12th July 2012
Scottish Open Betting: Louis Oosthuizen can enhance his reputation for links golf at Castle Stuart
The annual pre-Open tournament is the Scottish Open and that remains the case this year. The tournament gets underway on Thursday and for the second year will be held on the links of Castle Stuart. Luke Donald will be defending the title he won here 12 months ago when rain and a landslide forced the tournament to be cut to 54 holes. Hopefully we see 72 holes this week. Donald is 15/2 with Bet365 to make a successful defence.
The Castle Stuart Links in Inverness is a par 72 but only plays to a yardage of 7193 yards. Therefore shorter hitters have just as much chance of success as the longer ones. The course will be set up very similar to the course which the players will play at The Open next week with lengthy rough and a premium on hitting fairways to be able to attack the pins.
There is a fairly decent field in place this week but even so Donald is the 15/2 favourite which is way too short for me given the quality opposing him. Padraig Harrington is second favourite which is fair enough given his record on links courses with Francesco Molinari and Nicolas Colsaerts joint third favourites off the back of good weeks in France last week. Ernie Els is a dangerous floater at 25/1.
However I like the look of another South African this week. Louis Oosthuizen showed all his quality both in the game of golf and links golf when he won The Open by a large margin at St Andrews in 2010. He has shown since that he can play this unique type of golf. He was 5th in the Alfred Dunhill Links last year and with this course not being the longest I think he’s bang in with a chance this week. He has already won twice on the European Tour this year and can make it a hat trick of wins in Scotland this weekend.
Back L.Oosthuizen to win Scottish Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Betfred (1/4 1-6)
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Author: 'Arry Allsports
