We head to the halfway stage of the final tournament of the European Tour season on Friday when the 60 man field embark on the second round of the DP World Tour Championship. Those who begun the tournament well will be looking to maintain the pace with those who were left behind looking to catch up.
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Thursday Recap
After 18 holes of the Race to Dubai finale it is advantage Justin Rose in the race to be European number one. He sits seven clear of his rival Tommy Fleetwood for that crown but it is Patrick Reed who will take a one shot lead into the second round of the tournament.
The American shot a seven under par opening round 65 and leads by one from the aforementioned Rose and the Australian bomber Scott Hend. A sizeable group on five under par sits two off the lead and it includes the defending champion Matthew Fitzpatrick as well as the British Masters winner Paul Dunne. Ryan Fox, Alex Levy, Alexander Bjork and Fabrizio Zanotti make up that group. Our outright pick Nicolas Colsaerts is one of a number of players on four under.
We had a winner and a loser on the opening day of play with Justin Rose comfortably coming past Tommy Fleetwood but Thomas Pieters was an equally comfortable loser against Paul Dunne so we have work to do for the next three days.
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Friday Betting
As has been the case for the last three weeks the only major market we have to go at for the second round is the outright one. Justin Rose’s appearance on the leaderboard distorts many of the prices but it is a little early to be going into it again.
I don’t want to back Rose at a short price because when push comes to shove he might just look to see off Fleetwood rather than win the tournament especially if Fleetwood comes surging back. That could force Rose to play for position rather than the win. With such a bunched leaderboard it is hard to find someone to go in with so I’ll stick with where I am and head to the two balls for Friday’s bet.
Friday 2 balls
As ever the 30 groups going out onto the golf course have all been priced up. The final pair out sees Patrick Reed out with Scott Hend at 8.50am GMT. There are some good groups out earlier in the day with Francesco Molinari and Jon Rahm likely to be popular while much earlier in the day the pairing of Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Tommy Fleetwood is likely to have a decent crowd going around with it.
I’ve scaled the cast list for the second round and applied the stats into the piece and I’ve come up with one bet which is out an hour before the final group.
Martin Kaymer vs Soren Kjeldsen
Match tees off at 07.50 GMT
Martin Kaymer had a good week in South Africa last week and has begun this week very well too. He goes out alongside Soren Kjeldsen against whom he has an obvious advantage against and that being the extra length that he has.
Admittedly Kaymer is not a Scott Hend or a Nicolas Colsaerts but he averaged 40 yards more off the tee than Kjeldsen in the opening round and over time that will make a difference. Only Matt Fitzpatrick hit more fairways than Kaymer in the first 18 holes and only five players had more greens in the right number too.
Kjeldsen was a little lower down the GIR stat which I would expect with his lack of length off the tee and with Kaymer a better putter than the Dane too I expect that to be reflected with the German going lower than Kjeldsen over this second round of the tournament.
Tips
Back M.Kaymer to beat S.Kjeldsen for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfred
Back him here:
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