Preview & Tips

The three-week Canary Islands Swing comes to an end with the inaugural Canary Islands Championship on the same course as last week. This will be the fourth time in the past year that the same course has been used for two weeks in a row, but this is probably the last time that it will happen, for a while at least.

As this is the third week in the Canary Islands and, presumably, as the Tour has a Wednesday start for next week’s British Masters, there is a much weaker field on view this week. Joost Luiten, Joachim B. Hansen, Max Kieffer, Thorbjorn Olesen and all three of last week’s selections, Mattias Schwab, Antoine Rozner and Kurt Kitayama, have decided to skip this event. All but the last two have already entered next week’s event at The Belfry.

In terms of the course, there is not much that can be added one week on from last week’s preview. This is a resort course for golf tourists so that means that there are wide, rolling fairways and very little rough. Dean Burmester won last week and ranked 1^st in driving distance which confirms that impression of the course, however it was notable that the driving accuracy stats were very low. John Catlin led that stat last week with just 56% of fairways hit. The last time that the percentage of fairways hit was so low was the 2004 Open de Madrid. The low scoring despite the lack of fairways found confirms the lack of penal rough.

In terms of the other previewed characteristics, the greens were smaller than expected, but the unusual structure of six par-3s, seven par-4s and five par-5s was borne out. There were lots of birdies (28 for Burmester) and players had to score well on the par-3s much more than in previous tournaments.

With little else to add to last week’s preview, the following angles have been identified as potentially effective predictors this week.

Angles to consider:

1. Birdies not strokes gained: approach the green will be an important predictor

Last week, the #1 angle was on strokes gained: approach the green and given that Burmester won and ranked 1^st in that category, Nicolai Von Dellinghausen finished 2^nd and ranked 3^rd in that category, Adrian Meronk finished 3^rd and ranked 2^nd in that category, Kalle Samooja finished 3^rd and ranked 17^th and Catlin finished 5^th  and ranked 5^th in that category, it could be seen as very strong evidence in favour of the angle. But let’s remember that is predictive stats that are important, not ex post. Burmester ranked 95^th in that category on the European Tour prior to the event, Von Dellinghausen ranked 156^th, Meronk ranked 79^th, Samooja ranked 47^th and Catlin ranked 45^th. There was no indication from their pre-event stats that they would fill the top-5 places in that stat during the week and so the top-5 places on the leaderboard. This makes Golf Costa Adeje an unusual low-scoring course on which it is normally stokes gained: putting that identifies the top of the leaderboard when looking back at the event. Therefore, it will be that other measure of ability to create lots of birdies that will be the metric used for this angle this week: birdies per round. I don’t have rankings for this category prior to last week’s event, but Burmester currently ranks 23^rd, Von Dellinghausen currently ranks 6^th, Meronk currently ranks 37^th, Samooja currently ranks 18^th and Catlin currently ranks 78^th in that category.

2. Par-3 scoring stats cannot be ignored on this course

This stat was overlooked last week, but the importance of the six par-3s to overall scoring has been highlighted above. But, more importantly, it was also a good predictor of success on this course. As with the birdies per round stats, I don’t have rankings for this category prior to last week’s event, but Burmester currently ranks 2^nd, Von Dellinghausen currently ranks 6^th, Meronk currently ranks 30^th, Samooja currently ranks 12^th and Catlin ranks 23^rd in par-3 scoring on the European Tour this season. Those are impressive rankings given the quality of field this week.

Selections

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

Kalle Samooja

Samooja wasn’t in the original field for this event, but clearly enjoyed his experience here last week. He started the final round in a share of the lead and eventually finished 3^rd to record his fourth top-5 finish in his last 20 European Tour starts. In terms of birdies and par-3 scoring, he ranks high in this category as explained above, but he also ranks highly in terms of par-5 scoring – 16^th on the European Tour. It all points to a good week against a weaker field on this course.

Dean Burmester

Winning back-to-back on the same course was an angle in the second Kenya event with Justin Harding and when he led by three shots at the start of the final round, it looked to be a very profitable angle. The reasons for that angle were explained in the preview for the Kenya Savannah Classic, and there are still reasons for this to hold with Burmester. He looked extremely comfortable when winning by five shots on Sunday, the camaraderie was evident amongst the South African players when he won on the 18^th green and he was the fourth South African to win in five events on the European Tour. He has the form and ability to at least match Harding’s performance in Kenya for three rounds and this time convert the chance for a back-to-back victory.

Justin Harding

After the disappointment of failing to win consecutive events in Kenya (he finished 14^th in the second week after a final round collapse), Harding missed the cut in the arctic conditions in Austria and then finished in the top-15 in both events in the Canary Islands. He is a very different player to his compatriot, Burmester, but it is difficult to argue against this form and it has been on low-scoring resort courses – his tournament scores have 21-under-par, 15-under-par, 15-under-par and 15-under-par.

Tips  1-2; -3.80pts

1pt e.w. Kalle Samooja 25/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook, Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7)  9th

1pt e.w. Dean Burmester 18/1 (Bet365 1/4 1-2-3-4-5)  4th

1pt e.w. Justin Harding 18/1 (Paddy Power, Betfair Sportsbook 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7)  38th