With the Omega European Masters getting underway tomorrow (Thursday) there is time to look further down the outright market and find a couple of long priced runners who could give us a run for our money.
Whilst it is true that this tournament has an illustrious CV in terms of its winners we shouldn’t forget that David Lipsky won the title last year and he would have been a huge price to do so. He beat Graeme Storm in a playoff and Storm himself would have been big so if you had a ticket with either name on you were handsomely rewarded.
While the field is a low stronger this year I don’t see why those down the market won’t have a chance. Some of the main contenders will be feeling fatigue from what was a long week at St Andrews and they will have arrived in the Swiss Alps late so practice round opportunities would have been limited.
The one thing to remember is we need someone who will hit these fairways and the greens and then hope that on the smaller greens they get some putts to drop to give us a nice run at a price. Given that we’ll be targeting long prices here clearly players will have a weakness which is why they are so big but that doesn’t mean they can’t defend.
Keeping with the overseas theme from my tournament preview the first outsider I’m going to look at is Felipe Aguilar. The Chilean caught the eye when he won in Singapore last year and although he hasn’t been fantastic since then he does stat pretty well for this golf course. He sits in the top 10 on fairways hit this season and just outside the top 30 in greens in regulation so we can expect him to find the dancefloor in the right number more often than not.
Few were better tee to green than Aguilar in Scotland a couple of weeks to go but his putter let him down there. I’ve no major issue with that because links greens are bumpy and deep which might not suit Aguilar. The greens here are much smaller so he should be more comfortable and at 80/1 I fancy the Chilean to go well.
Another player I’m very keen on when these sort of layouts come about is Matthew Fitzpatrick. The young Englishman is very solid from tee to green and he’s improving on or around the greens by the week. He’s going to be a star of the European Tour very soon and it wouldn’t be a complete surprise if his breakthrough week comes here given that he had last week off and will be refreshed.
Fitzpatrick heads to Switzerland sat 11th on tour in fairways hit and 8th in greens in regulation. Like Aguilar his putting stats don’t sit as high but if he finds these greens the putts won’t be too long. Fitzpatrick was fifth in South Africa, eighth in Ireland in extreme conditions and third in Austria so he’s got previous around this sort of track and at 125/1 he could just surprise enough to land a payout for us.
Back F.Aguilar to win Omega European Masters (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with Betway (1/4 1-5)
Back M.Fitzpatrick to win Omega European Masters (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Coral (1/4 1-5)
Good luck mate, like Fitzpatrick myself. I’ve also gone with Peterson & Aphibarnrat.