Recap - Bahrain Championship
Well, I always talk about how the DPWT seems to be all or nothing, and for much of Sunday morning, it seemed like it would be all. Instead, we somehow end up with two 2nd place finishers, a 4th and a 6th from our outright bets.
Svensson looked great until something seem to magically bite him right in the butt on at 11. He was able to recover at 13, but a shocker at 14 made it seem like other forces were at play and that was about all she wrote for him. Lombard did his best to get back into the proceedings but was never seriously in the mix.
In the end, we have a 2.7u profit as we go 2-1 for our Top 10 bets as Soderberg at +300 had a nice closing round to get safely inside the Top 10 with Zander +275. We also came close to sweeping our Top 20 bets, but De Jager didn’t bother to hold up his end of the bargain. Always nice to cash our big bet of the week, Zander +110, but also carry LaCroix +135, Cockerill +250, and Svensson +300 to get us on the right track.
We keep knocking at the door. One day, someone is going to answer for us.
Qatar Masters
The course:
The DPWT wraps up its 5-week trip to the Middle East with a trip to Qatar! While in Doha, the DPWT will be back at the Doha Golf Club which has hosted all but 2 of these tournaments since the initiation of this tournament in 1998.
The competitors for the 27th playing of the Qatar Masters will find a Peter Harradine-designed course that was one of the first grass courses ever built in the Middle East, which plays to a par of 72 across 7,466 yards.
There are a few interesting things to note this week:
This tournament was last played just a few months ago in October 2023!
The 9th and 18th holes share one green
The greens are paspalum, which is not a strain we see that often
The reigning champion, Sami Valimaki, is now on the PGA Tour so will not be here
When you see this course, it will look more like a course you might find in the Southwestern US, including 65 giant cacti that were imported from Arizona! Further to that point, while we are in a desert, 6 holes have water in play and the course is quite exposed so keep an eye on the weather reports for wind this week (and it looks like we will have a decent breeze the first 2 days, but not as much as last week).
This course is wide open and the rough is fairly benign so the longer hitters who are not always the most accurate might be the way to go this week.
As can be seen by the winning score below, this course can play decently hard so while we have a standard par-72 layout the guys on the course will need to make the most of scorable the par 5’s. Also, keep an eye on the short par 4 16th hole. I would expect we see guys go for that green quite a bit, especially on Sunday when they are trying to make up ground.
Programming note - With this being the final event in the Middle East, there is no event on the DPWT next week as they travel to Africa. I will have my recap for this event in two weeks in my write-up for the Magical Kenya Open1.
Prior results:
2023 - Sami Valimaki (80-1) won his second DPWT event when he came from behind to force and eventually beat Jorge Campillo (40-1) in, a playoff after both men shot -18
2022 - Ewen Ferguson (150-1) captured his first DP World Tour victory when he shot -7 to top Chase Hanna by 1 stroke.
2021 - 3rd favorite Antoine Rozner (25-1 odds) shot -8 to top Gaganjeet Bhullar, Darren Fichardt, and Guido Migiozzi by 1 stroke
2020 - Jorge Campillo (125-1) beat David Drysdale in a playoff after both shot -13.
The last time this was played Scott Jamieson and Daniel Hillier led the proceedings after the first round as they both shot 65s on their way to T3 and T16 finishes, respectively. The eventual winner, Sami, was 2 strokes off the lead after the first round.
All editions of this tournament, since its inception in 1998, have been played in Doha except for 2021 and 2020. When played in Doha, the record of -20 and 268 was shot by Paul Lawrie (1999) and Adam Scott (2008).
We had a tremendously lackluster Qatar Masters in October, dropping 4.7u (-83.5% ROI).
The bets:
Given the similarities to last week, I am going to be using a number of the same names again, especially Lombard who is going to break through one of these weeks! We also have the WM Phoenix Open on the PGA Tour (link to picks) to consider so I am going with 5.9u of risk:
Outright:
0.7u Zander Lombard 18-1
0.45u Sebastian Soderberg 28-1
0.23u Aaron Cockerill 55-1
0.15u Renato Peratore 85-1
0.09u Andrea Pavan 150-1
0.09u Darius Van Driel 150-1
Top 10 (0.25u each):
Zander Lombard +185
Sebastian Soderberg +225
Aaron Cockerill +450
Renato Peratore +650
Top 20:
1u Sebastian Soderberg +110
0.5u Aaron Cockerill +185
0.25u Marcus Hellingkilde +200
0.25u Renato Paratore +250
0.25u Scott Jamieson +300
0.25u Andrea Pavan +330
Matchups
0.7u Paul Waring over Eddie Pepperell -140
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Good luck with all your action!
Yes, that is really the name