There is a new tournament slotted into the European Tour schedule this week as the Savannah Classic takes place out in Kenya. With the Covid-19 restrictions still in force around the world the tour are putting on a second event in Nairobi in as many weeks to keep their members active.
We have no former winner of this tournament but Justin Harding won here in the Magical Kenya Open and he’ll be looking for a quick follow up in this event which gets underway on Tuesday so it doesn’t clash with the World Matchplay final stages.
The Course
We remain at the Karen Country Club in Nairobi this week. If you watched last week’s event you’ll know exactly what to expect here. The course is a par 71 which only measures 6,921 yards and we are at heavy altitude so it doesn’t play anything like as long as that. When you add in the humid air as well this is a really short course by modern standards. The key though is going to be accuracy with this being the second week in a row the course has been used.
There was some rain in the area on Saturday night and the rough was visibly tougher on the Sunday round and with no chance to prepare it any differently it should be expected to play a bit lush off the short grass. These are tiny greens to hit so there may well be even more of an emphasis on fairways and greens in regulation. Scrambling is going to be another key statistic I would imagine. There was an emphasis into the greens last week with the top three all ranking in the top 10 in strokes gained on approach.
The Field
As you would expect with this tournament beginning less than 36hrs after the previous one ended, the field for this one is pretty much the same as in the Magical Kenya Open. That means that the winner of that tournament, Justin Harding, will tee it up, while the former champion Guido Migliozzi is also in the field this week. There are three players in the top 100 in the world rankings who tee it up this week in Aaron Rai, George Coetzee and Kurt Kitayama.
There are some other notables in the field including winners on the UK swing last year in Sam Horsfield and Romain Langasque teeing it up. Other players who won an event last term who tee it up here are Jorge Campillo, John Catlin and Ross McGowan. Further notable names here include Joost Luiten, Jamie Donaldson, Victor Dubuisson, Alex Levy and Adrian Otaegui. Much like last week this field looks very competitive.
Market Leaders
Kurt Kitayama may have had to settle for second on Sunday but he is the 14/1 favourite to go one better this week. The American looked at home here last week although he didn’t hit many fairways so his backers will need to hope his short game continues to work for him. The other concern about backing him is whether the emotions of being involved so deeply in the event last week will leave him a little flat at some point this week. He isn’t for me.
The winner of last week in Justin Harding is the 16/1 second favourite. In a rarity for us golf punters we don’t need to worry about whether the player fits the course. We know he does because he won last week but the question punters have to ask is how much winning took out of him. He sounded pretty emotional after the final round so it was clearly a big thing for him and with the quick turnaround here it wouldn’t be a big surprise if he is a little flat this week. He isn’t for me either.
Guido Migliozzi won the first European Tour event in Kenya a couple of years ago and he had a late tee time on Sunday which meant that he put up a decent title defence. That shows us that he enjoys the course and having gone well in Qatar the week before too he is clearly in decent touch at the minute. He might free up a little without a title to defend and doing so on a course he clearly plays well could make the Italian value at 20/1.
Sam Horsfield flew home with a 65 on Sunday and looked to have the course figured out a little more in that round which suggests he could go well this week. The two time winner on tour last season should go well here too because all the par 5s are reachable for him and there are a couple of drivable par 4s that he can get after as well. If he keeps the mistakes off the card he could be a leading contender. I’d be on him but I prefer others at bigger prices.
Main Bets
Connor Syme was right there throughout last week but couldn’t quite reel the top two in on Sunday but I think he is worth a go again here. He played wonderfully all week hitting more greens in regulation than anyone else and his putting stats were very good as well. His scrambling left a little to be desired but there were a couple of reasons for that, primarily that he is aggressive into the greens and left himself awkward but also because latterly he was chasing hard and trying to hole everything. These dual week events have become frequent since Covid came around so I’m interested that when this happened in Wales, Syme finished eighth the first week and third the following week. He missed the cut both times in Cyprus but improved seven shots from the first week to the second. The other thing I think most judges noticed was a correlation last week between here and Valderrama in terms of who went well there did ok here. Syme was eighth there last year so I’m expecting another good week from the Scot and at 45/1 he is my first main bet.
The second main bet is a man who placed for us at 150/1 last week in Jacques Kruyswijk. While we happily took the place considering he was only just inside the top 20 going into the final round, we actually came away with what might have been because the South African got caught up on the Friday when the winds were bordering out of control and dropped six shots in eight holes. He only went down by six shots overall so if he had the better end of conditions we could have been collecting on a 150/1 winner. His price has shrunk massively to 50/1 this week but the way he went last week makes me think he’s worth supporting again here. I think we saw last week that the long game and on the greens are big things. He ranked sixth overall in strokes gained from tee to green and would have been similar on approach but for those winds on Friday. His putting stats improved as the week went on as did his scoring. He carded -13 for the weekend and if he finds two rounds of that level here and sticks two adequate ones around it he won’t be far away.
Outsiders
John Catlin is a personal favourite of mine and I’m happy to get back on again this week. I’ve already mentioned the Valderrama correlation so it makes immediate sense to back the winner there. The other thing it makes sense to do is take the man who led the field last week in strokes gained tee to green and who was second in strokes gained on approach. He gained more than eight shots on the field on approach to the green but couldn’t hole anything. His putting concerns have been there for a while now and has held him back since he won in Ireland so we are taking a leap of faith that he sorts that in a short space of time but to be fair he’ll be putting on these greens for the fifth to eighth time so if he can’t read them by now he never will be able to. His putting seemed to improve over the weekend though which is a positive sign and having closed out with a 65 he should be ready to go well this week, if his putter cooperates.
I’ll go a little more left field with my final pick in the form of the Czech player who lit up the Challenge Tour last year in Ondrej Lieser. He finished in a tie for 33rd last week but he closed with a 64 which very much caught the eye. He finished the week seventh in strokes gained on approach and got better in that discipline as the week went on. He was sixth in it in the third round and led the field in strokes gained on approach on Sunday. The same can be said for his tee to green game so it looks as though he needed 36 holes to get to grips with the altitude and everything but once he did it all came together nicely. He showed his talent in one of the first events after restart when he finished T13 in one of the Austrian events then finished off 2020 with three events on the Challenge Tour where he finished fourth, first and first. He has had to wait a while to get into a European Tour event field and might be waiting again after this unless he has a big week. Given his improvement throughout last week to the level he played at come the end of the week I think he’s worth a punt here.
Tips
Back C.Syme to win Savannah Classic (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 46.00 with 888sport (1/5 1-7)
Back him here:
PLACED – Back J.Kruyswijk to win Savannah Classic (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Coral (1/5 1-8)
Back J.Catlin to win Savannah Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 61.00 with Coral (1/5 1-8)
Back O.Lieser to win Savannah Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with Coral (1/5 1-8)
Back them here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021
