Portugal Masters: Guide and best bets for this week's European Tour event on the Algarve

With the UK weather starting to turn miserable, it's the ideal time for the European Tour to seek out some sunshine in the Algarve.

This week's Portugal Masters heads once again to the popular tourist destination of Vilamoura, where Oceanico Victoria Golf Club will stage the tournament for the eighth year running.

Live European Tour Golf

The field features 74 European Tour winners and also six of the past seven Portugal Masters champions - David Lynn, Shane Lowry, Tom Lewis, Richard Green, Alvaro Quiros and Steve Webster.

The only former winner missing is Lee Westwood, whose name on the trophy means four Englishmen have taken this title in its seven runnings here. As budget airlines will confirm, the English love the Algarve!

Former champion Lowry heads Sky Bet's market at 14/1, just in front of Bernd Wiesberger and Tommy Fleetwood at 16s.

Sky Sports has live coverage of all four days.

The course

Designed by Arnold Palmer, the Oceanico Victoria Golf Club is a 7,209-yard par 72. It features the usual quota of four par fives and also has three short par fours that measure in at just 358 yards (2nd), 385 yards (11th) and 315 yards (15th). Not surprisingly, for a resort course, the winning score is typically low. Six of the seven runnings here have been won with scores between -18 and -25. David Lynn took the title last year with a closing 63, his success based on a sharp short game (second in Scrambling, 8th in Putting Averge).

Conclusion

When Alexander Levy won the Volvo China Open in March, he said that he'd been inspired by watching friend and countryman Victor Dubuisson's recent success (his victory in the Turkish Airlines Open and a superb display in the final of the previous month's WGC-Accenture Match Play).

So having witnessed Dubuisson star in the recent Ryder Cup perhaps it was no surprise that Levy responded with a good performance in the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship. For three days he was excellent, making just a single bogey and going into the final round in tied second place before slipping back on Sunday.

However, Levy should enjoy this test too and a third place (he was 54-hole leader) on another Arnold Palmer layout at the Challenge Tour's prestigious Kazakhstan Open suggests this week's course - which he'll be seeing for the first time - should suit him.

He likes room off the tee and his win in China was achieved with a winning score of -19 so he can bang out the birdies which is a necessity on this layout.

Take him at 66/1.

Thongchai Jaidee is a different type of player but one who deserves respect on this course.

The Thai has made the top 25 four times in his six visits here (9th, 12th, 19th and 23rd) and is in decent nick after a 17th in Wales and a 32nd at St Andrews on his last two starts.

Earlier this summer he won the Nordea Masters in Sweden with 16-under and, in his next two European Tour starts, finished 5th in the BMW International Open in Germany and runner-up in the Open de France.

Quite simply, he's a quality performer these days and the 40/1 looks generous for someone with those numbers.

At the same price, Spaniard Pablo Larrazabal is well worth a bet.

He played some superb stuff (a second round 62 and a closing 65) when fifth at the KLM Open last month and a pair of 68s on the weekend in the Alfred Dunhill Links showed that he's still in fine fettle.

He's made five cuts out of five in the Portugal Masters and after a closing 65 gave him 11th spot in 2011 he improved on that with an eighth place finish here last year which included a day three 64.

Larrazabal noted on Twitter that he had trouble reading the greens in Scotland. This week he should find them easier given that he was fifth in Putting Average on this track 12 months ago.

Finally, given the number of Englishmen on the trophy, it might be worth chancing Ross Fisher.

He's got a great record in this event, finishing eighth last year, runner-up in 2012, third in 2008 and seventh in 2007.

A midfield finish in the Dunhill Links doesn't hint at anything great but it did include a third round 65 and he's hitting plenty of greens in regulation at the moment.

One added little extra is that last week he watched a former Ryder Cup player who had fallen on hard times (Oliver Wilson) hit back to take the trophy. Fisher's slide hasn't been anywhere near as marked but the recent showdown at Gleneagles may just remind him that he's capable of playing at the very top level and beating fields like this. 

Best bets

1.5pts e.w. Alexander Levy at 66/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

1pt e.w. Thongchai Jaidee at 40/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

1.5pts e.w. Pablo Larrazabal at 40/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)

1pt e.w. Ross Fisher at 40/1 (1/4 1,2,3,4,5)