Ahead of the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Club, The Tips returns to provide more expert insight to help you choose your Fantasy team ahead of the fourth Rolex Series event of the season.
Joining regular host Ollie Silverton this week are golf writers Ben Coley and Matt Cooper along with golf broadcaster Kit Alexander.
If you have not done so already, you can sign up to play the official 2023 DP World Tour Fantasy game and submit your six-man team before round one gets under way on Thursday: https://fantasy.dpworldtour.com/
The 2023 season-long winner will win a trip to the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai next year, enjoy a lesson with a DP World Tour professional and a round of golf on the Earth Course at Jumeirah Golf Estates. For more information on this amazing prize and others, read here.
BMW PGA Championship
This week marks the 69th edition of the BMW PGA Championship, an event with a history that spans back to 1955.
Wentworth Club is hosting the prestigious tournament for the 39th consecutive time, with defending champion Shane Lowry bidding to join an illustrious list of multiple winners that includes Sir Nick Faldo, Seve Ballesteros and Bernhard Langer.
One of the highlights of the British sporting calendar, the BMW PGA Championship attracts great crowds year in year out, with more than 100,000 spectators expected to line the fairways throughout the week.
Reflecting on the prestige of the tournament, Cooper said: “So many of the players say that they walked the fairways trying to pester the players for balls and autographs.
“Matteo Manassero said he watched loads of videos of Seve. When he won in 2018, Francesco Molinari said he remembered running home from school to watch Costantino Rocca win on a Monday afternoon.
“Those memories are real. Billy Horschel, of course, was fuelled by television coverage of Wentworth. So, there is a real connection with the past here, I think.”
JON RAHM
BC: Jon Ram is the one for me. I appreciate he doesn't have the recent form of Viktor Hovland. I don't think that's a bad thing though at this time of year, counterintuitive as that may sound.
I know Hovland has got the Ryder Cup to keep him focused, but I suspect he gave himself a bit of time off after he won the FedEx Cup. It's always difficult to know how players will respond to that. He's earned a heck of a lot of money in a very short space of time and has sort of become the fourth member of the very elite in golf and I suspect he'll take it in his stride in the long run.
But in the short term I wouldn't have him ahead of Jon Rahm in the betting, let's put it that way.
Rahm has not been driving the ball very well, but actually that's kind of been the case ahead of his previous two starts at this golf course.
On both occasions he finished mid-pack in the proper scoring of the Tour Championship at East Lake, the stroke play scoring.
He had a couple of weeks off and came to Wentworth and finished second in both of them. He was the halfway leader the first time and then last year stormed through the field to be beaten by one.
It's a phenomenal course record obviously, but I think most of all it tells us just how dangerous Jon Rahm is on the DP World Tour.
This is his one chance to get his game back before the Ryder Cup where he is one of the three key men and I think he can show it.
MATT FITZPATRICK
BC: I do think this event means that little bit more to the English players. When you think about all the best English players, they've either won this or had a good look at winning it.
I think this is the best form at which he has arrived at Wentworth.
He's been halfway leader before. He has a couple of top tens. He's never missed a cut, he's a shot shaper, he's got all the ball flight and moving around the trees. He's happy clubbing down off the tee. I think it's a very, very good course for him.
And as I said, I think he arrives in much better form than he has in the past. I would make him the clear danger to the big three ahead of Tommy Fleetwood and for that reason he was my second selection.
TOM KIM
MC: In one sense, I think this tends to be an event where people tend to show very good course form before they actually win here.
I think the last 18 winners here had a top 10 and they'd actually contended mostly with the exception of one man and that was Byeong Hun AN.
Tom might look at that and know if my countryman can do it, I can do it. I think Tom Kim's a very good player and he can sometimes get foxed by a lack of length from the tee, but I don't think that'll be the case this week.
He's more likely to just be attracted by the fact that this is a golf course where you can hit fairways first of all, which he's well capable of doing and then shaping shots into the greens.
I think it'll play to his advantage in that he quite likes that sort of creativity element.
He's in really, really good form. Eighth at the US Open, sixth at the Genesis Scottish Open, second at The Open.
He had a good FedExCup playoffs without quite firing. Coming over here, I think he'll enjoy it. He also had a little look at Wentworth ahead of The Open, played the course and that kind of confirmed in his head that he liked the place and wanted to return for this tournament.
THRISTON LAWRENCE
I've had a lot of success with Tristan Lawrence over the last two years.
I picked him at Crans-Montana when he won and when he won at Eichenried in Munich and I've spotted that he's just a very good player at altitude.
I've also been slightly unfortunate in that I also tipped him at Albatross in the Czech Republic and Crans this year and he didn't do so well.
But he actually did bounce back to finish third last week at the Horizon Irish Open and that's put him back into my spotlight.
I think other than at altitude, if he's going to play well anywhere else, it's going to be when he's within the trees.
The win at Eichenreid and Randpark at the Joburg Open really makes me think that he's a good player.
He didn't do so well on debut here, a couple of 74s to miss the cut, but I think he's got a lot of game in him.
Fantasy Insight: As it stands, Viktor Hovland is the favourite for players of our Fantasy Game this week, featuring in 84.44% of teams. Other popular players include Jon Rahm (70.71%) and Tommy Fleetwood (65.25%). Of those Rahm is the only to feature among our expert picks, with Tom Kim the fifth most selected (32.36%).
Comparatively, some of our other expert choices feature much further down the ranks in terms of players chosen, with Thriston Lawrence in 1.68% of teams and Guido Migliozzi in 1.41%.
| Expert | Player | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Ben | Jon Rahm | Rahm has not been driving the ball very well, but actually that's kind of been the case ahead of his previous two starts at this golf course. On both occasions he finished mid-pack in the proper scoring of the Tour Championship at East Lake, the stroke play scoring. He had a couple of weeks off and came to Wentworth and finished second in both of them. He was the halfway leader the first time and then last year stormed through the field to be beaten by one. |
| Matt Fitzpatrick | I do think this event means that little bit more to the English players. When you think about all the best English players, they've either won this or had a good look at winning it. I think this is the best form at which he has arrived at Wentworth. | |
| Victor Perez | I don't think his game is far away. Former runner-up at Wentworth, would have been right there in Czech if he'd holed more putts. Won three times, all against high quality opposition. | |
| Francesco Molinari | Pretty much got the best record in the field. Speaker 2 (27:31): A former champion with I think six of the top tens in his last 10 appearances. He was ninth last year. Form this year not as good but played well at Czech Masters, irons as good as they'd been in Abu Dhabi. Could see him going well. | |
| Guido Migliozzi | He looks close. He shot 63 and 61 in Switzerland two weeks ago,. He was sixth halfway in Ireland last week as well. And although his Wentworth record doesn't look good, I do think it's a good course for him. He's won a very similar looking one in Belgium. Title defence coming next week in France. | |
| Matt | Tom Kim | I think Tom Kim's a very good player and he can sometimes get foxed by a lack of length from the tee, but I don't think that'll be the case this week. He's more likely to just be attracted by the fact that this is a golf course where you can hit fairways first of all, which he's well capable of doing and then shaping shots into the greens. I think it'll play to his advantage in that he quite likes that sort of creativity element. |
| Thriston Lawrence | He did bounce back to finish third last week at the Horizon Irish Open and that's put him back into my spotlight. I think other than at altitude, if he's going to play well anywhere else, it's going to be when he's within the trees. The win at Eichenreid and Randpark at the Joburg Open really makes me think that he's a good player. He didn't do so well on debut here, a couple of 74s to miss the cut, but I think he's got a lot of game in him. | |
| Billy Horschel | He adores Wentworth. He played very nicely in the final two events of the PGA Tour season and kind of maintained that to some extent in Ireland last week. I think it was a nice little warmup for him. | |
| Thomas Detry | He gets to the finish line a lot then shies away from it, but not to be overlooked. He was fifth here last year. His form in the states is better than his results suggest. | |
| Shubhankar Sharma | After a top ten at The Open he was impressive when seventh in the Irish Open last week and he was third after 54 holes on debut at Wentworth in 2019 before falling back. And he was ninth last year. He's really good between the trees: Won at Randpark, won at Saujana. It's a good fit for him. |
To listen to all the picks from the panel, including for the PGA TOUR's Fortinet Championship, on the latest episode of The Tips, click here: https://linktr.ee/dpworldtour.
