Rose To Flower In The Desert

Justin Rose, one of nine golfers who go into the DP World Tour Championship with a mathematical chance of finishing the year as the Race To Dubai winner, is the pick of the prices in the season-ending mega-money tournament.

Rose is available at odds of 8.50 with Unibet to win the DP World Tour Championship, a result that would lift him above Henrik Stenson on the Race To Dubai ladder at the right time of the year, five months after the Briton broke through for his first major championship by winning the US Open at the Merion Golf Club by two strokes.

It is easy to forget how badly Rose struggled in the early part of his professional career. Rose, who announced himself by finishing fourth in the Open Championship as an amateur, missed the cut in each of his first 21 professional events and became the butt of jokes among golfers of all abilities. But since winning his first professional competition, the Dunhill Championship in 2002, Rose has gone from strength to strength and ranks number five in the world at the moment.

Rose almost won the 2012 DP World Tour Championship, firing rounds of 68, 68, 69 and a record-breaking 62 on the Greg Norman-designed Earth Course at the Jumeirah Golf Estates in Dubai to finish 21 under par. Rose beat everyone except Rory McIlroy by at least three shots but his fellow Briton was out of this world, rattling off rounds of 66, 67, 66 and 66 to win by two strokes and bank more than one million euros.

So Rose ticks the box for superb course form and his recent performances elsewhere have been terrific as well. Rose was third in the Turkish Airlines Open last week and fifth in the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions the week before that. Rose has posted three consecutive top-six finishes in stroke play events, which makes him the world’s form golfer.

Unfortunately, Rose is not a good DP World Tour Championship match bet proposition because bookmakers have paired him with the title favourite, defending champion McIlroy. There is insufficient juice in the odds to warrant backing Rose to beat McIlroy, one of the serious tournament contenders.

Regarding to DP World Tour Championship match bets, Graeme McDowell is the golfer who stands out as the best punting option at odds of 1.91 with Bet365 to beat Lee Westwood. McDowell arrives in the United Arab Emirates freshened up after placing third in the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions, whereas Westwood is playing for the fourth week in a row and his results have been ordinary by his high standards – 24th, 55th and 29th. McDowell had a 2012 DP World Tour Championship to forget but, before running 52nd last year, he has registered two straight top-13 finishes. Westwood won the 2009 DP World Tour Championship but his course form has tailed off since taking out the inaugural edition, sliding from first to third to 29th to 48th.

Like McDowell, Jamie Donaldson almost made it alongside Rose as a DP World Tour Championship title bet. But Donaldson is well worth backing at odds of 1.91 with Boylesports to get the better of Bernd Wiesberger. Donaldson was ninth behind McIlroy 12 months ago and his last two outings away from Dubai have produced eighth- and second-place results in the Turkish Airlines Open and the World Golf Championships-HSBC Champions respectively. Wiesberger’s recent numbers are not quite as good as those of Donaldson and the Austrian’s one and only DP World Tour Championship appearance resulted in a 42nd-place outcome last year. Donaldson should be the clear favourite so Boylesports is wrong to quote odds of 1.91.

For the record, McDowell is trading at odds of 29.00 with Bet365 to win the DP World Tour Championship, while Donaldson is available at the same odds with BetVictor exclusively.