The European Tour takes the UK Swing out of England for the next couple of weeks to stage two events at the world famous Celtic Manor resort just outside of Cardiff, with the first of those tournaments being the newly created Celtic Classic which gets underway on Thursday.
The first three tournaments on the UK Swing have all produced different winners which has created a hot Order of Merit from which places in the US Open next month are available. That will keep everyone interested this week.
The Course
The next two weeks will be played on the Twenty Ten course at Celtic Manor, the track that was used for the Ryder Cup in 2010. The course staged the Welsh Open from 2000 to 2014 so it is a course that will be known to a lot of the field and us followers alike. Whenever a tournament is played here you immediately think of comparisons with Le Golf National, another Ryder Cup host, with water in play on a number of holes and the requisite requirement being strong driving of the golf ball.
The course is a par 71 which stretches to 7,354 yards so it is a bit of a beast but it should be noted that it has been bone dry in this part of the world for the last couple of weeks and it is forecast to be hot throughout the tournament so it could well play firm. That will make even more of a premium on accuracy in the long game this week. Past winners here all tend to be strategists rather than out and out bombers. On tough designs like this a decent short game is never a bad thing, something Joost Luiten, Gregory Bourdy, Thongchai Jaidee, Alex Noren and Graeme McDowell, the most recent winners here, all have.
The Field
With the USPGA last week and this being the fourth straight week of the UK Swing and next week’s event having more prestige and history than this one, it stands to reason that some of those we’ve seen a lot of recently are taking the week off. Three men who understandably haven’t taken the week off given their positions in the UK Swing Order of Merit are the first three tournament winners – Renato Paratore, Sam Horsfield and Andy Sullivan.
Those three will fancy their chances here while former winner at the course Joost Luiten will be up for another big week too. The Belgian pair of Thomas Detry and Thomas Pieters also tee it up as does the big hitting Ryan Fox. Jordan Smith, Justin Harding, Alexander Bjork, Gavin Green and Andrew Johnston are some of the bigger names on show while former Ryder Cup pair Nicolas Colsaerts and Thorbjorn Olesen will look to give a decent account of themselves.
Market Leaders
We have joint favourites this week at 14/1. They are Joost Luiten and Andy Sullivan, the former who has a wonderful record around here and the latter who usually stays hot when he is in form and he clearly is having scorched Hanbury Manor last week to win the English Championship. I may well be all over Luiten next week but given that he’s come here from San Francisco having played in the USPGA I’ll leave him alone this week. Last week was clearly a big one for Sullivan so I’ll pass him over as well.
Thomas Detry is the third favourite to win the tournament this week at 18/1. I think I’ve said everything I can about the talented Belgian in the last three weeks when he has been towards the head of the market. His overall results look good but the only time he has had a genuine chance of winning he missed from short range on the final hole. Until he shows he can win he isn’t for me, especially at this price.
Detry’s Belgian compatriot Thomas Pieters is next in the betting. There is a thing in sport called the ‘nappy factor’ where sportsmen tend to go well after becoming a father and Pieters will be looking to ride that wave this week having become a father recently. Pieters ticks every long game box this week but a lack of sharpness and sometimes questionable putting would be a big concern although I’d certainly rather be on him at 22/1 than Detry at 18s.
Ryan Fox and the winner of the Hero Open, Sam Horsfield, are the only other players who are shorter than 33/1 to win the tournament this week. Both tee off as 25/1 shots to claim another title in their careers. Both should get the freedom they want off the tee here but whether they have the touch required in the rest of their game would be my concern. I wouldn’t put anyone off them completely but I prefer others at better prices. It is 33/1 bar.
Main Bets
The head of the market looks a little on the short side to me this week so I’m prepared to go deeper into the odds to find my two main bets. The first is the home star Jamie Donaldson who is rounding into form at a good time with two tournaments on a track he will undoubtedly know very well indeed. The first box a main bet has to tick this week is form in the Open de France and he does that. He has a couple of top six finishes there and plenty more top 25s and would have gone close to winning last year had the final round not been too hot for him. He comes into this week with two top 15s in succession on the UK Swing and a tightening of the scoring here brings him right into the game. Statistically he is performing well and as one of the better putters on the European Tour he’s my first main bet at 60/1.
When I was watching the English Championship last weekend I rapidly scribbled down the name of Adrian Otaegui on my notepad for this week. Nobody gained more strokes on the greens than the Spaniard last week and although his statistical numbers weren’t as good in the long game my eyes told me he was fine in that department, if anything the need to push turbo from the off made his long game look looser than it was. Otaegui has form at the Open de France and that is no surprise because he is a crisp striker of the ball. He is very much one of my go to players on the European Tour when he is dialled in through the bag and that is what I saw last week. I’m more than happy to be on the Spaniard at these odds this week.
Outsiders
With the main bets being bigger prices this week it stands to reason that the outsiders are going to be as well with all three at three figure prices. The first of those is Andrea Pavan, who if he shows his best form is a ridiculous price here. There is a pretty clear and obvious case to be made that his 2020 campaign has been a shambles so far but there were signs last week that he was beginning to flush his irons once again and that will serve him well on this track. It is only 14 months ago that he was holding off a charging Matthew Fitzpatrick to win the BMW International Open and he won the Czech Open the year before that. This Italian is one of the purest ball strikers on the tour with an iron in his hand and with enough freedom off the tee here I’m happy to chance him to go well.
Romain Wattel played for the first time since lockdown last week so it was probably no surprise that he faded away after opening with a 65 in the first round at Hanbury Manor. What that round did show us was that he is hitting the ball very nicely indeed and if he comes on for the run in racing parlance this quality ball striker should go well here. Wattel has three top 15 finishes in four outings on this track so his pure ball striking is well suited to the course. There is a slight risk that he is undercooked compared to most in the field but the way he hits the ball more than makes up for that and at this price he’s another bet for me this week.
My last bet was last seen covering a lake in a boat at the Hero Open after miraculously finding an island in the middle of a lake with an approach shot at the last hole. That is Joel Sjoholm, a player who we’ve already backed since lockdown when we was on him in Austria and that tilt at the Hero Open only strengthened what I thought then, that there could be some good weeks to come from the Swede. Sjoholm has a pair of top 10 finishes on this track in the past and going back to that Hero Open a couple of weeks ago, he ranked fourth in strokes gained on approach and fifth in strokes gained from tee to green. If he has that long game with him, and given that he sits in the top 10 on the European Tour in strokes gained on approach for the season and seventh tee to green there is no reason to think he won’t, I’ll pay to see if a return to a course he’s putted well at before leads him to another big week.
Tips
Back J.Donaldson to win Celtic Classic (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 61.00 with Betfred (1/5 1-6)
Back A.Otaegui to win Celtic Classic (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 67.00 with Betfred (1/5 1-6)
Back A.Pavan to win Celtic Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 111.00 with Betfred (1/5 1-6)
VOID – Back R.Wattel to win Celtic Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Betfred (1/5 1-6)
Back J.Sjoholm to win Celtic Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 201.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-7)
Back him here:
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