Recap - Jonsson Workwear Open
As I said on the Discord, I was concerned about this tournament because as I was doing my handicapping, I realized that the tournament had moved locations. What I had not anticipated was how wrong I would be about how deep the leaders would get in relation to par.
Thankfully I kept it a bit tight as we never really had a guy in contention though Scrivener and Aiken both gave us a little hope along the way.
Singapore Classic
The course:
After a week off the DPWT has moved from Africa to Asia for two weeks, which kicks off with the 2nd playing of the Singapore Classic! The 132-man field will be teeing it up at the Classic Course at Laguna National Golf and Country Club.
The Classic Course, known as “The Beast”, will host this tournament for the second time and plays to a par 72 across ~7,400 yards. Per the course’s website the course is “known locally as 'The Beast', due to its formidable challenge, the Classic unfolds over hilly terrain that is unparalleled in golf in Singapore”. Again, from the website - the course features more than 146 bunkers, 5 “water features” and undulating Bermuda greens. While the greens are Bermuda, the course is thick paspalum, especially in the rough.
Let me know if you have heard this before - this course boasts a picturesque par 3 17th hole with an island green….Yup! They designed it to look just like TPC Sawgrass.
There are three very interesting things this week:
If you are looking at the top of the odds board and confused by seeing Shane Lowry and Matthieu Pavon’s names you are not seeing things! They are both traveling across the globe for this event.
There was an uproar around the event last year as the Asian Tour took exception that the DPWT would come to Asia to hold an event, but not co-sanction it with them given they aligned with LIV. That ruckus takes an even stranger turn this year with the DPWT allowing LIV player Paul Casey to tee it up!
They have redesigned the 16th green so that they can use a new pin position this week.
It is worth noting that the 2023 event was held in early February last year and the course was very soft following monsoons. This year the weather should be pretty dry and warm, though, similar to Florida, there seems to be a possibility of an afternoon rainstorm every day. There does not seem to be much wind in the forecast.
Prior results:
2023 - Ockie Strydom shot -19 to beat Sami Valimaki by 1 stroke
The first-round leader of last year’s event was Tom McKibbin, who shot 64, on his way to a T12 (-13) finish. The eventual winner, Ockie Strydom, opened with a 71 but used a final round 63 to come back and win.
The bets:
This market has a bunch of guys at short prices at the top that are quite short prices. As I mentioned above you have Lowry who is coming off some good golf but flying across the globe. Pavon hasn’t played nearly as well as Lowry, but he is going to have a 2-day advantage on Lowry as he missed the cut. Casey opened at 18-1 and I was interested in that number, but he has been bet down to 12-1 in some places and he is being tipped on Twitter left and right.
We have the Valspar Championship (link to picks) in Florida to keep an eye on as well so I am going on the longer side of the odds and taking ~5u of risk here:
Outright:
0.43u Zander Lombard 35-1
0.38u Keita Nakajima 40-1
0.17u Ugo Coussaud 90-1
0.17u Daniel Brown 90-1
0.08u Darius Van Driel 200-1
Top 10 (0.25u each):
Zander Lombard +275
Ugo Coussaud +650
Daniel Brown +700
Top 20
0.75u Zander Lombard +125
0.5u Keita Nakajima +150
0.25u Ugo Coussaud +220
0.25u Daniel Brown +250
0.25u Darius Van Driel +400
0.25u Okie Strydom +500
Match-ups
0.825u on Daniel Brown over Eddie Pepperell -165
As always, I am using a host of books (MGM, FanDuel, Bovada and BetOnline) to pull these and have marked off where I got the outright action.