GOLF analyst Lewis Blain (@LewisBlainSport) shares his betting thoughts ahead of the BMW PGA Championship.
BMW PGA Championship | 8th-11th October 2020 | Sky Sports
The European Tour returns to these shores for their leading tournament, the BMW PGA Championship. It's the third Rolex Series event of the year, following up from the Scottish Open last week in which Aaron Rai came out on top over Tommy Fleetwood in a playoff.
It's all swings and roundabouts as the Englishman lost out to our pick John Catlin a week earlier in Ireland.
We've got one hell of a field at Wentworth, potentially the strongest of the year so far but who might we see rise to the top come Sunday afternoon?
It's an all-round test this week but with the Surrey track being a tight and tree-lined course, I will sway to those accurate ball-strikers who can avoid making bogies. GIR has always been key whilst it can't hurt to pick up birdies or better on the four par-5s.
Patrick Reed and Tommy Fleetwood head the market and are closely followed by Matt Fitzpatrick, Tyrrell Hatton, Justin Rose and Shane Lowry but my staking plan for the week will start a little further back.
Both Matt Wallace and Thomas Pieters make great appeal in this next bracket, as does Martin Kaymer. If any of these names won a Rolex event, then you would not be shocked whatsoever.
Sam Horsfield (40/1 SkyBet)
Instead, we'll begin with someone who's already won twice on tour since the restart, Sam Horsfield (40/1). The Englishman won at Arden, then missed the cut, before picking up another victory at Celtic Manor. Interestingly, he comes into this on the back of another missed cut, which is why we're perhaps getting great odds on him this week.
Horsfield is seventh on tour for bogey avoidance whilst he's also among the best for ball-striking, scrambling and scoring on those par-5s. In 2018, he held a solid position inside the top-5 in his opening three rounds before a poor final round saw him slip to 15th. Some of his best finishes, outside of those two wins, have been on home soil and given the form he's been in, he has the potential to contend here.
John Catlin (70/1 SkyBet)
We have to go back to John Catlin (70/1) again. He's won two of his last four events, one of which at Valderrama, which has correlated nicely to here in the past. Christiaan Bezuidenhout finished 3rd here last year after winning the same tournament, and that was also on his first appearance just like the American this week.
He has all the weapons to go well around here – 1st on ET for scrambling, 9th for bogey avoidance and inside the top-40 for GIR and SG: OTT. Prior to his first win this year, Catlin recorded a T6 at Celtic Manor whilst during his win in Ireland he held firm before unleashing a 64 in the final round, so perhaps he has a liking for these sorts of conditions in the UK.
Gavin Green (80/1 SkyBet)
I'm also going to return to Gavin Green (80/1), who went into the final round in Scotland in a tie for 5th. The very fact that he was in that position in the first place was a testament to how well he played having been on the wrong side of the nasty draw. He can't be far away from becoming a winner on tour.
In between two missed cuts, Green managed T11-T8 during the UK swing and that came on the back of top-20s in Oman and Qatar.
The young Malaysian ranks inside the top 15 on the entire tour for bogey avoidance, GIR, par-5 scoring and scrambling whilst a 24th for SG: APP isn't far behind. He's also made two cuts from two here, and this time he arrives in much better nick.
Marcus Kinhult (80/1 SkyBet)
Someone who caught the eye in Scotland was Marcus Kinhult (80/1), who ended a run of three straight missed cuts with a T6. What is more interesting is that his two rounds over the weekend were far worse than how he started, so if he performed better in the closing couple of days, then perhaps he would've rivalled Rai and Fleetwood but granted, the conditions were horrible.
His sole victory on the ET has come in England, winning the British Masters in 2019 but he's also contended in Qatar, at the Open de France, in Portugal and in Crans. All of these performances should correlate nicely, but only if he can build on last week's display.
A T12 on first viewing in 2018 and two cuts from two is also massively encouraging.
Alexander Bjork (100/1 Betfred)
Fellow Swede Alexander Bjork (100/1) completes the staking plan this week. He's too good a ball-striker to ignore at a test like this. Since earning us a place at the Hero Open, his form has been quietly ticking over, resulting in an underrated T19 last week.
Bjork has only missed one cut in seven events. He's been striping the ball beautifully in his last three outings, finishing inside the top-10 for SG: APP in each and ranks well for bogey avoidance. On his first looking here in 2017, he finished 14th and hasn't missed the cut in two visits since. It's a big ask but at these three-figure odds, it's well worth the gamble.
Best Bets
BMW PGA Championship – Sam Horsfield (40/1 each-way SkyBet)
BMW PGA Championship – John Catlin (70/1 each-way SkyBet)
BMW PGA Championship – Gavin Green (80/1 each-way SkyBet)
BMW PGA Championship – Marcus Kinhult (80/1 each-way SkyBet)
BMW PGA Championship – Alexander Bjork (100/1 each-way Betfred)
