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1-4; -1.50pts Guido Migliozzi - 0.75 point each-way 33/1 (1/5 8 places 365/Sky) mc Ewen Ferguson - 0.75 point each-way 35/1 (1/5 6 places Paddy Power) mc Mattoe Manassero - 0.50 point each-way 40/1 (1/5 8 places 365) 6th Marcel Siem - 0.35 points each-way 100/1 (1/5 8 places 365) 31st Thomas Aiken Top-20 - 1.3 point 4/1 (Unibet) 39th
French golfers are having a rare old time of it at the moment, with David Ravetto following up his maiden win at the Czech Masters with a sole fourth place in Denmark last week. After impressing two weeks ago, bogeys on the final two holes were the result of chasing his compatriots, the rampant Frederic Lecroix and the continually frustrating Romain Langasque, the former reversing form after finishing tied-third in Prague, the latter continuing a decent run of figures after a bronze at the Scottish Open.
Our Gallic friends may struggle to make it a hat-trick this week, with the last French player to win the nomadic British Masters being Thomas Levet in 2001. With no Ravetto, or Langasque to back up a small team, it's still worth noting that the last three winners of this event (held at the Brabazon course) were all in reasonable form.
Winner 12 months ago, Daniel Hillier came here off a 3rd at the BMW International and 5th in the KLM, whilst 2022 champ Thorbjorn Olesen was in decent shape, with most recent results reading T33/T23/T12, the first two seeing him lose a better position at halfway.
Veteran Richard Bland won his first championship in 478 starts when beating Guido Migliozzi in a play-off, the former in good state after 8th at Gran Canaria (Olesen tied-fifth, Migliozzi tied-11th), whilst Rasmus Hojgaard, winner of the UK Championship held here in 2020, came into British Masters week after three consecutive top six finishes.
Looking down the list of winners at almost all venues used over the 50-plus years of the event, the one thing that sticks out is quality iron play. With the likes of Lee Westwood, Gonzo Castano adding more evidence to the thought, the last four course winners have ranked 16/31/1/2 for strokes-gained-approach.
That's not to say you can spray it around this parkland course but three of the latest four course winners have been top-17 for driving distance but average outside the top-40 for accuracy.
Clearly, be in some semblance of form, have a touch of confidence with your current iron play and be able to grind a bit. Winning scores have been higher than level-4s, with Hillier and Olesen recording 10-under, three and four fewer than Bland and Hojgaard respectively.
Think Crans, KLM, Himmerland and Dunhill Links, all tracks that pop up at points throughout the CVs of the last few champions.
Selections
Short-priced jolly Tyrrell Hatton makes a lot of sense on paper, but at 7/1 he opens a lot of doors for players who regularly go off a good few points shorter than they are today.
Rasmus Hojgaard would be around 12/1 without the jolly but he ranked in the top three for approach shots at both the Scandi Mixed and last week in Denmark, yet finished 20th and 53rd while Matt Wallace is another, like Hatton, to drop in grade but was 15th at the KLM after holding every chance at halfway, and 41st at Troon - it's hardly screaming 'back me at less than 20/1.
27-year-old Guido Migliozzi makes a huge amount of sense at every level.
A four-time winner at this level, best efforts include wins at tree-lined Karen Golf Club in Kenya, Le Golf National (from Rasmus) and, most recently, at The International, the new venue for the KLM Open.
Having won twice in 2018 (Alps Tour) and again in 2019 (add the Belgian Knockout to the Kenya Open) there are no fears about needing gaps between victories, and he's here after a steady, if unspectacular, run of form after that victory in June.
A closing 22nd in Italy was followed by two missed-cuts at the BMW International and Scottish Open, but neither of the four rounds tells of any issues - 71/72 and 68/70 - proving that with a steady 31st at Troon. Latest formline of 22nd at the Olympics disguises his position at halfway (8th) but his approach play took a step in the right direction after missing for a few weeks, much more like the play advertised in May and June, when he thrice ranked in the top-10 from five starts.
Unlucky to lose out to Richard Bland after missing a birdie chance on his 71st hole, he was tied for the lead here last year before an appalling Sunday disaster.
We know he likes the course, has correlative form in the right places and looks to be coming to peak. Guido has been well backed already but I'm not sure he still isn't a spot of value.
It was annoying to miss out on a Ewen Ferguson victory in Germany, but that's cracking form with Bland's 2017 runner-up finish as good as any he had pre his maiden victory. Westwood's victory around the same Munich track is a pearl, and I don't mind Levet's two-shot defeat to Jimenez a year later.
The Scot has transformed himself from someone that doubted his game to a solid member of the tour, more than capable of getting one of the 10 PGA cards on offer at the end of the year and this next month or so will be right up his street.
Very capable of handling tree-lined tracks and any wind - he led in Kenya before winning a trial in Qatar (7-under) - his comfortable wins at Galgorm Castle and Munich show he's much hardier than the loss at Karen or the fall away from the lead at Le Golf National. Like Guido. Ferguson is one that has fallen to a shock, playing top-class golf at Himmerland before succumbing to Oliver Wilson's suddenly-magic putter.
There is a pattern with Ferguson that suggests if it's not this week, and he finishes top-20, he'll be ready very soon, with his maiden win coming after that 8th in Kenya, 61st and 40th, Galgorm after T30/T12 and latest after T27/T29.
The missed-cut in Scotland is disappointing but 73/68 is fine, and he was much better at The Open when finishing just outside the top 20, when his usually reliable short game let him down. It wouldn't have taken a great deal to see him inside the top-15, certainly enough to have him involved in this average field, in an event ridiculously scheduled opposite the Tour Championship and missing several vital players.
The selection missed the weekend on his first two tires here but was much better 12 months ago, where that third-round 73 kept him from a constant position inside the top-10. He'll have taken plenty from the eventual fourth place, as he did when following that with 12th at Renaissance.
He continues to rank highly for both driving accuracy and greens-in-reg, in 16th and 28th place respectively, and looks over any of the injury issues that plagued much of his off period.
Here we go again with Matteo Manassero, an auto-bet around a parkland course, even if it's 11 years since that PGA Championship win at Wentworth.
There's an awful lot of lines written about the 31-year-old's loss of form so we'll gloss over that and instead concentrate on current.
It may have been over a decade since his last DPWT-grade victory but his win at Glendower, from tee-to-green stalwarts Thriston Lawrence and Jordan Smith, started a run of seven top-20 finishes in 13 starts, including 5th at the Indian Open, 7th at the KLM/Dutch, 10th at his home, Italian, Open, and 15th at the Scottish Open.
No complaints about tying with the likes of Guido, Justin Thomas and Sam Burns at Troon, before four rounds of 69 ranked the selection in 18th at the infamous Le Golf National, host of the 2022 French Open, won by Guido from Rasmus Hojgaard, with past winners Levet and Jimenez.
Matteo's long game is in great shape, ranking outside the top-20 for approach on just one occasion from the last 11 starts, meaning he's been in the top-10 for greens-in-reg in five of his last six.
Putting has been an issue for a while now, but in an event where finding the short stuff is more important than birdies at every hole, he just gets the vote over Sami Valimaki, 12th at the Czech Masters on his drop down from the PGA Tour.
I can't believe that Lacroix can go back-to-back but we saw what happened with Ravetto over the last fortnight, so never-say-never, particularly with a stunning current tee-to-green game. However, I'll take a chance at treble-figures on six-time European Tour winner Marcel Siem.
The 44-year-old German has shown a renewed vigour for the game over the last few years, leaving behind his drop to the Challenge Tour with four top-15 finishes in 2021, including The Open, Czech, Crans and Dutch and following up a year later with another top-20 at Crans, a matching 16th in Joburg and a top-five at Blair Atholl.
2023 was another solid season, finishing top-20 in Thailand and Singapore before winning in Delhi, and following up with a runner-up at Green Eagle, top-10 at Himmerland and repeating a good effort in Mauritius.
2024 has seen the German star duel with Tom McKibbin, less than half his age, eventually beating his young foe with a birdie at his 72nd and again in the play-off. That was some revenge for his defeat behind the Irishman at the European Open, and prompted him to declare that he was now after not only a place on the 2025 Ryder Cup team, but also a place at the Masters.
Ambitious that may be, but it's a mindset that's been missing from Siem's game, and he's been improving his iron game of late, ranking 19th at Troon and 5th last week in Denmark.
Whilst his overall record around The Belfry isn't great, he improved last year to finish 23rd, having been 13th at halfway, a demonstration of his a new mindset and desire to get the job done rather than mess around. Indeed after his latest victory at the end of June, he was quoted by Golf Monthly as saying:
"It's just amazing. Everything went so quick, my whole team is really really good... my family, they push me so hard and believe in me so much. I love this sport, I just love it and it's so much fun to work hard for it if you get rewards like this now. I love life, I love golf, it can't get any better at the moment."
Siem can win tough events in high scores - 8-under at the French Open, 14 in India, 10-under in Italy - and he can do it again.
Finally, hugely-experienced Thomas Aiken has been playing some great golf for a long while and finishing top-20 for fun these days. He's too short off the tee to get involved in the nitty-gritty on a Sunday but he is one to look at for that market, having finished in that position in six of his last nine starts, and seven of 13. That is based on almost never missing a fairway soiIn an overall moderate field, 4/1 looks worth a go.
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