The Birdie Club: BMW International 2016

The BMW International returns to Gut Larchenhof GC in Germany this week having last been played there in 2014. Fabrizio Zanotti prevailed then in a four man playoff, eventually seeing off Henrik Stenson on the fifth extra hole. (Zanotti was T12th here in 2012 in the previous staging of the event) We should expect birdies here this week which will be a welcome scenario for the thirteen players that arrive having competed at Oakmont last week. Stenson withdrew late on in round two citing neck injury in Pennsylvania and he was probably not the only player to have had a pain in the neck playing Oakmont last week. He is headed in the betting by a TOP5 US Open Sergio Garcia who really is playing some solid golf this season. At 9/1 he was tempting, I don't expect the exertions and travelling of last week to have an effect on him here and he most definitely is the player to beat. Danny Willett won his first European Tour title on this course back in 2012, beating Marcus Fraser in a playoff too, and he may be ready to shake off the post Masters cobwebs and get amongst the winners circle soon but he had chances at The K Club and Wentworth since to do that and he may need some downtime to recharge and @ 10/1 he's easily avoided.

Best of the Rest

Paddypower and Skybet are offering outright markets without Garcia, Stenson and Willett this week and perhaps it's the market to get involved in but there is a lot of value in the outrights this week in my view if prepared to take the three on. Back on the normal run of the mill European Tour events, we have a lot of players in really solid, consistent form that can upstage the leading players any given week and the field is littered with a lot of recent winners. These include Scott Hend who won the Queens Cup on the Asiantour last week, 'Beef' Johnston, Jeunghun Wang, Soomin Lee, Ashun Wu, and Haotong Li. With so many first time winners on tour this season, it can only act as encouragement to those knocking on the door such as Tyrell Hatton, Romain Wattel, Julien Quesne, Adrian Otaegui and Sebastien Gros. I believe the Englishman from this quintet is close to a breakthrough and on a course like this where hitting greens and sinking some birdie putts will be the way to go, he may just put an end to the maiden tag. He hasn't been outside the TOP20 in his last five starts and can continue that run of form this week. Nineteen TOP20s in the past two season includes nine TOP5s; He's knocking quite loud of late. He just misses out on a bet for me though. I hope I don't regret it although he makes my Fantasy Team over at Playon Daily Fantasy Sports where there is a £3000 (€3000) prize fund up for grabs.

Joost Luiten is knocking loudly nearly every week and will have been disappointed to have missed out on a spot for the US Open having missed so narrowly. The Dutchman has nine TOP20s from his thirteen starts this season of which seven are TOP10s and was sixth last time out in Austria when chasing a TOP3 to make it to Oakmont. Joost ranks 3rd in scoring average for the season and ranks TOP15 for GIR and should have no issue finding the fairways off the tee at Gut Larchenhof. I've put up Joost a number of times this year already and I am prepared to keep the faith once more especially as I rated him a 16/1 shot for victory. He opened @ 28/1 on Monday and is now best priced 22/1 with the books but can be backed @ 27.00 on Betfair

I've put up Nicolas Colsaerts a couple of times too this season and I think he can contend here this week and reward some faith for going with him again. He's hitting greens for fun of late and if he can hole his share he'll be up there from the get go. He did miss the cut here two years ago but it's his recent form that catches the eye : 15-3-23-22-3 from his last five starts. He's a fair price @ 45/1 outright and especially @ 3.25 for a TOP20 return.

My third selection this week is Benjamin Hebert who has been having a solid season with five TOP20s from his thirteen starts having missed just three cuts. From the ten that he did make, his results are impressive ; 1xTOP5 - 2 TOP10s - 2 TOP20s. The Frenchman missed two of those three cuts in Ireland and Sweden within his last three starts but this course will be more to his liking here where he excels in the GIR department, being ranked 7th at present on tour and 11th for scoring average. Any bit of wind about won't bother him but the forecasted thunderstorm in the afternoon might. Indeed both Thursday and Friday could see some halt in play with a lot of rain forecasted but it will get hot and humid for the weekend. Should he get a decent opening round under his belt he can capitalize on Friday with a morning tee time. He's 140.00 with Betfair for a win (and back to lay option) and a nice 5.50 for another TOP20 showing.