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Thailand Classic Each-Way Tips: Guido's French Thai breaker

Matt Cooper
13 February 2023
4:00 min read

Guido Migliozzi can win a fourth DP World Tour event this week.

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The DP World Tour remains in Asia this week. Nicolai Hojgaard heads the betting for the Thailand Classic but Matt Cooper looks elsewhere in his three selections with the Betfair Sportsbook paying seven places...

Guido Migliozzi might find Amata Spring a good fit

George Coetzee is another with the right profile

Stick with Antoine Rozner after last week's top six

Between 2011 and 2015 Amata Spring Country Club near Bangkok hosted the Asian Tour's Thailand Golf Championship, an event with backers who had deep pockets which they chose to direct mostly towards elite players via appearance money rather than share out via the leaderboard.

It was a weird scene - the final event of the Asian Tour schedule, lesser players needing a good week and a decent cheque to save cards, but not actually being rewarded for their efforts because the big shots got most of the money before they'd even teed it up.

Another example of how golf likes to portray itself as meritocratic while being rather more complicated in reality.

The winners of that event were Lee Westwood (twice), Charl Schwartzel, Sergio Garcia and Jamie Donaldson, and three of those fellows are currently involved in another less than meritocratic venture and it's not the only thing they have in common.

Westwood has five top 12 finishes at Le Golf National in Paris including a play off defeat, Schwartzel has finished seventh there and been second at halfway, Donaldson has a trio of top sixes and Garcia was eighth in his only start.

Dig deeper and it turns out that four Le Golf winners also cropped up at Amata Spring: Martin Kaymer has finished second and seventh, Thongchai Jaidee sixth and 10th, Tommy Fleetwood fourth, Nicolas Colsaerts 13th and 15th.

This week the course hosts the DP World Tour's new Thailand Classic and a look at the course suggests that it is flatter than the French host of the 2018 Ryder Cup, but the back nine does have holes framed by water hazards which is kind of the visual in Paris too.

There will be differences - the grass, the climate, the temperatures - but it's an angle I like this week.

Let's hope the column can maintain the strong start to the year - a place finish every week following the winner to kick things off in Abu Dhabi.

Main Bet: Guido Migliozzi 1pt each-way @ /1

We'll start with the last winner on the Albatross Course in Paris - the Italian Guido Migliozzi.

His performance last September was extraordinary, completed with a final round 62 that included a remarkable full stop in the shape of a sensational approach to the final green.

It was also the culmination of an overhaul of the largest 36-hole deficit on the DP World Tour in the 21st century (13 shots), an effort that was somewhat reliant on Rasmus Hojgaard's poor performance over the final two rounds but still needed something special from the eventual champion. He produced:

Take a bow Guido Migliozzi!

And he makes the putt to move to -16! pic.twitter.com/xI29WhFWuV
-- National Club Golfer (@NCG_com) September 25, 2022

Since then his best golf has been a little hard to come by - a flying start at the Nedbank Challenge that wasn't maintained, a solid showing in the Tour Championship, a sparkling effort in the Hero Cup, a bright 54 holes followed by a poor final round in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

Two missed cuts have followed yet he has, however, always tended to be a golfer who can produce the goods from nowhere so I'm not massively concerned.

He's inexperienced in Asia but he's played well enough on Paspalum greens (which he'll encounter this week), finishing second at Education City in the Qatar Masters and fourth at Al Mouj in the Oman Open.

Back Guido Migliozzi 1pt each-way @ 51.0

51.0

Next Best: George Coetzee 1pt each-way @ /1

Big George Coetzee had dropped a few hints about liking Le Golf National before his last two visits but never followed through.

He was third after round one on debut in 2011 and third after 54 holes a year later.

In 2019 he was in the top three all week before landing third and he earned the same result last autumn, spending the last 54 holes in the top three.

He hasn't always played well in Asia, but many of his recent efforts have been solid enough: 14th in the 2012 Singapore Open, eighth and sixth in the 2017 and 2019 Indian Open. In the first and last of those effort he was second at halfway.

His form in 2023 has been a little up and down, but there have been signs of decent golf.

He was fourth at halfway in the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship before finishing 38th and thrashed a 65 in the second round of the Ras al Khaimah Championship to sit ninth before again only recording a top 40.

He can also putt on Paspalum, winning the 2015 Mauritius Open at Heritage and twice finishing second at Doha. He also has top 10s on it at Al Hamra, Al Mouj, Royal Greens and Education City.

Back George Coetzee 1pt each-way @ 67.0

67.0

Antoine Rozner at the Open de France.jpg

Final Bet: Antoine Rozner 1pt each-way @ 20/1

I was tempted to complete the team with Thorbjorn Olesen - who has finished second and third at Le Golf National - and is improving with every outing (literally: MC-45-30-20-16-4).

He's a bit short though.

So I'll keep the Antoine Rozner chips on the table after last week.

But for a slightly irritating second round of 72 - when just about everyone else was breaking par - he played very well (rounds of 67-68-67) for a share of sixth and confirmation that resort golf is right up his street.

As we pointed out last week, he's excelled on such layouts in college, on the minor tours and also on the main circuit.

His three wins on the latter have been at Jumeirah's Fire Course, Doha's Education City and Mont Choisy in Mauritius.

The last three of those were also on Paspalum, as was his play off defeat in the 2019 Mauritius Open at Heritage and last week's sixth in Singapore.

He was also 11th on debut at Le Golf National last year.

Back Antoine Rozner 1pt each-way @ 21.0

21.0

* Having difficulty working out the place returns? Fret no more - you can easily work out your returns with our new each way calculator.