The opening round of the Abu Dhabi Championship kicks off the action on the DP World Tour for 2022 on Thursday and it sees a decent field taking to the new track for a competitive hit for the first time as the players look to jostle for the early position.
This is a Rolex Series event which means there is a lot of dough up for grabs so everyone teeing it up in the first round on Thursday will be eager to get a good position on the leaderboard to have a chance of a big win over the weekend.
First Round Leader
As ever for a Rolex Series event one of the first markets I look at is the first round leader. I’m sure everyone who reads the golf stuff regularly on this site will know the drill now about looking at the weather and the format. The format here is for two waves of players to go out and it might be that the morning players get the better of things because the wind is expected to kick up throughout the afternoon.
I’ll go with a couple of early starters in this market with Tyrrell Hatton and Rafa Cabrera Bello the men of interest. Hatton will be motivated to go well in this opening round as he is defending the title this week and he should be suited well to this track. He is something of a links specialist with a wonderful record in the Dunhill Links where one of the courses is designed by the course designer here. He is out in the second group on Thursday which looks a good position. Before he goes out Cabrera Bello takes to the course. I’ve highlighted his credentials in the outright market but I’ll add he often starts better than he finishes these big events so I’ll add a punt on him to be the first round leader to the outright punt on him.
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Thursday 3 Balls
As ever in a European Tour, or now DP World Tour event, the field goes out in threes on the opening day. As I eluded to above there is a morning wave of tee times and an afternoon one with the marquee group in the morning being the one which features the defending champion Tyrrell Hatton, Rory McIlroy and Lee Westwood who go out at 03.30 GMT. Adam Scott, Bernd Wiesberger and Nicolai Hojgaard follow them out 10 minutes later. The pick of the groups in the afternoon wave sees college foes Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa being joined by Tommy Fleetwood in the 07.55 group. Henrik Stenson, Danny Willett and Padraig Harrington go off at 08.15 and it is that group where I like a bet on Thursday.
Henrik Stenson/Danny Willett/Padraig Harrington
Match tees off at 08.15 GMT
Three experienced campaigners go out in one of the better groups to take to the court in the opening round on Thursday when Henrik Stenson is joined by the former Masters champion Danny Willett and the 2021 Ryder Cup captain Padraig Harrington.
These three men all know what it takes to win the biggest events on the planet and two of them are Open champions which might be significant here but I’m actually going to side with the outsider of the trio in Harrington. Stenson has kind of fallen off a cliff over the last year or so and in what could be tricky conditions by the time this trio tee off that might see his struggles continue. Willett is very hit or miss these days and I often think he is better in calmer conditions too whereas Harrington functions perfectly well in the wind and now that he doesn’t have Ryder Cup commitments he can focus on playing good golf. I suspect the short game is going to be a big thing this week and there still isn’t many in that department who better the Irishman. His partners here certainly don’t so I’ll have a play on Harrington here.
Tips
PLACED – Back T.Hatton First Round Leader (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with BetVictor (1/5 1-6)
Back R.Cabrera Bello First Round Leader (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 71.00 with BetVictor (1/5 1-6)
Back them here:
Back P.Harrington to beat H.Stenson & D.Willett for a 3/10 stake at 3.10 with 888sport
Back him here:
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