Renaissance for the strength of European fields
Can a career be considered successful without an Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Open trophy in the cabinet? Yes, it can, but what about a Rolex Series title? Also, yes.
The Renaissance Club in East Lothian is playing host for the second successive year at the Scottish Open. The highly touted Tom Doak design, his first in Scotland, has drawn a field with a greater Official World Golf Ranking strength than the concurrent PGA tournament, which is extremely rare for a European Tour event.
Speaking of the PGA Tour, in the latest leg of the wraparound season, they're heading to the Sanderson Farms Championship, at the Country Club of Jackson in Mississippi. Whoopee.
Back to Scotland, for the time being, and it was Bernd Wiesberger who emerged victorious last season, after a playoff with Benjamin Hebert. The Austrian picked up his second of three wins in the 2019 season, and arguably the most prestigious win of his career.
Only four competitive professional rounds have ever been played on The Renaissance Club, making any course history analysis rather pointless, as an overwhelming majority of the field this week have participated in two rounds or fewer. Instead, it will be more fruitful to investigate what facet of the game proved most useful to the players that finished at the top end of the leaderboard last season.
All of the tournament's top-five ranked positive for the week in the category Strokes Gained (SG): Approach in 2019, with both players that made the playoff finishing the week in the top-three. More than that, they all finished the season on their respective tours with a positive return in SG: Approach, while four finished inside the top-35 of the season long rankings. It isn't too treacherous a leap from here to suggest that the course suited good iron players.
To heavy-handedly hammer home this point, Justin Thomas and Tyrell Hatton both placed in the top-15 here last year, and subsequently finished this PGA season first and fourth on the SG: Approach leaderboard on the PGA Tour in 2020. We're looking for good iron players in these selections.
On golf courses where approach play is the great separator, this can mean it either yields extremely few birdies, or a ludicrously high amount. This week, it appears, will be the latter.
Bernd Wiesberger made 30 birdies in his successful campaign in 2019. Benjamin Hebert made 27 to get into the playoff. That's very, very high. To add to this, they both finished T1 in the category Par Five scoring, with an average on the week of 4.19. The winner can't be scared to go low.
For the second week running, I can't figure out why the betting favourite has been made the favourite. Tommy Fleetwood enters the week at 12/1, the lowest price in the field, and I can't quite place why. The strongest component of his game (iron-play), and the vital one this week, has failed him over the last 12 months. Fleetwood ended the 2020 season 165th on the PGA Tour for SG: Approach, losing an average of nearly 0.4 strokes per round. He's also playing at nearly half a stroke per round below his standard scoring average.
If ever I'm to eat my words, it'll be from the following statement, but Tommy Fleetwood isn't going to win this week. Swerve around him.
It's going to be tough, however, to avoid the second favourite - Matthew Fitzpatrick. He has three missed cuts in his last five events, but also two top-tens. He was 92nd on the PGA Tour in 2020 for SG: Approach, but still returned a positive season average at 0.094 strokes gained per round. He finished in a tie for 15th here last season, and leads the European Tour in Par Five scoring, at 4.46. Tough choices; they are ahead.
I'm opting, instead of Fitzpatrick, for Rasmus Hojgaard, because he's really, really good at golf. Not just that, but he's 12th on the European Tour in SG: Approach. He's also ranked 14th in Par Five scoring average, and T6 in birdies per round with 4.34 on average per round. I'm telling you, he's really, really good at golf, and his price of 25/1 is a steal. Thank me Monday.
Martin Kaymer also edges out Fitzpatrick for me, but subsequently, Andy Sullivan edges out Martin Kaymer. Kaymer leads the European Tour in SG: Approach, and Sullivan is third, but where Sullivan separates himself from the German this week is by being 11th in birdies made per round this year, and 11th in Par Five scoring.
With eight places on offer on most sites, I think Sullivan, while maybe not quite of the quality to win in this strength of field, is a good selection for an Each-Way bet at a price of 40/1.
It is an excellent field in Scotland this week, which is precisely what this wonderful golf course deserves. John Catlin, Sam Horsfield and George Coetzee have all won twice in their last four starts. Kaymer, Romain Langasque, Wiesberger and Thomas Pieters are all equally great selections based on iron-play, form and/or the notion that 'surely they're going to win soon.'
It's going to be a fantastic week of golf, and that's about the only guarantee that I can offer. Find the player that leads the field in SG: Approach, and you might just find the winner.
A great week of golf might be reserved for the mornings, only, I'm afraid. Perhaps that's a little harsh. Perhaps not. Let's dive into this.
The Sanderson Farms Championship kicks off on Thursday evening, as the fourth event of the 2021 PGA Tour season. The tournament has been played at the Country Club of Jackson since 2015, and in that time, it has produced the following winners:
Sebastian Munoz, Cameron Champ, Ryan Armour, Cody Gribble, Peter Malnati, and Nick Taylor.
Now, cover that last sentence with your hand. If you can beat the over/under of 3.5 names remembered, I'll be thoroughly impressed.
A deep dive into what made those players champions tells an interesting story. Actually, scratch that, it tells a story that you hear about 41 weeks out of every year. SG: Off the Tee is a vital strength this week, again! Here's why that's important to scoring this week:
CC of Jackson has one statistical category that separates good scores from bad scores more so than the PGA Tour average. This category, I'm sure you guessed, is Driving Distance. The course shares a similar Course Fit Graphic, according to Data Golf, as Bethpage Black and TPC Harding Park, where if memory serves, driving it long tends to be of benefit.
Sebastian Munoz placed 4th in SG: Off the Tee to win here last year, while Champ was second in the category the year before. The rankings of previous champions before these two were Ryan Armour at 39th, Cody Gribble 9th, Peter Malnati 62nd, and Nick Taylor 3rd. Only Malnati recorded negative Strokes Gained: Off the Tee during a victorious week at CC of Jackson.
Interestingly, four of the six winners at CC of Jackson have placed inside the top ten of SG: Off the Tee during their successful campaign, while every single one has placed inside the top ten in the category SG: Putting.
Driving Distance appears to be what drives the greatest separation in scoring throughout the entire field, but it's putting that has been the vital statistic to champions here. Great play off the tee is obviously imperative, but superior putting is vital to life the trophy this week in Mississippi.
To pick a winner, I am thus opting for players that have good to excellent returns in both categories, and hoping this yields results. Sounds reasonable, right?
With this in mind - how do I ignore Scottie Scheffler? Well... like this:
I'm picking Patrick Rodgers. Rodgers is of the highest standard off the tee, and he rolls his rock extremely well, too. He was 18th on the PGA Tour for Driving Distance in 2020, which is extremely high, and 11th on Tour putting, which is even better.
Rodgers followed a made cut at the Safeway Open with a T11 finish last week at the Corales Club Champs. In addition to this, he also has two Top-20's at this golf course in three previous visits, and has averaged nearly half a stroke better than the field at CC of Jackson over the course of 12 rounds.
For the next pick, look no further than Beau Hossler. Seriously, he's 100/1, don't look any further than that.
Hossler was 26th on Tour in 2020 for Driving Distance, and more impressively, 24th on Tour for SG: Putting. This is no small feat. In his one previous appearance here in 2018, Hossler finished the event in a tie for eighth. Last week, despite a Sunday 73, he put together three very solid rounds in the Dominican Republic for a T41 finish.
This selection is a gamble, but this portion of the PGA Tour season always throws up surprises. Take for instance, Hudson Swafford's win last week. He had made just two cuts in his previous seven starts. In the words of the band Zombies - "it's the time of the season."
The Scottish Open will be the far more interesting spectacle in professional golf this week, which is a welcome change for the European Tour. That is, unless Beau Hossler is twelve under par through 36 holes. I might be inclined to change my tune, should that occur.
Official Picks:
Scottish Open - Rasmus Hojgaard & Andy Sullivan
Sanderson Farms Championship - Patrick Rodgers & Beau Hossler
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