The first round of the Made in Denmark tournament is now in the books and what a wonderful day of golf it was played out in front of a fantastically passionate crowd with excellent scoring conditions that a number of players took full advantage of.
It was two Brits who took the most advantage of the benign conditions to post eight under par and seven under par respectively. David Horsey was out early and carded a 63 and that was almost matched in the afternoon by the relatively unknown Welshman Oliver Farr who took one shot more to post 64.
Despite their excellent rounds it is the home man Soren Kjeldsen who is the favourite to win the tournament in most places now. He is still backable at 15/2 with Stan James but every other firm are much shorter than that. David Horsey is a best price of 15/2 as well going into the second round on Friday.
Paul Lawrie sits alone in third on six under par and having shown a return to form in recent weeks he isn’t someone who should be discounted quickly. He is 10/1 to convert his positive start into a win while Bradley Dredge, another alongside Kjeldsen on five under, is 16/1 to land a rare win. Surprisingly it is 28/1 bar that quartet but the tournament feels a lot more open than that.
I’m quite happy with my position in the outright market at the minute and I’m in no rush to visit so soon but there is a three ball I see as overpriced for Friday and I will look to take advantage of that.
In the afternoon session on Friday Graeme Storm goes out alongside Edoardo Molinari and Oliver Fisher and amazingly at various places you can still get 2/1 on all three men winning the group.
I don’t get that I must say. Edoardo Molinari hasn’t been inside the top 50 of a strokeplay event since March which is awful form no matter who you are so maybe his +2 round on Thursday should come as no surprise. He’s already under pressure just to make the cut after that round of golf.
You have to go all the way back to January for the last time Oliver Fisher was better than 50th in a European Tour event and while it is more encouraging that he shot -1 on Thursday there is no evidence in 2015 form that he’s going to back that up here. It should be said that Fisher was fourth here last year so he can be at home on the course but conditions were perfect on Thursday and he still lost by four.
If Storm had only won this group by one or two on Thursday then I could understand these odds but he didn’t, he won by four and looked good in doing so. A number of judges liken this course to the Swiss Alps course in Crans-sur-Sierre and Storm was second around that course last year so we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s going well already this week. Storm’s been steady this year and that 2/1 looks good to me.
Back G.Storm to beat O.Fisher & E.Molinari for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Betfair Sportsbook
