The 2011 Andalucia Masters golf tournament takes place this week, with Sergio Garcia favourite to make it consecutive wins on the European Tour
Bet on the Andalucia Masters at betfair
The Race to Dubai returns to Valderrama this week for the second staging of the Andalucía Masters. Although this week's event is new to the schedule, Valderrama has been a popular staging post on the European Tour for many a year as it was the venue for the old season closer, the Volvo Masters, so there's plenty of course form to peruse.
It's a short, tree-lined track and accuracy is most definitely the key. Course form repeats and as a rule, it's the sort of place that the players need to get to know. Very few debutants fair well, although Jeev Milkha Singh won the Volvo Masters at his first attempt back in 2006.
Last year's inaugural winner of this title, Graeme McDowell, had plenty of Valderrama form in the book, arrived in good nick and was very well-fancied before the off. He was my idea of a typical winner given it's such a demanding venue but very often the winner of the old Volvo Masters would go off at big odds. Soren Kjeldsen, Paul McGinley and the aforementioned Jeev Milkha were all surprise recent winners. I still think it's a place where the cream really should rise to the top though and my first two picks certainly reflect that.
I'm no Sergio Garcia fan by any means but he couldn't have been any more impressive last week and he has some fantastic form around here too. He really should have won the Volvo Masters and was runner-up three times. In ten starts at Valderrama (including two American Express Championships) he's finished outside the top-ten just once and he even managed to finish in the top-ten here last year, the week after missing the cut at his home track. It's very difficult to envisage him not contending and he looked very much over-priced at 9.2 yesterday.
I've given up on the weather forecasts; they all seem to contradict each other with regards to the wind but Thursday certainly looks wet. I may hang on to all of my Sergio wager or I may lay the stake back and give myself a small free bet, or given he has an afternoon tee time on day one, I may just wait and see how my other main pick, Martin Kaymer, who tees off in the morning, fares first.
I don't think I have ever backed the first two in the market at an event before but that's precisely what I've done here. This time last year, in scintillating form and looking for his fourth straight win, Kaymer was trading at half his current price and although I backed him, I did so somewhat reluctantly. My instinct told me he was going to the well once too often but this time around, my intuition tells me he's ready to win again.
Kaymer has repeatedly said that Valderrama is his favourite course and his form figures back that up. In just three starts here he's finished sixth, second and last year's disappointing 21st. He contended well at the Portugal Masters two weeks ago and was runner-up at the recent European Masters and I couldn't leave him out.
That was supposed to be it but Paul Krishnamurty makes such a compelling case for David Horsey that I've followed him in. He is indeed correct, even though this is Horsey's first look at Valderrama, he's definitely too big at 100.0.
Of the remainder, I wouldn't want to put anyone off the defending champ, McDowell, and I really liked Thomas Bjorn but wanted a bigger price. Soren Kjeldsen has incredible form figures at Valderrama, having finished second, first and second again in his last three appearances and he's a big price at 60.0 but he's been woefully out of form this term so he's left out too.
Justin Rose won here in 2007 but he also had fine form figures at last week's venue in the States where he missed the cut. He's been well backed again but he looks short enough to me after last week's woeful effort. And finally, a regular play of mine, Alvaro Quiros, lives just up the road from Valderrama but this is simply not his type of venue and even at a huge price he's readily overlooked.
Sergio Garcia @ 9.2
Martin Kaymer @ 14.5
David Horsey @ 100.0
