The first round of the British Masters takes place at The Grove on Thursday with many of Europe’s best players gracing the fairways and greens on the opening day. The 120 man field is split up into groups of three teeing off on two tees throughout the morning and the afternoon with the higher profile groups all priced up for us to bet on.
Morning Groups
The pick of the morning groups all head off the 10th tee in the morning session. The pick of the groups in this session is the all-English combination which sees the defending champion Matthew Fitzpatrick out with Lee Westwood and last week’s winner Tyrrell Hatton. They go out at 8.10am with Bernd Wiesberger, Thongchai Jaidee and Soren Kjeldsen out straight after them.
The pick of the groups off the first tee in the morning is the one featuring the former USPGA champion YE Yang, Pablo Larrazabal and Kiradech Aphibarnrat. Thomas Aiken, Richie Ramsay and Gareth Wright is another group which might get some attention.
Afternoon Groups
Unlike in the morning the main pairings go off the first tee in the afternoon. The pick of them is probably the one including the Masters champion Danny Willett, Alex Noren and Andrew Johnston. Luke Donald, Chris Wood and Andy Sullivan go out one group before them and they should carry quite a large crowd around with them too.
Those starting on the tenth tee who could catch the eye is the 12.25pm group of Tom Lewis, Eddie Pepperell and Matteo Manassero. At 12.55pm last year’s runner up Fabrizio Zanotti, Richard Green and last week’s runner up Richard Sterne hit the golf course.
Betting
There are two groups which I like the look of on this opening day of the tournament. I’m not a massive fan of betting on three balls so I’m already looking forward to the weekend when he can get involved in mano e mano combat but there are a couple of prices which stand out for a small punt.
The first is the morning group of Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick and Lee Westwood where I’m quite keen on the former. Lee Westwood’s game looked all over the place in the Ryder Cup recently and I’m not expecting him to be a factor here with short game and putting such a big issue. I have a few doubts over Fitzpatrick too. He defends a tournament for the first time and his putter hasn’t looked fantastic for a while.
That isn’t the case with Hatton. He has been playing good golf recently, none more so than last week where he blew a decent field away and while I don’t expect him to do that here I don’t see him going from hero to zero in the space of five days. Putting and scrambling is a big thing here and Hatton has that on his side. He has my money on his side too.
In the afternoon the main group involves Danny Willett but I’m keen to take him on. His game hasn’t fired on all cylinders recently anyway and he was stretching his back a lot in the pro-am so I wonder if he has arrived here not quite fully fit. On what is expected to be a cold opening day any back issues could resurface.
That leaves me with Alex Noren and Beef – Andrew Johnston. I can’t get out of my head how Noren faded last week and a reason for that was poor driving. That isn’t going to help his cause here so I’m with Beef in this group. He’s a tee to green machine who will love being the centre of attention and if he can find the hole with a few putts he should be able to see his playing partners off.
Tips
Back T.Hatton to beat M.Fitzpatrick & L.Westwood for a 3/10 stake at 2.60 with Coral
Back him here:
VOID – Back A.Johnston to beat A.Noren & D.Willett for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with Ladbrokes
Back him here:
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