Omega European Masters betting tips and preview
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, Miguel Angel Jimenez (80/1, 5 places) has every chance of contending here.
The 54-year-old plays his golf on the Champions Tour but Crans is one of those courses where simply anyone can win given its quirky nature.
And Jimenez, who has a quite remarkable record here in the Swiss Alps, has a game that is made for this golf course.
The Spaniard is in good form, too. He won the Senior British Open two months ago at St Andrews and has gone on to notch top-five finishes in his last two starts on the Champions Tour.
At 80/1, this former Crans winner should give us a good run for our money.
Shubhankar Sharma’s (80/1, 7 places) career hasn’t quite taken off in the way many were expecting ever since he won the Joburg Open and Maybank Championship in quick succession at the turn of the year.
That’s probably as a result of a very busy schedule, with the Indian constantly hopping from Europe to Asia and to America over the past year.
Sharma makes his first start since narrowly missing the cut at the PGA Championship, and if he is well rested, I can’t help but feel that a triple-figure price is massive for a young two-time European Tour winner who is incredibly progressive.
Club de Golf Chapultepec – which hosts the WGC-Mexico Championship – often draws comparisons with Crans-sur-Sierre given its tree-lined, tight fairways where altitude plays a huge factor.
And Sharma really hit the world stage when competing there in March earlier this year. The 22-year-old held a two shot lead going into the final round before stumbling late on, but even so, that was a remarkable performance given his stature at the time and the world class players that were surrounding him.
Of course, the field this week is nowhere near as strong as the one in Mexico, and given that the two courses do appear to play fairly similar, perhaps Sharma can add to his title collection this week.
Finally, Ryan Evans (150/1, 7 places) put in an eye-catching performance last week at the tight Silkeborg Ry Golf Club and that could be a good pointer for this week.
The bucket-hat-wearing Englishman finished 12th as he ranked seventh in driving distance, sixth in driving accuracy and hit the fourth most greens in regulation across the field.
Evans doesn’t have any course experience here at Crans, but his only two appearances in Switzerland yielded two top-five finishes in the Rolex Trophy on the Challenge Tour in 2017 and 2015.
That event is held at Golf Club de Geneve, about a three-hour drive from Crans, and given that Alex Noren is a former winner at both courses, perhaps that could be a good angle in.
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Tom Irwin
Tom is a lifetime golfer, now over 30 years playing the game. 2023 marks 10 years in golf publishing and he is still holding down a + handicap at Alwoodley in Leeds. He has played over 600 golf courses, and has been a member of at least four including his first love Louth, in Lincolnshire. Tom likes unbranded clothing, natural fibres, and pencil bags. Seacroft in Lincolnshire is where it starts and ends.
