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It is week six of seven on the ‘GB&I’ leg of the DP World Tour. After the links courses in July, the Tour moves to Wales and a former Ryder Cup venue, before heading to Northern Ireland next week. Given the controversy around Ryder Cup captains over the last week, it is somewhat ironic that we are at the scene of the 2010 Ryder Cup where Henrik Stenson failed to qualify for the team, and Luke Donald was a captain’s pick and finished as joint-top scorer that week. The Wales Open (without the sponsor’s naming rights) was a regular feature on the European Tour between 2000 and 2014, always played at the Celtic Manor Resort. Between 2000 and 2004, it was played on the Wentworth Hills course, followed by three years on the Roman Road course, and from 2008 to 2014 at the Twenty Ten course, the venue for the 2010 Ryder Cup. The event and course made a return in 2020 (the venue was also used for the Celtic Classic the week before) and is once again a regular feature on this Tour. The Twenty Ten course is formed of the original Robert Trent Jones II-designed Wentworth Hills course and nine new holes designed by Ross McMurray. That gives the course a rather disjointed look with a links feel at the start, lakes being a feature in the middle section and a challenging finish. A driveable par-4 15th hole does appear to pander more to the match play format of the Ryder Cup, though. Overall, the fairways are generous, but the water provides penalties for the overly wayward. At 7,503 yards, the course is rather long for a par-71, but the presence of water means that there hasn’t been any notable advantage to either distance or accuracy off the tee. Part of that is due to the wide variety of tees on offer at this course and the Tour’s willingness to use a wide range of them. That gives the organisers the ability to make the course play very long, or relatively short, on each day. Given that this is a Ryder Cup venue, there is a risk-reward element to the course and it is a good test of ability. Here are a few angles to identify players who should contend. Angles to consider: 1. Course experience should matter With no events played here between 2015 and 2019, this may not seem an obvious angle as few will have had previous course experience when playing in 2020 and 2021. As such, Romain Langasque was making his course debut when he won the 2020 Wales Open, but 17 of 20 players at the top of the leaderboard had competed previously on this course; mostly the week before. Six of the top-10 had finished in the top-15 the previous week and two of those that didn’t had competed on this course at least four times previously. In terms of last year’s event, all of the top-5 had completed in at least two events on this course previously. 2. Approach play is key this week This was a venue for the Ryder Cup and so is a strong test of the whole game, while providing a strong risk-reward element that suits more attacking players. That normally translates into good GIR stats and this is very evident from the winners here: the last eight winners here have ranked 1st-2nd-7th-26th-4th-12th-13th-8th in greens in regulation that week. Moving beyond traditional greens in regulation stats, the top-7 places on the leaderboard last year were filled with players who ranked in the top-8 for strokes gained: tee-to-green. 3. Good scores are built on the par-4s This is an unusual course in that there are five par-3s, four par-5s and only nine par-4s. That would normally indicate that performance on par-3s would be more important than on a ‘typical’ Tour course, but that is not borne out by the stats. Three of the top-4 last year ranked outside the top-20 for par-3 scoring, but the top-3 in par-4 scoring all ranked inside the top-4 on the leaderboard. The winner in both events in 2020 was ranked 1st for par-4 scoring and this was also the case in the previous event played here – the 2014 Wales Open – and in six of the ten Tour events played here. Selections The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following players has been selected. Jamie Donaldson
A local player from nearby Pontypridd, Donaldson has been the leading Welsh player on Tour for many years. He has some close to winning his home Open, finishing in the top-15 eight times, but no win yet. He is a player in good form, with top-10 finishes in the British Masters and Scottish Open, and has always been a very solid tee-to-green player which is ideal for this course. Matthew Jordan
Jordan’s form is more circumspect with the last of his four top-15 finishes this year occurring in May, but he closed with a 67 in his last start to jump 27 places up the leaderboard in the Cazoo Classic. Most importantly, he does have a good record here, finishing 3rd in the 2020 Wales Open and being 6th at the mid-point of the Celtic Classic the week before. Jorge Campillo
Campillo is another with a good history on the Twenty Ten course, finishing 8th in the 2020 Wales Open despite opening with a 75. He has been very consistent on Tour this year, making the cut in 15 of 19 starts, and this sees him rank inside the top-40 of scoring average and greens in regulation on the DP World Tour, but he has been challenging for the title much more recently. He lead the field after 36 holes and was 2nd after 54 holes before finishing 7th in the Irish Open, while he was inside the top-10 after 36 holes last week before a third round 76 meant that he finished 30th. In short, he has shown that he is one good round away from winning for the third time in the last three years on this Tour. Tips 0-3; -6.00pts 1pt e.w. Jamie Donaldson 70/1 (10Bet, Sport Nation 1/4 1-2-3-4-5) mc 1pt e.w. Matthew Jordan 66/1 (LiveScoreBet 1/4 1-2-3-4-5) mc 1pt e.w. Jorge Campillo 50/1 (available generally 1/4 1-2-3-4-5) 40th
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