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Betfair Picks - European Tour |
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8-5; +0.89pts Pre-tournament plays: BACK 1pt Paul Lawrie 250 30th
Fabrizio Zanotti 85 74th
Craig Lee 350 mc
Speculative punt on Lawrie at these odds - he finished 21st when this course was last used two years ago, played well from tee-to-green at Wentworth last week and responded very positively to being named as a Ryder Cup Vice Captain on Friday - his team won the Nordea Masters Pro-Am today
Zanotti is available at much shorter odds for obvious reasons - he has finished 16th-9th-mc-7th in his last four starts and he has made the cut in all three previous visits to Bro Hof Slott
Back to the speculative punts at odds which are much bigger than I would price - Lee finished in the top-10 in the Open de Espana last month, has made six cuts in a row and recently got the all-clear on a niggling wrist injury; he is certainly a player who could contend this week LAY 20pts liability Sebastian Soderberg 120 mc
Jeung-Hun Wang 75 mc
Opposing Soderberg who finished 3rd last year but that was on a different course; he has finished 55th-mc in his last two European Challenge Tour events and while an improved performance can expected in his home country (at least in the early rounds), these odds are too short
Continuing to oppose Wang after he won back-to-back European Tour events last month; he has never played in Sweden previously and will continue to struggle to reproduce that winning form of early April Pre-rd3 plays: BACK 1pt Alexander Bjork 75 30th
Scott Henry 48 25th
Backing two players at very high prices given their leaderboard position - Bjork is the leading home player this week (2nd) and the only one in the top-10 and, while he has only played in one previous event, he is well-experienced on the Challenge Tour shouldn't be at such odds in 2nd place
Henry is also in 2nd place and is at much higher odds than is warranted - he has won on the Challenge Tour and finished 2nd on the European Tour on two occasions, so looks capable of still being in contention late on Sunday afternoon LAY 20pts liability Alex Noren 22 12th
Rikard Karlberg 29 7th
Henrik Stenson 44 4th
Lee Westwood 22 8th
Tyrell Hatton 55 20th
Noren and Karlberg are the 2nd-highest ranked home players at this stage, but Noren is outside the top-10 and six shots off the pace and he will not close that gap to Matthew Fitzpatrick if he continues to putt as poorly
Karlberg has shown much better form recently than Noren, but it has not been apparent this week - they are in the same place on the leaderboard, but Karlberg's short game has rescued his scorecard this week whereas it has been Noren's problem area
In 35th place and nine shots off the pace, Stenson is too far off the pace to be at these odds and he will not be particularly happy tonight - when play resumed, he dropped two shots over the closing holes
Westwood is alongside Noren and Karlberg in 12th place, but he played poorly today until a late flourish - that should help him prepare for tomorrow, but he showed last week that he is far from the player that he was when in final round contention
Hatton has been in particularly good form recently with four consecutive top-15 finishes, but he is seven shots off the lead in 19th place and these odds are too low for a player in that position who has never won a European Tour or Challenge Tour event Pre-rd4 play LAY 20pts liability Nicolas Colsaerts 11 3rd
Opposing the Belgian who took the lead today on the 8th hole, but then found water and rarely found his momentum again on the back nine - from leading, he finished the day five shots behdind Fitzpatrick and I doubt he will catch the Englishman who has been very impressive when leading - twice he has led after 54 holes in the last 12 months and he has shot 66-68 in rd4 on those two occasions.
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