Bookies running scared on McGinley captaincy
This morning’s betting on the 2014 European Ryder Cup captaincyBetting on who will get the 2014 European Ryder Cup captaincy has not yet been suspended despite Rory McIlroy’s call for Paul McGinley and his thumbs down to Colin Montgomerie.
However, William Hill has shut down the market with McGinley rated the red-hot favourite to get the nod while Paddy Power is offering the Dubliner at 1/4 to Montgomerie’s 5/2.
William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams said: “Darren Clarke was the red hot favourite but it seems that he wants to concentrate on playing and the door has opened for Paul McGinley.”
At the close, William Hill had McGinley at 2/7 with Colin Montgomerie 5/2 and Clarke a 16/1 outsider.
Betfair prices were also unvailable following McIlroy’s tweet calling for the Tournament Players Committee to resist the temptation to offer any former captains a second tenure in charge and his desire to play under McGinley in Scotland.
Bookmakers got burnt in 2009 when news of Montgomerie’s surprise appointment was leaked and his odds tumbled from 50-1 to 1-50.
The European Tour does not want a repeat and if a decision is reached at tomorrow’s meeting in Abu Dhabi, the 2014 skipper will be announced immediately afterwards.
Sky Sports News is reporting that Colin Montgomerie’s camp is confident he will get the nod tomorrow:
Sky Sports News golf reporter James Haddock revealed on Monday morning that a source very close to the Montgomerie camp is saying they have “an extremely high level of confidence that the vote is going to go Colin Montgomerie’s way.”
Haddock, out on the range ahead of this week’s Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, added: “There’s a lot of conversations going on here at the moment, some of them getting slightly heated.
“Thomas Bjorn I saw having a pretty full on, heated discussion with someone and it just shows that there’s a lot of conversations happening with the key players involved in making this decision.”…
Haddock, after speaking to some of the 15-man committee, said: “Some have said to me they’ve already made their minds up, they won’t say who, others I think may well be prepared to be swayed by discussions tomorrow night.
“But the indications from the Sky source right now is that it looks like Colin Montgomerie may well be in the box seat to be the next Ryder Cup captain.
“It would be a huge shock for pretty much everyone involved in golf really.”
Clarke, who was touted by some of his colleagues such as Lee Westwood as the ideal man for the job, took a step back in the last couple of days when saying he still had hopes of qualifying for Gleneagles as a player.
That appeared to put the ball strongly in McGinley’s court with Sky Bet slashing the Dubliner to just 1/5 to get the captain’s job.
However, the market has now been pulled with the shock revelations about Monty.