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The first qualifying event for the 2023 European Ryder Cup team took place last week and the theme continues this week with the players competing at the venue of that Ryder Cup: Marco Simone Golf Club, outside Rome. Four Ryder Cup certainties – Rory McIlroy, Matt Fitzpatrick, Viktor Hovland and Tyrrell Hatton – all remain on the Tour for another week as they prepare for next year’s event. They compete in an event that dates back to 1925 and has been mainstay of the European (sic) Tour since its inception in 1972. Normally, this event is played on a rotation of narrow, tree-lined courses, but Italy’s first Ryder Cup has changed that. The event was played at Marco Simone last year and returns here this year. The course opened for play in 1988 and hosted the 1994 Italian Open. There is no point looking back at that event as the course has undergone a huge renovation in preparation for next year’s event. Unlike traditional Italian Open courses, this is a this is a parkland course with water featuring on seven holes. There are plenty of dog-legs, mostly right-to-left, particularly on the par-5s and blind approach shots to many greens. The feedback from the players was largely negative last year so there a lot at stake this week for the organisers who need to set up this course better by next year’s event. It has been said that this is a course for big-hitters, but that was not the case last year. Nicolai Hojgaard did win and was ranked inside the top-10 for driving distance on the European Tour at the time, but of the 11 players who finished in the top-10 last year, seven were ranked outside the top-100 for driving distance on the European Tour at the time. With six of the eleven being ranked outside the top-10 for driving accuracy on the European Tour at the time, it is clear that driving ability was not a factor last year. With the obvious caveat that there has only been one event played here in recent years, here are some angles which should be profitable this week. Angles to consider: 1. This a second-shot course As mentioned above, the presence of many dog-legs moves the key club away from the driver to the irons. This is in fitting with European Ryder Cup venues that take the focus away from the traditional power-hitting strengths of the American team. This leads to greens in regulation and strokes gained: approach the green as key stats, but these tend also to be testing courses, so good overall stats are required. Ryder Cup courses should be challenges if they are to test the best players in the world, but also reward risk-taking. Last year’s event showed that this course appears to fit that bill. While Nicolai Hojgaard is noted for his length off the tee, he ranked only 20th for driving distance when winning last year and this was his lowest rank for this stat in any European Tour event last year. He was restrained off the tee and that enabled him to rank 1st in strokes gained: tee-to-green and 6th in greens in regulation. The top-3 in greens in regulation all finished in the top-5 on the leaderboard last year. 2. Recovery shots also matter here Hojgaard also ranked 1st in scrambling last year, as well as strokes gained: tee-to-green. With both runners up, Adrian Meronk and Tommy Fleetwood, also ranking inside the top-8 for scrambling that week, this rather confirms the player feedback that hitting to the greens wasn’t easy, principally because of the blind approach shots. In this scenario, recovery shots will always be important. 3. Form (and so momentum) is important at this stage of the season That small group of LIV players and the top-20 in the PGA Tour’s PIP scheme are set to make tens of millions of pounds over the next year or so. Looking at the media, these are the only players who matter. But for everyone else, and that includes over 95% of this week’s field, this is a hard profession and particularly so on the DP World Tour with a schedule that totals almost 150,000 miles. Fatigue is a major factor at this stage of the season and so momentum is always very important. Form is also a sign that the potential loss of a Tour Card has been all but eradicated. Since this event moved to September in 2012, the winner in eight of those ten years had secured at least one top-20 finish in their last four European Tour starts. In last year’s event, this held for seven of the eight players who finished in the top-5. The only exception was Francesco Laporta who had finished 4th in five events previously.
Selections The above angles have been used to create a shortlist from which the following players has been selected. Lucas Herbert
Herbert has been competing almost exclusively on the PGA Tour this year after he won the 2021 Bermuda Championship (he also won the 2021 Irish Open on this Tour), but he has played in four DP World Tour events since January, finishing in the top-15 twice. While his game is focused more on the short game – he ranks 1st in four of the main six putting stats on the PGA Tour – he has shown on the DP World Tour that he has the overall game that fits this course: he ranked 1st in strokes gained: approach-the-green at the Open Championship and 1st in strokes gained: around-the-green at the Irish Open in July. Kurt Kitayama
Kitayama is another who has focused almost exclusively on the PGA Tour this year, though, like Herbert, he has played in four events on this Tour since July and that includes a runner-up finish in the Scottish Open. When he played regularly on this Tour last year, he ranked 11th for strokes gained: tee-to-green and 1st for strokes gained: around-the-green, both highly relevant for this week’s course. Rasmus Hojgaard
It was a double-act this time last year when Rasmus won the European Masters and twin brother Nicolai won this event the following week. Rasmus would finish in the top-20 and having finished 3rd in his previous start before his European Masters win, it was an extremely impressive run of form. He is not in the same vein of form this year (else his odds would be much lower), but he still finished in the top-20 in the BMW PGA Championship last week and has a very good game profile that should enable him to repeat his strong performance on this course, ranking inside the top-20 for greens in regulation on the DP World Tour this year. Tips 2-1; +10.35pts 1pt e.w. Lucas Herbert 66/1 (Bet365 1/4 1-2-3-4-5) 5th 1pt e.w. Kurt Kitayama 33/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10) 7th 1pt e.w. Rasmus Hojgaard 33/1 (Boyle Sports 1/5 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10) 27th
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