Matthew Jordan can bag an overdue first DP World Tour title on Sunday, according to golf expert Ben Coley.
Golf betting tips: Nexo Championship
2pts win Matthew Jordan at 12/5 (General)
The second edition of the Nexo Championship has underlined that links golf is just different. On the face of it, this is a strange leaderboard, featuring some of the most out-of-form players on the DP World Tour, but when you scratch beneath the surface, there are threads of logic to be found. Almost all of the names up there in contention have performed under these conditions before.
Matthew Jordan, for example, has two Open top-10s, and Keita Nakajima was third in the Scottish Open last month. Halfway leader Matthew Southgate is famed for his links skills, skills which have earned him a pair of Open top-10s too plus a near-miss at the Dunhill Links. Marcus Kinhult won the British Masters at Hillside, close to where Ewen Ferguson became Boys' Amateur champion in 2013. Adrian Otaegui, who has won in Scotland, is also a past winner of that event, and on and on we could go.
Links golf is also fickle and as things stand, all those who backed one of the above names on the strength of these clues seem set to be scuppered by Shaun Norris, a South African who has won at home, across Asia and even a small event in the United States, but never in Europe. Norris is in relative terms a classy player in a generally weak field, but never before has he hinted at the sort of links smarts that now see him lead by two entering the final round.
Many will, understandably, consider this his to lose, because Norris has 15 professional titles to his name and Jordan has one, that now seven years ago on what was the Challenge Tour. The man in third, Scott Jamieson, won the long-defunct Nelson Mandela Championship in 2012, a curtailed, 36-hole event which is among the strangest in memory. With several holes shortened due to a waterlogged course, Jamieson shot 66-57 and then survived a play-off.
For all his experience, Norris will consider this another big step up in his career if, at the age of 44, he can win in Europe. It would be an understatement to say that he can run hot when things don't go his way and the odd bad bounce here or there could easily derail him and, in the process, blow this tournament wide open. He's just not the sort of player to be taking short odds about when leading.
After a birdie-birdie finish to round three, I'm hopeful this could be MATTHEW JORDAN's time at last.
Jordan is approaching 200 DP World Tour starts without yet having won, which would understandably have been enough to put many prospective backers off pre-tournament. Here, though, circumstances are ideal: he is a fine links golfer, a better one than the leader, and he may well have primed himself for this at a links-like course in Denmark last week, where he played with the winner when contending on Sunday.
Although he faltered somewhat during the back-nine, Jordan ultimately improved his position on a tough day and his game has looked in excellent nick for a while. Not always have results reflected the way he's struck the ball and there's a question mark over short putts heading into the final round, but I don't think he's ever had as much control over his ball-striking and it's that which can win him the tournament.
We've seen a couple of young talents get it right on the PGA Tour recently having stumbled in the mix previously, Michael Brennan the best example, and I fancy Jordan to take this golden opportunity and gain the victory he deserves.
Further down the leaderboard, followers of Matt Cooper's pre-tournament preview have Southgate on-side at 100/1, an under-par round likely enough for the place money and perhaps even the jackpot. He could well bounce back from Saturday's difficult third round and, like Jordan, is more comfortable than most playing the game this way.
Alongside him, Nakajima is a fine young talent whose third place behind Tom Kim and Min Woo Lee at The Renaissance is the strongest piece of recent form, but I find myself more drawn to the 9/1 quoted about Jamieson. He's in third place, two clear of fourth, and the price simply looks a little on the generous side given the leaderboard make-up, for all that those concerns over his performances in the mix are hard to shake.
Jamieson is 135th on the Race to Dubai, though, so there's extra pressure on him. That might seem premature to say, but opportunities for lower-ranked players are few and far between in September, when some world-class players join in the fun, and after this Jamieson likely has seven or eight tournaments remaining to climb into the top 100, the bar for securing full status now set higher than in previous years.
That's enough of a worry to stick to one selection, Jordan, who has only one player in front of him and just one more within two. Beyond Nakajima there's a serious lack of pedigree here and after a runner-up finish in Denmark, the popular Englishman can go one better and become the champion he's promised to be since leading the British Masters at a links course close to home before even earning his card.
That plus his performances in qualifying for and contending in the Open tell us so much about the player and it's time he got his hands on silverware. This may well be his best chance yet.
Posted at 17:55 BST on 22/08/26
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