Niall Lyons picks out three fancies in the Genesis Championship this week at Woo Jeong Hills.
Genesis Championship
The Jack Nicklaus Golf Club which has hosted the Genesis Championship for eight years makes way for Woo Jeong Hills, a course designed by Pete Dye's son. We haven't seen a lot of the venue despite it holding the Korea Open for most of this century.
During that time plenty of the world's best have travelled there, including Rory McIlroy once a runner up. Fowler, Daly, Singh, Yang and KH Lee are just a few of the big names to have come here and won so it would be foolish not to give serious consideration towards the bigger names in the market.
Rasmus Neergaard Petersen is a puzzle right now as the bookmakers refuse to let his price drift to a backable number. He was 14/1 at his home course in Denmark a few months ago with the Hojgaard brothers and Matt Wallace fighting him for favouritism.
With many KPGA golfers taking their place in the field at first glance I thought the same price for a slightly weaker field (in terms of DPWT members) might be worth taking. However, Si Woo Kim, Matsuyama, Scott and others around him in the market mean I can't help but think his price is on the thin side once again.
The second half of this year has really told us a lot about the gulf between the DPWT and the PGA Tour. Chris Gotterup got things up and running by winning the Scottish Open and since then we've had Noren, McIlroy, MacIntyre, Kim and Fleetwood all taste victory on this tour. During that period Marco Penge has won twice and he has already been house hunting for his move to the States next year.
Thriston Lawrence, winner at Crans, is a stones throw from a PGA Tour card and quite frankly the average DPWT member can't land a blow whenever the field strength ramps up. Lowry, Harman and Hovland all took a run at Fleetwood at some stage over the weekend and Daniel Hillier succumbed to the pressure with a couple of holes left.
It's difficult to see a change here for this event and my concentration is once again towards the top of the market.
Genesis Championship Tips
4pts WIN H.Matsuyama 12/1 General
3pts WIN Sungjae Im 16/1 General
1.25pts each-way B.Wiesberger 80/1 (1/5 6) General
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Hideki Matsuyama at 12/1 (WIN)
It takes a bit of picking apart the big names in this and there's question marks around a couple, but I'm adamant there's not enough of a gap between Matsuyama and the rest and I'm surprised he's not even favourite with a couple of bookmakers.
Si Woo Kim, Sungjae Im and Matsuyama all finished on the same total and tied for 20th at the Baycurrent Classic a few weeks ago. Of those 3 Si Woo was the one who didn't make it all the way to East Lake this year and Im's place there was a tad lucky maybe with a top 5 at the Masters doing the majority of his work.
Matsuyama won the Sentry and was generally a lot more consistent all year although he will admit to the season being a little disappointing following a hot start in Hawaii.
Matsuyama finished 13th at the Wentworth prior to the Baycurrent and has been in solid nick with all departments of his game.
Si Woo undoubtedly has upped his game the last few months but with neither of them playing a whole pile of golf over the last while I'd much rather take a gamble on the much classier golfer coming out on top here.
I'm surprised the former Masters champion isn't 2 or 3 points shorter than Kim and I'll back accordingly.
Sungjae Im at 16/1 (WIN)
Byeong Hun An finished 4th at the Baycurrent Classic and if he backs that up he has a huge chance of winning this for a the second year running.
Last time he overcame Tom Kim in a dogfight towards the end and although he has been somewhat disappointing since the bounce back at Yokohama is a big positive. It has been a poor year however and he doesn't strike me as someone on the verge of winning an event such as this.
The same could be said for Sungjae Im who is a really interesting one here given the fact he has one three of his last five events he has played on the Korean tour. Granted this is a much tougher affair but he could easily fit right in with this track and a nice top ten tune up in Macao last week is good preparation.
A decent week at Yokohama is another positive and maybe he is beginning to put to bed the awful year he has had with his irons.
It is somewhat of a gamble that he has overcome that issue enough to win an event of this calibre but 20th at the Baycurrent, then 7th last week suggests he is doing a lot of things right.
The course here features a lot of water and having won at PGA National he may end up really liking the look of it.
There is no hiding from the fact when the big names have played in this event down the years they have come up with the goods so my attention lies on the best in the field and a DPWT journeyman will do well to break this current trend of PGA Tour winners.
Bernd Wiesberger at 80/1 (Six Places)
Bernd Wiesberger rose 8 places to 113th in the Race to Dubai rankings, just inside the cut off mark for a tour card next year.
Two top 20s in Spain and India now mean the Austrian has plenty to play for this week. 3rd with his irons at Club de campo, then 5th last week in the same department is a huge upturn in fortune since the Summer and any sort of week with the putter these last two weeks would have seen him go much closer.
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He was a 125/1 shot last week and with the greatest respect to the top of the market here I don't think anywhere near the quality of Lowry, Fleetwood and Hovland have entered the conversation this week.
So it begs the question, if we priced up last weeks event following the result, we'd see Wiesberger probably enter at 80/1 following that effort.
However the omission of Fleetwood, Lowry and Hovland means he should go even shorter. Already a winner in South Korea having won the Ballantines Championship back in 2012, there is every reason to give the big Austrian another bash this week.
