DP World Tour Championship Golf Betting Tips 2021
Winners at 80/1 don’t grow on trees so it was disappointing that swarthy Italian Francesco Laporta hadn’t read the script and failed to deliver a fairytale 80th birthday winner at those odds to your correspondent.
The 20/1 place part of the bet was consolation for Golf Monthly readers and one that guaranteed a profit on the week but fair play to Dubai Championship party pooper JB Hansen, one of two 50/1 weekend winners along with Jason Kokrak in Houston.
Monday arrived with the shock withdrawal of two-time winner Jon Rahm from Tour Championship week.
The world No. 1 would have started favourite for the DP World-sponsored Race to Dubai showdown on the Earth course at Jumeirah Estates.
He cited fatigue after a long year that contained two bouts of Covid, the birth of his first baby and the weight of trying to carry an under-performing Ryder Cup team.
The positive test which forced him to quit Memorial while leading by six can’t have helped but his withdrawal won’t sit well with sponsors DP World so soon after the announcement they were contributing umpteen millions to Europe in a deal that changes the Tour’s name.
The $9m climax to the European Tour year now has a revived Rory McIlroy as 6/1 market leader in a no-cut field of just 53 - and the money doesn’t stop there as the top five on the final list will share a $5m bonus pool, $2m of which goes to the RTD winner.
It makes a first American winner of the money list ever more likely with Open champion Collin Morikawa in pole position and Wentworth winner Billy Horschel, the two US stars above Rahm on the RTD ladder, now holding a wider lead.
Europeans Tyrrell Hatton (4th), Matt Fitzpatrick (6th) and Paul Casey (7th) have much to do to pose a challenge as does Min Woo Lee, who has leapt up to fifth spot after following his Scottish Open victory with top efforts at Valderrama and on Jumeirah’s Fire course.
This week the action moves down the road to the far tougher Earth course, another Greg Norman layout, a par 72 which can stretch out to 7675 yards.
As a double champion on this course, in 2012 and 2015, with the confidence boost of a last-time-out victory at the CJ Cup in Las Vegas, McIlroy has to be on your shopping list. It is not just those two victories - he’s had five top-tens on his other ten visits.
It is only the price that prevents maximum enthusiasm.
McIlroy won the Race to Dubai in 2012 and 2015 (pictured)
At almost three times Rory’s odds, Fitzpatrick has the advantage of having posted his two Earth triumphs more recently, last year and in 2017.
And, like McIlroy, he’s come good after an otherwise undistinguished 2021 with hard-earned victory at Valderrama.
Morikawa, here not just because of The Open but also for winning the points-counting WGC event in Florida, finished a well-beaten tenth to Fitzpatrick on debut last year.
He can go closer this time and with a 232-point lead in the Race To Dubai should finish high enough to clinch that.
But at the prices I’d sooner be on another American raider, Horschel or Patrick Reed.
Reed has impressed here before, runner-up to Danny Willett in 2018, third to Fitzpatrick last year.
His driving wasn’t too hot the last two times we’ve seen him but he will mostly get away with it on generous fairways.
Horschel’s case rests mainly with that Wentworth victory as all his other late-year form has been underwhelming and I am yet be convinced Zalatoris is anything out of the ordinary.
Steady Mexican Abraham Ancer, now a WGC winner, has made more of an impression and Fitzpatrick’s two victories suggest a lack of power isn’t so important despite the length of the course.
Rory apart, best European prospects seem to rest with Sergio Garcia and Shane Lowry as Hatton has been expensive to follow, Casey, even though rusty, should have done better than 31st on the Fire course and Tommy Fleetwood couldn’t scare the leaders even though two rounds of 66 gave him an ideal platform.
Lowry was a one-shot runner-up to Rahm four years ago, he made top-ten two years ago and has had a solid summer missing only a win.
Garcia was top-ten on his last three visits, his fourth to compatriot Rahm in 2017 his best, and recent form has not been too shabby.
Thomas Pieters, sixth to Rahm two years ago, is not one of my favourite golfers but on his first victory for an age in Portugal he could be an each-way play and the same comment applies to Lucas Herbert who has won on both main tours this year.
He certainly knows how to get the job done.
DP World Tour Championship Golf Betting Tips 2021 - advised bets
- 1.5pts each-way Matt Fitzpatrick at 16/1 with Bet365
- 2pts win Rory McIlroy at 6/1 with Bet365
- 1pt each-way Shane Lowry at 30/1 with Bet365
- 1pt each-way Patrick Reed at 30/1 with Bet365
- 1pt each-way Sergio Garcia at 18/1 with Bet365
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