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This is going to be an eventful week. From Monday’s AGM which several LIV players attended and grilled Keith Pelley on the Strategic Alliance with the PGA Tour to the banning of LIV players from Wednesday’s pro-am, LIV Golf will be centre stage which is great for the media, but disastrous PR for the Tour at their flagship event. They will be really hoping that a LIV player doesn’t win this week. It may seem to be part of the Strategic Alliance that this event takes place when the PGA Tour is in recess, but the change from a May slot was actioned in 2019 when the Majors were compressed into a three-month period. This led to stronger fields as the usually-absent leading European players returned from the PGA Tour to compete in this event. With the controversial decision to also extend eligibility for this event to anyone inside the top 60 of the OWGR as of Monday 18th July and Monday 22nd August, the field is even stronger this year with ten of the top-30 competing, compared to only four last year. They will play on the West course at Wentworth which has hosted this event since 1984. At 7,267 yards, the course is not long by Tour Standards, but this is a tree-lined heathland course which should put rather more emphasis on position off the tee rather than power. A look back at driving stats over the years here does not point to any clear advantage of power or accuracy off the tee, or at least in terms of the final leaderboard. One note of caution re: course history, though. As well as the 2019 move from Spring to Autumn, which typically results in courses playing shorter as the ground is harder, there have been major renovations to the course in 2009 and more notably after the 2016 BMW PGA Championship which restored the course more in line with the original Harry Colt approach and the greens were replaced with pure bentgrass and are much better as a result. That said, there is still enough course history with the above caveats to identify some angles which should be profitable this week. Angles to consider: 1. Course form matters at Wentworth Despite the large-scale changes to the course in the last decade, there is always a familiarity to the leaderboard at Wentworth. Billy Horschel won last year, having finished 4th two years beforehand; Tyrrell Hatton won in 2020 to follow up a 7th place finish four years previously; Willett won the previous year to follow up a 3rd place finish three years beforehand; Molinari won in 2018 to follow up a 2nd place finish the previous year; Noren won in 2017 to follow up an 8th place finish two years beforehand; Wood won in 2016 to follow up a 4th place finish the previous year; and so on. With the exception of Byeong Hun An, who won on his debut in 2015, you need to go back to Scott Drummond in 2004 to find a winner here who hadn’t already secured a top-10 finish at Wentworth. 2. This a second-shot course When Horschel won last year, ranking first for greens in regulation that week, he became the tenth winner in 16 years to rank inside the top-four for that stat. He was also top-ranked for strokes gained: tee-to-green and strokes gained: approach the green. As pointed out above, though, long-term trends can be misleading because of the date and course changes. Given that Hatton ranked 22nd in greens in regulation in 2020, that may have been enough to shelve this angle, but runner-up Perez ranked 2nd in greens in regulation and, more importantly, Hatton ranked 1st in strokes gained: tee-to-green that year. That is enough to retain this as an angle, though strokes gained: tee-to-green and strokes gained: approach the green should be considered just as much as the traditional greens in regulation measure. 3. Scrambling will also be important Last year, Horschel top-ranked for strokes gained: tee-to-green, strokes gained: approach-the-green and greens in regulation, but he also ranked 3rd in scrambling. It was a similar story a year earlier with Hatton ranking 1st in scrambling and 2nd in strokes gained: around the green. In 2019, Willett ranked only 8th in scrambling, but it was notable that the top-3 in scrambling all finished in the top-6 on the leaderboard. Molinari won the event in 2018 and ranked 1st for scrambling, while Noren won in 2017 and ranked 4th in scrambling. This isn’t a long course, but the new sub-air system to keep the greens firm and dry, as well as the switch to Autumn from Spring, have made the short game even more important around this challenging course.
4. LIV or not LIV This isn’t angle, but a handicapping quandary. The distractions of the media questions around LIV have clearly negatively affected those players when they have competed in recent DP World Tour events. None have contended for a title, other Richard Bland who was 2nd after rd1 of the ISPS Handa World Invitational, but then failed to break 70 again and missed the 54-hole cut. But he was the only LIV player competing that week, so it was easy to feel isolated/intimidated (delete as appropriate). Similarly, Ian Poulter finished only 23rd in the Czech Masters the following week, but the only other LIV player in the field was Laurie Canter who also finished 23rd. This week is different. There is strength in numbers. There are 17 players this week who have competed in LIV Golf events and, as with the player’s AGM on Monday, they are making a loud, collective noise. Consider Henrik Stenson’s performance in the LIV Golf Bedminster event. It has been at least three years since he played that well. He had a point to make re: Ryder Cup captaincy and he certainly made it. I am erring on the side of this will be a good week for the LIV players, who have some very loud points to make, and a more uncomfortable week for their most vocal detractors, such as Rory McIlroy and Eddie Pepperell. Selections The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following players has been selected. Sergio Garcia
Not the most obvious selection given angle #1 as he hasn’t played on this course since 2014, but I think that the odds are inflated on the LIV players as it is assumed that they will find the pressure too much this week. He did have a good record beforehand, though with top-20 finishes in all six visits until 2013 and three top-5 finishes. He is also much happier than he was on the PGA Tour and this has been reflected in his performances with top-10 finishes in the last two LIV events. He has been removed from the PGA Tour stats rankings, but he has always been one of the best tee-to-green and round-the-green players. That represents value at these odds. Dean Burmester
Away from LIV Golf, Burmester is a more standard selection. He was among the 25 golfers to earn his PGA Tour card for the 2022/23 season at the Korn Ferry Tour Finals after finishing in the top-5 for both the Boise Open and last week’s Korn Ferry Tour Championship. When last on this Tour, he finished 10th in the Scottish Open and 11th in the Open Championship and has the game profile to play well around this course – he ranks inside the top-10 for both strokes gained: tee-to-green and strokes gained: around this green on the DP World Tour. In terms of angle #2, he finsihed 9th here in 2017 and was then 12th a year later. Lee Westwood
Back to a LIV player and one who looks set to win last week’s event until he finished bogey-birdie-bogey in his last three holes. The last hole being one of the easiest all week. Following on from his 6th place finish at Bedminster, the move to LIV has seen a resurgence in his form that had waned since he finished the 2019-20 season as Europe’s #1. He has a great record here, albeit mostly over a decade ago, but still has three top-20 finishes in the last six years. Like Garcia, he has been removed from Tour stats rankings, but he ranked 1st in greens in regulation at Bedminster and 2nd in scrambling at Boston last week, so his game profile still remains the same as it has always been when he plays well and it fits well with this course. Tips 0-3; -6.00pts 1pt e.w. Sergio Garcia 66/1 (LiveScoreBet 1/4 1-2-3-4-5) wd 1pt e.w. Dean Burmester 66/1 (Bet365 1/4 1-2-3-4-5-6) mc 1pt e.w. Lee Westwood 66/1 (Bet365 1/4 1-2-3-4-5-6) 13th
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