The DP World Tour returns after a week off and it heads from Asia to Africa for a three week stint in the continent which begins with the Kenya Open, a tournament which is being held at this level for the fourth time.
Ashun Wu was successful in this tournament a year ago and he is here looking to make a successful defence of the title. Despite us being a month away from the first major of the year a competitive field has been assembled.
Recent Winners
2022 – Ashun Wu
2021 – Justin Harding
2019 – Guido Migliozzi
The Course
We move to the Muthaiga Golf Club in the capital of Nairobi this week. This is now the second viewing of the course on the DP World Tour but it was a regular feature when this event was staged on the Challenge Tour and as such a number of players in the field will be fairly familiar with it by now. The course is a par 71 which measures 7,228 yards but with the altitude of this part of Kenya it plays to nothing like that yardage so for these tour professionals the course could be at their mercy.
This course is a little quirky in that it is effectively two nine holes tracks put together. The front nine is full of undulations whereas the back nine is routed around a series of manmade lakes. Whichever nine you are on accuracy looks to be a primary key around here. This is going to be a low scoring event so players who go pin hunting and can hole putts should probably come up on the shortlist. I don’t think length is an issue in these conditions.
The Field
Clearly given the tournament that is going on in America this week this was never going to be the strongest field, particularly as we are building up to the first major of the year so those who want to be competitive will be spending their time stateside for a while. Despite that, we have three players in the top 100 in the world rankings here this week in Adrian Otaegui, Adri Arnaus and Robert MacIntyre, three men who have been pretty active on the DP World Tour already this season.
The winner of the Indian Open a couple of weeks ago is here in Marcel Siem while the defending champion Ashun Wu will also tee it up looking to keep hold of the title. Siem is the highest ranked player in the Race to Dubai standings who is here this week but Antoine Rozner and Julien Brun are also in the top 20 in those standings and have the chance to enhance their position over the course of this week.
Market Leaders
Antoine Rozner is a 16/1 favourite to win the tournament this week. He could only finish T34 here last year but in his last five outings on the DP World Tour he has a win in Mauritius and top six finishes in Singapore and Thailand so he is certainly a man in form. On the face of it there is no reason why he can’t go well around here. He is one of the best players in the field and goes on the attack with the iron players and is a worthy favourite.
Robert MacIntyre comes next in the betting at 22/1. He isn’t as well fancied as Rozner purely because he didn’t play this course last year and might be disadvantaged as a result of that. He hasn’t exactly been putting up the form numbers to support the case that he can go well fresh either. If the week off since India has allowed him to find something in his game then he has the ability and profile to be very competitive here but you’d be taking that on chance rather than guarantee.
Two other men come into the tournament shorter than 33/1 on the best prices this week. They are the Spanish pair of Adri Arnaus and Adrian Otaegui. Otaegui is very much in the MacIntyre bracket in that he is more than good enough to win here but hasn’t got much form behind him coming in. He did play here last year but only finished T34. Arnaus might be the best value of them all having finished in the top 10 last year and he has two top 10s in his last five starts.
Main Bets
Adri Arnaus is a relatively obvious main bet this week. He was in the top 10 here a year ago, comes in here in pretty decent form on the courses which suit him like this one does and he has good form figures in the European Masters which is significant if only for the altitude levels. Getting the distances right this week is an awful lot of the makeup of the tournament and if you fire well at Crans the likelihood is that you’ll get the distances right here. Since that effort here last year the Spaniard has won on the DP World Tour and is certainly no stranger to going low should that be the order of the day. He’s an obvious main bet.
A little less obvious but still main bet credential is Julien Brun, the Frenchman who in just five starts this season has already picked up three top 12 finishes and looks to be hitting the ball well. He was T13 here last year which wasn’t a bad effort in his first proper season at DP World Tour level and later in the season he went on to finish T16 in the European Masters which would have been much closer to the top of the leaderboard had he not needed the opening 18 holes to get going. His final three rounds there were very encouraging as is his form coming into the week. He feels like good value for a big tilt at this title.
Outsiders
Francesco Laporta ranked fourth for strokes gained on approach in India a couple of weeks ago and second in strokes gained around the green but basically couldn’t hole a thing all week but I’m prepared to give him a go this week because he isn’t always the worst putter and even then most players have only had one competitive spin around here so they won’t be completely familiar with the surroundings. Laporta has been third in this tournament in its Challenge Tour days and that was on this course so that is very much a positive when it comes to his putting issues. He was T16 in that European Masters last season but was -11 for the final three rounds after a level par start. He also has two top 20 finishes in the Joburg Open where altitude is a thing so when you put it all together there is enough to suggest the Italian rates as a live outsider bet.
Another player who might be worth backing this week is Dylan Mostert. He won on the Challenge Tour a couple of weeks ago when he took down the Nelson Mandela Bay Championship and while that was second tier level event there were still some good players in it, regular DP World Tour stalwarts such as Brandon Stone, Ashley Chesters, Joel Sjoholm, Zander Lombard and Jaco van Zyl to name a few so he had to play well to win and if we’re being honest this is probably only half a level above that. Winning breeds confidence and at 225/1 I certainly like that on my side. That win might not have been a fluke either. He was T18 on the DP World Tour in the Joburg Open at the start of the season, T4 at this level in Mauritius and T7 back on the Challenge Tour in the Cape Town Open where he was a shot off the lead after 54 holes. This event is so wide open that form might just play a part and at this price I’ll pay to see how much of his Mostert can carry this week.
Tips
Back A.Arnaus to win Kenya Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Betfair (1/5 1-7)
Back J.Brun to win Kenya Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
Back F.Laporta to win Kenya Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with Coral (1/5 1-7)
Back D.Mostert to win Kenya Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 226.00 with Boylesports (1/5 1-8)
Back him here:
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