Wednesday 7 December 2016

Hong Kong Open 2016 - Fanling GC

The final event on the Europeantour for 2016 takes place at Fanling GC this week for the Hong Kong Open. Despite withdrawing from last week's Hero Challenge, Justin Rose has made the trip to defend his title from last year. With the injury concern, bookies have instead made Patrick Reed the favourite to win. His recent form though is a concern and suggests we may have some value for the week! They are joined by Masters, champion Danny Willett and his compatriot Ian Poulter, who has solid form in China and arrives in decent form of late following a return from injury.


The Course


Fanling is a short, tight, tree-lined course where Miguel Angel Jiminez has won this event on four separate occasions. Finding the fairway off the tee is crucial here and those with a strong scrambling game this week should contend. Just two par-5s over the 7,000 yd course will mean that big hitters wont necessarily have an advantage although Scott Hend and Rory McIlroy have won here, and Rose is no slouch either off the tee!

Selections


Marcus Fraser is on the shortlist given his course form but recent form casts some doubt. I've left it late looking for 100/1 but if he's to find form again it could very well be here. The Aussie keeps his best results for Asian events and in his 8 starts here, he has finished in the TOP10 four times. He clearly likes it here.
Whilst Ian Poulter is showing a return to form lately, so too is Mikko Ilonen who produced his only TOP10 in 2016 at the recent Turkish Airlines. That came on the back of a T12 at The British Masters and another TOP20 at the Alfred Dunhill Links. That all said he's missed the cut here on his last three visits so perhaps the 100.00 on offer is a result of the course efforts to date. I'm prepared to give him a chance here as Fanling should suit.

For the TOP20 markets this week I'm keen to play Rashid Khan @ 9.50 Having learned his game at Delhi GC, a very tight and short course, he can put in a good performance here to follow up on his 2nd place finish last Sunday at the Panasonic Open India and his TOP10 at The Macau Open.
Aussie Jason Scrivener was 3rd here on debut last year and he can put in another result here this time round having put in a solid TOP5 at the Australian Open last month and 2 TOP20s at the Portugal Masters and European Open.

.25 pts WIN M.Faser @ 100.00
.25 pts WIN M.Ilonen @ 100.00

2.0 pts TOP10 M.Fraser @ 7.00
2.0 pts TOP10 M.Ilonen @ 10.00

1.75 pts TOp20 J.Scrivener @ 4.33
1.75 pts TOP20 R.Khan @ 9.50