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The DP World Tour now takes on a very familiar feel in the run-up to the Open Championship in two months’ time with events in the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden before events in Ireland and Scotland, England and Wales. The first of these is the Dutch Open which started 110 years ago. Previously called the KLM Dutch Open between 1981 and 1990 and simply the KLM Open from 2004 to 2019, KLM dropped its sponsorship duties last year and so the event is simply the Dutch Open. With that loss of sponsorship, there is a loss of prize money and this is reflected in the field, but there is also a change of scheduling for this event. Having been played in mid-September for many years, it has now moved to mid-May following the PGA Championship. That also impacts on the field. For the second year in a series of three, the event is hosted at Bernardus Golf, south of s-Hertogenbosch. This is a Kyle Phillips course that was only opened in 2018. It is a flat, heathland course with water coming into play on 10 holes and extensive bunkering throughout that brings in a risk/reward aspect. Last year’s event confirmed the lack of growth of the rough given the very young age of the course: Kristoffer Broberg won with a score of 23-under-par while being very erratic off the tee. Basically, despite the investment in the course and particularly in the heather, this course is aimed at the golf tourist so another year of low scoring is expected. That last year’s event was won by a player at 275/1 pre-tournament, trading as high as 570 on Betfair, suggests that not a great deal can be learned from just one event. With the course being just four years old, there is also reason to be cautious this week. As such, only two angles are offered to identify players who should contend. Angles to consider: 1. This is a second-shot course As outlined above, the lack of maturity of the course means it should again play very open this year so the driver should not be an important club. There isn’t even evidence that either distance or accuracy off the tee prevailed last year. However, for all that Broberg’s win was based on his short game, there is plenty of evidence that greens in regulation was a key stat last year: the top-ten on the leaderboard contained players in the top-four positions for greens in regulation, plus 2nd-placed Matti Schmid ranked 6th in that category. As has been argued previously in this column, when the Tour reaches low-scoring resort courses, greens in regulation stats are a good predictor of low scores as these tend to be second-shot courses. 2. Scrambling should also matter Where a player finished in the top-10 last year and didn’t rank highly for greens in regulation, they ranked highly for scrambling instead. This was particularly the case for Broberg who led the field in this stat, whereas he ranked 6th for putts per round and 2nd for putts per GIR. Broberg putted well, as he must have done to achieve a score of 23-under-par, but it was his short game in general that was responsible for his low score. He dropped just two shots over the first three rounds as he opened up an eight-shot lead before the start of the final round. Selections The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following players has been selected. Jason Scrivener
Scriver has finished in the top-20 in both his previous starts in this event (2017, 2018) and, while he didn’t play here last year, he looks well-suited to this course: he has ranked in the top-5 for greens in regulation in two of his last three DP World Tour starts. With a top-10 finish in the Zurich Classic of New Orleans last month, he is a player in decent form and has a top-5 finish on a Kyle Phillips course (2017 Rocco Forte Open) so looks good value at these odds in this field. George Coetzee
Coetzee is a five-time winner on this Tour and his form is evidenced by a couple of top-5 finishes in South Africa in the last two months. He finished 50th here last year, but was on a run of poor form at the time so is expected to perform better this year. He ranks inside the top-25 for scrambling and strokes gained: around the green, as well as 6th for putts per GIR, so he has the short game to score very here. Yannik Paul
After competing on the Canadian Tour until 2019 and then the Challenge Tour last year, the German has made a very impressive start to his rookie season on this Tour. He opened with a top-10 finish in the Joburg Open, secured another in ISPS Handa Championship in Spain and then finished 2nd in the Soudal Open two weeks ago. In his last two events, he has ranked inside the top-7 for both greens in regulation and scrambling, as well as the top-5 for strokes gained: tee-to-green. In this type of form, and particularly with those stats and this course, he looks set for another high finish this week. Tips 0-3; -6.00pts 1pt e.w. Jason Scrivener 80/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8) mc 1pt e.w. George Coetzee 55/1 (Coral, Ladbrokes 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8) mc 1pt e.w. Yannik Paul 60/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8) mc
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