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Brazilian Open
The European Tour hosts the weakest event of the week as it returns for a second year to Brazil. At least last year, Padraig Harrington made the trip and won in Sao Paolo before flying north for the Masters. This year, as a consequence of his successes last year, like Eduardo Romero and Angel Cabrera, he plays in the TPC this year instead. Just one Ryder Cup player, Andrew Coltart, makes the trip, but having not played the course before and not being in the bets of form is best left alone.
The course is fairly short and demands accuracy throughout. However, with a much weaker European Tour contingent this year, it may be one in which the South Americans perform much better than this year and principally because of the local conditions. First, the course has Kikuyu rough which makes it very difficult to control the ball. Experience of this grass would have been gained in South Africa, but rarely elsewhere on the European Tour global trail. Second is the very hot and sticky playing conditions. There should be some unknown names on the leaderboard this week!
The three selections are Craig Hainline, Angel Franco and Angel Romero. While the above would be good reason to avoid Hainline who did not play here last year, he does come off a top-10 finish at the Madeira Island Open in only his 2nd start of the year. While others may be feeling the strain of traveling across five different continents on Tour, he can draw confidence from last week and has shown in his appearances at the Malaysian Open (2nd and 11th the last two years) that he is comfortable playing in hot, sticky weather.
Perhaps in an event like this, the other outright plays are left in the hands of a couple of Angels! Romero and Franco, that is. Franco has played on a number of Tours, including the Buy.com Tour on which he finished 33rd last week at the Monterrey Open. He has an excellent record on the Tour de las Americas, winning the TPG-Movilnet Classic last October and finishing in the top-2 on two other occasions. He may be more of a big hitter than is required this week, but the local conditions should suit him and he could well use his international experience to upstage a few of the Europeans.
Romero is less well-traveled, but topped the money list on the Tour de las Americas, winning the Tour Championship and finishing in the top-3 on two other occasions, including the Brazilian Open. This arrival of the European Tour journeymen makes this event of much higher caliber than any on the Americas Tour, but the inauguration of that Tour at the end of last year will have aided the South American golfers enormously in gaining competitive experience so that this year, unlike last year, they will not be as fazed by their European Tour counterparts.
Outright plays:
Craig Hainline to win 50/1 e.w. @ Victor Chandler
Angel Franco to win 100/1 e.w. @ Surrey
Angel Romero to win 125/1 e.w. @ Surrey
72-hole play:
Ricardo
Gonzalez to beat Brett Rumford +100 @ BlueSq
Rumford may have closed the Australasian Tour well, but couldn't carry that on
to the Middle East where he missed the cut in Qatar and there is no reason to
expect him to play better in South America where he has never played before.
Gonzalez finished the Middle East leg with finishes of 21st and 8th and will be
very much at home with the local conditions
Adding:
Warren Bennett to beat Darren Fichardt
-118 @ Easybets
Fichardt won the Sunshine Tour Championship in his last start four weeks ago,
but he has never played well on the European Tour outside of South Africa: 3
starts, 3 missed cuts. Bennett on the other hand already has a 2nd place finish
at the Singapore Masters this year and ranks highly in the greens in regulation
stats which will be important this week
Craig Hainline to beat Bradford Vaughan
+100 @ Surrey
The play against Vaughan is much the same as against Fichardt - he does not play
well outside South Africa. In fact, he has not even played in a Tour event
outside Africa! His last outing was three weeks ago in the co-sanctioned
Sunshine Tour & European Challenge Tour event, the Tusker Kenya Open. He
finished 21st. This is the full Tour and in a foreign continent; he will
struggle against an outright pick
Mid-point update:
A shocking tournament so far! Play has finished early on both days because of lightning and in the chaos, this week's picks have been appalling. Only one 72-hole play is decided at the cut - Hainline missed the cut by one shot and finished his event five shots behind Vaughan. The other two make the weekend, but their opponents are 1st & 2nd after 36 holes! Gonzalez trails Rumford by six and Bennett trails Fichardt by ten.
Only one of the outright plays makes the weekend. Angel Romero lies in 36th place, but that it is only five shots out of a place finish such is the congestion on the leaderboard. Hainline missed the cut and Franco didn't come out to complete his 2nd round. Not much to cheer for the weekend!
Final update: 0-3 and -3.18 units
A shocking tournament indeed! Bad weather afflicted every day and the event was reduced to 54 holes. In the end, very large defeats for the matchups as Gonzalez lost to Rumford who finished 2nd and Bennett lost to Fichardt who won the tournament! Let's hope the weather & the picks are better in Argentina!
Update on outright plays: 0-3 and -3.00 units
The decision to reduce the event to 54 holes completed the blank for the week; it meant Romero had too little time to make up the difference to a place finish. He did get to 27th, which is better than the other picks who didn't get to the weekend.
