After a week off to allow all of the attention to be on The Players Championship, the DP World Tour returns this week with the beginning of the Asian Swing as the third staging of the Singapore Championship takes place.
Jesper Svensson came out on top in a playoff here a year ago but since then he has graduated to the PGA Tour and therefore he isn’t in the field this week to attempt to make a successful defence of the title. The 2023 winner Ockie Strydom is in the field though.
Recent Winners
2024 – Jesper Svensson
2023 – Ockie Strydom
The Course
We are at the Laguna National Golf Resort Club in Singapore this week. This course was used for the first two stagings of this tournament. There have been Singapore Masters and Ballantine’s Championship competitions staged here as well so there is a little bit of knowledge for us to go with although those events were all held a while ago. We know the course is a par 72 which measures 7,420 yards.
This is a visually stunning course where the fairways are full of slopes and there are plenty of strategically placed bunkering ready for the wayward tee shots. The greens are full of slopes as well so there is going to be a premium on distance control into them. Good putters are likely to stand out from the crowd here. Accurate ball strikers are likely to be the ones to follow this week and if they have some extra length on top then so much the better.
The Field
We are around three weeks away from the opening major of the season so you wouldn’t expect the field to be the strongest this week, and it isn’t, although we do have three players in the top 100 in the world making their way to Asia for the beginning of the Asian Swing. They are Robert MacIntyre, the only top 20 player involved this week, John Parry and Romain Langasque, the latter pair being ranked 94 and 98 respectively going into the tournament.
As well as Parry, we have a couple of other players currently in the top 10 in the Race to Dubai rankings teeing it up this week with Daniel Hillier looking to improve on his fifth spot and Haotong Li aiming to better his ninth place. Calum Hill, Alejandro Del Rey, Ryggs Johnston, Jayden Schaper Ivan Cantero, Dan Brown, Marcus Armitage and Matthew Jordan are all in the top 20 with tee times this week looking to make their move.
Market Leaders
Robert MacIntyre is the leading player in the field in the world rankings and he will go into the tournament as the 15/2 favourite to come out on top. He is a country mile clear in terms of the best player in the field and would ordinarily be expected to put up a very strong showing but he was in Florida playing The Players Championship last week and this is a long flight to compete on a track where he missed the cut on his only previous visit two years ago. I like MacIntyre but this feels like a week I can leave him alone.
Tom McKibbin has moved over to the LIV Tour but he has got into this tournament and as such he will be keen to take advantage of the opportunity for world ranking points and Ryder Cup points and things that come with it. The Northern Irishman started out on the LIV Tour with three top 15 finishes in as many starts and he was T6 in Dubai earlier in the year. He has won T12-MC on this course though but at 18/1 he is one of the fancied runners.
Paul Casey has an invite from the tournament this week. He is a 20/1 third favourite to land the title. He entered this event last year and finished sixth and he was in the top 10 in Singapore on the LIV Tour last week so unlike many in this field he has recent experience of the conditions in this part of the world. Casey actually has successive top 10s in his last two starts and we know if it wasn’t for playing at LIV he would be much higher up the world rankings so he isn’t one to sleep on here.
Jordan Smith is the only other player shorter in the betting than 35/1. He can be backed at 28/1 to win the tournament but you are relying on a return to form. Smith has made the last four cuts of his completed tournaments but he hasn’t been any better than T24 when the Sunday has finished. His record here isn’t a huge amount better. He has played both years here and finished T17 and T21. He is a wonderful ball striker which should be important around here but his form is enough to put me off.
Main Bets
There is probably no doubt that the very best days of Paul Casey are probably behind him but at this level I’m not sure that the times where he can’t win have gone and having played in a few events in Asia on the LIV Tour recently he certainly shouldn’t need any time to acclimatise to the conditions out in Singapore. Casey has always been a player who is comfortable in the breeze and on undulating layouts so he couldn’t have asked for a better tournament to get into and with all the other things on the line such as world ranking points and Ryder Cup offerings I expect him to be bang up for this. I wouldn’t want any shorter than 20/1 but at that price I’ll have a go with the Englishman.
Daniel Brown is a player I was targeting loads for an outright punt in the second half of last season and it is these conditions which is why. He famously shot to prominence at The Open in not too dissimilar conditions to here so it is a bit of a surprise that he hasn’t really delivered the goods in the two efforts he has had here. That might just have been a confidence issue though but he shouldn’t have any problems in that regard when you consider he has won the World Invitational since then and comes into this week off the back of T2-T0-T14 as a run of form. Brown is one of the better putters on the tour statistically and that makes me think he could be a big price this week.
Outsiders
Kiradech Aphibarnrat found one too good for him here last year but he is back for another crack at the title and he looks a big price. There is nothing too much in his very recent form to get excited about but form hasn’t always been a big factor in this event, largely because the players come from very different conditions in the lead up to the tournament. We know that Aphibarnrat runs well in Asia and he already has two top 10 finishes on the DP World Tour this season and the Thai is inside the top 30 on the tour for strokes gained putting. He has won twice at DP World Tour level in Asia in his career and he looks a huge price to have a tilt at a third one here.
Ryggs Johnston hasn’t done a huge amount since he won the Australian Open but that could be a combination of things such as the euphoria and life change that winning an event can bring but also because it parachuted him into some big events maybe a little earlier than he was ready for but the American doesn’t have to worry about the size of tournament or the quality of the field here. He is fourth on the DP World Tour for strokes gained putting which is often a big thing this week. Any tournament winner from this season at a three figure price in a tournament lacking depth in the field is always eye catching and I’ll pay to see how well he goes here.
Tips
Back P.Casey to win Singapore Classic (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 21.00 with Spreadex (1/5 1-6)
Back D.Brown to win Singapore Classic (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Betway (1/5 1-7)
Back K.Aphibarnrat to win Singapore Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Sky Bet (1/5 1-6)
Back R.Johnston to win Singapore Classic (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 151.00 with William Hill (1/5 1-6)
Back him here:
