What You Need To Know
The 20th edition of the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters returns to the Doha Golf Club, where it has been played since 1998. Branden Grace went back-to-back in 2015 and 2016 but will not play this year. The last 10 winners have all finished the week ranked 15th or better in Driving Distance (DD) and eight of those 10 finished the week in the top eight for Greens in Regulation (GIR).
The Five Favorites
The Two-Time Major Winner
Martin Kaymer ($10,800) is tied with three others for the best Long-term Adjusted Round Score (LT Adj Rd Score) in the field (69.4). Kaymer’s 14.9 LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg) ranks eighth, and his 71.0 LT GIR percentage is 25th.
Kaymer has made six straight cuts at Doha and had back-to-back ninth-place finishes here in 2012 and 2013. Kaymer started the new year off strong with a fourth-place finish and 115.5 DraftKings points last week.
Feel The Bernd
Austrian Bernd Wiesberger ($11,000) is one of the four players tied atop the field with a 69.4 LT Adj Rd Score. Weisberger ranks ninth in LT GIR (73.1 percent) and 19th in LT Adj Bird Avg (14.2).
Wesiberger has seven top-10 finishes in his last eight starts on the European Tour and is currently riding a streak of three straight fourth-place finishes. Bernd has third- and 13th-place finishes at Doha in his last two starts.
Pistol Pete
Okalahoma State’s Alex Noren ($10,900) is also tied atop the field with a 69.4 LT Adj Rd Score and currently (along with Kaymer and Wiesberger) has the best odds to win (8.3 percent). Noren’s 14.4 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for 15th and he hit 79.2 percent of GIR last week in Abu Dhabi (a place where he has traditionally struggled). Noren has played well here with two top-10 finishes in his last three starts. He won four events on the European Tour last year.
Per our Trends tool, golfers with comparable metrics and salaries have previously produced a +3.76 Plus/Minus with 56.1 percent Consistency at an average ownership of 19.1 percent in large tournaments.
Rafa
Rafael Cabrera-Bello ($10,300) rounds out the four-way-tie with his 69.4 LT Adj Rd Score. RCB’s 75.3 LT GIR percentage is second in the field, and his 14.5 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for 12th overall. He’s fourth with 5.9 percent odds to win.
Rafa has three top-three finishes at Doha since 2011 including third- and second-place finishes in 2014 and 2016. Cabrera-Bello’s 69.4 Course Adj Rd Score is second among golfers who have made at least five starts at this course. In fact, he’s this slate’s Levitanimal. For an explanation of the Levitanimal check out the PGA Breakdown.
Last Week’s Winner
Tommy Fleetwood ($9,900) is coming off a win at last week’s Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, where he totaled 120.0 DK points. It’s worth noting that Peter Harradine — who designed Abu Dhabi — also designed Doha. Fleetwood finished seventh here last year.
With a LT DD of 293.6 yards, Fleetwood is actually one of the longer hitters in the field, and his 73.6 LT GIR percentage is seventh overall. Over his last 10 starts Fleetwood has been consistently crushing his salary-based expectations:
The Bump and Run
Choke up and take a narrow stance.
Joost Luiten ($9,600): Luiten’s 73.1 LT GIR percentage is tied for ninth, and his LT Adj Bird Avg of 15.4 is tied for fourth. Luiten finished 13th here last year and finished 29th in Abu Dhabi last week.
Peter Hanson ($8,400): Hanson finished eighth last week and has made nine straight cuts at this event including a runner-up finish in 2012 and top-25 finishes in two of his last three appearances. Hanson’s 72.5 LT GIR percentage ranks 12th in the field, and his 70.4 Course Adj Rd Score is 11th among golfers with at least two starts here.
Dean Burmester ($8,000): Burmester makes his debut at Doha this week, but he’s coming off a seventh-place finish in Abdu Dhabi last week and finished fourth at the South African Open two weeks ago. So far, Burmester is averaging 101.5 DK points per tournament in 2017. His 316.2-yard LT DD ranks second, his 71.1 percent LT GIR is 22nd, and he leads the field in LT Adj Bird Avg at 16.5.
Nicolas Colsaerts ($7,900): Colsaerts’ 75.2 percent LT GIR is third, his 306.6-yard LT DD is sixth, and his 71.1 LT Adj Rd Score is 20th overall. His game sets up well for this track, where he has finished 27th, 13th, and ninth in his last three starts.
Romain Langasque ($7,600): At just 22 years old, Langasque has looked sharp to kick off the 2017 European Tour season with 21st- and 39th-place finishes in his first two events. Langasque’s 303.9-yard LT DD ranks ninth, and his 15.6 LT Adj Bird Avg is third overall.
Joel Stalter ($6,400): Stalter’s 303-yard LT DD ranks 13th, his 72.2 LT GIR percentage is 16th, and his 13.9 LT Adj Bird Avg is 23rd overall. Statler has three straight top-25 finishes on the European Tour, including a seventh-place finish his last time out. You could do worse for $6,400.
Be sure to visit our suite of Tools to research all of the golfers. Good luck this week!
