Chile Classic

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This week sees the Nationwide Tour hop over to Chile for the Chile Classic at the Prince of Wales Country Club, a virgin visit for the Tour but not all of the players. Some entrants will have played the course on the Las Americas Tour last year while others will have spent the last few years negotiating it on the Chilean Tour. It is obvious that with the top 50 players in the world playing at Doral in the WGC, a number of usual Nationwide faces will have made the step up to the PGA's Puerto Rican Open so we have a slightly depleted field this week, made up of sponsors invites, local players and Las Americas graduates. Due to the lack of experience of this course and the expected windy weather, course form and local knowledge will be of the utmost importance and both these factors will feature prominently in my selections. Also, looking at last years visit on the Las Americas Tour, there were some exceedingly low scores, with winner Benjamin Alvarado's winning score being 22 under and even 20^th place being 6 under, so I will be looking for someone ranking high on Scoring Average.

My Picks are as follows.

Mark Tullo - Santiago born Tullo has been plying his trade on the European Tour for the last two years and before that on the European Challenge Tour so has mixed with some pretty decent company in the past few years. What immediately springs to mind when you think of the Chilean is when he led the Barclays Scottish Open after the first round last year, later going on to finish a remarkable 3^rd, ahead of the likes of  Westwood, Kuchar and Mickelson to name but a few. In those windy conditions in Scotland he shot two simply stunning rounds of 65 and 66 to defy the weather and proving he could mix it with the best so I think in this step down in quality and in what will again be windy conditions, he will thrive. Couple this with the fact that he will know the Prince of Wales course like the back of his hand as he hails from Santiago and that he finished 4^th at the Abierto de Chile Copa here last year, carding a 63 on the way, and we have a pretty strong case for back him at what now seems like a ludicrous three figure price. However, to add further substance to my support of Tullo is the fact that since the beginning of the year he has been brushing up his golf on the Chilean Tour, playing five events with finishes of 2/14/4/5/2 and obviously acclimatising himself with the Chilean weather. 1pt e/w @ 125/1 Sky Bet, Bet365

Charles Warren - Scoring Average is what has attracted me to Warren, he is 10^th so far this season (all be it over only 8 rounds) and last season he was 25^th with 69.98. This will serve him well on a course designed for those who like to go low as he evidently does as shown by previous years results where his highest finishes have all been where the final scores are often in the double figures. What also caught my eye with Warren was the fact that he ranked 17^th in Par 4 Birdies or Better and 4^th in Par 5 Birdies or Better. The Price of Wales Course has 10 Par 4s and 4 Long Par 5s so these stats should come in handy while negotiating the course as will his 15^th in Driving Distance on those longer holes. In terms of form, he comes to Chile on the back of a 38^th in Panama and 6^th in Colombia, the Panama result would have been considerably better had it not been for a poor final round but this doesn't bother me. It is the Colombia result that I find more promising as it was played in similar conditions to those that he will experience this week and yielded a -7 score. 1pt e/w @ 40/1 Sky Bet

Total Staked - 4pts