Belgian Knockout Tip: Phachara Khongwatmai

Phachara Khongwatmai has been around for so long, he won a professional tournament at the age of 14, it’s sometimes easy to forget he is still only 20 and with that callowness comes inconsistencies.

Phachara missed 17 cuts last season, more than half the tournaments he started but he’s starting to hang around for the weekend with increased frequency and that is all he needs, with the top-64 after two rounds moving through to 9-hole match-play.

In his last six starts the young Thai has finished 12-MC-20-31-8-49, these have largely come on the Asian Tour but that form is often underrated and remember this is a golfer who rattled off three consecutive top-15s finishes in Europe last summer.

Phachara missed the cut by one stroke in the event last year and therefore doesn’t need to improve much to get into the stroke-play head-to-head bracket and then anything could happen. Last season he ranked 21st on tour for birdie average and that makes him a dangerous opponent because as we saw last year you generally need to be under-par to win in a head-to-head match.

With Betfair get 1/5 odds for a top-8 finish.