It was a typically low scoring opening day in the Turkish Airlines Open, the latest Rolex Series event on the European Tour, and much more of the same is expected on Friday when the tournament plays up to the halfway mark.
All 75 players in the field know they have four rounds this week so Friday will either be about consolidating a good start or attempting to fire themselves back into the mix with a low score if Thursday didn’t quite go to plan.
Round 1 Recap
At the end of the first round we have joint leaders on seven under par. They are Tom Lewis and Matthias Schwab while there is a group of three on six under including the Czech Masters champion Thomas Pieters and European Tour star Alex Noren. David Lipsky makes up the trio. Defending champion Justin Rose and BMW PGA winner Danny Willett are both at five under alongside Joost Luiten and Thomas Detry among others with our pre-tournament pick Victor Perez among a sizeable group on four under.
It wasn’t really our day betting wise on Thursday. We had initial success when Andrea Pavan saw off his playing partners in fine style but Erik van Rooyen was walloped by Alex Noren and the first round leader bets never really got their head above water which was quite disappointing. We’ll be looking for much better on Friday.
Friday Betting
This is a Rolex Series event which means that we do have a second round leader market to have a look at but with the way the leaderboard is I’m not so sure there is anything that catches the eye. Anyone four under or better would have every chance of coming out with the second round lead which equates to 21 players.
That is far too big a target range for my liking and given that there are some truly top class operators in among those 21 men picking out value wouldn’t be an easy task either even though it is 6/1 the field, which is at least making it a little tempting to get involved. That said though you could have five picks and not come close given the quality involved so I’m happy to leave this market alone.
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Friday 3 Balls
The feature of this tournament is that the 75 man field are out in three balls for the second round but unlike a regular event the groups have been changed so that the players go out in leaderboard order as we are accustomed to them doing in the final two rounds. That means the last group out onto the golf course off the first tee sees Matthias Schwab, Tom Lewis and David Lipsky going out alongside each other at 9.00 GMT. The pick of the groups is the one featuring the English trio of the defending champion Justin Rose, BMW PGA winner Danny Willett and the man who won the first tournament of the season in Aaron Rai. There is one bet for me on Friday.
David Drysdale/Sebastian Soderberg/Gavin Green
Match tees off at 08.05 GMT
Three men who tee off way down the leaderboard go out off the tenth tee on Friday morning when David Drysdale and Sebastian Soderberg look to build on a level par first round when they are out alongside Gavin Green who carded one over on Thursday.
Green was absolutely horrendous with the putter on Friday and in a tournament which is a putting contest that is not a good thing. Drysdale wasn’t a whole lot better in that department whereas in terms of strokes gained putting, Soderberg was second in the entire field. His long game has improvements in it but ultimately this week is all about getting the ball into the hole and the Swede looks to be doing that a whole lot better than his playing partners. With that in mind I’ll take the European Masters champion in this three ball.
Tips
Back S.Soderberg to beat D.Drysdale & G.Green for a 3/10 stake at 2.70 with Betfair
Back him here:
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