Ben Coley's golf betting tips: Australian Open preview and best bets

Golf betting tips: Australian Open

4pts win Cam Davis at 9/1 (General)

3pts e.w. Marc Leishman at 16/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1.5pts e.w. Robert MacIntyre at 33/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

0.5pt e.w. Soren Kjeldsen at 300/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

So brilliant a winner was Min Woo Lee in the Australian PGA, so poor was Cameron Smith, that the two have traded places at the top of the betting for this week's Australian Open.

While Lee was cooking up an imperious display to land his first big win back home, Smith was well below his best in all departments. Given his record in that event, played in his hometown, there was only one way his price could go. The question is whether 6/1 now represents value.

A year ago, Smith was a 5/2 shot following his convincing Aussie PGA triumph, and it's worth saying that he was runner-up in Hong Kong recently, beaten only by Ben Campbell's red-hot putter. Still the top-ranked player in the field and with form at both courses used this week, it wouldn't have taken much more to consider getting involved.

But as with last week, I find myself drawn to namesake CAM DAVIS, just a point shorter despite having played well, and the fact that while the change in location works against Smith in some way, for him it's all good news.

Davis won the Australian Amateur at these two courses, The Australian and The Lakes, and returned in 2017 to capture the Australian Open at the former. That was where it all began professionally, as he held off two PGA Tour players and announced himself to the world.

"It’s always so much fun coming back to a place where you’ve got that many good memories, defining moments in your career. This place really kick-started my whole professional career. I would say this is the place that helped me get on the PGA Tour basically," he said earlier this week, and he must be delighted with the way he prepared.

Davis went bogey-free over the final three rounds of the Australian PGA Championship, very much picking up where he left off on the PGA Tour. That's impressive anywhere, not least a course like Royal Queensland, and it's made more so by the fact he admits to having taken it pretty easy for a while before ramping up preparations.

Returning to the scene of two of the three most significant moments in his career brings with it certain pressures, but he's won this before and, playing in his home city of Sydney, he can do it again. He is the most obvious bet you'll find anywhere this week not named Viktor Hovland, but these Australian majors tend to be won by one of the favourites and he's by far the pick of them.

At risk of leaving readers worrying that they've clicked an old preview, I also find myself returning to MARC LEISHMAN, which I hadn't expected to do.

His record in the Australian PGA is, after all, far better than his record in the Australian Open, third place last week extending a run of top-25s which stretches back more than a decade now. He has always delivered.

By contrast he has just three top-25s in 12 appearances in this event, a modest return for a player of his calibre, and that would seem a pretty good reason to look beyond him.

However, closer inspection reveals that Leishman's best performances have come at these courses. He was 11th at The Australian in 2007, his first noteworthy performance in the Aussie Open. In 2010, at The Lakes, he started well and finished 17th. In 2019, back at The Australian, he finished 10th.

Also on the fringes for a while at The Lakes in 2012, Leishman's best has coincided with the use of one of these two courses. It's also worth saying that from 2013 to 2022 he played in the event just three times; that's versus six appearances in the PGA, so his peak years have seldom involved playing in his national open.

I really like how he's playing, too. Leishman got better as the week went on in Queensland and that was also the story of his LIV Golf season, while the fact that he saw his putting coach and worked out where he was going wrong in set-up has him feeling confident ahead of his final event of the year.

Leishman has spoken at length about how desperate he is to tick off one of these big Australian events and there's a little extra incentive this week with three Open Championship spots to go at. It all adds up to a similar performance and while we've lost a few points off the price, his ceiling is higher still.

Jason Scrivener was the other Australian player I considered strongly, though Adam Scott and Matt Jones are obviously entitled to plenty of respect, too. Home advantage is very significant in Australia and that's why Aaron Baddeley is given about the same chance as Nick Hardy and Patrick Rodgers, both ahead of him on all PGA Tour-based metrics.

Baddeley will likely play well but I am keen to explore a couple of overseas options. It was noticeable last week that virtually every DP World Tour contender, and we can include the winner in this, boasts an exceptional short-game. Without that it's very difficult to compete against locals who aren't afraid of hitting dangerous shots from tight lies.

Few are better with a wedge in hand than ROBERT MACINTYRE and, with a week behind him to reacquaint with family and recover from the South Africa-Dubai fortnight, I'm very happy to side with him at slightly bigger odds.

MacIntyre showed up well in the main, carding four solid rounds and signing off with his best of the week, and he's been a consistently excellent scrambler since arriving on tour, ranking second, 27th and 17th over the past three seasons.

While there's not a lot of wind in the forecast it's rare these courses go without any kind of breeze and MacIntyre's short-game and general shot-making creativity should serve him really well both at The Lakes and The Australian.

His form is solid, including sixth at Doha which would be among the best recent form guides on offer, and while he can't quite reach the world's top 50 with a win, he'll be very close should he lift the Stonehaven Cup on Sunday. Having won the Italian Open and nearly captured the Scottish, he would by no means be a surprise champion.

Alex Fitzpatrick comes into calculations for similar reasons. Ahead of MacIntyre last week when 18th, he's been playing wonderfully for several months now and showcased his fabulous short-game both when winning at a fiddly course on the Challenge Tour, and when qualifying for and playing well in the Open.

He has to be respected along with in-form Campbell and a handful of promising youngsters from nearby, but I'll end with a flier on SOREN KJELDSEN.

Yes, he's a veteran who has probably done his winning now, but Kjeldsen can still compete granted suitable conditions. That means no real advantage to the power hitters, ideally some wind, and certainly an emphasis on short-game skills.

Those are all in play here and having been one of the best iron players on the DP World Tour for some months now, it wouldn't take a great deal of improvement on the greens for him to be contending as he did on shorter courses in Sweden and Switzerland earlier this year.

Yes, his form lately doesn't look great but a second-round 67 last week almost clawed him back inside the cut-line and at 300/1 and upwards, in an event where veterans can definitely compete, I can't resist taking a chance.

Posted at 1105 GMT on 28/11/23

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