Golf - Madeira Open. A very peculiar course, short and very hilly with lots of sloping lies. Set on top of an island cliff, it is almost always very windy. Some players love it and come back year on year and score well. In short, it is a course form track and finding the fairways from the tee appears to be very important. So we need to look at players with good course form above anything else, with driving accuracy a big bonus. The big names never play here as it clashes with the WGC event in America, so there is not a lot of top quality players in the field. 1 point e/w Robert Jan Derksen @ 25/1 with Boylesport. lost 2 points A fairly obvious choice as he is a former winner here in 2005 and was also 6th in 2003 and 14th in 2004. He has been playing well in much better quality fields than this one. Currently in the top 50 for driving accuracy. 0.5 point e/w Garry Houston @ 66/1 generally available. lost 1 point 5th here in 2004 and 11th last year shows a liking for the course and he is also just inside the European Tour top 50 for driving accuracy. His recent 16th at the Johnnie Walker Classic shows some decent recent form. 0.5 points Christian Cevaer @ 40/1 with Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, Stan James. won 4.5 points Only average for driving accuracy but he is in decent current form and has played the course well, 11th last season and 8th in 1998. 0.5 points Francesco Molinari @ 33/1 generally available lost 1 point Like Derksen and Houston, Molinari hits over 65% of his fairways. His 14th in Singapore recently showed at return to some sort of form. On his two outings on this course have been 15th and 22nd and it is likely this 24 year old is still improving. 5 points Cevaer to beat Sandelin @ 4/5 with SportingOdds. won 4 points Both players have good course form but Sandelin is playing very poorly so far this season, with 4 x MC, a WD and a best finish of 72nd from 6 starts! Even on a favoured course, his confidence must be in tatters. |
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