Alfred Dunhill Championship betting tips and preview
The details
Venue: Leopard Creek CC, Malelane, South Africa
Date: November 29 to December 1, 2019
Course stats: Par-72, 7,249 yards
Course summary: There’s plenty to love about this layout but there is also plenty to beware of too. Water is the main concern but if that is avoided then low scores are there for the taking.
Purse: €1.5 million
Defending champion: David Lipsky (-14)
Alfred Dunhill Championship betting tips and preview: Who will win?
Zander Lombard (22/1 with bet365) looks to be a good bet for both each-way and outright backers.
Unsurprisingly, South Africans dominate the business end of the betting and Lombard is the pick of the bunch based on form.
In his last outing on the European Tour, which happened to be in South Africa at the Nedbank Challenge, he was in contention heading into the final round but fell away on Sunday.
He will have taken confidence from that overall performance and a top-10 finish in a Rolex Series event is by no means straightforward.
The 24-year-old is due his first win on the European Tour and, with a top-three finish here last year, this provides a good opportunity.
Fourteen of the 15 graduates from the Challenge Tour are teeing it up at the first opportunity on the main tour and I think there’s a real chance that Adrian Meronk (55/1) could get off to a hot start.
The Polish 26-year-old finished the Challenge Tour season in brilliant form, securing fifth place in the Order of Merit, and it will be interesting to see if he carries this over into the big time.
He’s had five top-10 finishes in his last six starts, including a victory in Portugal, so there are plenty of encouraging signs.
David Drysdale (90/1) has quite a torrid time of it recently with missed cuts appearing far too regularly.
But a return to a course where success has been had in the past can be the ideal setting for a revival.
The Scot has been a consistently good performer here for the majority of the decade and his form makes for handsome reading He missed the 2017 edition but, other than that, his form between 2018 and 2010 reads 2-11-18-6-11-25-MC-8.
He’s had a few weeks off since competing at the Turkish Airlines Open and should be fresh to start the 2020 season strongly. A small each-way stake is reasonable.
Alfred Dunhill Championship betting tips and preview: Outside pick
While he may only be slightly less strong in the betting that Drysdale, I’d consider Thomas Aiken (100/1) to be an outsider.
The South African has had a hit-and-miss year in terms of results but has had plenty of time to work on his game having not played since October.
He’s had two top 1os here in the past and he could well find that sort of form again.
For the latest prices, visit bet365.
Joe Hughes
Tour editor covering men's golf, women's golf and anything else that involves the word golf, really. The talk is far better than the game, but the work has begun to change that.
