The Euro Breakdown provides event history and examines all the relevant data to assist you in analyzing the oftentimes unfamiliar events of the European Tour.
What You Need To Know
The European Tour stops in Farso, Denmark, this week at the Himmerland Golf and Spa Resort for the third annual Made In Denmark. That is straight up the most bizarre name for a golf tournament I have ever heard.
The course features a couple of extremely short Par-3 holes, including the much heralded 128-yard 16th. The hole attracts a huge crowd in an amphitheater-type setting that the players love. There are also two Par-5 holes on the back nine that both play at over 600 yards, so there’s something for everyone at this place.
More than 87,000 fans showed up last year and with a music festival added to this year’s schedule, the already rocking party atmosphere should be off the heezy, which I think translates to “a swell time for all.”
England’s David Horsey went wire to wire here last year for his fourth European Tour victory, while Sweeden’s Kristoffer Broberg shot a course-record 9-under-par 62 on Sunday.
In the first two year’s of the tournament, Greens In Regulation (GIR) has proven to be the most important statistic for top-five finishers, as they have accumulated an average weekly ranking inside the top-20 in this metric.
When asked about the course, Horsey said, “In general the focus here is on your approach shots; getting it in close with your short irons and in good positions to hole some putts.”
Other than GIR, we’ll concentrate on 1) Long-Term Adjusted Round Scores (LT Adj Rd Scores) to find the best all-around golfers and 2) recent metrics to uncover who’s coming to the event in top form.
The Field
Former World No. 1 and two-time Major Champion Martin Kaymer leads an excellent field coming to party play golf this week in Denmark.
Along with Kaymer will be Ryder Cup Captain Darren Clarke and local favorites Soren Kjeldsen (who was a runner-up last year) and Thomas Bjorn, who finished fourth in 2014. Lasse Jensen and Thorbjorn Olesen, two more Danes, finished in a tie for seventh in 2014.
Horsey returns to defend his title, along with 2014’s inaugural Champion, Marc Warren.
It’s worth nothing that Bjorn, Mikael Lundberg, and Soren Hansen all won Challenge Tour events at this course, but all of those events were in the late 1990s and the course underwent renovations in 2012. [Editor’s Note: So maybe it wasn’t worth noting that.]
Shane Lowry, Thomas Pieters, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Ross Fisher round out a robust field of quality golfers.
Greens In Regulation
High-Priced Golfers ($9,000 and Higher)
The recently mentioned Fisher and Fitzpatrick lead both the field and the high-priced tier with a 71.1 percent LT GIR this week.
Fitzpatrick has the second best Odds to Win at 7.7 percent and his 70.2 LT Adj Rd Score ranks third. He also carries the fourth-best LT Driving Accuracy (DA) at 70.0 percent and he’s tied for 14th with 12.4 LT Adjusted Birdies Per Tournament (Adj Bird Avg).
His recent form includes four missed cuts in his last seven events, so while his metrics line up for success he’s a play only in guaranteed prize pools.
Fisher’s fourth-ranked 70.4 LT Adj Rd Score and 15th-ranked 12.3 LT Adj Bird Avg are very close to Fitzpatrick’s. He differentiates himself with his 293.3-yard LT Driving Distance (DD) and $9,600 salary, which is $1,700 cheaper than Fitzpatrick’s.
Golfers with LT metrics comparable to Fisher’s have traditionally produced a +1.04 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 53.5 percent Consistency.
Mid-Priced Golfers ($7,000 – $8,900)
Thomas Aiken, coming off a nice 22nd-place finish at the Wyndham Championship last week, leads the mid-priced tier with a 71.3 percent LT GIR, good enough for third overall.
Full disclosure: I did say that Aiken misses cuts like it’s his job in last week’s PGA Data Dive, so I should point out that he has missed five of his last nine cuts. If you’re a glass-is-half-full kind of person, take heart knowing that all of those missed cuts were on the PGA Tour. The last time he teed it up on the European Tour, he finished T4 at the BMW PGA Championship at the Wentworth Club in England.
Aiken’s 72.4 percent LT DA leads the entire field and his 70.5 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for fifth. On a course where GIR has proven to be a huge indicator of success, Aiken makes a great GPP play.
Magnus A Carlsson comes to Denmark with a 70.2 percent LT GIR, good enough for seventh in this field. His 71.0 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for eighth and his 12.4 LT Adj Bird Avg is tied for 14th.
He finished 58th here last year and missed the cut in 2014.
Value Plays ($6,900 and Lower)
Both David Drysdale and Benjamin Hebert make interesting GPP plays in the value tier.
Drysdale’s 71.4 LT GIR percentage is the second-best mark in the entire field this week, as is his 70.7 percent LT DA.
His 71.6 LT Adj Rd Score looks bad for those used to playing PGA contests, but it’s good enough for 15th in this field. However, his 10.0 LT Adj Bird Avg is low and not great for DraftKings scoring.
Drysdale finished 15th at this event in 2014 and 44th last year.
Hebert has the fifth-best LT GIR in the field this week at 70.4 percent.
His 71.0 LT Adj Rd Score is eighth and his 13.2 LT Adj Bird Avg is 10th overall. Hebert finished 14th here last season.
Long-Term Adjusted Round Scores
This is our best all-around metric for determining a golfer’s talent.
High-Priced Golfers ($9,000 and Higher)
Denmark’s own Kjeldsen and Ireland’s Lowry are tied atop the field this week with 69.7 LT Adj Rd Scores.
Kjeldsen’s 67.6 percent LT GIR ranks 18th while his 66.9 percent LT DA is 11th. He carries a 13.3 LT Adj Bird Avg into this tournament, good for ninth in the field.
Kjeldsen has played well in some big spots this season, including a seventh-place finish at the Masters and a ninth-place finish at The Open Championship. He hasn’t missed a cut since the U.S. Open.
Kjeldsen finished second at this event last season and 15th in 2014. His name recognition, course history, and the fact that he’s one of the best golfers in the field should lead to elevated ownership this week, so you could consider him a tournament fade, but I’d lock and load him in cash games.
Lowry, on the other hand, has never played this event and has been on a terrible run since the Bridegstone Invitational, at one point missing four straight cuts. Perhaps a 42nd place finish at the Wyndham last week was the slump buster he needed.
Lowry’s 65.6 percent LT GIR isn’t terrible but it’s only middle of the road in this typical Euro field. He is one of the longer hitters from the tee however, and his 295.3-yard LT DD ranks 22nd.
Players with LT metrics similar to Lowry’s have previously generated a +1.95 Plus/Minus on DraftKings with 55.5 percent Consistency.
Mid-Priced Golfers ($7,000 – $8,900)
Scotland’s Richie Ramsay is tied for fifth with a 70.5 LT Adj Rd Score. He also shows up well in LT GIR at 69.0 percent, ranking him ninth.
Ramsay sandwiches missed cuts around sixth- and 56th-place finishes, but he currently has the eighth-best Odds to Win the tournament at 2.4 percent. Per our Pro Trends, golfers with “At Least 2% Vegas-Implied Odds of Winning” have historically provided a +3.53 Plus/Minus on DraftKings.
Value Plays ($6,900 and Lower)
Ricardo Gouveia has made five straight cuts and finished 59th at the recent Olympics. His 70.9 LT Adj Rd Score is tied for seventh overall, making his $6,700 salary an excellent value.
What makes him extremely intriguing at this event is his sixth- and fourth-best 70.3 percent LT GIR and 15.0 LT Adj Bird Avg.
Golfers with salaries and LT metrics comparable to Gouveia’s have generally manufactured a hearty +6.82 Plus/Minus with 60.0 percent Consistency on DraftKings.
A player mentioned previoulsy, Hebert is tied with the eighth-best LT Adj Rd Score and is also a great value play this week.
Recent Form
High-Priced Golfers ($9,000 and Higher)
Kaymer brings a field-leading 68.1 Recent Adj Rd Score into battle this week along with his field-best 10 percent Odds to Win. His LT GIR percentage of 67.7 ranks 17th and his Recent GIR of 68.8 is an improvement upon that.
He has finished no worse than 15th in six of his last eight tournaments, including two fifth- and two seventh-place finishes.
Kaymer’s 14.5 Recent Adj Bird Avg is 10th-best among golfers who have played more than one tournament in the past six weeks. He has never played in this event previously, and one might consider that he’s here to make one final impression on Ryder Cup Captain Clarke in hopes of securing a wildcard spot on Team Europe. He is an elite GPP play this week.
Mid-Priced Golfers ($7,000 – $8,900)
England’s Gary Boyd, whom I admittedly had to google, is popping in some key areas this week. (By the way, the dude won the 2009 Tusker Kenya Open on the Challenge Tour and according to my exclusive internet sources he also attended Chenderit School in Middleton Cheney.)
Boyd’s 69.8 Recent Adj Rd Score is tied for fifth and his 77.8 percent Recent GIR is tied for third. Boyd can also let it fly off the tee: His 304.4-yard Recent DD ranks 11th. These numbers are taken from only his seventh-place finish at the Czech Masters, but prior to that he did finish 33rd at the Open de France and 23rd at the Nordea Masters earlier this year.
Boyd is sure to be scarcely owned as a tournament dart that could surprise this week.
Value Plays ($6,900 and Lower)
Another google-worthy young Englishmen, Tom Lewis arrives in Denmark is great form.
Lewis has ripped off four straight made cuts, including a ninth-place finish on the Challenge Tour’s Northern Ireland Open to go along with 26th- and 27th-place finishes at the Lyoness Open and Czech Masters.
Lewis’ 70.5 Recent Adj Rd Score ranks 12th and his 77.8 percent GIR is tied with Boyd’s for third. And, like Boyd, Lewis can drop bombs off the tee. His 302.6-yard Recent DD ranks 13th.
The most charming aspect of Lewis’ portfolio is his course history here at Himmerland: He finished 15th in 2014 and 20th in 2015.
