BMW International Open preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: BMW International Open

3pts e.w. Thomas Pieters at 22/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5pts e.w. Joost Luiten at 33/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5pts e.w. Sean Crocker at 45/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Martin Kaymer at 70/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Gavin Green at 75/1 (BoyleSports 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Last week’s Italian Open threw up a finish fitting of an event which swapped a big course in Rome for a slightly silly one elsewhere, as Marcel Siem somehow denied Tom McKibbin just when it looked like the latter had stolen it. McKibbin was a 500/1 chance when he finished his round on Sunday but ended up twice being turned over at odds-on, once in regulation and then again in the play-off.

It was chaos from start to finish, albeit in golf’s understated way, as Adriatic Golf Club didn’t play to the original scorecard put forward by the DP World Tour. Not that it mattered where my pathetic attempt was concerned, but still – the details do. There’s enough guesswork involved without being mislead as to whether a hole will be a par-four or a par-five.

That’s what makes the return to familiarity all the more welcome as we embark upon a run of golf as we know and expect it, beginning with the BMW International Open, an event that used to switch between courses but now has its home set at Golfclub München Eichenried.

This classical, tree-lined par 72 is a lovely course and there’s nothing especially complicated about it. There are four par-fives, all of them reachable for everyone, and two short par-fours which it doesn’t always pay to attack. Risk versus reward is the theme and that’s another way in which it’s superior to last week, where club selection was so often made for the player, rather than by the player.

Here, you have options for the most part and last year’s one-two demonstrate them nicely. Thriston Lawrence went for both driveable par-fours on Sunday and played them in one-over; Joost Luiten laid up twice and was one-under. Not that such things count for much when Luiten goes on to miss a three-foot par putt at the 17th hole and let a big lead slip through his fingers.

It was a tougher-than-usual renewal, not only for backers of the affable Dutchman, whose 65 in round three was the best score of the week. Not since the event returned here in 1997 has there been anything less than several rounds of 65 or better and just as the course has an off-the-shelf quality, it’s found its spot in the middle when it comes to scoring average among DP World Tour venues.

Certainly it’s a good fit for THOMAS PIETERS and he’s the headline bet.

Pieters finished runner-up at 20s in the Soudal Open when last playing on this circuit and this is a stronger field, but equally true is that the course is so much better for him. In Belgium, he lost strokes off the tee and while that’s because he wasn’t at his best in that department, my view is that Rinkven makes it much harder for him to be.

Around here, he’s been dominant with driver in two visits since withdrawing way back in 2015. Upon his return in 2021 a shocking short-game week confined him to 29th, but better in that department helped him to finish a luckless runner-up two years ago, when Haotong Li’s performance wasn’t far off that of Siem on Sunday.

Whether or not the Belgian feels he has a score to settle, Eichenried is a course where he’s all but won and I’m optimistic that he can do so come Sunday providing the rest of his game is as sharp as it looked back home in Belgium.

There’s some uncertainty here because he’s been quiet in two subsequent LIV Golf starts, but I wouldn’t read much into them. For starters, there’s been some chatter than he’s not exactly thrilled with the team he’s on and his preparation during LIV weeks hasn’t always been as rigorous as it hopefully will be here, and in general I’d say he’s not exactly a perfect fit for that upstart circuit.

I’ve argued several times already this year that it just didn’t suit Bernd Wiesberger, who made no impact whatsoever yet has since proven that he’s the same player he was before LIV Golf game along. Others have doubtless improved for it so this is no critique of the tour itself, it’s just that the format, the team element, the music and certain other aspects of it are bound to affect different people in different ways.

For Pieters I reckon it’s a good money-making vehicle and not much more and back home in Europe, he can underline his class. Over the last three years he’s played here 26 times, winning twice, and with 14 more top-20s. That’s the Pieters we should expect to turn up in Munich and if so he’s the man they all have to beat at upwards of 20/1, with some smaller firms offering as big as 28s for six places.

Luiten to make amends?

Patrick Reed was never involved in Italy and while the putter can be to blamed, I remain unconvinced by his position as favourite. He’s had a couple of chances to win on the DP World Tour, including here in Germany at the Porsche European Open, but under these conditions, right now, I don’t believe he’s the yardstick by any means.

Comfort levels matter a lot and there aren’t many better examples than Matti Schmid, who has been second and fourth among his last few starts in Europe while he continues to fight to keep his head above water out in the USA.

With two top-20s in three starts at Eichenried, Schmid may well improve upon last week’s lowly finish in Detroit, but his long-game was terrible over the final 54 holes there. With a long flight to contend with, maybe the market is putting too much stock in his form on the DP World Tour this time, and not enough on the overall state of his game.

Schmid was 66/1 in places for the KLM Open last month so at less than half that I can overlook him in favour of JOOST LUITEN, who hasn’t shortened as much and is worth another chance.

Luiten produced his best ball-striking numbers in 18 months in what is his home event, but his chipping is always a problem and he was also unable to sustain the putting improvements he’s shown since March.

The positives are easy to find in his long-game, however, as his approach work has improved throughout his last five starts and his driving has really never been better than it has since the Tour landed in Europe in May.

Luiten now returns to Eichenried where, as touched upon, he has some demons to banish. Perhaps that’ll be a problem, but this is a player who has gone through all kinds of frustrations before, firstly with injuries, then with a host of close calls before his breakthrough in 2011.

Another has emerged lately with the Dutch Olympic committee’s frankly stupid decision not to allow him and Darius van Driel to play in the Olympics and both were furious, understandably so. It’s the second time Luiten has been denied and he’ll know full well that a medal would’ve been possible, particularly at Le Golf National.

I hope he can use that injustice to overcome what happened here in 2023 and certainly, this is a fantastic course for him. Five top-15s in eight including second and third tell us as much, while he has correlating form at the Belfry and the K Club, two parkland courses with obvious links to this one.

He would no doubt have questions to answer should be find his way back into the mix but so do most at this level and Luiten simply looks a rock-solid proposition. If he hits it as he did in the Netherlands, he ought to be right in the firing line come the weekend.

USA all the way

Tempting though it is to give Matthew Jordan another chance, he’s developed a habit of missing very short putts and while the same has often been said of SEAN CROCKER, the American has started to hole a few more of late.

Whenever he does that this prodigious driver and quality iron player is a big threat and Eichenried is a course he likes, having made four cuts from five and struck it beautifully when 14th last year.

In fact, this was the event in which he made his DP World Tour debut back in 2017, when still an amateur, and his opening 69 offered a hint as to what he might be capable of in years to come. For now, we’ve not seen him scratch the surface of his potential even if he did putt well enough to win at Fairmont St Andrews a couple of years ago.

More recently, Crocker has gained more than a stroke per round off-the-tee at this course over his measured starts and is up at 1.62 for approaches over the last couple, all of which has generally been undermined by a poor short-game.

Hopefully it holds up this time and there are signs that it might, as Crocker has produced positive putting numbers in each of his last three starts, as well as around-the-green. It was in fact some modest ball-striking by his standards which prevented him from winning in Italy.

Still, third place there followed 23rd in the Netherlands, where his long-game was excellent, and on both occasions he was bang in the mix. It’s now three of his last four starts that Crocker has entered the weekend inside the top 10, the exception in Sweden where he missed the cut on the number.

Crucially, this course is so much more suitable on paper than the last three he’s played so with confidence building following his best finish in a year, the American seems likely to give his running. That’s what he did here last year, when he arrived on the back of a runner-up finish, and I expect him to do so again arriving now after third place on Sunday.

Returning to those correlating courses and the K Club strikes me as the pick. Luiten, Vincent Norrman, Daniel Hillier, Jordan Smith, Rikuya Hoshino, Ryan Fox, Thriston Lawrence all played well there last year having already done so in Germany and it’s a shame we’ve only one recent edition of the Irish Open to go on.

Hillier, Luiten, Richard Bland and a few more help draw ties to the Belfry, Hillier in particular, while Mount Juliet is another which could help via the likes of Fox, Lawrence, Adrian Meronk and even Rikard Karlberg, who doesn’t exactly pop up often but always seemed to prefer a parkland golf course like these and the one he won at in Italy.

I’ve tried to find something out of left-field by following that path but it keeps leading me back to MARTIN KAYMER, although he’s actually priced as a bit of a curveball at 66/1 and bigger, with a best of 80s available for seven places at the time of writing.

Third at the Belfry and fifth at the K Club in the past, the thing with Kaymer is that we don’t need evidence that Eichenried suits, because he won here in 2008 and was second in 2021, when I’d made him my headline selection at 28/1 in a field featuring eventual champion Viktor Hovland.

Three years on and it’s hard to know how far he is from that sort of level, but injuries have been a problem and only in advance of the US Open did he reveal that he’s back to full fitness after a prolonged struggle, occasionally forced to sit out LIV Golf events despite being a team captain.

He started to turn things around in Singapore when second after round one, then made the cut in the US PGA, before adding ninth in Houston – his very first top-10 finish on the Saudi-funded circuit, which he joined two years ago. After that, he showed up well for two rounds in the US Open, where his trademark approach play was excellent.

Another solid start in Nashville saw him fade badly in round three but there are plenty of positives to work with now and while we’re guessing a bit on his first DP World Tour start in two years, Eichenried is the right place at which to do so.

Length isn’t an absolute must, iron play probably is, and as we saw when he chased home Hovland, you can get away with an iffy short-game. With some signs that he’s started to putt very well on the LIV Golf circuit even if he didn’t at Pinehurst, Kaymer is well worth chancing at an inflated price as he seeks to reignite the flame aged 39.

Green light for Gavin

Jeremy Paul, Yannik’s twin brother, is another interesting German who is enjoying his best year yet on the Korn Ferry Tour, but he hasn’t been missed in the betting and there’s just not quite been enough from 2022 winner Haotong Li to risk him even at three-figure prices. Li’s iron play does remain solid and he was better off the tee last week, but his putting was horrendous.

Adrien Saddier continues to catch the eye but has his limitations and doesn’t appeal as a likely champion, a comment which also applies to Scott Jamieson. Third here on debut, the Scot has been hitting his irons really well and given that he’s a top-class putter on his day, a low round or two seems very much possible, perhaps without hitting the frame.

I prefer GAVIN GREEN, who has been producing low rounds lately and very much catching my eye, not least when opening with a six-under 65 in Italy.

That golf course just won’t have played to his strengths at all so starting well and finishing with an under-par final round is enough for me to pull the trigger at Eichenried, where he was 12th last year when not in great form before going on to finish eighth at the Belfry.

It’s not just that Green has been shooting the odd low one, it’s that all aspects of his game have fired separately over the past month – during this spell of mid-pack finishes he’s ranked inside the top 10 in strokes-gained off-the-tee, approach, around-the-green and putting at one time or another.

Last week he put both long-game pieces together but endured a shocker around the greens, a department which is inherently volatile, and it was at least encouraging to see him putt better. On his day, Green is among the very best on the DP World Tour, which is why we can mark up 39th in Sweden and 23rd in the Netherlands where he ranked near last.

Fourth in putting here last year, he’s twice been inside the top 10 after round one of this event and perhaps that market is worth exploring if you don’t believe he can sustain it for the full 72 holes.

However, while I wouldn’t say this is his number one course by any means, when he’s firing Green is best served by a risk-reward layout where he can go chasing birdies and eagles and get away with the odd stray one with driver. That’s broadly true of Eichenried and with his beloved Albatross and Dom Pedro both now absent from the schedule, there are only a couple of obvious opportunities left in 2024.

Perhaps Green can take this one and finally deliver on his potential by winning a title he’d be thoroughly deserving of.

Posted at 0800 BST on 02/07/24

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