There are three rounds left of the European Tour season and the first of those takes place in Dubai on Friday as the second round of the DP World Tour Championship is played out on the Earth Course at the Jumeirah Estate.
There is no cut this week so the entire 60 man field can play with freedom and try to go as low as possible to secure a decent share of the huge prize pools that are on offer at the tournament this week.
Sign up to 888sport before Sunday’s big UEFA Nations League match to get 9/1 on England to win! Click the banner above to bet. 18+ New accounts only. T&Cs apply
Round 1 Recap
After the first round of the tournament there are two joint leaders on six under par. Adrian Otaegui and Jordan Smith lead the way by a shot from former Masters champion Danny Willett and the defending champion Jon Rahm and then there is another group on four under par including the Race to Dubai champion elect Francesco Molinari, Matt Wallace and Thomas Pieters among others. Alex Noren, Tommy Fleetwood, Rory McIlroy and Rafa Cabrera Bello are a shot further back on three under.
It was an up and down day for our two ball bets. We won the Fisher punt by a shot and we lost the Bjerregaard bet by the same margin. That one was annoying because Pepperell beat him with a score of +3 which even allowing for the higher scoring than usual around here should not happen so that was annoying.
Friday Betting
This is a pretty big tournament and it is good that we have a second round leader market to go at. The leaderboard is spaced out enough to find some good value and I expect the scoring to be much lower so we have a couple of vulnerable leaders. I don’t envisage the flags to be tucked away to the extent they were on Thursday so this course should be for the attacking of the longer hitters.
Even though the flags were in awkward positions on Thursday, Thomas Pieters made seven birdies. He made three bogeys which is why he is on four under but I’m expecting his errors to be less dramatic with easier pin placements and the way he was hitting the ball on Thursday he should score very low indeed. He is 22/1 to be the leader at the end of the second round and that looks a decent enough price to me.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Friday 2 Balls
As with the first day, the field goes out in twos on Friday but this time they go out in leaderboard order. The final pair off are the leading duo of Jordan Smith and Adrian Otaegui and they go off at 08.45 GMT with Jon Rahm and Danny Willett likely to be a popular pairing out at 08.35 GMT. The Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed pairing at 07.15 is likely to be the pick of the groups on the day and that should get plenty of coverage and the crowd. I like one bet on the day.
Matt Wallace vs Haotong Li
Match tees off at 08.15 GMT
The fourth last group out onto the golf course features two men who sit on four under and two off the lead when Matt Wallace is paired up with the classy Chinese golfer Haotong Li for the second round of the tournament.
Wallace had a brilliant finish to his round on Thursday birdieing four of the last five holes so he should be on a real high heading into Friday. Li birdied the last on Thursday to post four under but his putting has been a real concern of mine for Haotong over the last few weeks and I think it could be the difference here too. Wallace is a great player and this course should be to his liking on Friday. If Li misses some putts then Wallace can take advantage and beat him.
Tips
Back T.Pieters Second Round Leader (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 23.00 with Boylesports (1/4 1-4)
Back him here:
WON – Back M.Wallace to beat H.Li for a 4/10 stake at 2.50 with Unibet
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2018
