The Italian Open, the fifth Rolex Series event of the season, has made it to the final round and we are all set up for a Sunday shootout to remember as some of the stars of Europe go at it for a huge prize pool and all the benefits that come with it on a golf course yielding birdies galore.
Saturday Recap
At the end of a third successive day of low scoring it is the Open de Portugal winner Matt Wallace who holds the lead. He is two shots clear on 17 under with the nearest challengers all being of very high order. Tyrrell Hatton is two back going in search of back-to-back titles while defending champion Francesco Molinari is on the same score as the Englishman.
Kiradech Aphibarnrat and George Coetzee are one more shot back on 14 under par while Race to Dubai leader Tommy Fleetwood heads a trio on 13 under which includes our pre-tournament pick Byeong Hun An. Two more of our outrights sit on 12 under in the form of Ross Fisher and Matthew Fitzpatrick so hopefully we will get some sort of pay out from them on Sunday.
Talking of pay outs we got our first one for the tournament on Saturday when Matt Wallace came home well in front of Marcus Fraser. With one day of the event left we are hoping to build on that and wipe out the small losses from the round betting we’ve picked up thus far.
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Sunday Betting
There seems little point in me going back into the outright market for a couple of reasons. Firstly I’ve three men inside the top 12 so the chances of a place are looking good but also there is so much quality up the top of the leaderboard that literally any one of 20 players could still take this thing down. The tournament is set to reach an exciting conclusion but we don’t need to cloud it by chancing more than we have done.
Sunday 2 Balls
We do still have the two balls to go at though. The final pair on the course – Matt Wallace and Tyrrell Hatton depart the first tee at 12.20 UK time and there are plenty of decent groups throughout the day. The Francesco Molinari and George Coetzee group will be popular with the crowds and will the one featuring Jon Rahm and Nino Bertasio. There are two pairings which stand out to me from a betting point of view.
Mike Lorenzo-Vera vs Paul Dunne
Match tees off at 11.07 BST
Two men starting the day out six shots behind Wallace are Mike Lorenzo Vera and the British Masters winner Paul Dunne and they go out in the same pairing and I fancy there could be an upset in it.
To be fair to Dunne he rattled home on Sunday two weeks ago when winning at Close House but his tee to green statistics don’t make the best reading this week and in what is expected to turn into a bit of a shootout I think Sunday is very much a day the course has to be played from the short grass.
Had it not been for one bad final hole MLV would be right in the mix on 13 under but a double bogey on 18 cost him badly. That said though he is playing good golf this week and if he doesn’t let that error affect him going into Sunday he can still shoot a low score and see off his playing partner on the way to a sizeable cheque.
George Coetzee vs Francesco Molinari
Match tees off at 12.10 BST
The defending champion Francesco Molinari is out in the second last group of the afternoon when he partners the South African player George Coetzee who is out late on a Sunday once again.
I’ve been really impressed with the way that Molinari has defended the title this week and I wouldn’t be surprised if he goes on to emulate Hatton from last week and complete a successful defence. He is hitting the ball well and is clearly relishing the support he is getting.
This is usually the time the wheels begin to come off for the South African, as we found to our cost a few weeks ago when a triple bogey on the final hole cost us a place on Coetzee at a decent enough price. He doesn’t look comfortable in contention to me and while he’s had some practice at it recently I’ve seen nothing to suggest he’ll keep up with the home hero on Sunday.
Tips
WON – Back M.Lorenzo-Vera to beat P.Dunne for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Unibet
Back him here:
Back F.Molinari to beat G.Coetzee for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Ladbrokes
Back him here:
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