Golf in the morning - The European Tour returns in Austria
If you were to cast your mind far enough back - a long way back, to the halcyon days of early March - you would recall Jorge Campillo as the last man to lift a trophy on the European Tour, after succeeding in Qatar following a five hole playoff with tour veteran David Drysdale, at what proved to be the final event on Tour before four months of inactivity.
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The week before that, Sami Valimaki defeated Brandon Stone in Oman after a three hole playoff, picking up his first win in just his sixth European Tour start.
The Middle Eastern Swing had thrown up some remarkable storylines in the first part of the season, but none more so - at least in the eyes of this European Golf fanatic - as subjectively remarkable as the emergence of Valimaki, and the resurgence of Campillo.
All of these names, and all of these events sound faintly reminiscent of a grand time - a happier time. They all seem so distant, yet distinct. "Has it really been four whole months?", and, "has it only been four months?", are equally valid questions, but for European golf fans, the period of golf-limbo is nearing its end.
For the lunatics that will gladly set that 5:30A.M., alarm to catch the back nine of the Magical Kenya Open. For the fanatics that will put their life on hold if Adri Arnaus is anywhere near contention across anyone one of four continents on any given Sunday morning. For the maniacs, the degenerates, and the lovers of this stupid game that has made us all instantaneously annoying any time golf is brought up within fifty feet of you, it is a time to rejoice.
Rejoice!, for the European Tour is back!
Diamond Country Club - Photo from European Tour
Four months after the last competitive action on Europe's premium golf stage, the countdown clock to the restart of play ticks down to mere hours and minutes.
Diamond Country Club near Vienna, Austria, is set to host the Austrian Open, a dual event co-hosted by the European Tour, and its feeder, The Challenge Tour. This is the ninth time in ten years Diamond CC will host a top-level professional event, having been dropped from the European Tour schedule in 2019, and reselected on June 15., as part of the framework to the return to active competitive play.
Most recently, in 2018, Diamond CC hosted the Shot Clock Masters, where players were given 50 seconds, upon reaching their ball to play, under threat of penalty should they linger too long. No such gimmicks will be on display this week, presumably because giant countdown clocks would seem rather ominous due to current affairs.
Since 2010, there have been nine tournaments played in Vienna, all in some shape or form acting as Austria's national Open. In this period, it has been won or contested by several familiar names, including Dylan Fritelli, Chris Wood, Joost Luiten and Bernd Wiesberger. In addition to this Shane Lowry, Rafa Cabrera-Bello and Thomas Bjorn all placed as a runner-up in the same time-period.
More than half of the field this week have not played a competitive event at Diamond CC, and of the group that have, only a handful have positive Strokes Gained for their career there. More astonishingly is that of the players competing, only Gregory Bourdy and Joost Luiten have recorded a career average of more than a full stroke gained per round.
The only year with ShotLink data for events at Diamond CC was the 2018 Shot Clock Masters, won by Mikko Korhonen. This is both a small sample size, and a unique, quirky event, so the predictive power of the data will not be as high, but it is still worth looking at.
Of the top-six players that week, all recorded a positive strokes gained for the week Off the Tee, and four of those six finished in the Top-25 in the field for the week. Champion Korhonen led the field in SG: Off the Tee, with an average of 1.65 strokes gained per round.
This isn't really surprise. The course tips out at just under 7,500 yards, and even at altitude, that's going to test the driving prowess of every player in the field.
Another important stat appears to be that it isn't going to be a putting contest. Korhonen was outside the Top-20 in putting the week he won. Two players from the top-six recorded negative Strokes Gained: Putting, while zero of them finished in the Top-10 for the week in the same category.
Another category that shows correlation with success, was Scrambling on the week. Of the top-five in the field at the Shot Clock Masters in 2018, only one finished outside the Top-15 in the event, while three finished inside the top-five. Korhonen, recorded just two bogeys all week by leading the field in scrambling, getting up and down on 13 of the 15 greens he missed.
Superiority off the tee, and a good week scrambling is typically a recipe for success, and with somewhere with as much danger lurking as Diamond CC, it could be particularly predictive this week.
For what the field lacks in strength, it makes up for in entertainment and intrigue. Joost Luiten is the highest ranked player that will tee it up in Austria on Thursday, meaning the highest Official World Golf Ranking this week clocks in at 104.
Don't let this discourage you from tuning in, however, as the field contains a mixture of up-and-coming Challenge Tour graduates, and European Tour veterans looking to get a jump-start in the de-facto second half of the season.
Oman Open Champion Sami Valimaki, and University of Illinois standout Thomas Detry will be among the favorites this week, and former Ryder Cup and multiple European Tour champions Nicholas Colsaerts and Miguel Angel Jiminez could provide interesting storylines come Sunday.
A whole host of interesting names, from the nostalgic intrigue of Gary Stal and Renato Paratore, to the promising Sebastian Heisele and John Catlin, are set to appear in Austria.
The first week upon returning is a tricky call, and while a lucky bet landing would be nice, whatever happens it'll be nice to have golf back on weekend mornings. To win this week, The Quick Hook is opting for:
Adri Arnaus
They say don't bet with your heart - but it wants what it wants.
There's also the not-so-small matter that Arnaus is averaging over 320 yards off the tee this season, is 33rd on the European Tour in 2020 for Scrambling, and is one of the most exciting, young prospects currently on the European Tour.
Driving and scrambling proved to be a winning combo for Mikko Korhonen in 2018 at Diamond CC, and could very well prove to be pivotal in Spaniard Arnaus' campaign.
One of the biggest challenges in picking winners after this break is figuring out whether or not they're going to hit the ground running, if they bothered to set up the Peloton they got for Christmas, or if they acted like the rest of us during quarantine, and had the caloric intake of Bryson DeChambeau coupled with a world record attempt at remaining horizontal.
Arnaus' Instagram page showed he returned to Texas A&M - where he played collegiate golf - and has seemingly been practicing well, so hopefully this bodes well for this pick.
Rikard Karlberg
Karlberg has played 12 competitive rounds at Diamond CC, where he has performed about half a stroke better on average than his own personal baseline in his professional career.
He hasn't had a win on any tour in five years, but seems to have performed much more consistently on Challenge Tour sanctioned events. As this was scheduled to be a Challenge Tour event, a majority of the field this week does not a hold a European Tour card, which should open up the running for the title.
Karlberg actually leads the European Tour in Scrambling this season, and while he is not one of the longer hitters on Tour, he finds an incredibly high percentage of of fairways. In an event that seems pretty top-loaded, Karlberg does stick out as one of the players capable of mounting a title challenge.
Francesco Laporta
Theoretically, Laporta would be chasing a third title in four starts on the Challenge Tour. He won the Grand Final in Mallorca in November, and two events prior to that, in October, he won the Hainan Open. This strong finish culminated in Laporta winning the Challenge Tour money list in 2019.
Since graduating to the European Tour, Laporta has struggled to match the prowess he showed last year, managing just one top-20 finish in five starts prior to the period of inactivity.
In events with a quality of field more aligned with those on the Challenge Tour - as will be the case in Vienna this week - Laporta has seldom been too far from the top of the leaderboard in recent attempts. The Italian has managed seven top-ten finishes in his previous ten Challenge Tour starts.
Laporta is 21st on the European in the category SG: Off the Tee, and third for SG: Around the Green in the 2020 season so far. If he shows similar proficiency in these categories this week, he'll likely be a feature of the action come Sunday afternoon.
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