Golf expert Ben Coley has two big-priced selections for the first-round lead at Wentworth, plus a range of three-ball picks.
Golf betting tips: BMW PGA round one
1pt Fleetwood, Neergaard-Petersen & Lindell to win their three-balls at 13/2 (General)
2pts Hillier to beat Migliozzi and Johnston at 23/20 (bet365, Betway)
0.5pt Kiradech Aphibarnrat to lead after round one at 150/1 (bet365)
0.5pt Antoine Rozner to lead after round one at 125/1 (Unibet)
Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook
As you’d expect, the three-ball ‘draw’ for the BMW PGA Championship has ensured that all members of the European Ryder Cup side are with teammates. That means the headline groups include Justin Rose and TOMMY FLEETWOOD together on Thursday morning, and Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm and Shane Lowry in a star-studded afternoon three-ball.
Betting on these matches generally holds limited appeal but Fleetwood does look among the strongest favourites, given that defending champion Billy Horschel, who completes his group, has been absent since April. Returning here is a massive ask and that leaves Fleetwood with Rose to beat, which he can be fancied to do.
Rose is now based in Surrey and knows Wentworth extremely well, but in Fleetwood he’s up against arguably the third-best player in the world right now, one who has bounced back from losing out to Rose with the most significant victory of his career. A big week has to be expected, beginning with another sub-70 round to kick things off.
Just over an hour later, RASMUS NEERGAARD-PETERSEN tees off for his debut in the event, days after another enormously frustrating missed cut in the Irish Open where, for the sixth time this year, he was one shot away from making the weekend.
Admittedly, his imperious long-game did go missing for most of those two rounds but that’ll surely prove a blip and with signs of putting improvement plus a strong run of form before the K Club, he’s one I could see contending for this title and underlining why he’s such a fine prospect.
Certainly, this is a good-looking three-ball draw with a badly out of form Sam Bairstow and a likely outclassed Paul O’Hara completing it. O’Hara is a PGA professional with two missed cuts from two tries in this and while he played well for the first couple of rounds in Ireland, he’s a long way below the level of Neergaard-Petersen.
Right now so is Bairstow, who has played very poorly since the start of June (WD-MC-MC-65-MC-DQ-MC-MC) and can’t catch a break. He’s shot rounds of 73, 76, 73, 74 and 75 since the DP World Tour returned and probably needs something a good deal less intense than this in order to find his game again.
Finally, while in no real hurry to oppose the hot-putting Kazuma Kobori, OLIVER LINDELL’s form merits shorter prices for their three-ball, completed by Brandon Robinson Thompson.
The latter has struggled lately and makes his Wentworth debut, as all three of these do, but it’s Lindell who has played well virtually every week for four months. He has nine top-30s in his last 11 starts, top-20s in each of his last four, three of which were top-10s, and is doing everything well.
Kobori is one of the shortest hitters on the circuit so a softer-than-ideal Wentworth should work against him, and while excellent at the Belfry, since May the head-to-head between these two reads 7-1-1 in Lindell’s favour. On a round-by-round basis it’s 16-8-2, or 6-3-0 in round one, and the gap between them in the betting isn’t wide enough.
It’s about 13/2 the morning treble and that looks value to get us off to a winning start, for all that we go into it knowing that, over 18 holes, this volatile sport becomes more volatile still.
I can’t find any sort of angle into the feature afternoon groups although former Wentworth champion Danny Willett has done enough lately to suggest he can be competitive. Whether or not that’s enough to beat the rock-solid Keita Nakajima and classy ball-striker Corey Conners, we shall see, and they’re not players I really want to oppose.
The best bet comes later when DANIEL HILLIER can account for Guido Migliozzi and Ryggs Johnston.
Migliozzi has produced the odd encouraging sign lately but that’s chiefly because he’s holed a lot of putts and when they dried up on Sunday in Ireland, he shot 81. Wild off the tee and with five missed cuts in six Wentworth starts, the exception when it played as easy as it has in years, I think he’s booked for another weekend off.
Johnston’s Australian Open win back in December increasingly looks like the most puzzling piece of form of the season given that he’s without a top-20 finish since and while the American does still have potential, he’s frequently shot himself out of things on day one, including last week, and similar can be expected.
That leaves Hillier, by some way the most assured of these from tee-to-green, 29th last week, 18th here last year, and with form at similar parkland courses. When interviewed during round three at the K Club he talked about how such layouts are reminiscent of home and another strong performance at Wentworth is on the cards.
His win came at the Belfry, before which he’d gone close at Eichenried, and this really does look to be the version of golf he’s best suited to. Odds-against, which he is with all firms who’ve priced this one up, looks a steal.
On paper, Joost Luiten should be far too straight and solid for Sean Crocker and Andrea Pavan, but I just have a nagging doubt that it’s his second start back following minor surgery on his shoulder. The first went well but we’re still relying on his physical wellbeing and, at relatively short odds, that’s not something we need to be doing.
I’d probably give Jason Scrivener a slight edge over Marcus Armitage but they’ve played to a very similar level this year so it’s just Hillier from the later starters. Some may wish to throw him in and turn that treble into a 15/1 four-fold instead but I’ll keep things a bit simpler.
Finally, two players appealed for the first-round lead and I’ll split stakes, win-only, to keep the investment small and hopefully give us a run at landing a big winner.
First is KIRADECH APHIBARNRAT, first after the opening round in 2021 and second at the same stage in 2017, either side of which he was inside the top 10.
That most recent effort was followed by a 68 to lead at halfway and after a poor third round, the popular Thai then signed off with another stunning 64 which could’ve been lower still, as he finished 6-5 to miss out on the title.
Clearly very capable of scoring here and a first-round leader in each of the last two seasons, Aphibarnrat closed 66-66 in Switzerland recently, after a good performance at the Belfry, and his long-game remained in excellent nick last week only for the putter to cool off.
He’s playing well and likes it here and was on my shortlist in the outright market, but this one is probably best.
Second is ANTOINE ROZNER, who has a potentially beneficial earlier slot, similar to the one Aphibarnrat had when he shot that opening 64.
Rozner has two 65s to his name in his last dozen Wentworth rounds and on his return to the DP World Tour last time, he carded a second-round 64 then closed with a 66 which featured back-to-back eagles.
I think he’s done well on the PGA Tour this year despite failing to produce the one big week needed to jump up the FedExCup standings, and it was pleasing to see his putting improve for a return to Europe.
He’s mixed it with the very best in the game when leading the Scottish Open and returning to those 65s here at Wentworth, one was the clear low round of the day, the other tied for first.
Doing that twice in just four appearances in this tournament shows how comfortable he is at this course and after a lovely sharpener in the Alps, he comes here ready to get his name towards the top of the leaderboard on Thursday.
Posted at 2040 BST on 09/09/25
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