A plethora of Major winners and Ryder Cup heroes will descend on Dutch shores this week for one of the longest-running events on The European Tour’s international schedule, the KLM Open.
Kennemer Golf and Country Club will play host for a third consecutive year and will welcome five Major winners in the shape of Ryder Cup Captain Darren Clarke, former World Number One Martin Kaymer, Korea’s YE Yang, three-time Major Champion, Padraig Harrington and legend Tom Watson.
Watson, an eight-time Major winner from the USA is making his debut in the Netherlands and will be joined in the field by the man who orchestrated Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph over his American team at Gleneagles last year, Irishman Paul McGinley.
The man who hit the winning shot in that thrilling contest in Scotland last October, Jamie Donaldson, will also be present at the coastal venue outside Amsterdam.
Kaymer is another man accustomed to winning Ryder Cups, and the man who holed the winning putt for Europe at Medinah in 2012 will be chasing a second KLM Open title having won at Hilversumsche back in 2010 shortly after claiming the first of his two Major titles.
The man he dethroned that week at Whistling Straits, 2009 US PGA Champion YE Yang, makes his debut in Holland’s national open.
Joost Luiten, meanwhile, who won the title in 2013, will lead the home charge in front of the exuberant and knowledgeable Dutch fans, alongside six compatriots including Wil Besseling.
For Luiten and the rest of the European Tour’s continental contingent, this week will provide a first opportunity to impress 2016 Ryder Cup Captain Clarke, who plays in his first event since the beginning of the race for points in the Ryder Cup Rankings presented by Rolex.
The four members of the 2014 team in attendance, Dane Thomas Bjørn, Donaldson, Stephen Gallacher of Scotland and Kaymer, will no doubt be eager to make a strong start in the hunt for a place at Hazeltine National next September.
Many more of European golf’s talented stars will also be desperate to make their mark and steal the attention of the Northern Irishman.
Young guns such as Thomas Pieters of Belgium, Frenchman Gary Stal and Englishmen Tommy Fleetwood, Tyrell Hatton and Andy Sullivan will have designs on pushing for a place in the European team and a win this week would be the perfect way to start.
England’s Lee Slattery, last week’s winner of the M2M Russian Open, the first counting event of the Ryder Cup points race, is also in attendance, hoping to capitalise on his timely return to form.
