Recap - Magical Kenya Open
They call that tournament the Magical Kenya Open and when you cash an 80-1 ticket it certainly can feel magical! Darius Van Driel played a phenomenal tournament and was about as mistake-free as you could be at that course, dropping only 4 shots across the 4 days, including only 1 over the weekend!
Something I preach is focusing on process rather than results, but it is certainly nice to get a result after so many close misses thus far this year.
UPDATE 5:15 PM ET 2/26 - The original post had the reporting for the Mexico Open and not the Kenya Open. That is now updated.
That outright was the headline, but we also were able to eke out a small profit in the Top 10 market after Adrian Oteagui had a really nice Sunday. We had a bit of a disaster in the Top 20 markets going 0-6 and -2.5u which is frankly not close to good enough. We also saw a 2-0 week in the matchup market, which is always nice!
SDC Championship
The course:
The DPWT leaves Kenya and heads down to one of the most southern points in Africa for the 2nd playing of the SDC Championship. When the players head to St Francis Bay they will be going to play the Jack Nicklaus-designed St Francis Links, which plays to a par 72 across 7,200 yards.
Now, while this is just the 2nd playing of this event on the DPWT, it is notable that this is a co-sanctioned event with the Sunshine Tour and the ST has held events at this location going back quite a ways.
This is normally when I would write a bunch about the course, but St Francis Links actually has a tremendous write-up on their website that quotes Jack, and I rather just let Jack speak for himself!
The cut line last year was Even par.
Prior results:
2023 - Matthew Baldwin shot -18 to crush the field as Adri Arnaus (30-1) finished a distant 2nd, 7 strokes back
The first-round leaders at last year’s event were Kristian Krogh Johannessen and David Ravetto, who shot 67, on their way to T3 (-10) and T18 (-6) finishes, respectively. The eventual champ, Matthew Baldwin, shot 70 to be 3 shots off the lead after the first 18 holes.
The bets:
Okay, let’s see if we can go back to back this week. Sure, everyone is going to pile into the favorites, especially those South Africans, and if one of them beats me, fine, but I think their odds are far too short this week, though if I had to play one, it would be Thriston Lawrence.
We have to balance that we do have the Congiznant Classic on the PGA Tour this week (link to picks), so I am going to take a swag at just under 6u of risk with:
Outright:
Top 10 (0.25u each):
Thriston Lawrence +185
Thomas Aiken +400
Darren Fichardt +600
Top 20
0.75u Tom McKibbin +100
0.5u Thomas Aiken +165
0.5u Andy Sullivan +175
0.25u Darren Fichardt +250
0.25u Todd Clements +350
0.25u Ockie Strydom +550
Match-ups
0.825u on Thomas Aiken over Oliver Bekker -165
As always, I am using BetOnline and Bovada to pull these odds.
Good luck with all your action!
This market is moving as I bet it. I see value down to 55-1 but would not go below that
This is a blended rate as I could not get my full amount down at 110-1 odds so this was 0.115u at 110-1 odds and 0.025u at 100-1 odds
Same with what I said about Aiken above, this market is moving and I would go down to 75-1 but not below that.