Andrew's Great Abaco Classic (KFT) Preview

(Note: I live in the middle of nowhere and lost internet for quite some time as I was writing this after some monkey cut a cable. Prices still look good to me but apologies if you can only get shorter on my primary pick. I’ll add recommended minimum prices.)

From the excitement of a first season preview to the bathos of writing this second KFT preview for the Bahamas. There’s a few problems here. First of all, attention is on the Sony and the Dubai Invitational, and rightly so – and that’s if anyone can tear their eyes away from the NFL. Second, the opening tournament was, to give a detailed review “meh” – both from a punting perspective (we had three solid performances but never threatened a positive return) and from a watching perspective (honestly, if Taylor Dickson winning gets you excited for the future then well done. I will say that he’s normally weak on approach so it was a good performance, and he won twice in 2024 before a poor year on the PGA, so he might have another quad-A type return here. But that’s all I’ve got.) Third, it is really, really hard to say anything different about this tournament than last week’s. Let’s give it a go.

The Tournament

We’ve moved from Paradise Island, right outside downtown Nassau, to Great Abaco, which is probably a big deal in terms of vibes but doesn’t make much difference in terms of the geography. What does matter is that we’re now on the eastern edge of the Bahamas, which means that the course faces out onto the Atlantic and is exposed to the winds. Which sounds very exciting except that… there isn’t really going to be any wind. We’re looking at a very calm set of conditions by local standards and with another resort style course, that means that the chief defence isn’t in place. At least until Wednesday, and that's a long way to be forecasting.

We’ve seen this course for seven previous iterations and the winning score has moved between -7 (Rafael Campos in 2019) and Sudarshan Yellamaraju (-25 last year, a five shot win over Russel Knox and Kensei Hirata.) Despite a few changes to toughen the course with some new tee boxes and a tougher par-3 7th, I think we’ll see scores that threaten Yellamaraju’s tournament low this year. 

Winning styles have been varied here, with success for the likes of Aldrich Potgieter, and a high placement for Christo Lamprecht – and Campos and Yellamaraju to a lesser extent – showing that bombers can go well here, but at 7,200 yards it isn’t a course that demands enormous length, as Hirata and Knox demonstrated, following in the steps of prior winner Adam Svensson.  There are stylistic differences from last week’s course, and this is more of a “modern links” design, with pot bunkers and limited tree cover. However, we’re still looking for bogey avoidance, effective approach play and good around the green success, and we’re still focused on players bringing in good form – though, of course, almost everyone played a similar course last week which changes the equation in that respect.

The Selections

Another problem here – after putting a lot of thought into last week’s picks, the temptation to run them all back is quite strong. Sandy Scott was our least impressive performer, and I think that’s primarily because he’s a good player in tough conditions, and with wind lower than I expected he didn’t really shine. Finding courses that are tough enough for him on the KFT will be tricky and it isn’t this week, but he’s still on my mind. Justin Hastings looked consistently solid but just struggled to keep bogeys off his card which may be enough to hold him back again this week. I came close to picking him again but just couldn’t do it. Barend Botha, on the other hand, showed me enough to remain my lead selection. I simply can’t shake my belief that he’s one of the classiest players in this field. Modern links golf on exposed coastal courses is the bread-and-butter of the South African Cape where he grew up, and last week’s performance, while patchy, finished with a 64-67-67 featuring just three bogeys. Yes, it’s boring, but missing a 40/1 shot out of a desire to be original isn’t sensible thinking. He’s still on my team.

Joining Botha are two fresh selections, the first of whom is Rayhan Thomas. The 26-year-old showed a preference for this course last year, moving from 27^th in the Bahamas Classic to seventh in the Abaco Classic, with a closing 65 at this course showing just what he’s capable of. The 26-year-old Indian is in his second year on this tour after a solid college career at Oklahoma State. He was a top-20 amateur and has started his professional career nicely, with some good performances at Q-school getting him onto the KFT, and a win on the PGTI (Indian Tour.) A bogey free 64 to open his season in the first round last week shows what he’s capable of and he’s overpriced to make a breakthrough here.

As well as Hastings, I was tempted by Nick Gabrelcik (but last year he showed a greater affinity for course at the Bahamas Classic than here, where he missed the cut,) for veterans like Harry Higgs, Hayden Springer and John Pak (in all cases it was a narrow assessment of value that dropped them off my list) and I did contemplate stopping at two selections. But I think there is real value in the price for Jackson Buchanan, who has continued an impressive start to his professional career with a 33^rd place on KFT debut last week. He was 11^th ranked among amateurs after a standout career at Illinois, and last year in limited starts on the PGA Tour of Americas grabbed seven top-25 finishes from ten starts as he transferred to the professional ranks, before finishing 42nd at Q-school. Shortish off-the-tee, the Byron Nelson award winner is well-suited to this technical test and the market has been pleasingly slow to recognise this rapidly emerging talent.

• Barend Botha, 40/1, 1pt e/w, ¼ odds 5 places, Bet365.  Okay down to 33/1.

• Rayhan Thomas, 110/1, 1pt e/w, ¼ odds 5 places, Bet365.  Okay down to 80/1.

• Jackson Buchanan, 66/1, 1pt e/w, 1/5 odds 7 places, Fitzdares.  Only at 66/1 or better.