Golf Events / Editor / 05 July 2007 /

With some big prizes coming up over the next month, the European Tour Order of Merit race is sure to hot up, with plenty of golfers in with a chance of ending the season as Europe's top player, at least according to the latest Betfair market.

Although Swedish sensation Henrik Stenson has a healthy lead of just less than 500,000 euros just past the halfway point of the season, there are so many big-money tournaments left to play that it is hard to rule anyone out of contention, even if they had a poor first half of 2007.

Stenson, who has won 1,728,588 euros so far in 2007, is currently the 2.4 favourite to small stakes and he has made the most of limited Order of Merit tournaments thanks to a brace of wins earlier in the season in the Dubai Desert Classic and, more importantly, the prize of over one million euros that he earned by winning the WGC World Matchplay.

But it would be harsh to claim that those tournaments alone have taken him to the top of the table, as he has claimed six other decent cheques, including an eighth placed finish in the BMW PGA Championship. And he is expected to be one of the leading European challengers for the forthcoming Open Championship at Carnoustie, where he can be backed at 46.

The smooth swinger has struggled only once this season and that came at the punishing US Open, and the only two tournaments that he has finished over-par in have been this season's two Majors, so that could be concern when it comes to the Open, where a Stenson struggle and a win for a European Tour member could see the Order picture change rapidly.

A winner's prize of well over one million euros will go to someone at Carnoustie later in the month, and although there is a decent chance it will go to a player who is not a member of the European Tour (Tiger Woods as a prime example) there is just so much money to play for over the rest of the season that Stenson cannot be assured of anything at this moment.

Should any of the current frontrunners manage a couple of wins, they could well put themselves in pole position to win the title after the Volvo Masters at Valderrama in the first week of November. However, it is worth noting that Padraig Harrington won the 2006 Order with only 700,000 more in winnings than Stenson has at the moment, so the win in the World Matchplay could well prove to be the key when all is said and done.

Questions to ask for Stenson backers would probably be his schedule for the rest of the season, as he has been fairly quiet so far in 2007, but there are few who have been much busier in the top 10, with only recent French Open winner Graeme Storm having played more than 15 tournaments.

Storm (no price available for the Order) trebled his 2007 winnings with that first-place cheque and that is just the kind of move second favourite Paul Casey would love to make over the next few weeks as he looks to improve on last season's second-placed finish behind Harrington.

Casey won just short of 2.45million euros last season thanks largely to his win in the HSBC World Matchplay at Wentworth and a strong finish to the year, but his form in 2007 has arguably been even better especially in the Majors.

The Surrey-born professional finished 10th in the Masters and the US Open, and if he can improve on that at Carnoustie while others blow their chances, he should be able to move up from his current sixth place and give punters thinking of backing him at 10 for the end-of-season prize a massive boost.

Don't forget he will also be back at his local Wentworth course later in the season for a repeat bid in the Matchplay, where a potential first prize of over 600,000 euros awaits, and the back muscle problem that has ruled him out of the European Open this week will hopefully not turn into anything more serious.

The two players near the top of the table with least outings in Europe also show the benefit of big performances in big tournaments, but it seems unlikely that Justin Rose (17) will play in enough qualifying events to make a huge challenge by the end of the season.

Rose will need something special in the remaining two Majors and two WGC events, plus perhaps three other events, although he may wish to rest his ailing back further as the year goes on and would have to be a risk.

The other player, 12.5 shot Angel Cabrera, is much more of a threat on the back of a win in the US Open lifting him into second place, although still some way behind Stenson.

The affable Argentine chain-smoker is only 12.5 to win the Order of Merit and should play more in Europe as the season goes on - like Casey he is also a big favourite at Wentworth and could be a decent bet in the World Matchplay.

Retief Goosen (also 12.5) retains third place in the standings but his form since finishing third in the Masters has been nothing short of dreadful, with just 23,000 euros earned in four outings since April, and it is another South African, Richard Sterne, who has jumped into contention with some fine performances.

Sterne picked up over 600,000 euros in the PGA Championship and then the Celtic Manor Wales Open in which he picked up his second European Tour title, and it could be his consistency that creeps him into the top four by the end of the season, although as yet there is no price available on him to do just that in the win or top four market.

The other big recent improver has been Sweden's Niclas Fasth, who looks to have returned to the sort of form that brought him two wins in each of 2005 and 2006 and took him into the top 15 of the Order of Merit and is now available at only 42.

But he chose the right time for an upswing, as he picked up over 650,000 euros in his last three tournaments, including a win in the BMW International and an excellent fourth place in the US Open, where his seven-over finish was one of his best in a major.

Fasth also has a couple of tournaments in Scandinavia and if he is challenging two weeks from the end of the season could be a huge threat - he ended 2006 with a win in the Mallorca Classic and finished fifth in the Volvo Masters, taking 450,000 euros over that spell.

Apart from Storm and Raphael Jacquelin, the remaining big threats are players who share time between Europe and the US, making the Majors and WGC events vital for the likes of Ernie Els, Nick O'Hern, Richard Green and Vijay Singh.

Last season's third and fourth - David Howell and Robert Karlsson - are either injured or completely out-of-form, while multiple winner Colin Montgomerie (110) probably needs to regain the winning thread to the extent of a first Major win as well if he is to secure a ninth Order of Merit win from over a million euros off the pace, although he did show signs of a return to form with a third in France last weekend.

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>