Qatar Masters 2013 Betting Preview

The next stop in the Desert Swing brings us to the Qatar Masters- won last year by Paul Lawrie. The course this week is not a massively dissimilar challenge from last week. Winds are not forecast to be as strong as in previous years here- although the rough has been grown out a bit to compensate. At 7400+ yards, this puts a premium on driving once again this week.

Going to look to pull on prior course form and current form and hopefully make some money this week!

First on the list is one of last weeks picks, who has been steadily playing pretty well of late and won here in 2010, so obviously knows how to get round Doha. Thomas Bjorn is available at 55/1 and I think this is still a bit too high for somebody playing half decent golf and knows how to win. HE has been threatening to have a good tournament of late and hopefully it can be this week.

I am also going to have a pop this week on David Howell- he has had 5 top tens here in the past and after such a good showing last week, I think that 80/1 is a great opportunity and underestimates his chances- perhaps he has lost that winning edge- but 20/1 for a top 6 with Stan James is still pretty good.

As there seems like so many people that can win here I have decided to take a bit of a different approach for my next pick. A market that gave some success in my first week of putting my bets out there was the 72 hole match market on Sporting Index. In a huge risk of trying to tempt fate I am going to oppose a player I have backed for the last two weeks- but who really hasn't looked like getting back to his old self quite yet. Couple this with the fact that he has missed the cut 4 out of the 5 times he has played here and this being his 3rd straight week of tournament golf after a fairly serious injury Paul Casey certainly doesn't inspire me with confidence this week. To oppose him I am going with the ready made match against Henrik Stenson- a man who has done really well here in the past, is coming back to some form and can boom his driver. All of which should lead to him being ahead of Casey come Sunday.

Another Sporting Index market is finishing positions. Paying out on where a player has finished and therefore not needing that top 5 place for an each way bet to make money. This one is a bit of a risk- but Andrew Dodt would have made us a profit in his past 5 tournaments as well as in Doha last year. I am going to sell his finishing position at 52- meaning a pretty big 17 per pt loss if he misses the cut, but any performance in line with his form for this week should bring a profit.

This week's picks:

• 1pt e/w Thomas Bjorn at 56.0 (Bet365) (Available at 41.0 for 6 places e/w at Stan James)
• 1/2pt e/w David Howell at 81.0 (Stan James)
• Sell Andrew Dodt for 1/2pt at 52 (Sporting Index)
• Buy Henrik Stenson for 1pt at 2 (Sporting Index)

Good Luck!