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Ryder Cup Betting: European strength-in-depth should ensure continued favouritism

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It's Ryder Cup year, so Paul Krishnamurty has made an early prediction at the Euro and US teams

With the possible exception of Tiger's tilt at the Grand Slam, the golfing highlight of 2008 will probably be the Ryder Cup at Valhalla in September. Coming off the back of consecutive nine-shot victories - or rather thrashings - Europe are favourites away from home for the first time in living memory. At [1.98], they're only marginally so, but beyond their recent dominance in that trophy those odds are also a reflection of a growing belief that there is now greater strength in depth throughout European golf.

The most recent evidence came on Sunday, when Sweden's Daniel Chopra landed his second PGA Tour win in three starts. Chopra is a decent player for sure, but he's never even come close to being considered for Ryder Cup inclusion. Similar comments apply to another Swedish multiple PGA Tour winner Carl Pettersson, and let's not forget that Justin Rose has yet to make his Ryder Cup debut. The competition is so strong nowadays that it will take some something special from brilliant up and comers like Rory Mcllroy and Martin Kaymer to even get close to qualification.

We've witnessed a dramatic turn of events in this regard. In virtually every Ryder Cup since the tournament's inception, certainly away from home, Europe have started underdogs. Even in the glory days of the late 1980s, European sides were always heavily reliant on a world-class core - Faldo, Ballesteros, Langer, Olazabal, Monty - while lacking strength in depth.

Nobody will forget the pivotal contributions of supposed 'journeymen' such as Phil Price or Phil Walton, but they started as massive outsiders in their respective singles matches. And without disrespect to any of the 'second string', it was hard to feel confident when our hopes lay with somebody like Constantino Rocca in a match against a regular Major contender like, say, Corey Pavin or Davis Love.

Nowadays the boot is on the other foot. The equivalent of those 'mismatches' is more likely to be a limited American like Brett Wetterich or JJ Henry against an emerging star and Major winner of the future like Henrik Stenson or Paul Casey. The Americans still have an extremely strong elite - Tiger, Mickelson, Furyk and Stricker fill the top-four in the rankings - but below them there is very little strength in depth. Their next best ranked player is Zach Johnson down in 15th place, and Stewart Cink is the only other player in the world's top-30.

All of this may only have minimal impact on the actual destination of the trophy. The point that Europe proved time and again is that in team matchplay, strokeplay rankings count for very little compared to camaraderie and nerve. The outright market will doubtless be affected by the fortunes of each set of individual players over the forthcoming months, but I suspect Europe's strong advantage has already been well factored in. I've been an enthusiastic European backer in recent years, but my reasoning has always been that they were over-priced as underdogs. While this is no longer the case, I do expect them to retain favouritism from now on and would find it hard to manufacture an argument against them.

For betting purposes over the next few months, I'm much more interested in the qualifying campaigns. The Betfair markets to qualify for either side are in their infancy with very little money matched yet. As the races develop and liquidity improves, I'll continue to monitor the situation and will no doubt return to this subject over the coming months. In the meantime though, I've listed my predictions for the two sides below. In each side I've gone for eight of the 12 qualifiers from 2006, though in both cases wildcards could be needed to retain some of the stalwarts.

EUROPE: Harrington, Rose, Garcia, Donald, Casey, Westwood, Stenson, Poulter, Fasth, Chopra. Wildcards - Darren Clarke, Colin Montgomerie.

USA: Woods, Mickelson, Stricker, Furyk, Johnson, Cink, Snedeker, Glover, O'Hair, Weekley. Wildcards - David Toms, Chris Dimarco.

What do you think? Has Paul called it right? Will any big names miss out? Should Europe really be favourites on American soil? Let us know by commenting below...