Southern Africa

South African Open

The second of the co-sanctioned events in South Africa and a noticeable increase in the quality of the field. No Els or Price this year, but Clarke and Bjorn get their season underway on the East London links. The event has a history of home winners - last year Mathias won on a different course and he was only the 2nd player from outside South Africa to win this title in the past 25 years; the other was Vijay Singh in 1997. With this in mind, two of the three outright plays are on home players.

The course is not very long, despite being lengthened on the European Tour's instructions for this event; it still measures under 7000 yards. But as with all coastal courses, the primary defense is the wind and not the length of the course. Accurate, wind players will feature this week, or more generally players with a good record on links courses.

Clarke and Goosen head the bookies' lists and while both are unbackable at such short odds, it may be worth remembering that Clarke is traditionally a slow starter each year. For example, his previous opening events read: last year he was 37th at the Dimension Data pro-am; in 1999 he missed the cut in Malaysia; in 1998 he didn't start until March, and so on. Care may also be taken with Thomas Bjorn, this is his first start since foot surgery last month.

All three outright plays are unusually just place plays this week. For the first, Paul McGinley, it is no surprise. Regularly a contender, very rarely a winner, McGinley is better bet for just a place finish. He will savor the links-type conditions and with a decent run-out last week, he stands a much better chance of a top-4 finish this week. Also, like the two other picks, he has an afternoon tee-time for the 1st round; the forecast is for rain on the first day morning, so the very important spell of perfect conditions will not be available to those players. The winds rise substantially after midday at East London.

For the second outright pick I am sticking with Justin Hobday again. He did threaten the leaderboard on the 2nd day, but fell back at the weekend in what was a very disappointing performance from the home players last week. That will be reversed this week. He has yet to bring his end-of-2001 Asian PGA Tour form with him to South Africa, but there is no doubting his potential. At long odds again, he represents a value play.

The third pick is Ashley Roestoff. He has finished 13th and 23rd in the last two events in South Africa in decent fields and looks to be in good form. While not on this course, he also has an extremely good record in South African Open having finished 5th and 15th in the past two years. As a home player with an afternoon tee-time, the conditions are certainly in his favor.

Outright plays:

Paul McGinley to be placed [top-4] 33/4 @ Centrebet

Justin Hobday to be placed [top-4] 25/1 @ Centrebet

Ashley Roestoff to be placed [top-4] 20/1 @ Centrebet

72-hole plays:

Peter Baker to beat Nic Henning -111 @ DAS
The Englishman looks promising early on last week and is a regular visitor to these shores, so may not be as disadvantaged as some. For Henning, three missed cuts in the last four South African Opens do not look good

Ashley Roestoff to beat Nic Henning -110 @ Surrey  [-111 @ First Stake]
As above. Very much a tale of an excellent South African Open record against a very poor one

Mid-point update:

Both the 72-hole plays are winners as Henning once again misses the cut at this event   Both Baker and Roestoff won by five shots. In the outrights, the chances of a payoff with Roestoff are very remote, he lies in 59th position, eight shots out of a place finish, McGinley is two shots better off in 36th position, while Hobday lies in 12th place just three shots out of a 25/1 place finish.

3rd round plays:

Peter Baker to beat Ashley Roestoff -103 @ DAS [3 units]

Stephen Gallacher to beat Matthew Wilcox -154 @ Centrebet   [-163 @ First Stake]

3rd round update: 1-0-1 and +0.96 units

Definitely a sign that the corner has been turned - after a couple of weeks of players losing matches despite being in the lead with a couple of holes to play, today's 3-unit selection Peter Baker made up three shots in the last three holes to secure a dead heat   The other match was for more comprehensive: Gallacher defeated by Wilcox by ten shots.

Continued improvement in the outright plays. McGinley crawled his way up the leaderboard to 18th, but that is just four shots out of a top-4 place, while Hobday lies in 5th place, with just one shot to make up. He had been much better, but closed with two bogeys. Roestoff is out of contention in 55th place.

4th round plays:

Markus Brier to beat Mikael Lundberg -111 @ Centrebet   [-120 @ First Stake]

Paul McGinley to beat Doug McGuigan -143 @ Centrebet [2 units]  [-150 @ First Stake]

Final update: 1-1-0 and +0.89 units for the day; 4-1-1 and +3.85 units for the week

Split the plays in the final round with McGinley always well ahead of McGuigan, the final margin being three shots, while Brier finished the day 5 shots behind Lundberg. Still a profit on the day though.

Update on outright plays: 0-3 and -3.00 units

Early bogeys in difficult windy conditions put an end to Hobday's challenge for a top-4 finish, though he did end the tournament in 9th place, three shots too many for a payout. McGinley finished back in 21st position.