Preview & Tips

The UK Nostalgia Swing comes to a close this week with a visit to another former home of a European Tour event and some of the most famous European Ryder Cup victories. Not to worry, though. There is another trip to a former venue of European Ryder Cup success next week.

The field is boosted by a host of players – Kaymer, Perez, Schwab, Wallace, Wiesberger and Willett – who return to Europe after competing in the U.S. since the re-start. They will find the Covid-secure environment here rather different to that on the PGA Tour. It gives the field an improved look over previous weeks, though some have taken the opportunity to take a break since qualification for the U.S. Open is now complete.

They will compete on a relatively flat, tree-lined parkland course that features water on some rather famous holes: the driveable par-4 10^th hole, the reachable par-5 17^th hole and the challenging par-4 18^th hole. The rest of the course is rather mild in comparison, but it should make for a very interesting finale.

Apart from hosting four Ryder Cups between 1985 and 2002, the course was a regular venue on the European Tour between 1979 and 2008, most recently the Benson and Hedges International between 2000 and 2003 and the British Masters between 2006 and 2008. It seems such a long time since the EU-wide ban on sponsorship of sporting events by tobacco firms in July 2005.

The course typically played tough with narrow fairways and smaller-than-average greens. The lack of preparation for this event and the recent wet weather may change the way that this course plays compared to 12 years ago, but this will still be a good test of ball-striking as well as a made-for-TV finish.

Here are a couple of angles to identify players who should contend.

Angles to consider:

1. Form has been important since the re-start

This has been a regular feature since the Tour re-start and with strong reasons. Before last week, there had been five events since the Tour re-start at the Austrian Open and all five winners had secured a top-15 finish within the previous two weeks. Admittedly, Romain Langasque’s win last week in challenging weather conditions brought that run to an end, but he had still finished 26^th two weeks previously so he did have form heading into the event. And the player that he overtook on the back nine – Sami Valimaki – had finished 6^th the previous week before finishing 2^nd last week.

2. Tee-to-green is key on this course

The last six winners on this course – Henrik Stenson, Angel Cabrera, Paul Casey, Johan Edfors, Lee Westwood, and Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano – were all very good tee-to-green and all less than stellar around the greens. There are no stats for Stenson (2001) and Cabrera (2002), but they both possessed power off the tee and had very good greens in regulation stats at that time of their careers. The other four all ranked inside the top-20 for driving distance that week, but that was not the case for driving accuracy. The driveable par-4 10^th hole and three par-5s that are reachable in two and so reward players that have power off the tee. But, as outlined in the last couple of weeks, Ryder Cup venues are strong test of the whole of the game as well as providing a strong risk-reward element.

Selections

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

David Dixon

A fitting player for a nostalgia trip. A European Tour regular until 2016 and a former winner on Tour – 2008 St Omer Open – Dixon was the last player in the field last week and made the most of it to finish 3^rd. And it wasn’t a fluke either. He finished rd1 in 13^th position and had moved further up the leaderboard at the end of every round. Despite his Tour rustiness, his game was very solid last week, ranking 14^th in stroked gained: approaches, and his high finish has seen him return to this venue. Not many in this field competed on this course in the first decade of the century, but Dixon did. He secured a top-10 finish after being the first round leader in 2003 and was again in the top-10 after the first round the last time this course was used in 2008. It is a long time ago, but he has been competitive against some very strong fields on this course and has the form to carry over to this week.

Garrick Higgo

The 21-year-old South African has had a great start to his professional career. He held a golf scholarship at UNLV but left early to turn professional instead. He won his first event on the Big Easy Tour – the Southern Africa developmental Tour – in May 2019 and then won the next event on the main Southern Africa Tour. He battled through the 2019 European Tour Qualifying School from Stage 1 to the Final Qualifying Stage to earn conditional status on the European Tour for this season. At the start of this year, he finished 2^nd in the Cape Town Open and won the Southern Africa Tour Championship just before the Tours closed down. He then joined the European Tour re-start with a 6^th place finish in the Euram Bank Open, the 2^nd European Tour event in Austria, and is now currently the last player in the field – Category 22 for those who made the cut on the 2019 European Tour Qualifying School. There is a symmetry with Dixon and last week. The left-hander is long off the tee so this course should suit the young attacking player. He certainly has the talent to win and will be a European Tour regular very soon if he maintains his current career trajectory.

Tips  0-2; -4.00pts

1pt e.w. David Dixon 200/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook, Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7)  55th

1pt e.w. Garrick Higgo 150/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7)  47th