The Asian Swing on the DP World Tour continues this week when we move from Singapore to India for the Indian Open, a tournament which has been on the circuit for quite a while and often throws up a decent winner.
Keita Nakajima added his name to the list of winners here a year ago and he is in the field looking to make a successful defence of that crown but despite The Masters getting closer some DP World Tour stalwarts are here looking to take the title from him.
Recent Winners
2024 – Keita Nakajima
2023 – Marcel Siem
2019 – Stephen Gallacher
2018 – Matt Wallace
2017 – SSP Chawrasia
2016 – SSP Chawrasia
2015 – Anirban Lahiri
The Course
This tournament returned from Covid a couple of years ago at the same course as it was previously played on so we are back at the DLF Golf and Country Club once again this week. The par 72 track measures slightly longer than it did a year ago at 7,416 yards but if you miss the fairways here you are staring bogey or worse in the face. There are not many tracks where hitting the fairways is as important as it is here.
The rough is so thick here that lost balls are not rare and there is water in play on a number of holes. The greens are huge and full of undulations so accuracy and pure ball striking are very much the order of the day. Players who are not hitting the ball well simply won’t get anywhere near this week. Generally this is a high scoring event and although the last two winning scores have been on the lower side which is an interesting trend to follow.
The Field
We are at that stage of the season where the bigger players are looking to remain in the western part of the world because The Masters is getting ever closer so with that in mind we have just the one player in the top 100 in the world rankings this week so it is fair to say this is a huge chance for someone to make a name for themselves. John Parry, the winner in Mauritius, is the player in question and he’ll be looking to improve in his third placed standing in the Race to Dubai ranking too.
We do have the defending champion Keita Nakajima and the winner of the Singapore Open from last week in Richard Mansell in the field this week. The latter now sits inside the top 10 in the Race to Dubai standings with the other two players in that band being Daniel Hillier and Johannes Veerman with both looking to make a move this week. Calum Hill, Ryggs Johnston, Marcus Armitage, Matthew Jordan and Jayden Schaper are all in the top 20 and will be wanting to make a big leap up the standings.
Market Leaders
The defending champion Keita Nakajima is the 16/1 favourite to win the tournament for a second time this week. If there was a perfect way to prepare for a title defence he had it last week when he flew home in the final round to finish second in Singapore and given his record in Asia he is very much the man to beat this week. He hasn’t defended a DP World Tour title before though so I’m reluctant to get too involved at the price. I wouldn’t want to be massively against him though.
We have joint second favourites in the field this week. They are Joost Luiten and Matthew Jordan who are both 25/1 to come out on top here. Luiten has been competitive without troubling the leaderboard too much this season but he has a wonderful record around here with his last three starts being T9-3-T11. Jordan has a pair of top 10 finishes in his last two starts coming into this event and he was T13 here on debut last year so both look to have every chance.
Francesco Laporta and Adrien Saddier are the only other players in the field who are shorter than 33/1 on the best prices this week. They can both be taken at 28/1 to win the tournament. Laporta is another who has been competitive this season without troubling the top of the leaderboard and that is the case in his two starts here too. Saddier has a largely poor record here but he has finished in the top 10 in two of his last four starts and the top 20 in another.
Main Bets
Francesco Laporta hasn’t been as high up on many leaderboards as I would like him to have been this season but he has been solid enough and we shouldn’t forget that the fields are starting to get weaker. I think this is an event where the basic long game numbers are the ones to focus on so the fact that the Italian is in the top 10 for fairways hit on the DP World Tour this season and although he is just outside the top 40 for greens in regulation, he was in the top 20 in that statistic in Singapore last week and those put together make me think that he can be a threat here. Laporta has won in China on the Challenge Tour and he finished last season with four top 20s in his last five starts so there is enough to suggest he can be a leading player this week.
The other main bet I think is worth having a go with is Marco Penge. When you look at his statistics this season, you wonder how he hasn’t been in the winning enclosure yet. He sits 13 for driving accuracy and nine for greens in regulation on the DP World Tour this season and when he hits the green in the right number he is seventh in putting. Add to that the fact that he is third for driving distance, which while not essential here this week could mean he will be hitting shorter clubs in, I think he has every chance of going well. Penge was third in South Africa at the beginning of the month and in Joburg the following week carded a 64 and a 66 in another top 20. He looks to be trending in the direction of winning a tournament like this.
Outsiders
I’ll go with a couple of outsiders this week with Jordan Gumberg being the first of them. The winner in South Africa around this time last year is another who is catching my eye in the long game department. He ranks eight for fairways hit and 27 for greens in regulation. Nobody had a better fairways hit percentage than the American in Singapore last week and that immediately catches my eye and only six players had a better GIR percentage too so he ticks all the long game boxes for me. The concern would be that he is on debut in this tournament this week but that will have been the case a lot for him recently and his results aren’t terrible. At a three-figure price I can’t ignore Gumberg here.
The other player I like as an outsider here is Jens Dantorp, the Swedish player who results wise probably isn’t catching the eye this season but he does have a top 20 around here which kept him on the shortlist. He also has a top 10 in Bahrain this season which would have been in a much stronger field than this which is another tick in his box but what I like about him is he is 23 on tour for fairways hit and 35 for greens in regulation with many of those above him not at the tournament. Last week he was second and seventh respectively for those statistics so if he can replicate that and get a few putts to drop the Swede could be a dangerous dark horse.
Tips
Back F.Laporta to win Indian Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-7)
Back M.Penge to win Indian Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back J.Gumberg to win Indian Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back J.Dantorp to win Indian Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Sky Bet (1/5 1-6)
Be the first to comment on "Indian Open Golf 2025 – Tournament Outright Tips and Betting Preview"