We go into the second half of the British Masters on Saturday with just half the field remaining in the tournament and they are all chasing Tyrrell Hatton who opened up a three shot lead after a fascinating day of golf at Close House on Friday.
It is moving day on Saturday and there are a number of players bunched in behind Hatton who will be looking to make significant moves so that they can be in a position to win this historic title on Sunday.
Friday Recap
Hatton skipped clear of the field on Friday to post 12 under and sit in a good position to go on and land a second European Tour title. He leads by three from a group of players who include the tournament host Lee Westwood, Ian Poulter and former Ryder Cup star Robert Karlsson. A trio of players are on eight under. They include our pre-tournament pick Graeme Storm.
A number of top level players are inside the top 20, six or seven shots behind. They include the likes of Graeme McDowell, Shane Lowry, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Chris Wood and last week’s winner Lucas Bjerregaard.
It wasn’t such a good day for our bets. We could only get a dead heat from our three bets as the lack of the forecasted wind in the afternoon did for our plans. We still have three outrights in the tournament and all are in the top 20 so hopefully they can have big Saturdays to get right in the mix.
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Saturday 2 Balls
There is no market for an end of round leader for Saturday but that is not too important as it is hard to see beyond Hatton at this stage and he would be pretty short to maintain the three shot advantage he currently holds.
We are out in two balls on Saturday though and most of the groups have been priced up. The leading pair of Hatton and Ashley Chesters go out shortly after 1pm local time. There are some appealing pairings out on the course not least Lee Westwood and Robert Karlsson in the penultimate group. I’m going with one bet.
Florian Fritsch vs Gregory Havret
Match tees off at 12.15 BST
One of the latter pairings out on the golf course is the all-European pairing of Florian Fritsch and Gregory Havret who both begin the round on six under par, six behind Hatton but for these two it might be about more than the leader.
Both men are outside the top 100 on the Race to Dubai so they need big weeks to secure their playing rights going forward. To be fair to Havret he is beginning to show some signs of life unlike Fritsch who has a best finish of tied 30th this season.
Nobody has hit more fairways than Havret this week and I think that could be significant here with lift, clean and place likely to be in operation on a soft course once again. Fritsch is only hitting just over 50% of the fairways which is not going to get the job done on Saturday plus his six under total includes a hole out second shot so it is slightly false. I’m with the Frenchman here.
Tips
Back G.Havret to beat F.Fritsch for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with Betfair
Back him here:
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