Ahead of the Presidents Cup beginning in Australia in the later hours of Wednesday night over here in the UK, there is just enough time for us to take a look at the leading point scorer markets for both teams as well as some of the specials on show.
It used to be that the betting for the team markets was quite easy as there was only one session where everyone didn’t play, but that is not the case now so a little deeper thinking needs to go into it.
Top International
Adam Scott heads the betting for the International outfit and as the home man with the experience he has got that is perfectly understandable. We already know the day one line ups and Scott is out as you would expect and he will probably play all five rounds so he is hard to oppose. Hideki Matsuyama and Louis Oosthuizen also have bags of experience and are pretty short in the betting. I did really like Oosthuizen but his price has crashed. Matsuyama I’m less sure of.
Cases can be made for a lot of players in this Internationals outfit with Marc Leishman and Joaquin Niemann both enticing but the man I like at a bigger price is Abraham Ancer. I admit my mind is slightly skewed towards him because he is out with Louis Oosthuizen and that is a partnership I like the look of. The Mexican should complement the South African well and what I like about him is he has a decent record in Australia. He won the Australian Open by five shots last year and partnered Roberto Diaz to a tied second in the World Cup in the same country. He put up a respective defence of his title last week too so he clearly enjoys the sandbelt, is in good form and looks a big price at 16/1, three times that of his initial playing partner.
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Top USA
It is Justin Thomas who is the 4/1 favourite to lead the American scoring this week. He is out alongside Tiger Woods in the opening round but Fred Couples is on record as suggesting that Woods will only play three rounds this week, so if Thomas is going to lead the scoring he’ll have to find points alongside someone else at some point you would think. Xander Schuaffele and Patrick Cantlay are out alongside each other in the first round and they are the second and third favourites. I’m not convinced I’d fancy either in singles though.
Once again you can make a case for a few in this line up, even Rickie Fowler and Matt Kuchar who will surely play the foursomes with Woods unlikely to feature in those. I don’t particular like Dustin Johnson because he surely won’t play every day which leads me to Patrick Reed. There is a school of thought that he will struggle after the controversy of last week but that is only likely to fire him up and as we’ve seen in these team competitions a fired up Reed is a hard to beat one. I expect Reed to beat nearly everyone in the field in a singles match and he and Webb Simpson should work nicely. 9/1 on Reed just looks too big.
Lowest Scoring International
It might seem a little harsh but there is a market for the lowest scoring International player and this is actually one which I think the odds makers have got right. I don’t just say that because Haotong Li is not featuring in the first series of matches, but actually because I would have thought fourballs would be his best suit given the indifferent form he has been in. At least if he makes a mess of things he has another player alongside him whereas if he messes up in foursomes the hole could be gone. I’m also not convinced he is playing well enough to win a singles match.
You would have to think there is a chance Li will go point-less this week unlike Cameron Smith, the other man to sit out the opening day. He’ll come good with the right partner. Lack of experience and a proper partner could be to C-T Pan’s disadvantage but if he is paired with Matsuyama for a while you can see them grabbing the odd point here and there are least. I don’t really see that with Haotong Li though so I’ll eat up the 4/1 on him.
Tips
DEAD HEAT – Back A.Ancer Top International Point Scorer (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 17.00 with Betfred (1/4 1-3)
Back P.Reed Top USA Point Scorer (e/w) for a 2/10 stake at 10.00 with Coral (1/4 1-3)
Back him here:
WON – Back H.Li Lowest International Point Scorer (e/w) for a 2/10 stake at 5.00 with Betfair
Back him here:
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