Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Soudal Open preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: Soudal Open

1pt e.w. Matteo Manassero at 80/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

1pt e.w. Nacho Elvira at 80/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Marcel Schneider at 80/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

1pt e.w. Richie Ramsay at 80/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

1pt e.w. Matthias Schwab at 80/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

1pt e.w. Jeong Weon Ko at 125/1 (Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

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For now, Belgium's best two golfers are both named Thomas, and they appear to have settled on taking it in turns to head home and take the headline role in the Soudal Open.

Not long ago, a previous guise of this event was in fact promoted by Pieters Productions and while that's no longer the case, the LIV Golf outcast returns to try to emulate Louis Oosthuizen, Dean Burmester and Joaquin Niemann, all of whom won DP World Tour events just before Christmas.

This will be Pieters' first start back on the circuit since he made the switch to join the RangeGoats, where he's done quite well to avoid the worst of the team's social media activity, and it comes at a good time. Pieters' last three LIV results – ninth, 14th and fifth – represent his best body of work since he gave up a Ryder Cup spot last year.

The issue is the course. Rinkven International might well be a short drive from his house and he knows it very well, but it isn't very Pieters, and he's yet to threaten to win either this or its predecessor, the Belgian Knockout. Ninth place in 2022 was more like it but he was 35th with a round to go and while there are many courses on the DP World Tour where you'd want to be rowing in at 20/1, this isn't one of them.

That isn't to say he can't, and he can certainly look to the winner of that 2022 edition, Sam Horsfield, for proof that you can succeed by attacking Rinkven off the tee. It's just that on balance, accuracy has trumped power around here and the certified course specialists are for the most part fairway-finders who are sharp with their wedges.

This is a short, tree-lined course, where six par-fours play less than 400 yards and none of them can be called long. Last year's Swedish one-two, both big prices before the off, ended the season among the top quarter in driving accuracy, as did several of those close behind. Rewind to the first Belgian Knockout and the final was contested by Adrian Otaegui and Benjamin Hebert, both archetypal fairways-and-greens players.

For form guides, then, look to Kenya and India, where defending champion Simon Forsstrom has done well. Horsfield in fact almost won at Karen, where 2019 champion Guido Migliozzi has. The man Migliozzi beat in the Knockout final was Darius van Driel, who earlier this year won at Muthaiga, and either of those Nairobi venues could prove informative.

The other I really like is a little harder to spot but Golf Club de Geneve, home of the Rolex Trophy on the Challenge Tour, throws up some remarkably strong correlating form lines. In fact, six players have finished first or second in this event and also played Geneve at least once, and their results in Switzerland show three wins, two seconds, and a fourth.

Having been second there together with a win at Wentworth and third place at Crans, MATTEO MANASSERO could take to this on his first visit and the Italian rates the headline bet.

Manassero has already provided one of the stories of the season by capturing the Jonsson Workwear Open and while his form overall is patchy, he's also been fifth on two occasions, including in India which is particularly encouraging with this in mind.

Last time out he was 23rd in the China Open, which was shortened to 54 holes, and yet again his tee-to-green game was outstanding. Manassero still looks a little unconvincing over short putts but his wedge game is the best on the circuit bar none, while his approach work isn't far off that standard.

Around here, I'd be inclined to think he could get away with the fact that driver will never be a strength and it was better last time out anyway. With him, it's just about targeting the handful of truly suitable courses and just as Glendower proved to be one of those, so might Rinkven.

Ultimately, he's had five good putting weeks so far this season, and from that has finishes of first, fifth, fifth, 23rd, and one missed cut. Another decent performance on the greens and he could well win again, something he did on the Challenge Tour last year.

Manassero confirmed himself in good nick with an excellent performance in US Open qualifying on Monday, where he squeezed through with a stunning second round. That probably put one or two onto him but anything around the 66/1 mark looks value regardless of whether the bits and pieces of three-figure prices have gone.

Nacho looks a tasty bet

Further up the betting, not many of the market principals appealed. Jordan Smith finished strongly in the PGA Championship but hasn't played here since 2018 and the travel isn't ideal, Yannik Paul has been poor in the mix lately and Bernd Wiesberger's putter has finally pushed me over the edge, especially as it's cost him here in the past.

Otaegui is solid but has been backed into favouritism and Alex Fitzpatrick appealed more at almost twice the price. His Challenge Tour win came at a fiddly course, St Mellion, where Forsstrom had been fourth. He also has some strong performances to his name in Kenya, India and at Crans, so if he can rediscover his putting touch this could be the week for a winner-in-waiting.

That said I'm much happier speculating around a course like this one and will return to Geneve to put up NACHO ELVIRA.

Like Manassero, he's a player who struggles off the tee but is very good otherwise, and we've seen it all season – he's been inside the top 25 for approach play in each of his last six appearances, has often scrambled well, and is always capable of running hot with the putter.

Elvira hasn't actually been doing that lately but that hides some generally encouraging signs in his game ever since he finished second in Kenya, when recommended at 50/1 on these pages. Now out to almost double that price, this is somewhat a reflection of the top-end strength of the field, but also because of what might be a misleading view of his current form.

Certainly, Elvira has the game to go well here. He boasts an excellent Crans record to go with that runner-up finish at Muthaiga, while he won at Geneve on his sole start there. It's fair to say he ought to have done so at HimmerLand last year, too, and that's a course where average drivers often do well, such as 2022 winner Oliver Wilson and former Rinkven contender, Alexander Bjork.

Ninth place here in 2022 came during a generally quiet spell and he was playing worse still when missing the cut last year, so I'm very much of the view that this less-than-driver course should bring out his best. He stalled after a good start at Walton Heath on Monday but can do better.

Similar prices about MARCEL SCHNEIDER also appeal after third place last time out.

Schneider has been a little up and down this year but that was his fourth top-30 finish in six starts as things begin to improve, particularly off the tee where he looks more solid than ever. With his short-game sharp for most of the campaign, all it took was a step up with his approaches to go close.

Two of those top-30 finishes came in Kenya and India, latterly on his debut at the shall we say quirky DLF, and he's another who has the correlating form I like. Schneider has been second at Geneve, where he led through 54 holes, has won at another Swiss course where Hebert is a past champion, and has a top-10 finish at Crans, too.

The late-blooming German has generally capitalised when his game has turned a corner, going 2-1 on the Challenge Tour in 2021, then 7-4-5 at this time of year in 2022, before another pair of back-to-back top-10s in August. Hopefully, he can pick up where he left off at another tree-lined course in Japan and go close.

Kiradech Aphibarnrat is a far more accurate driver than his wild swing would have you believe and he was an eye-catcher here last year. The Thai is interesting at a good bit bigger than he was in China last time, and you'd have to respect Migliozzi, runner-up there, after he backed that up at US Open qualifying only to miss out by a single shot.

Both made some appeal but I'll stick with RICHIE RAMSAY, 17th in that three-round China Open when among my selections at a similar price.

The Scot is a bit of a favourite of mine having won at Crans for us a long time ago and again at Hillside in 2022. Since the latter, he's threatened a few times on shorter courses and this time last year, three top-10s in five starts all came under what are his ideal conditions.

The first was here, when he put a poor start to the season behind him to take seventh despite a misfiring putter, and that club has come good lately. The issue has been that he can't always compete off the tee but that isn't true at Rinkven, where he's ranked fourth and 23rd over the last two editions of the Soudal Open.

Hitting fairways with 280-yard drives can get you a long way here, as evidenced by the fact that Otaegui was the fourth-ranked driver last year and Mike Lorenzo-Vera fifth. In 2022, Ramsay, John Catlin and Oliver Farr were among the best off the tee and that just does not happen at many courses on the DP World Tour.

Ramsay has been a permanent fixture among the top 30 in driving accuracy over the past three seasons and with his short-game sharp and his approach work as reliable as ever, he should be able to compete providing he remains reliable when it comes to finding fairways, and those putts continue to drop.

For my money he's one of the more underrated players on the circuit and a fifth win will probably come along sooner or later, most likely on a course like Rinkven.

Along similar lines, Joel Girrbach has only two players ahead of him in the driving accuracy statistics, including course winner Otaegui, and is at the very top of his game right now.

The Swiss has been catching the eye all year long but it's taken me a while to become fully convinced given that he has looked limited at times in the past, yet aged 30 he really seems to have hit his peak. That however has been picked up by the market and I'd have wanted three-figure prices on balance.

Instead I'll switch to JEONG WEON KO, who it must be acknowledged did shoot 87 in the third and final round of the China Open on his last tournament start.

However, this big-hitting Frenchman is a big talent, a player I like a lot, and he's shown he has much more to him than power having produced much of his best golf around tighter courses so far.

In fact if you isolate Kenya, India and Japan, the three places we've been to this year which I feel may offer the best clues, Ko has been ninth, fifth and 11th, at times displaying a really sharp short-game.

Throw in 15th here last year, when he sat second at halfway and was fourth in strokes-gained around the green, and he begins to look like a potential winner at big prices but for that performance in China, where many would've fancied him to kick on following an opening 68 given the way he'd been playing.

But we do at least have a more recent glimpse of what he can do, because he shot 65 on Monday afternoon, the joint-best score at Walton Heath's New Course, Manassero the only other to do it.

Ko didn't quite do enough to qualify as he'd been slow from the blocks, but it's enough to remove concerns about that shocker in China and focus on an extremely appealing set of form figures around not just similar courses, but this one itself.

Jayden Schaper's strong finish back home in South Africa a month ago is noted and this is his type of golf course, a comment which also applies to Santiago Tarrio who has attracted some support, while there are a handful more who can be argued for on the strength of their performances under similar conditions.

Edoardo Molinari might even be one of those along with his Ryder Cup captain, Luke Donald. These two veterans have a little life left in them and in the case of Molinari, qualifying for the US Open then seeing his brother do the same could be a nice boost to his chances at 200/1.

My ultimate view is that this is a fun tournament in which to take a bit of a chance but I'll end with a player who at his best would be very close to the favourites, MATTHIAS SCHWAB.

Having selected the Austrian in India (26th) and Japan (42nd), I will admit to being relieved he didn't quite land the full place money in China last time, where eighth place was nevertheless another step in the right direction.

Once a star amateur who then became one of the best European Tour players without a win to their names, Schwab spent a couple of years on the PGA Tour where he eventually lost his card, but did enough to earn starts back home via this new exemption put in place for 2024.

It took him a little while to find his feet but he's now made seven cuts in a row and together with quality iron play throughout this run, there are one or two signs that his putting is coming round, too.

Another who can only compete off the tee when the demand is for accuracy rather than power, and who has always been brilliant around the greens, Schwab has the ideal game for Rinkven and still has so much upside even as his price begins to contract.

This is a player who was 17th on the Race to Dubai in his last season in Europe before departing for the PGA Tour, who came back in 2021 and bagged five top-10s in 15 starts before earning another crack at things over there. He's not yet 30 and, with confidence returning, he will go close to winning in he coming months.

Schwab is a past runner-up at Green Eagle, next week's venue, but I can't resist chancing him back at Rinkven, where he played OK in the Belgian Knockout. Returning now after several years away, he can remind everyone of his class.

Posted at 0930 BST on 20/05/24

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