling to Africa to take on one of the longest golf courses on the planet when they tee it up at the Gary Player Country Club in Sun City South Africa, which plays to a par 72 across 7,820 yards!
The 40th edition of the challenge was won by tournament favorite Tommy Fleetwood (10-1 odds) who captured his 2nd Nedbank in a row when he shot -11 to beat Ryan Fox (20-1) by 1 stroke. The 39th edition, which was played in 20191, saw 2nd favorite Tommy Fleetwood (12-1 odds) shoot -12 and beat Marcus Kinhult (60-1) in a playoff, and in the 38th edition, Lee Westwood captured his 3rd Nedbank title at 30-1 when he topped 2nd favorite Sergio Garcia (8-1) by 3 strokes.
The record for low-to-par score and aggregate score was achieved by Ernie Els in 1999 when he shot -25 (263 total strokes). The single-round record for this course was shot by Lee Westwood, in 2011, when he shot a 10 under 62 on the way to an 8-stroke victory to win the second of his back-to-back titles.
This is a limited field, but we do have some big names playing, so we have fewer options than normal and we also need some bankroll for the PGA Tour’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship (here is a link to those picks), I am going with 7.8u of risk:
Outright
0.72u Aaron Rai 25-1
0.72u Branden Grace 25-1
0.33u Joost Luiten 55-12
0.26u Nathan Kimsey 70-1
0.18u Connor Syme 100-1
0.18u Calum Hill 100-1
0.15u Daniel Brown 125-1
Top 10 (0.25u each)
Branden Grace +180
Nathan Kimsey +400
Ryo Hisatsune +400
Top 20
1u Aaron Rai -130
0.5u Vincent Norrman +105
0.5u Joost Luiten +130
0.25u Ryo Hisatsune +130
0.25u Connor Syme +185
0.25u Daniel Brown +240
Matchups3
0.7u Sean Crocker over Pable Larrazabal -140
0.375u Connor Syme over Grant Forrest -150
0.3625u Branden Grace over Nicolai Hojgaard -145
0.35u Nathan Kimsey over Richie Ramsay -140
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!
2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Edit note - at 9:07 am ET (20ish min after publication) it was identified that the odds was written as 33-1 but should have said 55-1. This has been updated. It doesn’t change the risk taken.
I usually try to stay away from betting guys I picked to win as matchups as well as if my model is skewed towards them it is not surprising to see them show value here so if I am wrong once I will be wrong many, but the three I am betting showed a ton of value and I am only going with small amounts of risk each.