Home|PGA|European|Champions|LPGA|WGC|Others |
| |
| |
Daan Huizing - 1 point each-way @ 80-1 advised on Twitter (66-1 fine) Clement Sordet - 1 point each-way @ 50-1 advised on Twitter (40-1 fine)
Although just a shade under 6800 yards, Le Vaudreuil course has always been known as a tricky place to play, with premium very much on accuracy. The fairways follow the shape of the holes, and meander both ways, so shaping all shots plus finiding the right part of the small greens will be key. Easy to see why Romain Langasque is favourite given his play-off loss in Slovakia last week. Most now know of his quality and he is certain to get his nose over the line pretty soon following a season of cuts made, four top-5s and a few top-20 finishes. His 39th at Augusta is clearly the standout form but there is a form correlation with some of the other tighter tracks and he boasts a 2nd in Kenya, 5th in Turkey and top-20s at both Switzerland and St.Omer, tracks that appear in many of the formlines of recent top-10 players round here. Nothing puts me off bar the price. Likewise defending champion Ryan Fox, with three recent top-10s, has to be a very fair joint-fav. Son of awesome All Black Grant Fox, he had long been on the radar after some superb efforts on his home tours. Last season saw him come alive with placings at Nejati and the Rolex, split by the victory here, and whilst defending is tough he does have a huge amount of promise, loves these tracks, will play well in wind and everything points to a good defence of the title. However it is about prices so I have gone with two from the middle of the pack - given a lot of the rags are quite useless, we can probably narrow this down to a 40 or 50 man event. Hopefully, some of you saw the tweet about 80-1 Daan Huizing, a player who has been very in-and-out this year but whose best form, top-10s at Kenya and St.Omer, point to the emphasis on accuracy. 2013 was a stellar year for the highly-ranked amateur with four top-5s and two top-20s preceding back-to-back victories. With a 4th round here to look back on, his victory from a field in Northern Ireland now looks very good given it included plenty of subsequent winners as well as the almost infamous 'Beef' Johnston. Form in relevent events is strong and he often appears to turn up at the same events each year - his win at Northern Ireland followed by a 3rd in 2015; Karnten shows a 2nd and 9th in the same years; Kenya a 5th and 9th over the last couple of seasons, whilst his best result on the main tour in 2014 came in Russia at this time of year. He seems quite easy to read and whilst he does have more missed-cuts this year than in previous, given those courses at which he has performed I am happy to think he can continue course form 4th and 24th this week. It can't do any harm to bring his form at Brittany and St.Omer to the table and all that led to being overpriced at 66-1, let alone the 80s. Only other bet is improving home player Clement Sordet. As an amateur, Sordet's best form was round here with top-20 in 2013 (closed with 65) whilst a year later he took off on Sunday, recording 63 to tie with Ben An amongst others behind the charging 'Beef'. We should really have been alerted to his quality when he won in Northern Ireland a year later (that link with Huizing again) and 13th at Kazakhstan is another result that can be seen as important in this 'relative course' project. He did miss the cut for the first time round here but opened with a 69 to sit midfield before a disasterous front-nine 4-over saw him miss the cut. Finishing 37th on the R2O however was a cracking effort and many have expected him to kick on and get his card this year. The young Frenchman needed to birdie the 72nd hole to win at Gloria (another tree-lined course with water) and he has made every regular event cut since, including an admirable 45th in the very difficult French Open. Whilst he didn't make the weekend at The Open, he had plenty of other things on his mind, leading the tribute to the tragedy in Nice, and that is very safely ignored. Back here, passionate about his homeland and in deceptively good form, he probably ranks amongst the best of the crew and really should be priced around the Detry price of 30. Again, hopefully you saw the tweet to take 50-1, and if the emotion doesn't get to him 40-1 is still acceptable. I have one last week before the column is taken over by another writer so please join me next week when we will try the swansong - we may just need it!
|