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

• Return to Turin and home course of Molinari brothers
• LIV Golf collective includes Joaquin Niemann
• Course favoured accuracy when last on the schedule

Golf betting tips: Open d'Italia

3pts e.w. Daniel Hillier at 25/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

2pts e.w. Matt Wallace at 28/1 (bet365, Betfred 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

1pt e.w. Francesco Molinari at 60/1 (Ladbrokes, Coral 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

1pt e.w. Kazuma Kobori at 80/1 (General 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10)

1pt e.w. Ashun Wu at 275/1 (bet365 1/5 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook | Free bets

With the three stateside majors now behind us it's the right time for the DP World Tour to begin building up to the Open with a string of quality events and, thankfully, we can now include the Italian Open in that. In fact, now that it is returning to an old venue known intimately by the Molinari brothers, with some fabulous players joining them in the field, the tournament merits an upgrade. Let's call it the Open d'Italia.

That venue is Circolo Golf Torino and we've not seen it since the second of back-to-back renewals in 2014. It's an old-fashioned, classical golf course, one where you could well imagine a young Dodo challenging an even younger Francesco to join him in finding a narrow fairway. Greens are small and generally firm and while at this time of year the rough may not be as thick as it was back then, Torino ought to be a decent test.

There's a striking similarity between those two leaderboards and it's one of accuracy. Julien Quesne, champion 12 years ago, was known for his precise driving and had won a year earlier at Aloha in Spain, as Thomas Levet and Lee Westwood had previously. That course, whose first hole is simply named 'Miguel Angel Jimenez', is densely tree-lined in places and favours players like the Frenchmen mentioned.

Quesne succeeded Hennie Otto, known first for his fiery temperament but second for his ability to hit fairways. Otto's first DP World Tour win came in this event at Castello Tolcinasco, where Francesco Molinari, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano, Steve Webster and Graeme McDowell were all champions. His second came at the expense of Bernd Wiesberger, Richard McEvoy and Thomas Aiken, each of these players arrow straight.

Everything about both leaderboards points in the same direction and so does every player quote you can find if you trawl through the Tour's website for long enough.

Marcus Fraser first: "It's similar to what I grew up on before I moved to Melbourne. I grew up on a very tight, tree-lined golf course with tiny little greens and the emphasis was on getting it in play and hitting little shots around the greens and that's exactly what this demands. I think it's a brilliant golf course and wish we could play it every week of the year."

Felipe Aguilar: "I love this golf course because it suits my game which is about accuracy more than distance."

Gareth Maybin: "You really have to be straight off the tee here."

David Higgins: "This is a good course for me, if I play well I have a good chance. A lot of the other courses are very long and I am trying to hit it over corners, but this one is about hitting it down the middle all day long and I'm good at that."

The sport has changed in 12 years but there are certain courses on both main tours that continue to hold their own. Torino looks like it could be one of them and the job this week seems to be to sift through the pick of the ball-strikers (archaic definition) in the hope of identifying the right one. Whoever that is will receive an invitation to the Open Championship, which goes to the highest non-exempt player, should they need it.

There is a complication: LIV Golf's depleted schedule, which means some of its players are here along with ex-LIV player, Patrick Reed. That's a good thing for the tournament but it's difficult to weigh the undoubted class of Joaquin Niemann, Thomas Detry and David Puig against the likelihood that none is particularly favoured by the course. In fact I'd go as far as to say it will actively undermine some of their strengths.

Reed might find that it suits him best and is the man to beat, last week's missed cut not a real concern. He'd been off for a month and I'd maintain that scheduling can't be helpful for his major prospects, but even so his ball-striking was solid. Reed's approach play and work around the green is as good as it has ever been and both will help enormously this week, so as he's the form pick anyway there's a strong case.

My main concern is the combination of travel and scorching temperates this week. It is going to be seriously hot, as high as 37C, and with little wind. There's surely a degree of risk that jet lag is exacerbated by on-course conditions; anyone low on energy will find it a real slog. Perhaps Reed will benefit from having missed the cut and played such a light schedule, but it's a nagging worry I can't shake.

Preference is for the fresh, in-form DANIEL HILLIER, who brings a happy blend of power and accuracy to the table.

Hillier is a bit like Tom McKibbin in some ways as it's that blend which makes him one of the very best drivers on the DP World Tour. Hillier ranks inside the top 20 in fairways and driving distance, an incredibly rare combination which helps explain why he's often been at his best on tighter courses.

A winner at the Belfry, Hillier's prior success on the HotelPlanner Tour came at Emporda's Forest course, so named because of its densely tree-lined fairways, and Saint Apollinaire, which is a bit more open but still short and tree-lined for the most part.

He's gone close at Eichenried and Galgorm Castle, courses at which both Ewen Ferguson and Dan Brown have been successful, and for all his muscle Hillier's game actually stacks up more alongside theirs than someone like Angel Ayora.

It could work in his favour here and after a bit of a blip following his trip home to get married (and win his own national open), he's returned to form this month. That began at another fiddly course in Austria where he finished seventh and continued through the KLM Open, where he sat third at halfway and wound up 14th.

Windy, links-like conditions weren't especially in his favour there but he should have no complaints with the set-up in Italy and, having looked close to his second DP World Tour title all year, this looks a good opportunity. None of the regulars on this circuit hold better claims in my book and the LIV battalion are there to be taken on.

Ferguson has almost doubled in price from the KLM Open and that would've made him very interesting around the sort of course he ought to love. The trouble is, he withdrew from that event with 18 holes to play despite being in 19th place and injury was cited as the cause, so he can't feature in the staking plan. Watch out for upbeat reports, though, and potentially a big Betfair Exchange price come Wednesday.

Fellow quality ball-strikers Bernd Wiesberger and Dan Bradbury are both of some interest and both can call upon excellent records in this. Wiesberger is a former champion while Bradbury has been 10th and third under broadly similar conditions over the last two years and it was the Englishman who came closest to making my shortlist.

Bradbury is one of the most accurate players in the field, he's a winner this year and his tee-to-green numbers have remained at a high level since, but the putter went AWOL again last time and that will always be a worry. It's one I would've been prepared to overlook having put him up in the Netherlands, but that strong record in Italy means his price hasn't moved.

That seems a bit strange to me given the switch in course and the backwards step he ultimately took and he's therefore passed over.

Home favourite can shine in Turin sun

Next on my list is FRANCESCO MOLINARI, who by contrast I do think is being underestimated a little.

On the bare numbers, Molinari's return to form this year has him not far behind the likes of Bradbury and Wiesberger and then we've some additional factors to throw on top of that: the fact we're in Italy, at his home course, and that his best golf is a level above both of them.

Chances are we won't see that again but I was pleasantly surprised by his price after another strong effort at the KLM Open, where he sat 12th through 54 holes before a poor final round. In his previous six starts since Christmas, Molinari had bagged two top-10 finishes and one of them came behind Reed in the Dubai Desert Classic.

There's been no fluke about it, either. Molinari ranks second to Reed in strokes-gained approach this season, 15th in fairways and 17th in strokes-gained around the green, the putter the only thing keeping him from following Wiesberger and completing a return to winning form.

There were better signs in the Netherlands but he will need to improve again, the hope being that's made more likely by his intimate knowledge of this course. We saw it to some degree back in 2013 and 2014, where first he was the halfway leader and then the following year he was seventh through 54 holes having led after round one.

Molinari fell to finishes of 16th and 18th but this was during a period where his stomach for a battle was in question and he'd also been in poor form, with two missed cuts in two starts prior to the first one and a series of mid-pack finishes coming into the second.

He later went on to win this for a second time in 2016 and with the first having come in 2006, we're looking at a remarkable hat-trick if he can do it again. It's a big ask, but the price really does feel generous on balance and I'd refer you to when last he played in this for evidence of how short he has been previously.

Back then, in 2022, Molinari was outside DataGolf's top 100 and had struggled through summer only to find form the previous week at Wentworth. He'd been sent off a massive price there and it was a strange, 54-hole renewal, yet a backdoor top-10 was enough to force his price into 20/1 for an Italian Open which featured Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland, Tyrrel Hatton and the winner, Robert MacIntyre.

Molinari's level really isn't much lower four years on, not now that he's recaptured his long-game thanks to a move back to Europe and working with his old coach Denis Pugh again, and it goes without saying this is a significantly weaker renewal.

Given that the course is also much more suitable, I'm going to fall for what I appreciate may look like a bit of a trap.

Guido Migliozzi and Gregorio De Leo are other Italians of interest but the former, while catching the eye regularly, has a miserable record in this. De Leo's is a bit more encouraging and he's been featuring regularly this season, but I can't have him at the same price as a former major champion with a recent piece of form which is better than anything De Leo has done before.

I do remember being impressed with him in China where, as it happens, he played with ASHUN WU in the final round.

Wu briefly threatened to win that event for a third time and among a handful of interesting outsiders, he's the one I am really keen on as he's backed up eighth place with some more encouraging form since and looks a nice fit for this.

The veteran was 10th through 54 holes in Turkey on his next start then missed the cut narrowly in Austria, where he double-bogeyed his first hole and was three-over through three. Over the next 33, Wu was bogey-free and almost completed a confidence-building comeback.

Last time out, he not only did that with a second-round 68 to make the weekend, but by the end of the KLM Open ranked first in greens, fifth in approach play and ninth in strokes-gained tee-to-green. He'd been second for greens hit in the China Open so that's twice in four he's had as many birdie looks as just about anyone.

Wu has always been accurate from the tee and boasts a killer short-game, two key attributes around here, and aside from the Netherlands his other two wins outside of China came on tight, tree-lined courses in Austria and Kenya. No wonder he has a good record at Crans with two top-10s and that ties him in nicely with Quesne, who made seven cuts in seven there and had a couple of chances to win.

Quesne also boasts a good Kenya Open record (15-9-18 in his last three) and can be tied together with Wu through his form in China, too, having been eighth when the latter won the China Open. Their games are pretty similar and, combined with the way Wu has been hinting at something good over the past couple of months, there's a lot to like at upwards of 200/1.

Back up the betting there are a handful of viable candidates but while the first show soon disappeared, I've no issue taking anything upwards of 20/1 about MATT WALLACE.

This is a five-time DP World Tour champion with a PGA Tour victory to his name and I think he's been consistently underrated when returning to Europe, a view which paid off when he won in Crans two years ago and almost did when he narrowly lost out in the same tournament a year later.

Short, tight and with small greens, that course makes sense as a guide to this one and would've done without Quesne's record in it, while Wallace has also been eighth at the Belfry (when 125th after round one) and third at Eichenried, the latter from just one start in Munich.

Wallace missed the cut narrowly in Canada two weeks ago, but to my eye his overall form looks strong. He closed with a 68 in the PGA Championship before it, had been mid-pack throughout the Truist and stayed on well for 23rd in the Cadillac Championship, all three of these made up of high-class fields.

In fact before Canada his previous 'B-list' PGA Tour appearance was in Texas, where he finished runner-up to a major champion, and if we rewind to the beginning of the year his DP World Tour form showed seventh in Dubai and 20th in Qatar. Note, he was 28-33/1 for the former, where McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood headed the betting.

We were on Wallace in that and had been at 25s when he almost defended his title in Switzerland, in a field headed by Matt Fitzpatrick, Marco Penge, Nicolai Hojgaard, Aaron Rai and Alex Noren, all of whom could feasibly make the next Ryder Cup team. Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen also played as did Rasmus Hojgaard and for context, Ayora was a 66/1 chance.

There are always caveats to this sort of analysis and I'd say Ayora has kept on improving since but Wallace's form is similar, if not a little stronger, than it was back in August. The unknown is the course, but my suspicion is it'll be somewhat similar to Crans and no less suitable, with the fact he's a three-time winner in Italy from his days on the Alps Tour no bad thing either.

Wallace contended for this on debut at Milano in 2017 (54-hole leader, lost to Hatton) and again in 2019 when Wiesberger won at Olgiata. Returning for the first time in five years and to a course similar to those two, he looks every bit as likely a champion as anyone behind Reed and Joaquin Niemann in the betting, perhaps with the exception of Hillier.

Among the LIV players, Elvis Smylie might appreciate this more than some and he played the best golf in the field over the final 54 holes of an Asian Tour event the week before last, but I'll chance his former sparring partner KAZUMA KOBORI at similar prices.

Kobori is known for being one of the shortest but most accurate players on the circuit so this could be a nice course for him. He's also known to be a deadly putter, and that's where there's potential improvement to come after he emerged from a putting slump to hole a few in the Netherlands last time.

The New Zealander is capable of more in that department and looks really dangerous under the right circumstances, as he's started to dial in his approach play. Five starts running it's been very good, twice even better than that, and since the beginning of May he's averaging 1.27 strokes-gained tee-to-green.

For context, that figure would put him eighth on the season-long standings, up from 89th last season, and this might be the ideal place to take advantage. Kobori's debut in Italy last year, again at a course demanding precision, saw him finish 16th despite arriving out of form, and I am hopeful he can improve upon that now his ball-striking has gone up a level.

He has form at Eichenried (third) and the Belfry (second) and both when conditions were pretty firm, while last time out he was in the hunt for place money until being blown off course a little. Here's hoping this proves a similar test to 2014, in which case he'll absolutely love it.

Posted at 20:00 BST on 22/06/26

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