Roebuck’s Australian Open preview: Rory’s revival points to win

Adam Scott tops the betting at 5/2 for this week’s Emirates Australian Open at the Royal Sydney Golf Club, as the current Masters champion looks to complete the Triple Crown Down Under.

The world number two has already captured the Australian Masters and PGA titles in the past month and surely would have won last week’s individual honours at the World Cup in Melbourne, if it wasn’t for a quintuple-bogey nine on the 12th hole on day one.

Scott lost out to Jason Day by three strokes, with the pair easily claiming team honours.

Day, the 7/1 third favourite in Sydney, won despite playing just weeks after learning eight of his relatives, including his grandmother, died in the devastating typhoon that hit the Philippines.

He tees it up again this week alongside Scott and Rory McIlroy (6/1), who has shown signs of a return to form recently.

Current form points to Scott, with form figures of 1-1-3 coming into this week, but at more than twice the market principle’s price, McIlroy appeals more.

McIlroy is just about an each-way proposition and has said he is not in Australia just to holiday.

A long standing legal dispute with sportswear sponsor Oakley has also been settled recently and his focus on golf is total.

The former world number one served notice of a likely return to the winners’ enclosure when sixth in the HSBC Champions event and fifth in the DP World Tour Championship in his last two starts, events which had far more strength in depth than he’ll come up against in Sydney this week.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t so long ago that Geoff Ogilvy (25/1) would have been considered amongst the favourites for this tournament.

But the former US Open champion, who didn’t drop out of the top 20 in the world for a four year period between 2006 and 2010, has suffered with injury and loss of form over the last couple of seasons and hasn’t been anywhere near the top of a leaderboard recently – until he finished seventh in the Australian PGA Championship a fortnight ago.

With course form numbers of 10-2-6 – the best in the field – he is worth an each-way interest ceratainly.

As is Nick Cullen at 40/1, who won the Queensland Open in August, hasn’t finished worse than 28th since and was fourth last time out at Royal Melbourne.

My three to follow – McIlroy (6/1), Ogilvy (25/10 and Cullen (40/1).