The Tips returns this week with more expert insight to help you choose your Fantasy team as the DP World Tour remains in Spain for the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters, while the PGA Tour heads to Japan for the ZOZO Championship.
How it works: Every week a panel of industry-leading golf tipsters and special guests provide their expert tips for the week ahead.
Whether it’s making picks to update your Fantasy Team or keep your eye on the betting markets, our experts provide their insights ahead of action taking place on both the DP World Tour and on the PGA TOUR.
Joining regular host Ollie Silverton this week are golf writers Steve Bamford and Dave Tindall, who outline their picks and reasons for both tournaments on this weeks podcast, which you can find here: https://linktr.ee/dpworldtour.
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.
Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters
The DP World Tour heads to Real Club de Golf Sotogrande this week as the venue enters a new era as host of the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. It's a course familiar to plenty of the players from their amateur days as host of the annual European Nations Cup - Copa Sotogrande, also previously known as the Sherry Cup and for one year the Grey Goose Cup, when it was won by Rory McIlroy. But whose game lines up perfectly for the course this week?
The course itself, a par 72 that was designed by Robert Trent Jones Senior in 1964, offers up a variety of challenges with wide fairways, elevated greens, and strategically placed water hazards and bunkers.
According to our experts, accuracy is key. And with the weather forecast expected to play a part of the story, that mean all eyes are on ball strikers who are exceptionally good into the greens.
"It's pretty wide off the tee, it looks to me to be a second shot golf course," said Bamford.
"Um, if you can be high GIR (greens in regulation) if you can be very, very accurate with, with your, with your irons, both the wedges and the longer clubs, four attackable par fives. So if you are aggressive, if you've got that going for the green ability and, and the accuracy with the longer clubs, that could be a big, big advantage as well. And a couple of short par fours as well. So there are holes out there that can actually yield birdies and eagles.
"I think one of the things that looks important here, I hope I'm not jumping ahead, is the weather forecast. Because with this golf course being very, very close to the coast, I, you know, it's clearly not a links golf course, but it is going to be affected by the weather that's actually in the area.
Outlining their main picks, Bamford opened with recent winner Ryan Fox, while Tindall went for Julien Brun, who was crowned champion here during an amateur event in 2011.
Ryan Fox
SB: He was third at the Irish Open, first at Wentworth, second when defending at the Dunhill Links a couple of weeks ago. If he was to win this, he would jump above John Rahm in the race to Dubai into second spot. And I think that's the kind of thing that would motivate Ryan Fox, who's now clearly into, you know, the top 30 in the world. It's President's Cup year now. So I think what we're gonna see, and we're already starting to see is lots of international players around the PGA Tour, DP World Tour popping up, contending, winning.
Julien Brun
DT: Last week we had a French winner maybe that will add to some inspiration for this week, so I'm going for Julian Brun. This course hosts an amateur event, the Copa Sotogrande, and he actually won it at this course in 2011 by three shots. I mean, it's a while back, obviously. Uh, but it is got to help hat he's won on this course. He's 11th in Strokes gained approach this season. Steve said it as well, you know, look for someone high up those greens in regulation stats, and he's right up there. He is also 13th around the green and, and 10th in putting. And he is just in really good form, he is 35th or better in five of his last six starts. That includes six in the open to France, sixteenth in the Irish Open, 28th last week, which was a decent effort. And then the other thing I always like to look at is a player who's played well in that region or in that country. So it seems Julien Brun likes Spain because one of his three challenge tour wins came in Spain, and he was also runner up in the Challenge Tour Grand Finale.
Fantasy Insight: As it stands, U.S. Open Champion Wyndham Clark is the favourite for players of our Fantasy Game this week, featuring in 59.58% of teams. Other popular players include Ryan Fox (55.03%) and Pablo Larrazábal (39.35%). Of those, both Fox and Larrazábal feature among our expert picks.
Comparatively, some of our other expert choices feature much further down the ranks in terms of players chosen, with Robert MacIntyre in 9.48% and Daniel Hillier in 7.26%.
| EXPERT | PLAYER | REASON |
|---|---|---|
| Steve Bamford | Ryan Fox | He was third at the Irish Open, first at Wentworth, second when defending at the Dunhill Links a couple of weeks ago. If he was to win this, he would jump above John Rahm in the race to Dubai into second spot. And I think that's the kind of thing that would motivate Ryan Fox, who's now clearly into, you know, the top 30 in the world. It's President's Cup year now. So I think what we're gonna see, and we're already starting to see is lots of international players around the PGA Tour, DP World Tour popping up, contending, winning. Ryan Fox |
| Daniel Hillier | Now, Daniel Hillier was the winner at the Belfry in July. That was quite blustery, it's always a pretty stringent test, and 12th at the Irish Open after that. He had a bit of a post win lull, but ninth last week after a sluggish start in Madrid. He’s also won on the Challenge Tour in Spain. | |
| Pablo Larrazabal | Pablo can hang around when conditions get tough. He won last year in Spain at the Infinitum Lakes course, which actually was one of these kind of open affairs with water on around the course quite a bit. So I like that. He also won this year in Korea. 20th last week in Madrid, I could see Pablo,being very, very strong this week | |
| Matti Schmid | Played really, really well last week, 26th at the Shriners Open. And if this turns into a real birdie fest over the Saturday and the Sunday, it would suit someone like Mattia Schmid, he can go seriously low. So if he can kind of hang around over those testing first two days, you could him coming up the leaderboard at the weekend. | |
| Dave Tindall | Julien Brun | This course hosts an amateur event, the Copa Sotogrande, and he actually won it at this course in 2011 by three shots. I mean, it's a while back, obviously. Uh, but it is got to help hat he's won on this course. He's 11th in Strokes gained approach this season. Steve said it as well, you know, look for someone high up those greens in regulation stats, and he's right up there. He is also 13th around the green and, and 10th in putting. And he is just in really good form, he is 35th or better in five of his last six starts. That includes six in the open to France, sixteenth in the Irish Open, 28th last week, which was a decent effort. |
| Joost Luiten | The tried and trusted ball striker angle., Fifth for the season in strokes going tee to green, fifteenth on approach. I mean, he's been threatening to win, hasn't he, for quite a long time now. It should have been in Germany, but he messed up down the stretch. But rather than feel sorry for himself, he's, he's been still really good since then. He was eighth at the British Masters the following week, top five a Crans, four top twenties in his last five starts. Another one came last week. | |
| Ewen Ferguson | He’s in really good form. He was ninth last week, 10th in the Open de France where he was the 54 hole leader. That didn't go as planned, but he's the three time winner. He’s 17th in Strokes gained approach, I think that's a good fit for the course. And has a really good record in Spain | |
| Robert MacIntyre | Way too big a price if he can find his game, because he can play. Straight after the Ryder Cup, he went to the Dunhill, which can be hard – even though I know Matt Fitzpatrick won. But he was 25th, shot 65 in his third round to suggest he was coming alive again. He’s got those good vibes from Rome, he could do some damage here. He also played here twice in that European Nations Cup and came sixth and seventh in the individual event. | |
| Guido Migliozzi | He’s another one who has won at the course. His was back in 2014 in the same Copa Sotogrande. He’s a funny one. He doesn't always show up week on week, but he's got some really top form on good courses. So he is a guy who on his day, he's absolutely on up there with the best of them. |
ZOZO Championship
When it comes to this week's PGA Tour, our experts believe that past experience might be a big help to a potential winner in the limited field event in Japan.
"If you look at the latest two winners, Keegan Bradley, before he won, he was seventh the year before and 13th the year before that. So clearly he liked the course," said
"Matsuyama, when he won it had been runner up the year before. So I think having a good result of a good knock on this course already because yeah, it, it's sort of tree-lined. There's some of its clues that lots of dog leg water, you can make the clever correlations. But I think if you've played well there before, 'cause you've gotta re remember as well some of the American guys who've played there, well have done well there before, would've had to have dealt with the, you know, time difference, acclimatising and all that kind of stuff because we used to see it in another Asian event. The sim classic Justin Thomas won that one back to back. I think Gary Woodland was runner up back to back. So I think if you like go into, you know, an overseas country on a course and it goes well once I think there's a good chance it might go well again.
So who did they go for as their main picks?
Cameron Champ
DT: I'm going with a player who, uh, likes the course. He's been there before and done well. this is a limited field and he's a guy who's really found some form. So when he went there last year, he, he was in terrible shape. He'd missed his previous three cuts, then he missed the three cuts afterwards, which is also worth noting because it shows for some reason he did click on this course, something he liked about it. So he was eighth last year on his debut, shot 64 in the third round. It's a totally different Cameron champ we're seeing at the moment. He was 17th at the Barracuda a few months ago, and then last two weeks, ninth at the Sanderson Farms and then 18th in Las Vegas last week where he started with a 63, closed with a 65.
Sungjae Im
He has a third place on this course back in 2019, that was the year that Tiger Woods won here. If you also look at what he's been doing recently in the FedEx Cup playoffs, he played quite nicely, then he disappeared and he went off to the Asian games and there was him and Si Woo Kim, and they were playing for something quite important. If they could get a gold medal, that would mean that they would then not have to do military service in South Korea, and they win the gold medal in the team event. He then flew back to South Korea from China to play last week at the Genesis Championship. He doesn't win, but he did make a playoff. I think he was two shots clear heading into the final round. But I just think Sungjae Im, he's been in the Asian area now for coming on a month. So the travel isn't an issue. He's acclimatised. He's got a top three finish here. I like him for this week.
To find out more about their opinions on this week's tournament, listen to the podcast here: https://linktr.ee/dpworldtour.
