Best bets
Jon Rahm @ 2/1
Justin Rose @ 14/1
Singles
2pts each-way Rose @ 14/1
1pt each-way Forrest @ 70/1
0.5pt each-way Kawamura @ 125/1
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You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that Jon Rahm is by far the most likely winner of the Spanish Open (or, if you’re posh, the Open de Espana) but the bookies know that too and for many punters his 2/1 odds will hold little appeal.
Yet after his trailblazing performance at the Ryder Cup and as a triple winner of his national Open, two of them coming at this week’s revered Club de Campo Villa de Madrid, it could be foolhardy to bet against him.
A proud man with great loyalty to his country, Rahm outclassed the opposition last year with a phenomenal 25-under score of 259 to blow everybody away, his closest pursuer six shots adrift. His first Spanish Open triumph in 2018 came on a different Madrid course but it was at Club de Campo the following year that he made it look easy again, this time a five-shot margin over fellow Spaniard Rafa Cabrera Bello.
Cabrera Bello took his revenge two years later – there was no Spanish Open in 2020 because of Covid – when Rahm nodded in finishing T13.
The way to bet this week may be to link Rahm with a second Ryder Cup success story Justin Rose in cross-doubles with Tom Kim and Ludvig Aberg, two shining stars of the new generation and the two classiest members of the Shriners Children’s Open field playing at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas, not a long track as a 7255-yard par 71 and playing shorter than that, given the rarefied atmosphere.
In Rome 43-year-old Rose was playing some of the best golf of a storied career that has featured Olympic gold and a U.S. Open victory. Back on the victory trail at Pebble Beach in February, he was the unsung hero of the Ryder Cup.
The way he shielded his nerve-jangling playing partner Bob MacIntyre in the opening-day fourballs in Rome – he was on the card on 15 out of 18 holes – was classic team golf and extracting 1.5 points from their two games together was so key to the outcome.
After a week’s break with their families, Rahm and Rose will be rarin’ to go and a 1-2 by those Ryder Cup aces is a likely outcome, leaving some decent names, such as Yannik Paul, Antoine Rozner, Grant Forrest (third here in 2021, third in the Irish Open this summer and impressive for much of the rain-lashed Dunhill) and Thorbjorn Olesen, to scrap it out for minor honours.
For a three-figure outsider try Japan’s Masihiro Kawamura at 125/1. He was seventh to Rahm four years ago and has been appearing on more leaderboards this campaign.
Best bets
2.5pts each-way Tom Kim @ 11/1
2pts each-way Si Woo Kim @ 20/1
1pt each-way Seonghyeon Kim @ 50/1
1pt each-way Ludvig Aberg @ 12/1
0.5pt each-way Matt NeSmith @ 60/1
0.5pt each-way Vincent Norrman @ 33/1
The two best prospects in golf, Ludvig Aberg and defending champion Tom Kim, are buzzing as the PGA Tour hits Sin City for the Shriners Children’s Open – but both could be upstaged, at least until she misses the cut, by a woman.
The appearance of LPGA legend Lexi Thompson among the entries is a bit of a gimmick but Las Vegas loves anything which brings punters into town. And as the big-hitting Florida six-footer has a following there will be plenty of noise at TPC Summerlin. It was where a boyish Tiger Woods won his first PGA title there at 20 in 1996 – it was known as the Las Vegas Invitational then – but it was at TPC Summerlin that Woods holed the winning putt in a playoff to beat Davis Love III.
The course, 7255 yards par 71 and a flattering 2700ft above sea level, invites birdies and eagles as the last four winning scores, 24 under and 23 under, illustrate. It won’t be the length that beats Lexi, one of the most powerful hitters on the women’s circuit with an average drive of 273 yards, it’s the putter.
And playing from the men’s tees, as she has to, will put more pressure on the flat stick. It’s been a pretty dismal for Lexi but the good news is that her two latest finishes, fifth and eighth, suggest she’s on the way back.
Koreans have dominated the last two Shriners, Tom Kim winning by three last year and Sungjae Im matching Tom’s winning score in 2021 it was the second of Tom’s two PGA Tour wins, virtually wrapped up by a third-round 62. He was coasting after that. It is a layout, not too long, that obviously suits his superb iron play and if he can reproduce the sort of dead-eye golf he showed at the Scottish (6th) and The Open, he will be hellish hard to beat. He finished T2 at Hoylake despite limping his way round after an accident at the house he was renting.
Iron man Aberg almost clicked for his first victory in the US when Luke List’s 45ft extra-time birdie putt ended that conversation abruptly. That was the same Luke List who had gone 47 tournaments without a top-ten. Who’d be a golf tipster!
Aberg didn’t have his A game with him in Jackson – that Ryder Cup must have used up some of his adrenaline supply – so to finish so close speaks volumes for his maturity and method. He really is special but how special? We’ll get a big steer if the 23-year-old Swede can pull it off in Vegas in a field only marginally stronger than last week’s. If Åberg’s tank has run dry, it could be a finish of the unrelated Kims with Tom fighting it out with his Presidents Cup partner Si Woo.
The latter Kim’s Shriners record has a solid look about it – eighth last year and in 2020, 15th in 2018 – and on his best 2023 form, winner at Waialae in January, runner-up at the Byron Nelson, fourth at Memorial, Si Woo is at the perfect place to kick off a good season.
There’s another Kim who could shine, that’s S H Kim. His second place at Fortinet encouraged me to put him last week but the same golfer didn’t turn up and he missed the cut. That’s golf for you, driving tipsters and punters round the bend.
My best outsider is Matt NeSmith, a 30-year-old from South Carolina who really isn’t very good at all … except when he’s in Vegas. His Shriners record at Summerlin is so far superior to the remainder of his results that it’s time to invoke the horses-for-courses theory.
Joint runner-up with the estimable Patrick Cantlay last year, eighth in 2020 and 18th on debut the previous year, he might just prove each-way value at 60/1. At any rate, this is Matt’s time of year as that second place was preceded by a top-ten at Sanderson Farms and followed by another one at the ZOZO.
I shall also be trying to get my S H Kim money back as he too had a good week in Vegas last year, only four shots and three places behind namesake Tom.
Best of the rest could be Vincent Norrman, another candidate for a 2025 Ryder Cup place as he’s from Sweden, a roommate of Aberg when they played college golf together in Tennessee – and he knows how to get it done. A breakthrough at the Barbasol was quickly followed by coming from a long way back to win the Irish Open.
It’s hotting up on the Sunset Strip with weekend temperatures well into the 80s. Here’s hoping the golf matches the weather and we’re hailing a winner called Kim.
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