Australian PGA Championship Each-Way Tips: 40/1 Micheluzzi can crown a fine year at the Royal

• Aussie David Micheluzzi has strong course form

• Dane Jacob Skov Olsen can make a bold pro debut

• Elvis Smylie might have insider info

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On the Tuesday of this year's Open at Royal Troon I found myself caught inside a wonderfully bizarre web of coincidences.

It kicked off when I met a couple from Queensland's Sunshine Coast who were travelling round the UK either side of a visit to the oldest major championship of them all and it transpired that, back home in Australia, they lived around the corner from one of my best friends who moved down under 15 years ago.

It also turned out that the pair knew the family of the young Aussie Open debutant Elvis Smylie and his presence in Scotland not only caught the coincidence trail, but ran with it down the coastline and back again.

You see, the 22-year-old is the son of the tennis player Liz and the Smylie family are also close to the Baker-Finches (Ian, of course, was the 1991 Open champion) and the Grady family (Wayne was not a former Open champion but he had lost a play-off at Royal Troon in 1989).

Further investigation allowed me to discover that Smylie had first attended the Open as a fan in 2016 which was, of course, also at Royal Troon.

The youngster was named after the great Elvis Presley which is where you'd expect the connections to end except the far end of Royal Troon's out-and-back loop is adjacent to Prestwick Airport which was the location of Presley's only-ever visit to the UK, when he briefly touched down during his national service in 1960.

Only 200 people were witnesses to this episode and one of them happens to be the uncle of a friend of mine while the only journalist to have interviewed Presley that day is the father of another friend of mine, who was working in the Open media centre.

In other words, there were connections everywhere and there is potential for this absurdity to flow into this week's Australian PGA Championship as well.

Why so? Well, ahead of his start at Royal Troon Smylie turned to another former Aussie player, Mike Clayton, for course notes.

Clayton has been something of a mentor and confidante for Smylie as well as occasional caddie and this multi-disciplinary character is also a renowned course architect responsible, among other projects, for the new course at this week's host course, Royal Queensland.

There's a good chance his course notes this time around, if requested, will be even better.

The top of the market is tight and will probably be tough to overcome but the column squeezed some juice from a similar test in last week's DP World Tour Championship, with Antoine Rozner providing a place payout and brief hope of a shock.

Let's hope for more of the same this week.

Main Bet: David Micheluzzi 1pt each-way @ 40/1

First up we'll take the 28-year-old Victorian David Micheluzzi who is good enough to have won four times on his home tour - three of those in 2023 - and he did a neat job in his rookie campaign on the DP World Tour.

His standout performance was a runner-up finish in the BMW International Open at Eichenried but seventh at Laguna National and tenth at Adriatic were good efforts as were five top 40 finishes in a row to complete the season.

He's also got a very nice record in this event and on this course.

He was ninth in early 2022, sixth later that year and T18th last year (when conceivably a little distracted/fatigued having won the previous week).

We don't have many stats to go on from this event but he did record decent long game stats last year which tends to be his weakness. If he can marry a repeat of that with his typical (and recent) hot form with the putter he can contend again.

Next Best: Jacob Skov Olesen 1pt each-way @ 100/1

I was sorely tempted by the young Spanish Challenge Tour graduate Angel Ayora but eventually decided to go with two bigger-priced starters as we seek to take on the market leaders.

Back in June I was on the rugged and magnificent coastline of north-west Ireland for the Amateur Championship at Ballyliffin and watched the Dane Jacob Skov Olesen claim a fine victory.

The 25-year-old was daring from the tee and showed a real flair for hitting with and against the wind which was all the more surprising because he admitted to being a little warty of links golf - a view he also said he had altered by week's end.

He had been consistent as a college golfer rather than peppering his record book with wins but his coach at Arkansas Brad McMakin highlighted his patience and control of emotions, qualities which helped him win a card at Q School last week.

The fact he has turned pro is in itself interesting. He told me that winning the Amateur Championship had created something of a dilemma because his plan was always to turn pro about now but the prospect of playing the Masters next April was tempting.

Him being a Dane prompted me to say, "To be or not to be professional, that is the question," and his blank look told me he was no Shakespeare scholar, but he might enjoy this first outing in the paid ranks.

Final Bet: Elvis Smylie 1pt each-way @ 80/1

We'll finish by backing Elvis to use those Clayton vibes.

Alone they'd be insufficient but in recent weeks he has really hit his straps, landing a first professional win in the Western Australian Open during a run of four consecutive top 10 finishes ahead of recording T24th in last week's New South Wales Open.

He's also 3-for-3 on this course including twice finishing T12th. The win might be beyond him this week but there's a lot of dots flying around and he's beginning to join them up.

Now read Steve Rawlings on the Australian PGA Championship

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