European Tour Betting Guide: Scandinavian Invitation
This week the European Tour heads north to Sweden to a course that should be a little different than the one we saw last week in Prague. You can check out the course preview to learn more about what kinds of players might succeed, but here are a few of my personal picks to play well that are being a bit overlooked by the books this week.
*All odds from Betfair
Outrights
Jordan Smith (41.0) - Jordan Smith ranks very well in the two stats I called out in the course preview yesterday. He is 22nd in driving accuracy on the European Tour this season and also 22nd in par 3 scoring. We haven’t seen Smith since the Scottish Open where he missed the cut, following up his missed cut at the Irish Open. That doesn’t bother me too much as he doesn’t have a great history at either of those events and maybe just isn’t a great links player. Prior to those missed cuts, he had been having a great year with four top-10s on the season. Looking at the odds board, I feel like he is a great value. Comparing his play over the year to Erik Van Rooyen (15.0 for this week), per datagolf’s true strokes-gained moving averages, Smith had been consistently ranking above EVR from January right up until the Irish Open. If we throw out Smith’s bad links play for two events, he’s primed to jump back into contention at this course.
Rikard Karlberg (51.0) - Karlberg is coming in very hot with top-6 finishes in each of his last three starts (across the European Tour and Challenge Tour). He ranks 26th on the European Tour in par 3 scoring this year, and he hit 73.2% of his fairways last week in Prague, which ranked him 7th for the week. So he ranks out well in key stats for this course, and additionally, he is from Gothenburg, which may give him that little extra gear to contend this week.
Top-20
Maximilian Kieffer (5.0) - Kieffer has not had a great summer after a solid stretch earlier this year and is another one of many players here that we haven’t seen since the Scottish Open or earlier. However, he is one of the few players with really strong course history, having finished 3rd at this course last year. He ranks 21st on the season for Driving Accuracy, and that is what helped him play well here last year, as he ranked fourth in driving accuracy that week hitting 82.7% of fairways. Maybe getting back to a familiar place where he’s seen success before will kick him back into contention.
Espen Kofstad (11.0) - When you’re looking for these finishing position bets, you’ve got to find one or two things that lead you to that player. Kofstad has a couple things going for him this week that I like. Last week, he hit almost 70% of fairways, and he ranks 43rd on the tour this year in driving accuracy. Additionally, he is on a made-cut streak going back to the Made in Denmark in May. The first step to finishing top-20 is making the cut, so with his driving accuracy and cut making, he’s a decent longshot to top-20.
Christopher Sahlstrom (13.0) - If you want a serious flyer pick for the week, look at Christopher Sahlstrom. Sahlstrom has been tearing it up in the Nordic Golf league with four wins over the last eight starts and has gone from outside the top 2,000 in OWGR to the 439th-ranked player in the world. We don’t have a lot of data, but four wins is nothing to ignore, and two of the wins were by five-plus strokes, including a six-stroke victory in only three rounds. At super long odds on the top-20 board, Sahlstrom is someone who may fly under the radar.
