Lyoness Open

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Magnus A Carlsson to beat Chris Wood - 6 points win @ Evens (Bet365 and Stan James)

Carlsson may only have one Challenge victory to his name but he has looked threatening for a while now. On both the main Tour but mainly that Challenge event he can list a full house of cuts made and a handful of top 30 finishes. Best of those are running-up at tricky Madeira and 8th in St.Omer, both prone to wind and favouring accurate players. No question that he should have won another event by now, but with a weekend of 67/68 here last season, he can be confident of earning a good few Euros before the likelihood of returning to the big stage next season. The course must suit his style of play.

The lanky Englishman has been a true dissapontment. Not only has he not kicked-on after a super effort in the 2008 Open as an amateur, but he has let punters down time and time again, seemingly unable to conquer any final day nerves. No doubt he will win one soon enough, but he has no experience around here and lacks the finesse that is required to keep finding green after green. Not particularly long or accurate off the tee, I am expecting him to struggle to put a decent enough score together that will finish in front of the Swede.

Alistair Forsyth to beat Christian Nilsson - 3 points @ 10-11 (Tote/Betfred)

Neither of these are going to win prizes for the amount of trophies won but the former is by far and away the most reliable of these and it is never hard to oppose Nilsson in any format.

Interestingly, both have won at tricky, windy tracks - Forsyth a Madeira specialist, and the Swede has posted his victory at St.Omer, so there are definate comparisons with both. However, Forsyth, with top-15s at Madeira and St Omer has shown time and again that he repeats form at the same tracks each season and with a record of 20/14 around this course, can be expected to hang around and prove too consistent for his oppo. In both years Forsyth has opened with rounds of 74 yet has fought back to obtain decent paychecks and his accuracy is too good to miss in an each-of-two situation.

Nilsson is simply unreliable. On a few occassions this season he has shown bursts of quality over a nine hole stretch, yet he simply cannot keep it going. It seems as if attitude and adrenalin drives him to making mistakes (rather like Siem for much of his career) and obvious examples of that are his opening rounds in Germany and France. He shot 68 and 65 respectively yet finished outside the top-30 after posting six rounds of 71 and over. That 31st in France is his best showing this year and whilst he may be the type to get with when the pressure of a 'card' is looming later in the season, all his stats indicate he will struggle to get competitive this week. Driving accuracy and greens in reg are well outside the top 100 and it is doubtful that his improved putting will help him climb the board. Take the journeyman Scot to give him a lesson in finding the short stuff.