With only two events left before the season finale, players around the number 50 on tour will be scrambling to gain those extra vital points in order to qualify for the big shoot-out in Dubai.

Sub-plots ahoy, but I prefer to stay out of guessing who will be inspired or feel under pressure and look at this event as the quality, low-scoring tournament it always has been.

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There is plenty written about the course, open and scorable and yet players do need to be careful about adjusting to any crosswinds, both for approach play and on the greens. 

Go back as far as you can, and winners and contenders scream links type players. Almost every winner since time began has form at Qatar, Oman, Sicily, at the KLM, in South Africa or crucially at the Alfred Dunhill Links (Padraig Harrington having won that twice, Lucas Bjerregaard another to have won both) with Shane Lowry and Tom Lewis particularly those that thrive in those conditions.  

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With no severe weather and softish green, the winning score should be around -19/-20, so we need players with proven form in similar conditions and tracks, in top form with their tee-to-green game (they will all have chances off these wide fairways) and hopefully those that haven’t been over-rated by the oddsmakers.

Hopefully the few players below can live up to their billing and give us a run at the profits this week!

Jorge Campillo Win/Top 5 +4500/+900

Very simply, the 35-year-old Spaniard should have won more than at Qatar and Morocco, but both those tracks feature heavily in winning form here over the years so all may be forgiven.

A superb driver of the ball and typically Spanish with his short game at times, he comes here off an excellent runner-up in Mallorca, a result that was the best he could get out of a game that totally deserted him through the first nine holes of his final round.

Unusually for him, Campillo couldn’t hit a green on the final day, his chipping and par putting allowing him to keep within sniffing distance of the lead, an effort that reminded me of his runner-up finish in Oman.

If it requires him to go low, he can recall Cyprus last year when a course record 62 helped him on the way to qualifying for the final round, where again he became a birdie machine late on to grab third place, whilst just a month ago he got going at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship just too late to finish 17th.

At both St. Andrews and Mallorca, Campillo was inside the top 21 tee-to-green and top-10 for putting – all ingredients that point to success on a course on which he has a 6th and 8th place finish, the latter just fourteen months ago. 

Sebastian Soderburg Win/Top 5 +5500/+1000, Sebastian Soderburg Top Swede +350

Anyone that watched either of the tournaments at Valderrama or Mallorca will not believe that the Swede didn’t lift the trophy at either.

Few players over the years have found double-figure strokes-gained at the tight Sotogrande course but with 11+ shots found tee-to-green and nearly seven shots with his irons, Soderburg produced one of the finest approach displays I’ve seen around my favourite course, and it was simply a loss of concentration at his 71st hole that let the more composed Matt Fitzpatrick in to nab the cup from his grasp. 

Fast-forward a week, and he almost ‘does a Kyle Stanley’, looking like taking revenge for the previous tournament and seeming the winner all the way through Sunday until another lapse at the 13th stopped him in his tracks, a wild tee shot pausing all momentum and an eventual one-shot defeat.

Again, this winner of a five-man playoff in Crans (Rory McIlroy one of his defeated foes) was in the higher bracket of tee-to-green play and through much of his final round produced iron play of the highest class.

Top-30 here last year after gaining nearly seven shots with his irons (ranked fifth) and a final round 64, he is surely now closer to the player that was seventh in 2017, when a matching third-round 64 was the joint best of the day.

There was every chance that the 31-year-old came into this event seeking a hat-trick, he needs another good effort to rise from 60th to top-50 in the rankings, and I’m finding it hard to see why he won’t have one. With a similar player in Laurie Canter less than half his price yet without a win on any tour, Soderburg could be the bet of the week, and he’s a play in a lot of markets.

Julien Guerrier Top 20 +300, Julien Guerrier First Round Leader +6600

I like the 36-year-old Frenchman to go very well at Portugal this week, his form at correlative courses reading very nicely, but it’s his early event form that catches the eye.

His victory at Mount Wolseley on the Challenge Tour in 2017 may not mean much to many but beating Steven Brown by six shots was given a boost when the Englishman won at Vilamoura a couple of years later. A pair of top-10 finishes in Sicily read well – 2017 winner Alvaro Quiros has a win and four top-20 finishes here whilst the 2018 leaderboard was full of Portugal specialists, namely third-placed Andy Sullivan (winner at Portugal 2015), Joakim Lagergren (3/14/17 here), Lucas Bjerregaard (winner here 2017) and Brown once again.

Third at similarly open, windy Oman in 2018 reads well whilst nobody can argue with his 8th placed finish last year when he opened with a 62 and 66 to lie second and first after the first couple of rounds.

Recent form suggests he has found more than just his long driving, an asset that always serves him well where accuracy off the tee isn’t a premium, so whilst it was no surprise to see him play well in Madrid (round positions 11/6/2/3), it was fascinating to see him thrive at the hardest track on the tour, Valderrama, where despite finishing 25th overall, he led after day one with an opening 67.

Placed in Madeira on the Challenge Tour, Guerrier repeats form at similar tracks as he did at Crans in 2018 and 2021, placing second and sixth respectively after the first round, and his early tee time on Thursday may give him the impetus to repeat last season’s opening 62.  

Pep Angles Ros Top 10/Top 20 +1200/+550

It’s always hard to justify picking a player off one bit of recent form, and it’s dangerous falling for a second-place finish and thus a reduction in price but if the 28-year-old has found something, his overall form suggests he can kick on again.

17th off the tee, 11th tee-to-green, 9th in approach and top-10 in putting will never be a bad combination, and certainly not if you lead the par-four stats!

The question is whether the previously inconsistent Spaniard can resume the form back in Portugal, an area where he has already posted a runner-up to Garrick Higgo (Portuguese specialist George Coetzee three shots behind in third) and a 12th place finish at this track in 2018.

At that particular Portugal Open, an event of higher quality than its rating, Angles came from 41st after day one, whilst three years ago around here, Angles came from 71st after the first round to record end-of-round finishes of 16/8/12. He isn’t one for first-round leader bets but could well be one to keep in mind for a big price in-running.   

With a fourth and 14th in Sicily on his card, there are rare times to catch this attacking golfer, and this is one of them.

Others to catch the eye include Nicolai Hojgaard, the bigger priced of the Danish twins. Whilst both he and Rasmus will enjoy firing at pins, I feel the latter is a more composed player at present, and the first-named will get more benefit from opening his shoulders off the tee, whilst 2017 champion Lucas Bjerregaard doesn’t look far away from a consistent four rounds and is far better than his current quotes. 

Hopefully, this column sparks a tad more interest in the European Tour. Honestly, it’s great fun!