Preview & Tips

Yes, there is another Tour event taking place this week! While 99% of the golfing world turns its attention to the Players Championship at the TV-friendly TPC Sawgrass course, the European Tour is breaking new ground (again this year) by sanctioning its first-ever event in Kenya.

The field quality is lower than standard European Tour events, as expected, but not unworthy of an event at this level. Justin Harding ranks 52^nd in the World Rankings, better than 93 players competing at Sawgrass, and this event boasts 45 players who have a higher World Ranking than the lowest-ranked player at Sawgrass (Vijay Singh, 464^th).

There are similarities to the Oman Open two weeks ago in that the course (and in this case, also the event) had been a long-time feature on the Challenge Tour, so there is plenty of previous history to draw upon, though the Challenge Tour only record scoring data in their events.

However, there is also the inaugural Karen Masters which was played on this course in July last year and the Southern Africa Tour does record shot as well as scoring data. Even though there were changes to the course in 2015, notably the greens were changed from Bermuda to Bentgrass, the stats from the Karen Masters confirm the stats/angles evident from the previous Kenya Opens held at Karen Country Club.

Angles to consider

1. Greens in regulation and scrambling are key stats

These stats aren’t available from the Kenya Opens played on the Challenge Tour, but their importance is evident from the Karen Masters. Not only did the winner, Michael Palmer, rank 1^st in greens in regulation, all five players in the top-5 for both greens in regulation and scrambling finished in the top-15 on the leaderboard.

By comparison, you have to drop to 50^th on the leaderboard to find all top-5 players in driving distance that week and 39^th on the leaderboard to find all top-5 players in driving accuracy.

2. Par-4 scoring will be key

This is a stat recorded by the Challenge Tour. The Kenya Open has been split between Karen CC and Muthaiga CC, so it is important to only consider those events played on this week’s course (2013-2016, in the last ten years). Across those four events played here, the winner ranked 1^st-3^rd-1^st-1^st in par-4 scoring.

By comparison, he was 11^th-1^st-17^th-44^th in par-3 scoring that week and 16^th-54^th-48^th-7^th in par-5 scoring, which rather confirms the importance of approach play (greens in regulation stat) over driving distance (typically important on par-fives).

This angle was confirmed at the Karen Masters in July. Although Palmer ranked 1^st in par-5 scoring, he ranked 5^th in par-4 scoring and the top-4 on the leaderboard ranked 5^th-1^st-2^nd-2^nd in par-4 scoring that week.

The European Tour has changed the order of some of the holes played for this event and changed the 553-yard 3^rd hole into a par-4, but this is unlikely to affect this angle.

3. Previous experience in the Kenya Open is important

In the last ten years, only one winner of this event (Seve Benson, 2012, Muthaiga CC) won on his event debut. Given the transitory nature of this Tour – the best players are promoted to the European Tour at the end of each season and likewise at the lower end of the Challenge Tour Rankings – the ability to accumulate course or event history is limited on this Tour, but it has been important for the winner of this event.

This angle was also confirmed in the Karen Masters as the winner had previously recorded a top-20 finish on this course in the 2016 Kenya Open.

Selections

The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following player has been selected.

Justin Harding

It has already been mentioned that he is ranked 52^nd in the World Rankings, better than 65% of the players at Sawgrass this week, but given that the 2^nd-highest player, Shubhankar Sharma, is ranked 117^th in the World Rankings, it is clear how much of a gulf there is between Harding and the rest of the field.

He is the second-best scrambler in this field according to the European Tour stats for this season (though ranked lower – 28^th – in greens in regulation) and he ranked the highest of this week’s field in Par-4 Scoring on the European Tour. He ranks 12^th overall in that category, the only player in this week’s field to be ranked inside the top-30 on the European Tour in this stat.

He also has previous experience in the Kenya Open – he played in 2012 in only his second year as a pro – and he also played on this course last year in the Karen Masters and finished 18^th.

He won the Qatar Masters last week and, even though he is stand-out player this week, it is still tough to win back-to-back events, so the place markets look a safer option to back the South African this week. His form this year – 7^th-11^th-4^th-26^th-mc-1^st - suggests that he should contend most weeks and not be relied upon to win.

Tips  1-0; +18.00pts

6pts Justin Harding to finish in the top-five 3/1 (Unibet and 888Sport)  2nd