The season finale for the Euro circuit will take place this week in Dubai, with all of the usual suspects convened at the top of the odds board. It starts with Rory McIlroy (+450), of course, who parlayed recent swing changes into a third-place finish last week. While the maneuver looks terrific and he’s already proven he can contend, this number remains too short to back a player for whom there remains some current doubt.
He is followed by Tyrrell Hatton (+600), Tommy Fleetwood (+750) and Joaquin Niemann (+1200), all capable winners whose prices seem too short to generate much pre-tourney excitement.
Instead, I’ll start the card with the next name on this list, Shane Lowry (+1600). The former Open Championship winner is coming off a T-13 performance in Abu Dhabi which featured four sub-70 totals. That was remarkably his seventh consecutive top-13 result, dating back to the second FedEx Cup playoff event in August, though none of those have been better than eighth. At some point, that consistently high-level floor is going to become a ceiling and this feels like it could be the right spot, at a place where he finished runner-up in 2017 and hasn’t finished outside the top-30 since 2015.
I’ve been saying for the past few years that I believe all the work Adam Scott (+2200) has put into his game will pay off with at least one more big win. We can debate the definition of what “big” might mean, but I’d say it’s something in between a fall-schedule event (he was actually playing in Bermuda at this time last year) and a major championship. The Euro finale would certainly qualify and while he’s cooled off since a late-summer run that included four top-10s in five starts, it wouldn’t be a shock if he’s lingering on the board come Sunday.
If Nick Taylor was the “best player available” idea above, then Justin Rose (+4000) qualifies for this event. He hasn’t been playing his best golf lately, which is the reason for this inflated price, but he does have two career runner-up finishes at this event and of course was runner-up at The Open Championship back in July.
There have been few career resurgences as impressive as that of Matteo Manassero (+5500) this year, as the former phenom has made the leap from relative obscurity in recent seasons to a top-100 player in the world with three top-six results in his last eight starts and a first win in more than a decade. It would hardly be a shock at this point if he’s able to ball-strike his way to another.
Since the inception of this limited-field tournament in 2009, there hasn’t really been a longshot winner, so I’ll refrain from listing too many bigger-priced players, but Paul Waring’s win in Abu Dhabi from 125/1 last week still leaves this as a tempting possibility. If you dare to dip into the triple-digits for an outright, consider Ugo Coussaud (+12500). The Frenchman has shown a nice ceiling on the DP World Tour this year, posting four top-seven finishes.
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