DP World India Championship 2026 Betting Preview: 5 Picks

The DP World India Championship is only in its second year, and it has already attracted the kind of field the DP World Tour would have struggled to assemble in Delhi a decade ago. Rory McIlroy and defending champion Tommy Fleetwood share favouritism, Shane Lowry and Robert MacIntyre are here, and behind them sits a deep Indian contingent playing a course most of them have known since they were juniors.

What it takes to win at Delhi Golf Club

Delhi plays to par 72 over 6,983 yards, which by modern tour standards is short. The demand profile follows from that. Our model attributes 37.8 per cent of the separation between players to approach play, 29.7 per cent to putting and 27.9 per cent to driving, with around-the-green work almost irrelevant at 4.6 per cent.

Read that plainly: this is an iron player's week, and length off the tee buys very little. Our projection is 22 under par with the cut around 5 under, from a 144-man field. There is one prior edition to learn from, the 2025 playing won by Fleetwood, so course form is thin for everyone. The case for weighting course history is correspondingly weaker here than at a venue with a long rota.

The numbers behind the card

Two things shaped these selections more than our own model did.

The first is season-long, field-adjusted strokes gained for this tour, which ranks approach play across the whole DP World Tour season rather than a 16-round window. On that measure Shane Lowry is 1st on tour for approach play at plus 1.20 per round, with Patrick Reed 4th and Daniel Hillier 8th. All three are on the card. It also moved a player off it: Jacob Skov Olesen looked 7th in this field on our own 16-round window, but across 93 rounds he is 27th overall and 49th for approach. We were buying four hot weeks.

The second is conversion, meaning how often a player actually turns good ball striking into a high finish. Our model gained a conversion factor this month, but it is scoped to PGA Tour events and is switched off here, so the rates below were computed by hand from our own DP World Tour results. If strokes gained is unfamiliar, our guide covers what these numbers measure.

Shane Lowry, 12/1, 1.25pt each-way

The strongest single signal on the board. 1st on the DP World Tour this season for approach play, on a course where approach is 37.8 per cent of the separation. He is also 1st of 124 ranked players in this field over his last 16 rounds at plus 2.52, and he finished T3 here in 2025 on the only previous playing. There is a win inside his last five starts.

Two things against. His conversion on this tour is modest, 20 top-10s from 103 starts, and at 12/1 a place returns 4.25 points against the 8 this card commits, so he needs to win or to be joined by a second result before the week pays.

Patrick Reed, 22/1, 1pt each-way

4th on tour for approach at plus 0.72 per round, and measured across 67 rounds, the largest sample of anyone near the top of that list. He is 6th of 124 in this field on 16-round form, holds at plus 1.49 once his best single event is stripped out, which is the best figure on this card, and converts at 29 top-10s from 90 starts.

The reservation is recent and real: two missed cuts in his last two starts, the most recent at the Open de España a week ago. He has never played this course.

Daniel Hillier, 28/1, 1pt each-way

The best course fit at a price. Hillier is 8th on tour for approach, 6th off the tee and 5th for ball striking, which is precisely the combination Delhi rewards, and he finished T9 here in 2025. He is 19th of 124 on 16-round form and 9th for approach on that window.

Against him: the weakest conversion of the three main picks at 15 top-10s from 113 starts, a recent run of T26, T30, T36 and T46 with only a T2 to lift it, and he ranks 147th on tour around the green.

Thriston Lawrence, 60/1, 0.5pt each-way

A course-form and pedigree selection rather than a form one, and this page should be explicit about that. For him: T3 here in 2025, six career DP World Tour wins, and 28 top-10s from 138 starts, a 20 per cent conversion rate that is the best of anyone on this card. He also won six starts ago.

Against him, substantially: he is 63rd of 124 in this field over his last 16 rounds at minus 0.07 per round, 89th for approach on a course that demands it, and his form falls further to minus 0.30 with his best week removed. Three missed cuts in his last five. We are backing the record and the course against current form that says no.

Yuvraj Sandhu, 225/1, 0.25pt each-way

A local-knowledge flier at a quarter of a point, and the reasoning sits outside our data entirely. Sandhu has won this year and added a 3rd, a 4th and a 6th on the Asian Tour and the Indian circuit. We hold no data for either, so none of it reaches our model, which ranks him 83rd of 144.

What we do hold is unflattering and we will not hide it: 21 DP World Tour starts, 16 missed cuts, no top-10 finishes at all, 105th of 124 in this field on 16-round form, 117th for approach, and a missed cut at Delhi in 2025. His one result of note on this tour is 13th at the Open de France last month.

The bet is that his home form transfers and the tour record does not matter. At 0.25pt a place returns 11.50 and pays for the week on its own.

The card

• Shane Lowry - 12/1 - 1.25pt each-way
• Patrick Reed - 22/1 - 1pt each-way
• Daniel Hillier - 28/1 - 1pt each-way
• Thriston Lawrence - 60/1 - 0.5pt each-way (longshot)
• Yuvraj Sandhu - 225/1 - 0.25pt each-way (longshot)

All five are each-way at bet365, 1/5 odds, 8 places, with dead-heat rules on shared places. Each-way is two bets of the same size, so the card commits 8pts in total. Our guide to each-way golf betting explains why 8 places changes which prices are worth taking.

A note on those prices, because it matters and we got it wrong before. The three main picks are quoted from bet365's 1/5 8-places column, which is the market we settle to. Odds aggregators show bet365's 1/4 5-places price instead, and it runs 7 to 10 per cent longer: Lowry reads 14/1 there against 12/1 at our terms. Our recent Alfred Dunhill Links and Open de España cards took prices from that column and overstate their returns accordingly. The two longshots here are quoted from the headline column because the 8-place price was not available to us, and will be shorter in practice.

Every selection is settled in public, win or lose. The running profit and loss is on the DP World Tour tips track record.