It is ‘Moving Day’ at the Nedbank Golf Challenge on Saturday as the third round of the penultimate tournament of the European Tour season continues to head towards its conclusion out in the beautiful surroundings of Sun City.
28 players are under par in the tournament and all of them will be looking to position themselves strongly for the final round on Sunday where some serious dosh will be handed out, not just to the winner but to the entire field.
Round 2 Recap
We went into the second round with a South African in front and we end it in the same position. The only thing that has changed is the identity of the leader. Louis Oosthuizen has been replaced at the top by Zander Lombard who leads the way on 11 under, two clear of his compatriot Oosthuizen who is nine under with Thomas Detry on seven under. Tommy Fleetwood and Marcus Kinhult are the only other players within five of the lead.
It was a much better day for us on the betting front, as although Paul Waring didn’t go as low as we would have liked with our outright betting thoughts, he did at least go lower than his two playing partners to bring in our three ball bet. He is four under par so hopefully he can kick on and give us some kind of a return outright.
Saturday Betting
We have got a third round leader market to have a look at, which understandably centres round the two South African players Zander Lombard and Louis Oosthuizen. Oosthuizen is the only player within four shots of Lombard so you would think that unless they both drop back one of them will take the lead into the final round, or at least if they don’t then someone has played a quite amazing round of golf.
If I was convinced that Tommy Fleetwood is firing on all cylinders I might have looked at him from five back, especially as he is only three behind Oosthuizen but I’m not convinced he is in tip top form. I’d be surprised if one of the South Africans aren’t leading at the end of the day because I don’t really see anyone guaranteed to come out of the pack.
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Saturday 3 Balls
As with last week the field remains in three balls throughout the remainder of the competition and they go out in leaderboard order off both the first and tenth tee. The last group out off of the first tee are Zander Lombard, Louis Oosthuizen and Thomas Detry and they go off at 08.20 GMT with Tommy Fleetwood, Aaron Rai and Marcus Kinhult go out in the penultimate group 11 minutes prior to that.
As with the first two rounds, and indeed last week, the entire set of groups out onto the golf course have been priced up with bookmakers and after a winner in them on Friday, I’m keen to get stuck into them on Saturday. I’ve scoured the cards and there is one bet that I have picked out for the third round of the event. It comes in the final group.
Thomas Detry/Louis Oosthuizen/Zander Lombard
Match tees off at 08.20 GMT
The final group onto the golf course sees the Belgian ace Thomas Detry out alongside the South African duo of Louis Oozthuizen and the leader Zander Lombard with all three aiming to strengthen their position on the leaderboard for a big pay day and hopefully the title on Sunday.
I wonder how Lombard will go here. There can’t have been many times he has led a big tournament like this at the halfway stage, let alone one that is in his home country at an iconic place like this so he has to be a little nervy heading into it. Even Oosthuizen couldn’t build on the lead so it wouldn’t be wrong to expect Lombard to struggle with the burden. Oozthuizen didn’t look great on Friday which is a bit of a put off if I’m honest.
Detry is one of the leading lights of the tournament statistically and he actually held the lead at times on Friday before playing the last two three over par and falling away. There is no doubting that is a concern but I’ve always found the statistics are a good guide to the week and so the fact that Detry leads the strokes gained putting and is fourth on strokes gained on approach shows me he is ready to go really low. If he keeps the mistakes off the card I fancy he can outscore the South African pair here.
Tips
WON – Back T.Detry to beat L.Oosthuizen & Z.Lombard for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with Betfair
Back him here:
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