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With the last European Tour event taking place four weeks ago, it seems a long time since Stephen Gallacher won the Indian Open. Apart from a Challenge Tour event three weeks ago and a couple of Pro Golf Tours events, there have been few outings in April from this week’s field. They will need to have practiced hard for this week’s course. The Red Course at Royal Golf Dar Es Salam, Rabat, is of Robert Trent Jones design. It is classical in setup with narrow, tree-lined fairways, numerous dog-legs and undulating, upturned-saucer greens. Those greens were renovated in 2017 to enable more pin positions, but this is still a very stern test. The course measures 7,557 yards and, in the three years that the Red Course has been the sole venue, no winner has been double-digits under par. The event had previously been held here in 2010, but it was held over both the Red and Blue Courses and Rhys Davies won with a score of 25-under-par. That is very different to the event that has been played in the last three years, so the angles to consider are based only on those three years. Angles to consider 1. Good when returning from a break Hurly Long has continued his excellent form on the Pro Golf Tour and Jack Senior finished 4th in the Jordan Mixed Open, but otherwise few of this week’s players have completed in Tour event in the last three weeks and very few of these have shown any form in those events. An obvious angle is to look at who plays well following a break of 3+ weeks. This can be done via the ‘consecutive weeks’ database query here: https://www.tour-tips.com/fpdb/mensrest.asp. Only one of the last three Trophee Hassan II events at Dar Es Salam in instructive in this regard. In 2016, the event was played two weeks after the Shenzhen International and last year it was played the week after the Open de Espana, but in 2017 it was played five weeks after the Indian Open. The winner in 2017, Edoardo Molinari, had finished 7th in the South African Open earlier that year after a four-week break, his best finish since 2014. 2. Par-4s the key to success on the Red Course When scoring is difficult, the standard logic is that good scores can be made on the par-5s, but that is not the case here. The shortest par-5 is 567 yards in length, so eagles are short in supply. The par-5s were played 1,828 times last year and there were only 17 eagles. Aggregating over the last three years, 24 players have ranked inside the top-10 for par-4 scoring for the week and finished inside the top-10 on the leaderboard. For comparison, of those finishing in the top-10, 15 ranked inside the top-10 for par-3 scoring and 13 inside the top-10 for par-5 scoring over the three years. 3. Scrambling is always important around Trent Jones courses In 2016, four of the top-10 on the leaderboard ranked inside the top-5 for scrambling that week, while Edoardo Molinari won the 2017 despite ranking outside the top-20 for driving distance, driving accuracy and greens in regulation, but ranking 1st in scrambling that week. There were some amendments to the greens in 2017, but this angle remained just as strong last year when Alexander Levy won the event, ranking outside the top-10 for driving distance, driving accuracy, greens in regulation, putts per GIR and putts per round, but ranked 2nd for scrambling. The top-ranked player in this category, Joost Luiten, finished inside the top-10. Selections The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following player has been selected. Victor Dubuisson At the peak of his game five years ago, his scrambling abilities were likened to Seve Ballesteros. That seems a long time ago after niggling injuries (knee, sinuses) and disillusionment with the game kept him away from the top of the leaderboard. That changed after a major layoff last year caused him to re-evaluate his priorities. He has started this year with some very good performances. In five starts in 2019, he has recorded three top-20 finishes, including a top-10 finish in the Indian Open last time out. With a 4th place finish here on his only previous visit (2017), he is an obvious selection in terms of current and course form. But that 4th place finish in 2017 is much more significant given his lack of form and motivation at the time. It was his first top-10 finish in six months and it would be another six months before he recorded another top-10 finish. The course clearly suited his game. That performance in 2017 is notable in two more ways. It was his first start in two months, so it is clear evidence that he plays well after a break. Similarly, he finished 12th in the Oman Open earlier this year after a three-week break. He also ranked 1st in par-4 scoring in 2017. He has maintained that scoring profile in his current game, ranking 23rd on the European Tour in par-4 scoring this season. In this category, he ranks ahead of the clear market leader, Joost Luiten, even though the Dutchman warrants his shorter odds in the outright market given Dubuisson’s long road back from injury. Tips 0-1; -6.00pts 6pts Victor Dubuisson to finish in the top-five 11/2 (Bet365, Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook and Boyle Sports) 30th
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