Golf betting tips: Best bets for final round of the Cazoo Open on Sky Sports

Golf betting tips: Cazoo Open final round

2pts Matt Wallace and Sam Horsfield to score 68 or less at 4/1 (Sky Bet)

1.5pts Sam Horsfield 'without Elvira' at 5/1 (Sky Bet)

1pt Jacques Kruyswick to finish in the top-five at 11/2 (Paddy Power, Betfair)

0.5pt e.w Jacques Kruyswick 'without Elvira' at 33/1 (Sky Bet 1/4 1,2,3)

0.5pt Vincent Norrman to finish in the top-10 at 11/1 (Sky Bet)

Sky Bet odds | Paddy Power | Betfair Sportsbook

Since its inception in 2000 the Wales Open has proven lucrative for the better iron players, and a roll call of winners that includes Joost Luiten, Graeme McDowell, Miguel Angel Jiminez and Ian Poulter does nothing to shelve the thought of the priority asset this week.

With the event having a hiatus after the 2014 running, we only had last season's duo of back-to-back events to work with in terms of current course form but after Friday's second round it does look as though the status quo has resumed with the top six at halfway ranking in similar positions on the tee-to-green leaderboard.

Top of the pile going into the third round, Nacho Elvira hasn't done a tap in almost two years and twenty events, and punters were right to be surprised to see him finding an average of five shots from tee-to-green through his first 36 holes. A good interview (yes, read that again, a good one) after his second round suggested he was calmer and more methodical than the previous day's 'rainbow' effort and he shot an impressive 66 on Saturday, a score only two players bettered, to move six clear.

Currently ranked outside the top 600 in the world, the 34-year-old has been in the final group on only five occasions since 2013, winning three on the Challenge Tour but never so far at this level. Last time he was in a vaguely similar position on the European Tour he lost (painfully as my bank account can testify) in a play-off at the 2019 Maybank and since then a couple of top-20 finishes is as good as things have got.

Given that Elvira hasn't been in this position for many months and he'll be thinking about it overnight, if the course continues to reward pin-seekers and the field starts to close in before he gets really started, he may start wondering about things especially as he has bogeyed the first in two of his three rounds. He is, of course, by far the most likely winner and can probably afford to go round in par, so taking him on even at 2/5 doesn't make all that much appeal.

MATT WALLACE was a very short priced favourite before play began and he will be looking to emulate Matilda Castren, who was downgraded last week and won as she should on the Ladies European Tour, giving her a potential spot at the Solheim Cup. He wants to play well to get onto the Ryder Cup team rather than just think about making the team but I'd suggest winning is the only way to achieve that goal at this late stage.

If Elvira folds he is still a runner from eight back, after a one-under round that gave away absolutely nothing and could have ended two-over, but his reputation as a winner took another knock in Scotland last year and it looks like this is probably an opportunity missed, for all the leader has played incredibly.

• CLICK HERE to back Wallace and Horsfield both to shoot 68 or better with Sky Bet

It is at least encouraging for Wallace backers that some of his play today - wide iron shots, missed three-foot putts, missed greens from 80-odd yards - were not too harshly punished and his overall play suggests he may simply be trying too hard to find his first win in 81 starts, reminiscent perhaps of Tommy Fleetwood.

Wallace's fixation on winning means he'll fire away on Sunday and under kind conditions, he looks set for a low number which might have him wondering what might have been.

How to side with him is tricky, but Sky Bet are offering a price on Wallace and SAM HORSFIELD shooting 68 or less, and given Saturday's bogey-free 65 is probably the worst the latter could have shot, it's looks a price worth taking.

Horsfield's tee-to-green game has been excellent and surely had he not ranked 130th for putting on day two, he would be in the final pairing and staring the leader in the eyes at a course where he won last year. With five rounds from eight starts of 68 or better, and with closing rounds of 67 and 65 around here, he is another that jumps off the page for something, and 68 should be well within his compass.

Should Horsfield fire as expected then second place may well be there for the taking, given that Justin Harding has struggled in the final round more than once lately and that the obvious dangers, Wallace include, are all behind. He's a 5/1 chance in the without Elvira market and that looks good value for a small bet.

• CLICK HERE to back Horsfield without Elvira with Sky Bet

From a personal point of view, the event does feel very flat. Coverage is merely OK, much of it tucked away on Sky Sports, the crowd are hardly going wild, few have been tearing it up and it just feels like an afternoon at the local course where the highlight is the bacon roll and coffee thrown in. Someone has to win it though and if not Elvira, Horsfield would be the one most likely to capitalise.

VINCENT NORRMAN has long been touted as a future star and the 23-year-old has shown why over the last few weeks. He could've been lower than his seven-under 64 in the first round and has in general struck the ball really well.

All his hard work, including a couple of birdies to respond to a double-bogey during the front nine, was undone by a disastrous 10 at the par-five 18th. This is all a learning process and every round will bring him forward though the key factor for me is the way he finds a better round on a Sunday than he seems to just 24 hours previous.

• CLICK HERE to back Norrman for a top-10 finish with Sky Bet

At Gothenburg, Norrman made four places when it counted, whilst in the better class BMW International his own best of the week 66 launched him from 23rd to fifth a day after his worst round. It will always help the nerves when not having the attention for the entire round and the feeling is his length may work to his advantage and, being totally unexposed and inspired by recent amateurs-turned-winners Viktor Hovland and Collin Morikawa, it seems wise to take advantage of a price-lengthening display somehow.

He's tied 28th but just three shots off the tie for 10th and while dead-heats are of course part of the equation, double-figure prices that he rallies for a top-10 finish are worth taking. He's a definite candidate to be Sunday's star and produce the sort of round which vaulted Callum Shinkwin into the mix, albeit where Norrman is concerned all chance to win has now gone.

Of the rest, Mikko Korhonen, Masahiro Kawamura and JACQUES KRUYSWIJK are all playing well tee-to-green and exponents of a fine iron game. The latter is just preferred to make some sort of move given he has been playing consistently well for a while and his form when twice fifth in Kenya (behind Harding and then just behind third-placed Horsfield) reads incredibly well.

He is a tad unreliable in front, but it's his full-on attacking game that often lets him down when needing to take a pull. It's far too much to ask him to win this from here but he is heading the season's strokes-gained total and scoring average stats for a reason, and looks capable of matching his final rounds in Kenya. Should he do so, he's a runner in the top-five market despite Elvira and is also taken in that 'without' market at small stakes, with just three to make up on those sharing the effective lead.

• CLICK HERE to back Kruyswijk for a top-five finish with Sky Bet

Posted at 1850 BST on 24/07/21

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