Twelve tournaments on, the 1998 European Tour finally lands across the water in Britain - and the serious money is up for grabs. Nothing tempts a professional out onto the fairway as quickly as the lure of money and the field for this week's Benson and Hedges International at The Oxfordshire is top-heavy with big names.

Colin Montgomerie, who has topped the Volvo rankings for the past five years, reappears for just his third event of the European Tour and, in a lowly 99th place on the current moneylist, he has a lot of work to do to get back to the top. Anyway, Montgomerie, whose wife Eimear gave birth to a baby boy last week, is installed as 9 to 1 joint favourite with in-form Spaniard Jose Maria Olazabal for the £650,000 tournament.

Bernhard Langer, the defending champion, is a 20 to 1 shot. The German, however, is struggling with a shoulder problem and, even with the old adage of "beware the injured golfer", the problem badly affected him in last week's event in Spain and he's probably best avoided this time around.

Lee Westwood is a player who likes this course and, at 12 to 1, represents a decent enough bet to take the top prize. And Sweden's Patrik Sjoland, who broke his European Tour duck two weeks ago when winning the Italian Open, is again generously priced at 33 to 1 and, at those odds, is a very good each-way bet.

9-1: Colin Montgomerie (Scot), Jose Maria Olazabal (Sp).

12-1: Lee Westwood (Eng).

16-1: Ian Woosnam (Wal), Thomas Bjorn (Den).

20-1: Bernhard Langer (Ger).

25-1: Darren Clarke (Ire).

33-1: Per-Ulrik Johansson (Swe), Eduardo Romero (Arg), Mark McNulty (Zim), Retief Goosen (SA), Andrew Coltart (Scot), Patrik Sjoland (Swe), David Howell (Eng).

40-1: Mark James (Eng), Robert Karlsson (Swe), Greg Turner (NZ), Paul McGinley (Ire), Robert Allenby (Aus), Peter Baker (Eng), Phillip Price (Wal).

Also: 66-1: Padraig Harrington.

Prices supplied courtesy of Ladbrokes Ireland.