BMW PGA Championship Each-Way Tips: Back 30/1 Rai of light on the West Course

• Aaron Rai can add to his fine championship record

• Frenchman Antoine Rozner is sneaky good at Wentworth

• Past champion Shane Lowry found something last week

The great football manager Brian Clough was famous for his one-liners. "Rome wasn't built in a day," goes one. "But I wasn't on that particular job."

Another favourite - less witty but potentially more useful for the punter's notebook - went: "Sometimes you win matches in unusual places, often before you put a foot on the field."

It's a line that makes you think of the DP World Tour's annual visit to the West Course at Wentworth for the BMW PGA Championship because many winners there laid the foundation of that success many years before they hit the first tee.

In the first instance, it is because the venue is forever associated with the explosion of the sport in the 1980s.

Indeed, it was in 1984 that the event settled for good in this well-wooded corner of Surrey (before then it had been nomadic) and the early list of winners is a roll call of Europe's great and good: Ballesteros, Langer, Faldo, Olazabal, Rocca, Woosnam and Montgomerie.

Then, and afterwards, the tournament was inspirational to those who watched it on television and even more so for the young boys who walked the fairways.

In the modern era, Paul Casey, Luke Donald, Chris Wood, Danny Willett and Tyrrell Hatton are all winners who attended the event as young fans.

But it goes further. As a boy Matteo Manassero was an avid watcher of videos showing Ballesteros winning at the course, Francesco Molinari has vivid memories of watching Rocca's triumph (moreover, he even recalled how the tournament then finished on a Bank Holiday Monday requiring him to run home from school), and Billy Horschel was positively dewy eyed when recalling seeing Wentworth's tree-lined fairways on early morning broadcasts at home in Florida.

There's something else West Course winners have in common: 18 of the last 20 champions had already finished top 10 there - so they understand the challenge.

And 16 of those 18 had ranked top 10 for Scrambling on a previous course visit - so they either had a distinct affinity with the short game challenge there or had sussed where to miss greens (or, possibly even better, a combination of the two).

Main Bet: Aaron Rai 1pt each-way @ 30/1

From East Park to the West Course? It's a journey Aaron Rai has already made, but he has it in him to make it a victorious one, too.

The East Park in question was in Wolverhampton and it is where Rai, when just a toddler, was introduced to pitch and putt.

He took to the game quickly, moving to a public course outside the city and then to Patshull Park GC on the Shropshire border. His dad also took him down to Wentworth to watch his heroes and he had a little chat with Ernie Els on the putting green.

At 15, he holed 207 putts in a row from 10-feet to break the 'Lee Westwood World Puttmaster' record, and returned to Wentworth with his dad to get his first set of custom-fitted clubs.

Rai turned pro aged 18, and when he set out on the third tier his peers were united in affection for Rai's softly spoken ways and admiration for his diligence and quality.

His breakthrough on the second tier came among the tree-lined fairways in Kenya, an emotional week because his mum, who has family ties in Nairobi, was present to watch it.

His first DP World Tour win came in Hong Kong, once more among the trees.

And he made it a hat-trick when his maiden PGA Tour win came down Sedgefield's tree-lined holes.

In the last four years, his fondness for the West Course has been evident in results: he was T14 in 2021, runner-up in 2023 and fourth last year.

He had always been accurate from Wentworth's tee boxes, but he's found the trick of hitting more greens (he ranked first last year) and saving par when he misses them (third for Scrambling in 2023).

He had an unhappy time when missing the cut last time out in Crans two weeks ago, but that diligence means he'll have been working hard to correct it and before then he ranked top five for Strokes Gained Approach at four tournaments in a row.

He has the potential, and class among trees, to become another winner who once walked the fairways on the other side of the ropes.

Next Best: Antoine Rozner 1pt each-way @ 175/1

The Frenchman first hinted that he liked Wentworth when a second round 65 on debut saved him from a missed cut after he had opened with a 77.

A year later he started 69-68 to sit inside the top 30 before the event was shortened due to the death of the Queen.

Last year, he posted 69-65 pre-cut to start the weekend in a share of third and a pair of 69s secured seventh.

In those first two starts, he ranked sixth and second for hitting greens. Last year he was third for Scrambling, sixth for Strokes Gained Approach and first for Tee to Green.

He's had a funny 12 months, but one with quality this side of the pond and consistency the other side.

Before and after New Year, he made four top sixes in five DP World Tour starts.

More recently, he made 15 straight cuts on the PGA Tour, a run that ended with his final start.

He was T33 last time out, on his return to Europe two weeks ago, but there was a smart 64 in the second round and he's a very tempting big price.

Final Bet: Shane Lowry 1pt each-way @ 28/1

The Irishman is hard to keep out of the plan because he's not just a course winner (in 2022), he also has five top six finishes in 15 course starts (and 12 top 20s in all).

It is also significant that the West Course is a Harry Colt original. Lowry won the Open at Colt's Royal Portrush and has been second at Colt's Hamilton in Canada.

The clincher is that his long game was in great nick last week in Ireland: fifth Off the Tee, fourth for Approach and second Tee to Green.

This is the first time we've been able to back him at this side of 20s for five years and it's an opportunity well worth taking.

Now read Steve Rawlings' preview of the BMW PGA Championship.

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