Over the past couple of years, it's clear that I need to find a new approach, finding the winners has become more difficult on both main tours (European & PGA Tours) and with TV coverage so poor these days, it's proving difficult to assess all the players effectively. Statistics on the tours' websites can give an insight for sure, but speculating and seeing something else other than the market trend and general view, is where the edge can be obtained if deciding on a bet. My ventures into the TOP-10/20 markets seemed to give me hope and I've still a lot of work to do on this front so I'll be pursuing these further, as I'm still of the opinion that these markets are probably best where to make the profits. Of course with golf betting or any betting market for that matter, us punters want to have THE winner but for the punter who takes a more long term view, exploring the various markets and seeking out the value is what we need to do.
The Czech Masters sees Thomas Pieters tee off a clear favourite, with the field thereafter open to any number of possibilities. The afternoon tee-time for the Belgian,could be of help if taking a position on a morning player if he's able score well and the punter could benefit, whereas if he had an early start and doesn't score too well, it can lead to more opportunities.In fact it's an interesting Day-1 in store with Pieters closest rivals teeing off rather early. These contenders are Lee Westwood, Danny Willet, defending champing Haydn Porteous and his playing partners, Matt Wallace and Eddie Pepperell. Willet & Westwood could bounce off each other nicely Thursday morning, post a score and see there price half. They'll be almost finished before Pieters tees off, they will certainly be finished before Pieters completes the first. Wallace & Pepperell could also come in price in this time frame but its the former two who I'd be expecting a bigger move should they post a 66/67.
From my shortlist this week, I've come to 11 players who I think are both of value and contenders.(I do have 68 players listed as "value" based on price of which 22 were less than 100/1) As with many of the shortlists this and last season, I seem to have left an awful lot of players off the final staking plan despite being highlighted as possible contenders. I want to include them somehow going forward and perhaps taking a position on each before the play commences is one option, and perhaps dutching them all to a fixed return is another. Based on above, and particularly for this week with respect to the field, none of the value players on that shortlist (Beef may be the exception) I feel is worth backing before the off especially those that are triple figure prices as there shouldn't be any great opportunity to lay off for a decent margin until Sunday at least.
I have both Willet & Westwood priced @ 29.00 this week, so Westwood's price Wednesday morning (36.00) is of interest and should be on a revised,updated shortlist in reality. Given that he's drifted from 26.00 on Monday might suggest he may not move in on price as anticipated with the early tee time over Pieters, based on market view, so he immediately is a player that I will be following closely over Thursday morning both on the course and on the Betfair Exchange.
From the 36 tournaments played on the European Tour this year, the average winners price is just over 50/1, with Chris Paisley, Haotong Li, Brandon Stone, Richard McEvoy & Paul Waring being the only three figure priced winners. Paisley saw off hot favourite, Brandon Grace at Glendower, Li saw off Rory McIlroy in Dubai, Stone won a Rolex Series event from a host of World TOP20 players at Gullane, McEvoy outscored the likes of Paul Casey, Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed and last week, Waring came from nowhere to land the Nordea Masters by edging out Thorbjorn Olesen, who's price in relation to the field was not too dissimilar to Pieters here this week.
Does this week's Czech Masters present us with a fluid market and opportunity to get heaps of value? I think it does and if I include Westwood into the above shortlist, I have 16 players to get in the book. I'm not overly keen on Herbert's price here so he's most likely chopped in favour of Lee Westwood. I've looked at dutching the 15 players for an accumulated odds of 22% of the market(odds 4.53) to return 32 pts (25 pts profit ) should one of the players win. I've added both Justin Walters and Bradley Neil to the TOP-20 market @ 7.50 & 8.00 respectively for 1.5 pts each bringing the total outlay to 10 pts for the tourney.
| Runners | Odds |
| Andrew Johnston | 37/1 |
| Aaron Rai | 47/1 |
| Scott Hend | 51/1 |
| Matthieu Pavon | 70/1 |
| Scott Vincent | 85/1 |
| Callum Shinkwin | 89/1 |
| Sebastien Gros | 100/1 |
| Pedro Oriol | 150/1 |
| Justin Walters | 150/1 |
| Lucas Bjerregaard | 60/1 |
| Marc Warren | 70/1 |
| Lee Westwood | 35/1 |
| Julien Guerrier | 170/1 |
| Haydn Porteous | 40/1 |
| Bradley Neil | 170/1 |
