I managed to get away with extended family this past weekend and enjoyed three of my favourite B’s in Beer, Bush and Betting.  Fortunately I was successful on the betting side of things and it leaves me nicely placed heading into one of the most exciting weekends of the year.

We have the resumption of the Rugby Championship where South Africa are 8.5 favourites to see off Australia in Port Elizabeth.  Those who have followed my column over the years will know that I bet with the head and not the heart but this week I am steaming into the Boks as I think Australia are very much there for the taking and that South Africa can build on their brilliant victory over New Zealand two weeks back.

The betting highlight for me will be the Ryder Cup which gets going in France on Friday.  As I write this article the USA are 17/20 favourites to win with Europe 13/10 and the tie quoted at 12/1.  There have been a couple of lopsided contests in recent years but I think we are going to get a very tight tussle this time around and I wouldn’t put anyone off backing the tie. The USA have the better ranked players in their team but Europe have a number of proven match play exponents and I find myself leaning towards another home victory. 

One of my favourite betting markets in the Ryder Cup is the top points scorer and in the top European market I am going to have some money on Tommy Fleetwood at 8/1 and Jon Rahm at 7/1.  Both of them make their Ryder Cup debuts but they strike me as players that will thrive in the match play environment and will get plenty of game time.

As far as the top USA points scorer goes I like Justin Thomas at 11/2.  Thomas took the time to come and play this course in the Open de France earlier this year finishing in the top 10.  He has been very consistent throughout the FedEx Cup playoffs and while he makes his Ryder Cup debut he showed in the Presidents Cup that he takes to this format like a duck to water.

This is truly one of those weekends where if I leave the couch for an extended period it is, you can bet, against my will.

Twitter: @BrentGraham

 
This article was written for the CitiGaming supplement of the Citizen Newspaper and was published on the 27th of September 2018.

Brent Graham is a blogger on www.goodforthegame.co.za and sends a  free weekly e-mail list just CLICK HERE to register