Laguna National Golf & Country Club © Peter Corden
Rafael Cabrera Bello 16/1 © Kevin Murray
The European Tour heads to Singapore this week and pitches up at the Andy Dye from Dye designs, Laguna National Golf & Country Club – where one review compared it to playing golf on the moon! Laguna National World Classic has been rated the most difficult course in Singapore, and possibly Asia, from the Championship Black Tees.
Despite some efforts to build in some Scottish mounding, the Masters Course is a modern American style course. There are four lakes which help define the topography and they come into play on twelve of the holes, most notably on holes 11, 12 and the 17th.
The course is built on land reclaimed from the sea, and the combination of water and the massive sandy areas added to the sculpturing of the land does add feature and definition to the course, and will present a strategic challenge to the players this week.
Tommy Fleetwood 28/1 © James Kennedy
My tips to win:
Its frustrating watching Rafa Cabrera-Bello 16/1, we tipped him a couple of weeks ago for the Malaysian Open after it looked like he was going to come back into form and he promptly missed the cut! But Rafa had his forth Top 10 finish at last weeks China Open and I think this time he will kick on and be in the thick of it again come Sunday.
We did tip Ross Fisher 25/1 the other week, but he has followed up his win at the Tshwane Open with two average performances and he will certainly want to bounce back from last week’s missed cut at the China Open. Ross had a Top 10 at the Joberg Open so it has been a very inconsistent year for the Englishman.
It was good to see Tommy Fleetwood 28/1 come back into form at last week’s China Open, and his final round 68 saw him take the runners-up spot to add to his only other Top 5 finish at the Volvo golf champions event early in the year. Tommy has been another player who has struggled a little in the early part of the season with three missed cuts, but with his undoubted talent and a win to his name already, it wasn’t going to be long before he started competing at events again.
Anders Hansen 40/1 © Kevin Murray
My each-way tips:
It looks like Andy Sullivan 33/1 is coming back into form with a Top 10 finish last week at the China Open that followed his Top 15 finish at the Malaysian Open. Andy already has a runners-up finish at the recent Trophée Hassan ll and a Top 5 at the Joburg Open. Sullivan is still waiting for his maiden European Tour victory, but this is the lad from Nuneaton’s second full season and seems to be improving all the time.
Brett Rumford 50/1 © James Kennedy
It’s not been a great start to the season for Danish golfer Anders Hansen 40/1 with two missed cuts from his three starts, but it looks like everything clicked for Anders in the last round of the China Open firing a final round 63. He will be looking forward to this week and will take that newfound confidence in his golf game that saw him storm up the leaderboard to get into the Top 5.
I will am leaving an outside tip this week mainly because I found Brett Rumford 50/1 – you can get him at 66/1 with some bookies – this far down the betting odds. Rumford hasn’t really got off to the best of starts in 2014, but still has three Top 15 from his seven events played. Brett seems to enjoy this section of the tour and with this event replacing the Ballantine’s Championship the Australian will see himself as the defending champion and will want to put in a good performance this week.
For updated betting odds during the tournament go to planetgolfreview.com
