Valle Romana Open De Andalucia preview
Wednesday 26th March 2008
By Paul Krishnamurty
At last, top-class golf returns to the European mainland and, slightly to my surprise, the sponsors have managed to entice several contenders back across the Atlantic after last week's World Golf Championships. The reason I say its a surprise is that the seven who played through till Monday at Doral will be returning pretty swiftly for the Masters in a fortnight.
After the weekend extension, its fair to say that the returning stars haven't enjoyed the ideal preparation and its for this reason that I'm only including one of their number in the staking plan. But quite simply, defending champion LEE WESTWOOD holds such an outstanding and obvious chance that even odds of 10/1 look very fair value.
One day, hopefully this week, I'll get Westwood right. Seeing as he's won 26 titles around the world and I've been regularly backing him for a decade, it seems ridiculous that I've barely ever been on at the right time. A frustrating business, for sure, but I can't let that influence my opinion here. Lee ended a long losing run on this course last year, and having made the top-10 on his last eight Euro Tour starts its very hard to see him out of the frame.
Last year's results suggested the key to scoring was par-5 performance, an area Westwood tops. Otherwise, this is a positional, short course where driving distance is of little importance. Rather, Aloha GC is all about quality approach play to undulating, fast greens and holing a good share of putts in what is bound to be another low scoring affair.
This last point also leads me to conclude that Aloha could be a good venue for JOHAN EDFORS to get some well-deserved reward after a series of fine efforts. I'm pretty certain that this is the first time I've ever backed Edfors, a player who though obviously talented has always struck me as being frustratingly erratic. Its impossible to argue with his recent form though. In six 2008 starts, he's made the top-5 three times and has another top-10 to his name. This marks him down in my view as a winner waiting to happen, and lest we forget, Edfors has shown in the past that he is very much a man who knows how to get the job on Sunday as three wins in the 2006 season testify. He's a birdie machine when he gets going, so this week's low scoring demands should suit him down to the ground.
Edfors only narrowly edged out two similarly priced players to make the staking plan. It would be no surprise at all to see Martin Kaymer return to winning ways now he's back in Europe. However there must be a slight doubt whether such an inexperienced player will be able to adapt to very different greens to the ones he's been playing in the States, at least well enough to keep up with the low scoring. Thomas Bjorn, who snatched a place for us a fortnight ago in Korea, played well in 6th here last year and could come into it. I'm less than excited about his much shorter odds this week though.
Speaking of backing players at the right odds, BRADLEY DREDGE makes much more appeal at 33/1 now than he did at a third of the price against a weaker field last week. Its not that Dredge isn't capable, more that he's just not reliable enough to be taking short odds about. He played well enough in Portugal, closing with a pair of 69s to make the top-15, a decent follow-up from respectable efforts in Dubai and Arizona. Aloha looks the type of course I could see Dredge shooting the lights out.
The home challenge in Spain is never to be taken lightly. Naturally Miguel-Angel Jiminez heads the list, but his form has been largely disappointing since winning in Hong Kong at the tail-end of 2007. At bigger odds, I think its worth taking a chance on GONZALO FERNANDEZ-CASTANO. Castano was 7th here last year, and remains a young player to follow in Europe. He's yet to make any serious impact in 2008 but did finish 2007 on a high with a second place in Japan. Twice a winner already, he is well worth persevering with considering the impressive strides made so early in his career.
Another youngster very much building a reputation for himself is 22 year-old Dutchman JOOST LUITEN. Surprisingly, Luiten has already moved to a shorter starting price than his fellow prodigy Rory Mcllroy. On recent form its probably deserved though, as Luiten has made the top-5 on two of last five starts. These recent efforts prove comprehensively that the runners-up spot in his native Dutch Open last year was no fluke. At 66/1 he is well worth an each-way crack.
