Best bets
2pts each-way Adam Scott @ 12/1
1pt each-way Matteo Manassero @ 33/1
1pt each-way Byeong-hun An @ 20/1
1pt each-way Billy Horschel @ 14/1
0.5pt each-way Eddie Pepperell @ 250/1
2pts Si Woo Kim Top 10 finish @ 11/4
2pts Arron Rai Top 10 finish @ 21/10
2pts Alex Noren Top 10 finish @ 12/5
Place FIVE pre-tournament bets and get an in-play matched FREE BET! T&Cs apply.
He did it again, didn’t he? Rory McIlroy blew a golf tournament, not the US Open this time but one perhaps where the pressure was even greater, in his native Northern Ireland, just a hour from Holywood where he learned his golf, and in front of massive, partisan crowds willing their hero to a glorious victory that never happened.
It’s a hard, hard game. Normally, shooting a 69 in the final round of an Irish Open on such a fierce test as Royal County Down would have been enough. But for late bogeys on 15 and 17 after he’d led by two with four to play, it would have been.
‘Nothing rare about three-figure-odds winners at Wentworth’
In big-time golf you rarely get away with errors like that and, sure enough, Danish star Rasmus Hojgaard, with the help of a holed pitch off a grassy bank and a holed bunker shot, posted a score that was beyond McIlroy’s reach, desperately though he tried for the eagle that would have put him in a playoff.
Clearly the scars from those two tiny missed putts at Valhalla which gifted the US Open to Xander Schauffele have still not healed. Yet his mind and his game were in better places than they have been since June. Much of Rory’s golf on a links that called for knock-down shots and skills he has been accused of lacking in the past was a masterclass and there were more positives than negatives for Ireland’s pin-up.
Others would kill for second place in the Irish Open; from McIlroy it was a disappointment, for fans and punters, another letdown; for bookmakers, a great escape with a 22/1 shot defeating the 6/1 jolly; and for me, very nearly almost humble-pie-eating time as I tried hard to put you off!
The world No. 3 has an immediate opportunity to put himself in punters’ good books as he’s Fitzdares’ 11/2 favourite for the BMW PGA Championship on Wentworth’s fearsome West, a tight, tree-lined course, not the longest par 72 at 7267 yards but more a test of accuracy and the ability to start well, the first the toughest of five long pars, and finish well by turning the two closing par fives, the 610-yard 17th and the revamped 523-yard 18th with its risk-reward approach over a water hazard, into birdies.
Rory has won there before, ten years ago, and given plenty of good accounts of himself on this legendary layout trod by all the greats, from Hogan and Snead, winners of the 1956 Canada Cup, to Nicklaus, Player, Seve and Tiger.
I’m never surprised by anything McIlroy does and he may be able to shrug off the Sunday blues quickly and fulfil all last week’s promise. For all his flaws, he’s still managed to win three times this year, come within a putt of winning the US and Irish Opens and placed fifth at the Olympic Games. But once again I’ll take him on – he’s the same price as last week but the opposition is deeper.
With nothing happening on the American scene this week except the breast-beating of the victorious Solheim Cup squad (they have waited long enough), three members of the Internationals team for next week’s Presidents Cup, Adam Scott, Ben An and Si Woo Kim, are using Wentworth as a $9m warm-up for their clash with the USA. The 2021 winner Billy Horschel is a regular visitor and, like Scott, has been playing some of the best golf of his life.
Missing will be 2020 champion Tyrrell Hatton as the LIV stars have their own Team Championship in Dallas this weekend but Tommy Fleetwood joins McIlroy, 2022 champion Shane Lowry and Ryder Cup colleagues Sepp Straka, Bob MacIntyre and Matt Fitzpatrick in a strong home defence.
MacIntyre took to apologising to TV viewers on social media for his bad language last week but says he isn’t going to change as that’s him caring, showing his fighting heart. Sadly, he and Lowry (others too) scatter four-letter words around without giving a thought to the damage they do to the game’s image. It’s not good for young would-be golfers to hear and as commentators invariably feel obliged to say sorry on a player’s behalf, drawing attention somehow makes it worse. Fame carries responsibilities with it and some should work on toning down their act.
Rant over and Bobby Mac’s share of fifth place at County Down, on top of victories on both sides of the Atlantic, puts the aggressive Scot with the magical short game firmly in the frame but there’s no course form to back up his claim whereas Ben An stunned the golfing world at Wentworth nine years ago by romping this by six big strokes. Although he’d been the youngest US amateur champion at 17, few had heard of the young Korean when he took the field apart at three-figure odds. Amazingly, he’s never won again but he’s had a good season again with a second, third and fourth, driving long and straight, putting has improved, and one day it will happen. Why not this week?
Nothing rare about three-figure-odds winners at Wentworth – few in the media centre had heard of Shrewsbury-based Scott Drummond when the world No. 435 dotted up at 500/1 in 2004, a golfer who played for England as an amateur but for Scotland in the World Cup as a pro (his dad was Scottish). And Simon Khan would have been that sort of price too had he been in the betting. He came in as a last-minute reserve to stun everyone in 2010, too late to be in the bookmakers’ lists. As I’d backed one of the joint runners-up, current Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald, I asked a couple of layers if they were treating Khan as a non-runner and paying the seconds as winners. “We always say ‘Others on Application’ and would have come up with a price but nobody asked” came the reply. That’s a No then …
Not such a big price was Matteo Manassero, the charismatic Italian who was just 20 when he added Wentworth to his growing list of conquests in 2013. It was his fourth win and looking every inch a Ryder Cup prospect. Nobody would have foreseen that the PGA would be his fourth and final victory for 11 years. He wrecked his swing in trying to hit the ball further and paid a cruel price. Now he’s finally back where he belongs and arrives on the back of a close third in the Irish Open. A great plotter of a round of golf, he’s bound to threaten at the scene of his biggest victory.
‘Manny’, as they call him, is my second choice after the revived Scott, now 44 but holing everything in sight (almost!) and on a tear highlighted by second place at the Scottish Open, a T2 at the BMW Championship and a T4 at the Tour Championship, all against crack opposition. On what the stylish antipodean achieved in three Wentworth visits at the start of the century, you wouldn’t risk a bent fiver on him but he was a raw talent then and it took him ten more years to win his only major, the 2013 Masters.
What he needs from 2024 is a W. He deserves one and this could be his week. One of the best drivers on tour, he’s surely well suited by the course and confidence should be sky-high. After a Kiwi winner in 2023, it could be an Aussie’s turn now. Scott would be the first Australian winner since Mike Harwood 34 years ago.
Arron Rai, a winner in the States this year and runner-up to Ryan Fox at Wentworth last time, has all the tools for this job and Horschel followed his 2021 course victory with a solid T9 last year and is not only a winner this year but boasts impressive recent form.
Frenchman Matthieu Pavon, a winner on both main tours, was ninth two years ago and has become a much more confident performer since then. He will be suited by the course although not as much as Alex Noren, the winner here in 2017. But as the steady Swede hasn’t won anywhere for six years, best to back him at 12/5 for a top-ten finish. The same goes for the equally consistent Si Woo Kim, who has nine top-20s on his 2024 CV and failed to make the cut only twice all year. Fifth in the second FedEx qualifier the last time we saw him, he’ll be searching for a high finish to send him off to his teammates in Canada next week.
There’s often a big price among the frame sextet and I’d be interested in Eddie Pepperell at 250/1 or at 80/1 on the Top Five market. The High Wycombe man often plays above himself on this track (sixth in 2013 and 2020) and has been on leaderboards recently but only for a couple of rounds. He is playing better than his modest form figures suggest.
After a warm, sunny start to proceedings, there could be storms on Saturday and showers on Sunday. That would be a shame as the South of England gets precious little high-class golf and the fans have had this date in their diaries for a good while.
For all your bets on the golf, visit our dedicated golf betting page.
