Korea Championship First-Round Leader Tips: Look to Lagergren

Dave Tindall
26 April 2023
3:00 min read

Joakim Lagergren can hit the ground running

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The DP World Tour heads to South Korea and Dave Tindall has three each-way bets to be first-round leader at Jack Nicklaus Golf Club Korea...

80/1 Joakim Lagergren should enjoy the course
80/1 Andy Sullivan is a proven quick starter
40/1 Joost Luiten goes low early and loves Asia

Weather forecast for Thursday: It's a sunny day although not exactly warm, especially in the morning.

Temperatures pick up in the afternoon but so does the wind although neither to any great extent. Overall, there's no significant advantage for either wave.

Jump in for Joakim

I may have flown over Jack Nicklaus Golf Club during a family trip to Seoul two weeks ago but my daughter wanted the window seat and my son had just handed me a full sick bag after a turbulent approach.

Had I craned my neck and looked below, I'd hopefully have nodded in recognition at the wide landing areas so typical of Jack's courses and perhaps recognised a hole or two from the 2015 Presidents Cup played there.

Located 18km away from Incheon airport as the crow/plane carrying vomit flies, a scan of those Presidents Cup results shows Louis Oosthuizen, Phil Mickelson and Zach Johnson as the top scorers.

That's a hat-trick of Open champions (two at St Andrews) or two Masters winners and a runner-up.

The link between this week's venue and St Andrews/Augusta could be wide fairways although there's not exactly many in the field this week who have played either course.

However, with the Old Course in mind, I'm drawn towards Joakim Lagergren given his brilliant record (a quartet of top fours) in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship where two of the four rounds are at St Andrews.

If all this seems tenuous, perhaps more meaty is the fact that the Swede showed some recent form when sixth in a South African Tour event two appearances ago. The relevance of that is heightened by the fact that it was played on another Jack Nicklaus track (Steyn City).

And, in terms of this market, it's notable that Lagergren has been starting fast.

Back Joakim Lagergren each way @

80/1

Lagergren was third after 18 holes in South Africa while, bringing in a nice bit of Far East form, he also opened with a 65 to lie second after round one of February's Singapore Classic.

Also a first-round leader at the Indian Open back in 2015, Lagergren is worth a dart at 80s from his 08.40 tee time.

Handy Andy

Andy Sullivan has a win on a Nicklaus track - the 2020 English Championship at Hanbury Manor.

And there are further top 15s to be found at Nicklaus' most famous creation, Muirfield Village, Gut Larchenhof, Mount Juliet and the London Club.

Back Andy Sullivan each way @

80/1

The Englishman has also been first-round leader in two of his last 14 events; the first at Wentworth, the second last week at the ISPS Handa Championship in Japan on another Jack track.

With five top 25s in his last 11 outings, Sullivan is in decent enough form and his ability to get hot over any 18 holes makes him worth a look here, again at 80/1.

He starts out at 12.10.

Joost can boost profits

Joost Luiten has a good record on Nicklaus courses including two top 10s in his last four tournaments on the great man's layouts.

He's also got one of the best first-round scoring averages around (69.68 over this last 50 worldwide starts) and he opened with a 66 in Japan last week.

That was the fourth straight start he'd ended Thursday in the top 15.

Back Joost Luiten each way @

40/1

The Dutchman has always done well in Asia and proved that again in February with back-to-back top threes in Thailand and India.

Luiten, a 40/1 shot, is a morning starter at 07.40.