DP World India Championship 2025 Betting Tips: Lahiri to enjoy home comforts

After Marco Penge continued his superb season by claiming a third victory of 2025 in the Open de Espana last week, the DP World Tour now heads to Asia for the final four events of the 2024-25 season.

South Korea is the destination for next week’s Genesis Championship before the season concludes with a two-week stay in the U.A.E. First, it’s to India for a brand-new event: the DP World India Championship at the esteemed Delhi Golf Club.

Our golf tipster Jamie Worsley is here with his comprehensive preview of the event and has picked out five players to back each-way this week. Check out Jamie's thoughts and his DP World India Championship 2025 Betting Tips below...

THE COURSE

Delhi Golf Club will host this inaugural edition of the DP World India Championship, but it is no stranger to professional golf. It has staged 29 Indian Opens – most recently in 2016 – and during the last three years (2022 and 2023) it held the DGC Open on the Asian Tour, among many other events.

The course was designed in 1951 by General JH Wilkinson and was extensively renovated by Aussie legend Peter Thomson in 1977. Gary Player completed his own reworking in 2019, which included the increase of green sizes to enable more pin positions, along with the redesign of fairway bunkers and recontouring of fairways.

This diminutive par-72 layout measures 6912 yards and possesses 4x par 3s (166-195 yards), 10x par 4s (338-464 yards), and 4x par 5s (507-556 yards).

Delhi Golf Club is a traditional parkland course that requires a strategic approach to conquer. Flat, tight and densely tree-lined, with an array of trouble awaiting wayward ball-striking, it usually provides a demanding test, averaging a winning score of -11 across the last five events held here.

The fairways are narrow and predominantly doglegged, severely so in places. Well-placed and large bunkers litter the landing areas, but the main penalty comes from the tangly native rough, which is brutal and often impossible to play from.

Missing the short grass off the tee makes the challenge into the average-sized bermudagrass putting surfaces all the more difficult. These expertly-conditioned, undulating greens can get extremely firm if weather allows and are guarded by further strong bunkering, while several are encircled by run-offs.

With all four par 5s reachable in two and countless short par 4s, including the potentially drivable 15^th hole, Delhi Golf Club is a course, on paper, that is there to be got at. That being said, precision is absolutely vital, playing a part in keeping those winning scores honest, and it will be fascinating to see this high-class, modern field tackle the classic layout.

THE WEATHER

Conditions in India could become uncomfortable this week. Bright, hazy sunshine is forecast to be accompanied by temperatures of 30-36°C throughout, and nothing but a 4-5mph breeze to cool players down.

This should ensure we get these firm surfaces as fiery as possible, and alongside simply handling the heat, it creates one of the biggest challenges for the competitors.

KEY STATS

• SG: Approach/Greens-in-Regulation
• SG: Off-the-Tee/Driving Accuracy
• SG: Putting (bermudagrass)
• Par 5 Scoring

Delhi Golf Club is difficult to overpower, requiring players to navigate the tight, winding fairways with accuracy. This is something that is evident from each of those 2015 and 2016 Indian Opens held here, with players such as winner 2016 S.S.P Chawrasia, along with other top-five finishers like Marcus Fraser, Adilson Da Silva and Gregory Havret, all relying on accuracy over length.

That doesn’t mean we should entirely rule out the longer, less accurate players, as the course yardage will allow them to club down for position. Everyone will then need to work their magic with their irons into these tricky putting surfaces.

Furthermore, players who have previously putted well on firm bermudagrass greens will be of interest, and with the par 5s offering up the most obvious birdie chances, they’ll have to take advantage of those holes to contend this week.

CORRELATING EVENTS

It’s been almost a decade since the DP World Tour last visited Delhi Golf Club. Therefore, I’m not going to focus too much on comp form for this course. However, there are several current tour venues that share characteristics with this week’s venue and can provide some insight.

Two layouts that instantly spring to mind are The Belfry’s Brabazon Course and Muthaiga Golf Club, hosts of the British Masters and Kenya Open, respectively. Each of these courses are flat and tree-lined, with narrow, doglegging fairways; often resulting in leaderboards packed with straight hitters.

The Soudal Open at Rinkven International could be another valuable comp. While the fairways there aren’t quite as narrow as this week’s host, it is a densely tree-lined course of a similar length that requires players to adopt a strategic approach.

My final course this week is Leopard Creek Country Club, host of the Alfred Dunhill Championship. The fairways at this tree-lined, Gary Player design are hard to find, and players must master the firm bermudagrass greens to walk away with the trophy in South Africa.

THE FIELD

The first edition of the DP World India Championship has attracted a strong field, which is headed by world No. 2 Rory McIlroy. The Northern Irishman is not only joined by fellow Ryder Cup winners Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and Viktor Hovland, but captain Luke Donald will also tee it up in Delhi.

Americans Ben Griffin and Brian Harman add some extra intrigue to this week’s field. Meanwhile, Shubhankar Sharma leads the home challenge, alongside the current leading player on the Professional Golf Tour of India, Yuvraj Sandhu Singh, while former Indian Open winner Anirban Lahiri enters as one of the tournament invites.

*You can check out the latest DP World India Championship 2025 Odds and bet on this event over on betfred.com

SELECTIONS

Market leaders: Rory McIlroy 4/1, Tommy Fleetwood 6/1, Ben Griffin 17/2, Viktor Hovland 17/2, Brian Harman 20/1, Shane Lowry 20/1

The top of the market is formidable this week, but I do believe the fiddly nature of this challenge will level the playing field to those power players such as Rory McIlroy and Viktor Hovland.

With that I’m going to take five against the market leaders, beginning with Delhi Golf Club specialist Anirban Lahiri.

1.5 pts Anirban Lahiri each-way (1/5 - 6 places) @ 35/1

LIV golf’s Lahiri has recorded three top-10 finishes in 15 starts this year. He began 2025 with a 10^th-place finish in the International Series – India on the Asian Tour and picked up his second top-10 at LIV Adelaide, finishing 7^th. However, he blew those performances out of the water when 2^nd in LIV Virginia back in June and has remained in solid form since.

He’s achieved these results with quality right through the bag. The putter has been particularly impressive, ranking 12^th on LIV, and he also ranks 16^th in scrambling, 17^th in driving accuracy, and 26^th in greens-in-regulation – an ideal profile for this week’s test.

There is no need to speculate about his suitability to the course, as he has put together a superb record at Delhi Golf Club on previous visits. Aside from his win in the Indian Open here in 2015 – which was sandwiched between runner-up finishes at the course in 2013 and 2016 – he also won the 2011 Panasonic Open, along with the 2012 and 2013 editions of the SAIL-SBI Open – all events which were held on the Asian Tour.

Lahiri’s runner-up finish at LIV Andalucia at Valderrama last year suggests he’s a player who still enjoys playing these tighter, tree-lined courses, and I expect him to make his experience of Delhi Golf Club pay in front of a home crowd.

1.5 pts John Parry each-way (1/5 - 6 places) @ 33/1

John Parry’s straight-and-steady ball-striking game is perfectly suited to Delhi Golf Club. He’s currently playing the best golf of his career and as a player who won in India as recently as 2024, he should relish his return to the country this week.

Parry earned a first DP World Tour win in over 14 years in Mauritius at the end of last year and has threatened to add to that several times in 2025. He finished 2^nd in the Kenya Open back in February and has since added three further top-five finishes – 4^th in the Soudal Open, 3^rd in the Nexo Championship, and prior to last week’s 23^rd-place finish in Spain, he finished 3^rd at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship.

The Englishman excels with his irons, ranking 3^rd in approach and 9^th in greens-in-regulation. He’s regained control of the driver of late, ranking 41^st for the season in driving accuracy, and as the 36^th-best par-5 scorer, he’s well equipped to take advantage of those birdie opportunities.

Parry did play Delhi Golf Club back in 2015 and shot three under-par rounds to finish 17^th. He returned to this part of the world to win the Delhi Challenge on the HotelPlanner Tour last season, and having recorded finishes of 2^nd in Kenya, 2^nd at the Alfred Dunhill Championship, and 4^th at the Soudal Open in the last 12 months, his comp form reads as well as anyone’s.

1.25 pts Jayden Schaper each-way (1/5 - 6 places) @ 45/1

Jayden Schaper is another player who shines with his precision-based long game. He arrives in India after securing his eighth top-10 finish of the season in the Open de Espana, and possessing some handy form in correlating events, he can contend among those more proven competitors.

Schaper barely put a foot wrong in the first half of the year and went close several times, finishing 3^rd in the KLM Open, 4^th in the Kenya Open, and 5^th in Qatar and Austria. He had hit a flat spot prior to the Open de France three starts ago – missing four of his previous five cuts – but he bounced back with a 9^th-place finish there, and he then closed with a 67 to finish 5^th in Madrid last week.

The talented South African youngster hit the ball solidly there, which should come as no surprise for a player who ranks 13^th in greens-in-regulation, 22^nd in driving accuracy, 23^rd in approach, and 39^th off-the-tee this season. However, I was especially encouraged by his ranking of 10^th in putting – an area in which he ranks 123^rd season-long.

If Schaper can maintain those gains on the greens, he’ll be a serious danger this week around a course that looks an ideal fit – a belief that is strengthened by finishes of 2^nd and 4^th at Leopard Creek, and 4^th and 7^th at Muthaiga Golf Club.

1.25 pts Keita Nakajima each-way (1/5 - 6 places) @ 45/1

Keita Nakajima’s joint-best result of 2025 came when he defended his Indian Open title back in March, finishing 2^nd. He’s a player who has relinquished length for greater accuracy this year and having found form in approach in the final round of last week’s Baycurrent Classic, he looks ready to compete at the top of the leaderboard at Delhi Golf Club.

Nakajima’s runner-up finish in India followed another 2^nd-place finish the previous week in Singapore. Positive performances were rare thereafter, but he returned to form when 4^th at The Belfry six starts ago and while he’s not quite hit those heights since, his game remains in a good place.

The former No. 1 amateur finished 40^th back home in Japan last week thanks to a closing 66 – a round engineered by a high-class approach display, ranking 4^th on Sunday. He was surprisingly poor with the driver there, but that is a club with which he ranks 9^th in driving accuracy and 20^th off-the-tee this season.

Having finished 1^st and 2^nd in the last two editions of the Indian Open, Nakajima is clearly at ease here. With this year’s finish at The Belfry strengthening his case, he ticks plenty of boxes, and if he can combine his strength off the tee with his renewed quality in approach and a decent touch on the greens, he’ll be in a great position to challenge.

0.75 pts Nathan Kimsey each-way (1/5 - 6 places) @ 175/1

I’m going to finish with a punt on Englishman Nathan Kimsey at a huge price. We’ve seen small improvements in his game over his latest starts and as a straight hitter who has enjoyed previous trips to India, he can make a splash at Delhi Golf Club.

Kimsey missed much of last year due to injury but there were positives on show at the beginning of this season upon his return. He finished 11^th in the Alfred Dunhill Championship at the end of 2024 and started this year with two top-20 finishes in his first five outings, finishing 13^th in the Indian Open and 16^th in the South African Open.

He’s only hit the top-20 on one further occasion since, finishing 13^th in the KLM Open. However, he has displayed promise over his last three starts, following four missed cuts with a 28^th-place in the Open de France – at a similarly short, tight, tree-lined course – and he was 55^th in last week’s Open de Espana.

Every club in the bag has looked sound in those recent starts but it’s his long game that particularly appeals for this week’s demands. He’s a player whose accuracy off the tee is a real weapon, ranking 28^th in driving accuracy and 32^nd off-the-tee, and while those irons aren’t quite as dialled as he’d like, he does rank 23^rd in greens-in-regulation.

Kimsey has finished 13^th on each of his two previous starts at the Indian Open and having also put together some strong performances at Leopard Creek – finishing 11^th in 2022 and 2024 – this looks like the perfect spot for him to record his highest finish of the season.

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