Hero Indian Open 2015

This weeks fare on the European Tour brings us to Delhi for the co-sanctioned Hero India Open to be played at Delhi GC. Its a course used many times on the Asian Tour and indeed last year saw the India open celebrate its 50th anniversary. This will be the first time the European Tour is co-sanctioning. The locals (i.e. the Asian Tour based players, especially the Indian players) will have plenty of course form as the course is often used more than once in a year. The betting reflects some of that where Malaysian Open winner, Anirban Lahiri goes off the 10/1 favourite here; he's a three time course winner ! He's a class player and will no doubt be in contention this week but he does face some decent competition despite the field being relatively weak. Miguel Angel Jiminez also participates this week, somewhat surprising if he was affected by 'flu last week in Thailand and he'll be smarting a bit after a disappointing final round at Black Mountain last Sunday.

I am approaching this week with some apprehension following a poor run of late. The TOP10 picks are finishing TOP20 (Wang last week!) and some are coming up just one or two shots short. I'm trying to stay positive as the 10 man shortlists seem to be there or thereabouts, so hopefully I can get some collects soon. Its a fairly open event this week so I'm happy to chance a couple of players well capable of going in here.

The course apparently requires accuracy off the tee and those with good GIR stats should do well if finding the fairways. That leads me to a player I marked out last year to win soon on tour, lost his card then regained it at Q school and its in events like this that he should make hay. Spaniard, Adrian Otaegui is a very accurate player, and will tee it up this week on the back of a TOP 25 last week. At 90/1 with Bet365  he can't be ignored for this. He hasn't played the course before but I'm keen on the price on a course that should indeed suit.

Australian, Peter Thompson, winner of 5 Opens, was instrumental in getting this tournament up & running and won it 3 times in his career. With Aussie players feeding off each other the past few years, I wouldn't be surprised to see another win very soon, and another returning to the winners enclosure after a spell away from in much the same manner as Andrew Dodt did last week. Twice winner on the European Tour, his last back in 2010 in Korea, he can gather motivation from Dodt's win last week and continue his recent good form following injury last year. Playing on a medical exemption this season, Fraser could be well suited to Delhi where he played back in 2008 (T38th). His compatriot, Terry Pilkardaris is another to keep an eye on here. He is in form , has played here 4 times in the past with returns of 23-15-5-33 and the pair of them may also encourage Jason Scrivener who arrives on the back of three TOP20s in his last 3 starts.



Staking Plan

1 pt WIN A.Otaegui @ 90/1
3 pts WIN M.Fraser @ 25/1


2 pts TOP10 A.Otaegui @ 6/1


remaining TOP10/TOP20 selections to appear on my twitter timeline when more prices become available