Dunhill Links Championship. Yet another ‘Celebrity’ event, just what the world needs. However underneath the froth, there is a serious golf event with a big prize and the Pro’s, well most of them will be trying hard. These Pro-Am events do require a certain mind set form the Pro’s. The rounds are long and it must be pretty tiresome for a top class Pro to play with a hacker, for 3 days. Some of the pairings do work and some of the Pro’s enjoy (or can cope with) the company of the rich and famous slicing another drive into the rough. Another factor to consider is that this is links golf, in Scotland and it is October. The weather forecast is for some nasty weather to blow through on Friday and Saturday, wet and windy, so experience of links courses and the ability to keep a round together when the weather is at its worse will be crucial. This will not be like an Open Championship in July, this is the real McCoy. Carnoustie and Kingsbarns are the harder of the three courses and playing these two on Friday or Saturday, in very bad conditions will be very tough, it would be an advantage to be playing St. Andrews on either of these days as the wide open nature of the course will not be so penal. The worst of the weather is expected on Friday afternoon and on Saturday, so those on the Carnoustie, Kingsbarns, St. Andrews probably have the easier draw as they will have the most open course to play in the worst conditions. That is bad new for a lot of the big names and in fact there are very few ‘top’ players on the easier draw. Vijay Singh, Karlsson, Olazabal, McDowell, Anders Hansen, Lynn and Paul Lawrie all have the best draw, but there are question marks about them all. Singh has good event form, but his current form is not great. Karlsson is playing well, was 3rd last year but might be running out of gas after a very busy schedule. Olazabal has a poor tournament record, suggesting he doesn’t like the format. McDowell should be good in the conditions and was 2nd here in 2004, but his recent form is poor. Anders Hansen was 3rd here last season and has some reasonable current form but his temperament is suspect in contention. David Lynn has shown some good from but his event record is poor. Paul Lawrie is a past winner here and the worse the weather, the more he likes it. Unfortunately his game is not in good shape and he has achieved little for a long time. Had to great excited about many of those, but Karlsson has played well for a long time and perhaps he can get another big performance out before he needs a rest. 1 point e/w Robert Karlsson @ 40/1 with Hills, Ladbrokes, Stan James. lost 2 points Darren Clarke is a good player in poor conditions and on links courses. He has a poor draw but looks good enough to beat Ryder Cup team mate Paul Casey. Casey has played poorly in this event (5/mc/mc/44/24) with just a 5th in 2001 being his only piece of form. He looked jaded last week. Clarke has a couple of top 10’s in the last 3 Dunhill’s and has a 4-1 H2H record over the Englishman. 5 points Darren Clarke to beat Paul Casey @ 10/11 with Boylesports lost 5 points On a similar anti-Casey theme, Colin Montgomerie must be fancied to add to his 4-0-1 record over Casey in this event. The Scot has a good record here (5/3/mc/23/1) and while he is at risk of being tired, he does like the event and that might be enough to lift his game. Casey’s game is a bit ‘through’ the air style, which will not be good when the wind gets up, and his record on links is poor. 5 points Colin Montgomerie to beat Paul Casey @ 10/11 with VCBet. lost 5 points. |
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