The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 10 April 2012 /

Steve takes a good look at this week's Race to Dubai event in Kuala Lumpur. Will another promising youngster take the title?

Tournament History
Co-sanctioned with the Asian Tour, this will be the 13th staging of the Maybank Malaysian Open and with a decent purse on offer, we've yet another high-quality field to ponder.

Venue
Kuala Lumpur Golf & Country Club

Course Details
West Course - Par 72, 7,000 yards. Stroke Index in 2011 - 72.64
Designed by Nelson & Haworth, the design team also responsible for Sheshan International - home of the WGC HSBC Champions events, the West Course has been the venue for the last two years. It was also the venue back in 2006 when Charlie Wi denied Thongchai Jaidee a hat-trick of event wins but it was completely remodelled after that renewal so an examination of the last two stagings is the way to go.

Accurate iron-play and great putting has been the key to success over the last two years, with neither distance nor accuracy off the tee appearing essential.

As is usually the case in this part of the world, with weather delays almost inevitable, patience is required.

Useful Sites
Course guide
Event site
Tee Times

TV Coverage
Live on Sky all four days, 7.00am on Thursday and Friday and at 4.30am on Saturday and Sunday.

Don't get caught out on the first two days. Sky advertises the coverage as live but tends to show recorded play for the first couple of hours on Thursday and Friday. It's very annoying for us punters but they're unlikely to change the way they operate so if you want to avoid the recorded stuff I suggest you switch on after 9.00am.

Last Five Winners
2011 - Matteo Manassero
2010 - Seung-yul Noh
2009 - Anthony Kang
2008 - Arjun Atwal
2007 - Peter Hedblom

Market leaders
Major winners, Martin Kaymer, Charl Schwartzel and Louis Oosthuizen are all vying for favouritism, closely followed by defending champ, Matteo Manassero.

Kaymer would be my idea of the best bet amongst the main protagonists. He'll be buoyed by finally making the cut at the US Masters last week and given he won last year's WGC HSBC Champions on a course designed by the team responsible for this track, he's highly likely to improve on last year's tied 9th on debut. The imponderable is how those that played in Augusta will deal with a trip across the globe, to a whole new time zone, with almost inevitable in-play weather delays.

Selections

Nobody leapt out at me for this event at all and with play starting so early (0.30am Thursday) I'm taking it very easy from the start but I have picked out a couple of big-priced picks from the get-go.

A very young class-act has taken the title in each of the last two years so maybe this is the week that George Coetzee finally gets off the mark? His Greens In Regulations stats aren't brilliant though and as per usual nowadays, his price is short enough so I'm going to take a chance on a less obvious young star of the future in Austria's Bernd Wiesberger.

Bernd failed to break 70 around here twelve months ago and he's been fairly quiet of late too but he might just be inspired by the recent success' of Thorbjorn Olesen and his friend Branden Grace - two players with similar profiles to himself. I can't say I'm confident and it's a modest play to say the least.

My only other pick is James Morrison again. He did ok for me last time out in Sicily and he finished third in Malaysia in November, when I backed him at [75.0]. I have no idea why he's more than twice that price this week but I'm not complaining.

Maybank Malaysian Open Selections:
Bernd Wiesberger @ [140.0]
James Morrison @ [160.0]

I'll be back later with a preview of the week's US PGA Tour event - the RBC Heritage.

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