Preview & plays:
Another continent and another pro-am. This time the venue is Sun City and the defending champions are Lee and John Westwood. Lee won the pro title last year and also helped his father to the amateur title. A rare double and with brother-in-law Andrew Coltart in the field this year, this could become a family monopoly. With the likes of Westwood, Clarke, Goosen and Sun City multi-winners Price and McNulty in the field, the prices are very shot for these five, with four of them at 10/1 and under. The value lies elsewhere and particularly with Ladbrokes offering place finishes for the first five.
The first two are European stalwarts and perennial nearly-men, Paul McGinley and Andrew Coltart. McGinley has been in South Africa for three weeks and has played steady if not leaderboard-threatening golf. That may change given the drop in field quality beyond the leading five players and he does have a record of securing place finishes in the Southern Hemisphere. The same can also be said about Coltart who topped the Australasian Tour Order of Merit a couple of years ago. He looked good at the Matchplay and this is his first start since then. Like McGinley, it is very hard to see him out of the top-20, it is just a matter of converting a decent position into a place finish.
The third pick is relative unknown Martin Maritz who has only played in two Tour events, but finishes of 25th [South African Masters] and 16th [South African Open] are impressive in themselves. That he has featured on the leaderboard over the weekend in both events is a very impressive debut to Tour golf. Every reason to suspect that he will have learned from these experiences and be more able to maintain that leaderboard position this week.
Outright plays:
Paul McGinley to win 33/1 e.w @
Ladbrokes
Andrew Coltart to win 33/1 e.w. @
Ladbrokes
Martin Maritz to win 80/1 e.w. @
Ladbrokes