The Punter's In-Play Blog: Luiten looks poised to kick on at Kingsbarns

Given the field is split around three different courses for the first three days (see Event Structure in the preview), the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is always a tricky event to evaluate and it's especially hard to assess when the weather's windy and changeable.

In recent editions, most of the big names have played the Carnoustie - Kingsbarns - St. Andrews rota over the first three days but this year they've kicked off at St. Andrews today and there'll be at Carnoustie tomorrow before playing Kingsbarns on Saturday. The weather forecast suggests a bit of respite from the blustery conditions tomorrow and some are viewing that as a break for the more fancied runners but I'm not at all convinced.

They will get to play the hardest course in the easiest conditions but they can't just go there and survive tomorrow. They'll need to score. The forecast for Saturday is very blowy and they'll struggle to go low around the easiest of the three venues - Kingsbarns.

Those that have played Kingsbarns in today's windy weather will have a chance to kick on again at St Andrews tomorrow but they will then have to face Carnoustie in the worst of the weather on Saturday and I fancy those that have already played Carnoustie today have had the best of the draw. The last four winners have all kicked off at Carnoustie on day one and I can see it happening again.

In the previous 16 editions of the event, all bar two winners were within four of the lead and inside the top-30 after day one so being up with the pace is usually very important but given the forecast, I haven't concentrated solely on the leading pack and the one I like at this very early stage is Joost Luiten.

Luiten fired a two-under-par 70 around Carnoustie today and I thought he was too big at around the 50/1 mark. The Sportsbook did go 50/1 after he'd finished his round, with six places still up for grabs. That's been cut now but anywhere around 50.00 is still very acceptable on the exchange. He doesn't have spectacular event form but he's a fine links exponent and he sat second with a round to go before finishing 24th in 2013.

The Safeway Open has kicked off on the PGA Tour but I'll look at that one tomorrow after the opening round.

Alfred Dunhill Links Pre-Event Selections:

Chris Wood @ 40.00 - Non-Runner

J.B Holmes @ 60.00

Ross Fisher @ 70.00

Eddie Pepperell @ 75.00

Callum Shinkwin @ 140.00

Austin Connelly @ 160.00

Jeunghun Wang @ 200.00

In-Play Pick

Joost Luiten @ 50.00