Dufner and Schwartzel the Perth favourites to follow

Some bookmakers believe that it is odds on that one of four golfers - Greg Chalmers, Jason Dufner, Charl Schwartzel and Bo Van Pelt - will win the first-ever ISPS HANDA Perth International at the Lake Karrinyup Country Club.

And they have got a point. There is a gulf in class between those golfers at the top of ISPS HANDA Perth International betting and those golfers who are, according to bookmakers, making up the numbers in Australia`s richest golf event.

It makes sense to focus on Chalmers, Dufner, Schwartzel and Van Pelt and work out which of them represents the best bet to win the ISPS HANDA Perth International that the European Tour and the PGA Tour of Australasia are sanctioning.

At around 14-1, Chalmers is the longest priced of the big four. Chalmers is a Perth resident who has played 25 times on the PGA Tour this season but, while he has made 20 cuts, he has only recorded one top-10 finish. Chalmers is yet to win a PGA Tour title despite playing in 310 events so he is passed over even though he played very well in Australia last year. Quite simply, he does not win often enough for punters to support him at what are relatively short odds.

World number 10 Dufner is the general ISPS HANDA Perth International favourite at around 6-1. It took a while for Dufner to find his feet on the PGA Tour after becoming a member for the first time in 2004. Dufner started to fire up in 2011 and he has kicked on superbly this year, winning two tournaments - the Zurich Classic of New Orleans and the HP Byron Nelson Championship - and playing for the United States of America in its Ryder Cup loss to Europe.

Both Schwartzel and Van Pelt are trading at around 7-1 to win the ISPS HANDA Perth International. Schwartzel will tee it up hoping to take out his eighth European Tour title and South African golfers have an excellent record at the Lake Karrinyup Country Club, with Ernie Els, Retief Goosen and Gary Player all winning on the Perth course in years gone by. Schwartzel says that his game is very close to getting back to a high level and he beat both Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods in the Turkish Airlines World Golf Final last week.

Van Pelt is one of the most consistent performers on the PGA Tour. This year, for example, Van Pelt has posted 10 top-10 finishes from 24 starts. But for a golfer who spends a lot of time towards the top of leaderboards, Van Pelt does not convert high placings into victories very often. He has won only once in 318 PGA Tour appearances. That is an appalling win-to-events ratio for one of the world`s top 25 golfers.

It would seem that Dufner and Schwartzel are the ISPS HANDA Perth International favourites to consider backing. One can back them at combined odds of around 11-4 and that is a good bit of business. If one had to choose between the American and the South African, the former would get the nod because he has got the job done on the PGA Tour this season and the latter has not. Winning form is the best kind of form.

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16/10/2012     © Frixo 2024