We reach the halfway stage of the Italian Open on Friday, as the latest Rolex Series event of the season sees its second round played out in Rome on what should be another great day of golf on a course which looks a magnificent setting for an event of this kind.
It was a lower scoring opening day of the tournament on Thursday, with the stars on show taking advantage of the preferred lies on the fairways to get their scoring off to a positive start. We should get much more of the same on Friday.
First Round Recap
After a good first day it is the Finnish player Tapio Pulkkanen who leads the way on seven under par. PGA Tour star Rory Sabbatini is one shot behind on six under with a group of players another shot back on five under. They include Rolex Series winners Justin Rose and Bernd Wiesberger as well as Shubhankar Sharma, Kirt Kitayama and Joost Luiten. Our pre-tournament pick Matthew Fitzpatrick heads up a trio of players on four under which also includes Andrew Johnston.
It was a frustrating betting day for us on Thursday. Matthias Schwab was handily placed at three under halfway through his round but couldn’t push on and secure a return in the first round leader market while we had a dead heat in the three balls with Aaron Rai and a one shot loss from Adri Arnaus even though he carded under par so there is room for improvement.
Friday Betting
At the time of writing this preview there is no second round leader market to go at but I’m not massively fussed about that as you would think that Justin Rose would take up a fair amount of the market. In saying that, the likes of Bernd Wiesberger and Matt Fitzpatrick are close enough to Rose to possibly do some damage and hit the front at the halfway mark so there is no guarantee we could have picked the winner anyway.
Fitzpatrick is in the mix for us heading into Friday and it would be no surprise if he goes well, and indeed we hope he does, but in terms of a bet that means we are left with the three ball markets in the hope of recovering some of Thursday’s losses.
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Friday 3 Balls
The players will head out onto the course in the same groups of three that they did on Thursday only those who were out in the morning will be out in the afternoon and the afternoon wave on Thursday get the Friday morning slot. That means that the leader Tapio Pulkkanen goes off at 11.00 BST with the likes of Justin Rose out at 07.20. The pick of the afternoon groups sees Francesco Molinari, Shane Lowry and Matt Wallace who tee off at 12.00 BST. I’ll take one bet on Friday.
Lorenzo Gagli/Sam Horsfield/Joost Luiten
Match tees off at 12.30 BST
One group where the statistics from Thursday caught my eye is actually quite late out on Friday and it sees the home player Lorenzo Gagli, English prospect Sam Horsfield and the Dutch star Joost Luiten off out on their second round.
Luiten won this group on Thursday by two shots from Horsfield and seven shots from Gagli, but actually when you look at the key statistic for the week for me he was actually even further ahead than that. That statistic is the strokes gained tee-to-green where Luiten was more than three shots better than Horsfield and even further clear of Gagli. That means unless he has an absolute mare on the greens Luiten should be expected to win this group with a bit in hand on Friday and at 5/4 I’m happy to take him to do so.
Tips
DEAD HEAT – Back J.Luiten to beat L.Gagli & S.Horsfield for a 3/10 stake at 2.25 with Betfair
Back him here:
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