The opening round of the Italian Open takes place on Thursday with the entire field jostling for positions early in the tournament in Milan. Everyone who tees it up on Thursday will know this is a low scoring event so there is pressure on all of the players to get off to a fast start especially with the course likely to be in pristine condition.
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Thursday Preview
The entire field go out across the course of two sessions over the opening day with two tees in operation. This isn’t like the first Rolex Series event at Wentworth where everyone is off the first tee or anything.
There is a first round leader market to go at but in truth there is no bias in conditions expected and no real part of the draw which I look at and think we can whittle the event down to a smaller number to give us a bit of an advantage in trying to find a winning bet.
Thursday 3 balls
As ever in the bigger golf events the majority of the groups out on the golf course have been priced up on Thursday. The field are out in three balls on Thursday with the marquee group being the afternoon one of Tommy Fleetwood, Sergio Garcia and Jon Rahm, the top three in the Race to Dubai standings.
There are a number of heavyweight groups out in the morning too for both the crowds on the course and those of us watching TV to enjoy and the coverage of this event is likely to be extensive given the magnitude of the tournament. It is a different group in the afternoon which catches my betting interest though.
Fabrizio Zanotti/Dylan Frittelli/Matthew Southgate
Match tees off at 12.35 BST
One of the later matches out onto the golf course is the one featuring the Lyoness Open winner Dylan Frittelli, Matthew Southgate and the winner of the Maybank Championship in Fabrizio Zanotti.
I think the Paraguayan has drawn himself a nice group here as I think he will be the lowest scoring player on show in it. This will be Frittelli’s debut in the tournament but having failed to better tied 25th in his last 10 tournaments his form isn’t spectacular right now. Southgate is back from trying his hand at getting a PGA Tour card and having failed his comedown might last longer than this week.
Zanotti was third around here in 2015 and had very good finishes in Switzerland and China this year to go along with his win in Malaysia. In that win he carded 19 under par which shows that he can compete in aggressive shootouts. I don’t know how competitive he’ll be in the field this week but he can see off his two playing partners.
Tips
Back F.Zanotti to beat D.Frittelli & M.Southgate for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Bwin
Back him here:
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