Golf betting tips: DP World Tour Championship
1pt e.w. Adrian Meronk to lead after round one at 35/1 (General 1/4 1,2,3,4,5)
3pts Meronk, Rahm & Fleetwood to win their three-balls at 16/5 (bet365, William Hill)
Thursday marks the beginning of the end of the DP World Tour season, and there might be scope for one of the lesser lights to shine before the big names (almost) inevitably take over.
This isn't the strongest renewal owing to the absence of eight members of last year's Ryder Cup side plus the likes of Marco Penge, Rasmus Neergaard-Petersen and past champion Nicolai Hojgaard. Nor does it feature a strong PGA Tour challenge – Michael Kim led after day one last year while Collin Morikawa, Sungjae Im, Tom Kim and others have been involved too.
That strengthens my view that it's a golden opportunity for one of the four remaining Ryder Cup players to land a big title before the year is over, or else one of those seeking to join them at Adare Manor, but while McIlroy has led three times in the past, over 18 holes and playing in the very final group, he's perhaps vulnerable to an early starter.
Groups seven and eight have thrown up three leaders or co-leaders in the last seven renewals and with cooler conditions for those among the very first players out, that might be one place to go looking. Freddy Schott is the sort of powerhouse who should enjoy this and he can light up the greens, as can Kristoffer Reitan, and it so happens that they're playing together from group eight.
ADRIAN MERONK though is my preferred choice from slightly further down the tee sheet, and the general 33/1 is good value in a market lacking much of it.
The Pole is another ex-LIV player who has come alive since granted an escape route, winning the Dunhill Links and adding third place in India, before a solid share of 18th in Abu Dhabi last week saw him extend an excellent autumn.
He was second after round one in India and fifth after round one in Abu Dhabi, while he was also fifth at the same stage of the Irish Open. Given the multi-course complexity of the Dunhill Links, this in effect gives him three places from his last six DP World Tour starts.
Meronk bagged four leads on the LIV Golf circuit, always in fields of around this size and one of them in the Middle East, where he's long had a base and been very effective on the golf course. That's seen in his record here which shows two top-fives and nothing worse than 14th after day one, while he's also placed in this market at the Dubai Desert Classic.
Having added Abu Dhabi last week and been second after round one on his last visit to Qatar, also built a fine record at Al Hamra in the UAE, and in fact led after round one on three of just six starts in Saudi Arabia, this is a player who has been habitually in the mix early when playing a style of golf he's so suited to.
As he's long off the tee, hitting his irons well and has arguably never been better with the putter, he looks a prime candidate to post a mid-60s clubhouse target which no doubt one of the bigger names will threaten.
Best two-ball bets
For all of the above reasons, Meronk is also the pick of the two-balls – especially as he's playing with Dan Bradbury.
This is power versus accuracy, desert preference versus parkland, hot putter versus poor one; everything appears to be in favour of Meronk and he ought to be shorter than the generally available 4/5.
Bradbury has shot 70 and 74 on his two opening rounds here, was eight-over for the tournament last year, is without a top-10 finish since May, and is likely to struggle given that he won't be able to cut corners in the way his playing partner can.
The others I like are TOMMY FLEETWOOD and JOHN RAHM and they help form a treble at upwards of 3/1 generally.
Fleetwood is a very short price but so he should be against Davis Bryant, a short-hitting American who is below his best at the moment and lacks form on courses like this. Fleetwood is ultra-reliable and as he should only need to break par to win, something he's done in 41 of his last 50 rounds at the course, he looks a banker.
Rahm has a tougher job on his hands in theory, but his record here reads 1-4-1-1-5 and Aaron Rai's reads 48-40-51-41. Their respective scoring averages are more than four strokes apart. That's four (or 4.45 to be precise) strokes' difference every time they play 18 holes at the Earth Course.
Even allowing for the fact that Rai returns a major champion, it's difficult to look beyond Rahm. He has 20 rounds of par or better here from 20 played. Rai has played 16, shooting par or better only nine times, never better than 69, and with a day one average of 73.25. Rahm's happens to be 4.45 shots better on Thursdays, too.
Click image for Ben Coley's outright preview
Posted at 20:00 GMT on 09/11/25
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Fleetwood to beat Bryant
Rock-solid record here and doing everything right
Bryant is a short hitter who was 66th after R1 last week
Meronk to beat Bradbury
Power over precision
Hot putting over cold putting
Desert form over parkland specialist
Rahm to beat Rai
Rai yet to crack top 40 of such a small-field event says a lot
Rahm buzzing
